by Faith Hunter
“No?” I managed as a whisper.
“No.” He leaned closer to me, his nose only inches from mine, his eyes glowing the gold of his were-creature. His voice went all scratchy, like a mad cat. “More importantly, it never bothered you. In fact, it wouldn’ta bothered you if I’da stayed as scarred and hairless as I started out. That right there is worth more than gold to me. So you listen and you listen good. I don’t now, and I never will, as long as the moon is in the sky and breath is in my lungs, need the attention of any other woman or werecat.”
His voice dropped lower, a full-on growl. “‘Doubt thou the stars are fire; / Doubt that the sun doth move; / Doubt truth to be a liar; / But never doubt I love you to the full moon and back.’” His lips twisted wryly. “That right there is a little bit of slightly mangled Shakespeare. I learned it because I know you love his writing. I don’t understand every word, but I understand the meaning. And I never have, and I never will quote them words to another creature as long as I live.”
Tears had gathered in my eyes and my mouth had opened as he quoted poetry to me, and it formed an O as I said, “Oh.”
“I said,” he said firmly, “I love you to the full moon and back. Do you love me?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
Occam’s human nose bumped mine. “I don’t play games like your churchmen. I want you and only you, always and ever,” he said, our noses touching. He tilted his head and pressed his lips to mine, a kiss that quickly became more as the hand on my chin curled behind my head and he pulled me in. Tongues met and twisted together and things in my middle went all tight and hot and—he pulled away. He was breathing fast. So was I. He managed a deep shuddering breath and rested his forehead against mine. “Dayum, woman.”
I laughed, a strange sound filled with longing. “I wasn’t jealous. Not really,” I said, lying, but wishing it was the truth.
“Maybe not consciously. But you grew up with certain expectancies about relationships. Those childhood expectations influence who you are now. Just like my childhood can and does affect who I am now. Our childhoods can screw with our minds like nothing else. So know this, with the part of you that’s all thinking and logic. I don’t need nothing from another woman,” he said. “I jist need you. For the rest of my life. Now.” His yellow-glowing eyes met mine. “I have a need to hear you say it again. And often. Do you love me?”
“Yes,” I said. “I love you to the full moon and back.”
He leaned in and kissed me one last time, hard and quick. He pulled away, opened the car door, got out, and pushed the door shut. The night pressed against the car windows like small, clawed paws or like serial killers in scary movies, not that I was scared.
Carefully, I tried on the words, “I’m good and ready for us to be together forever.” A peculiar heat washed through me, longing and wanting.
But Occam was gone, covering the ground in a cat-assisted lope to reappear near the house, silhouetted by the lighted windows.
Softly, I whispered, trying out the words for the very first time in the silence and isolation of the car. “Will you marry me, Occam?” The words felt strange on my lips, full of hope and fragile trust, a trust I had abused by jealousy over Etain. I had to stop letting my past, my upbringing, get in the way of Occam and me. “I’m so stupid,” I sighed to the vampire tree. Fortunately it didn’t answer.
I locked the car and went back to work.
* * *
* * *
T. Laine negotiated with the witches to pull the portable null room to Knoxville as soon as possible and offer it to the doctors and patients. It would be excellent PR, mitigating some of the negative social media reactions to Stella Mae dying from what an unnamed source had reported to be witch magic.
Unlike the standardized protocols for treating mundane disorders, medical treatments for magical ailments tended to be looser, more of an art than a science, and to involve arcane treatments in addition to traditional methods. Though Jo had made an offer to UTMC for patients to use the null room at HQ, no one had come yet except the two cops, possibly because it would be difficult (and a liability) to transport patients. Having the null trailer at UTMC would make it much easier for the doctors to utilize the treatment. Not all patients would be willing, distrusting anything that hinted of witches. The churchfolk weren’t the only people who thought all witches should be burned at the stake.
Spotting me, standing half-hidden in the dark, holding my tablet under one arm and wearing what I’m sure was a forlorn and woebegone countenance, T. Laine called me over. “Whatever it is that has you moping, put it away,” she said. “Now that the bodies and the carpets are in the null room, Astrid has sounded the all clear. I need a full and comprehensive evaluation and photographs of the rest of the house. I want photos of anything that grabs your attention even if you don’t know why it grabbed you. If you spot family, who went inside as soon as Astrid said it was safe, feel free to initiate basic Q and A. Go on. You got this.” She patted me on the arm and went back to whatever she had been doing.
“I’m not moping,” I said. Though that might be a little lie. I looked around for Occam and didn’t see him. Feeling more like a churchwoman than I had in a long time, I squared my shoulders against old emotional habits and went back into the house, muttering to myself, “I’m a special agent. I am not a churchwoman. And I am not moping.”
FOUR
The ground-floor windows were open and night breezes blew through, airing out the place, decreasing the scent of death and decay, if not totally neutralizing it. The smell had been lessened by the removal of the contaminated items and bodies.
Upstairs, my tablet under my arm, I followed the sound of voices along a six-foot-wide teal and aqua hallway, a luxurious floral carpet runner underfoot in shades of persimmon and peacock. It muffled my footsteps as I stopped outside a bedroom, standing in the shadows, watching through the cracked-open door, listening in on the conversation inside. Three women were sitting on an oversized bed—way bigger than a king bed—a woven turquoise coverlet and piles of teal and persimmon pillows bunched up around them. The walls were the same shade as the hallway and green and blue vases and fancy bowls sat on tables, a white tufted chaise lounge near a window. Opulent. Decadent.
It must take forever to dust the room.
The women were crying and talking, an older woman rocking back and forth.
“I know, Mama,” one of the younger women said. “I know. You want a private service, but nothing we can do will make that happen. We have to have a public funeral and let the fans grieve along with us.”
“We ain’t got to do nothing until we get Stella Mae’s body back,” the mother said.
“We ain’t got to do nothing until we know about Catriona and if they charge her,” the other young woman said. She had a rounded belly with an outie belly button pressing on the fabric of her shirt, looking heavily pregnant. “Gimme another pillow. I been sittin’ in that RV so long I can’t feel my feet no more.”
The older woman was Stella Mae’s mom, Tondra, and the other two looked enough like Stella to be her sisters, pointy chins, dainty noses, narrow shoulders, long legs. I checked the names on the file that was being put together from reports sent to JoJo at HQ and found the names Sophee Anne Ragel and Josette Lynn Ragel Jenkins, and photos to go with the names. Sisters. Josette was the pregnant one.
“Yeah,” Josette said, stuffing pillows behind her lower spine. “That feels good. Them car people lie when they say their seats give lumbar support. Not for a preggers they don’t.”
I might shoulda felt bad for eavesdropping, but if they wanted privacy, they should have closed the door. Being nosy was in my job description.
“Catriona’s been with Stella Mae for a solid year,” Tondra said. “You’uns know there ain’t no way Catriona is responsible. She loves my baby.”
The dialect threw me again. Intellectually, I knew that t
he accent I thought of as strictly church-speak was a regional accent across large parts of rural Tennessee, but it still made me feel odd to hear it on a case a hundred miles from home.
“There’s love and then there’s love, Mama,” Sophee Anne said, something odd in her tone, “and love don’t mean the same thing to Stella as it does to us. You know that.”
“Don’t you’un be talking about the departed with a lack of respect. I won’t have it, not here in her own house. Stella was a God-loving, born-again Christian, and she told me she was now adhering to the straight and narrow.”
“Stella wasn’t perfect, Mama. And when the cops and the press fin—”
“Stop right there, Josie Lynn. That girl supported us and made sure we’d never hurt for nothing. She was a good girl.” Mama Tondra burst into tears and fell on Stella’s mattress, crying into the pillows.
I backed down the hallway and made sure my feet hit the wood to the side of the carpet runner as I returned. I hated to burst in on a moment of family grief, but that was my job, so I tapped on the doorjamb, stuck my head in, and turned on the church-speak. “Hey. I’m sorry as I can be for interrupting. But if you’uns all feel up to it, I got some questions for you’uns?” I made it a query instead of a demand so I sounded simple and uncertain. People’s emotional guard went up at demands, but they were a mite less recalcitrant with apparent uncertainty. “Special Agent Ingram of PsyLED?” I held up my ID.
Tondra sat up, waved me in, and blew her nose on a tissue, wiping her face. “Come on in. I’m sorry I’m such a mess,” she said. “But this is so hard.”
“I know it must be,” I said, crossing the room. “May I sit?” I gestured at a poufy, ultrafeminine, tufted, fringed velvet chair near the bed. As I walked, I took in the entire room, from the closet that was bigger than my entire bedroom (and that looked as if it had been trashed by a robber) to the burled wood furniture, to the marble-tiled en suite bathroom visible through a partially open door.
“Why not,” Tondra said. She rewiped her face and tugged the thick coverlet over her legs and feet.
I pulled my tablet and sent a quick text to T. Laine, telling her I had come upon the family and would initiate the preliminary questioning. I moved the chair a bit and sat so I could see into the closet and the mess on the floor. A pile of clothing had been dropped and all of it was a rich shade of fuchsia pink. Hanging on the rods were clothes of many colors. But all the pink was on the floor. Odd. Unless Stella Mae wore pink on the road? Onstage? I’d need to check that out.
I wished I had the unit’s empath, Tandy, or Margot—a former FBI agent, currently PsyLED probie special agent, who had truth-sensing abilities—with me. Both of them were better at questioning people, but I had orders to get things started, and T. Laine, who was a higher pay grade than me, had told me to start up a chat if the opportunity presented itself. I looked up and sighed. “I hate this part a my job. Trying to talk to family when they’re grieving.”
“You catch the monster what did this and you can question me all you want,” Tondra said, curling upright and crossing her legs into a yoga position beneath the covers. She had to be nearly as old as my mama, but she was as limber as a child, and her hair looked expensive, as if it had been styled and colored by someone from Hollywood. She introduced her daughters and herself and said, “Shoot.”
“Thank you. Some of these questions might sound personal, but I promise I’m not asking for no reason. First, have there been any threats on Stella’s life? Any harassing e-mails or letters or texts?”
“Dozens every day,” Josette said, her fingers scratching lazy circles on her belly. “She hired a security firm last year. They handle everything: tour security, electronic threats, and making sure the property is safe. And that includes making sure the horses are safe. The house has security—cameras, lasers, that kinda thing—mostly for when Stella was out of town. The barn is wired too.”
“I’ve got a card with the firm’s contact info in my bag somewhere,” Tondra said, pulling a leather purse to her and delving inside. Papers crinkled and heavier things rattled and scraped. “It’s here somewhere. I’ve done sent word to the company that they’re to be completely open with you on everything.”
Josette started to speak and stopped. I wondered why. “What about a will? Life insurance?” I asked.
“Stella Mae’s lawyer has all the legal documents. We’re the heirs,” Stella’s mama said, “and Catriona.”
I couldn’t keep the reaction off my face. “I thought she just met Catriona.”
“Last year. We’ve practically adopted her. She’s like family,” Tondra said.
Last year was the same general time frame that the security firm had been hired. I made a note about that and said slowly, as if thinking it through, “The FBI might consider her being an heir a possible motive.”
“No. Not Cattie. She’s had everything she wanted. She’s family,” Tondra said, tearing up, grief washing down her face, scalding her chapped skin. I wasn’t an empath, but I knew Tondra was speaking the truth as she knew it.
“And besides,” Sophee Anne said, “financially speaking, Stella was worth way more to us all alive than dead, even with the coffin-rider sales. No one had a reason to want her killed.”
“Coffin-rider sales?” I asked.
“Sales that come when a singer dies,” Sophee Anne said. “People download so much music it actually makes money. Sometimes a lot of money. But not enough to replace the take from touring and not enough to replace her. Not enough to kill for.”
“Life insurance?”
“Life insurance is for poor people,” Josette scoffed.
I couldn’t help my eyebrows going up when I said, “Poor people?”
“To pay off outstanding bills and provide for the family,” Tondra said. “Stella done all that already. My girl always thought ahead. Planned ahead. She don’t owe a dime to nobody. The only insurance she has is on the property and the horses.”
I let that settle inside me, realizing that I needed life insurance to provide for Mud. And a will . . . “Okay. That makes sense,” I said, mostly talking to myself. I hated that I no longer lived off the grid, that I had to think like townies, like city folk. To them, I said, “What can you tell me about Stella’s romantic life?”
Tondra stiffened and shot a sharp glance at her daughters. I knew that look. It was a mama’s warning to keep their mouths shut and let her do the talking. “My girl’s a good girl.”
“I’m not saying she isn’t,” I said, softening into a smile.
“Stella ain’t been dating no one in particular,” Tondra said. “She takes a different singer to every event, like the CMAs, but she ain’t picked a man to settle down with.”
The sisters glanced at each other but didn’t comment.
“One of the gossip magazines—which I do not read, in case you’r’un wondering—says she’s been dating Clyde MacMahan again,” I said. “The race car driver? She dated him before?”
“Lies. Her’n Clyde’s been friends since they was in middle school,” Sophee Anne said, ignoring her mother’s glared warning. “They dated a couple years back, but there wasn’t no passion, you know? Stella said it was like dating her brother. ’Cept she ain’t got a brother. It was a joke a hers. ‘Like datin’ my brother, ’cept I ain’t got one, so wha’d I know?’”
At the shared memory, all three women teared up again. I waited while they passed tissues and wiped their eyes.
“She broke up with him?” I clarified.
“Yeah. But she took him to an award ceremony last spring and the press went nuts. Clyde’s datin’ that actress what’s in the new Disney movie. Don’t bother looking his way,” Sophee said. “He ain’t no witch. He’s a man through and through.” Most people didn’t know witches could be male. And that was our problem. Whoever our killer was, she—or he—either was a new kind of witch or had
obtained a trigger from a witch to power unknown magical energies. We hadn’t released that. So far as I had been informed, the coven hadn’t let it slip either.
“Ain’t no special man in her life right now,” Tondra said. “But if you’un don’t mind, can we talk later? It’s jist so . . .” She burst into noisy weeping. Her daughters joined her and they all piled up like puppies. I said my thank-yous, told them they’d likely be asked questions by other agents, and to not take it personally if the same questions were picked at again. I wasn’t sure they had heard me until Tondra handed me a business card with the security firm name and contact info. She said, “Like I said. You’uns find the murderer who kilt my baby. That’s all we want.”
Stella’s sisters nodded.
I slipped outside the room and down the hallway, taking photos, looking for other people, and generally snooping. As I worked, I wondered how Tondra and her girls would fare in an interview with Tandy or Margot. Because I had a feeling they hadn’t been particularly honest with me about Stella Mae’s love life.
* * *
* * *
I was slumped at the kitchen bar, my laptop open and a pad and pen at my elbow, typing up my report when I felt a prickle on my skin, like a cold rush of wind followed by the stillness preceding a lightning strike. Wild magic. I knew it was my boss before FireWind blew toward the house. His emotions and magic were riding high, electric, contained but explosive, like a bomb, primed and ready but confined behind steel walls.
I sat up straight, going on guard, and was watching the door, meeting his eyes as he entered. My up-line boss was a Cherokee skinwalker, soft-spoken, controlled. The frozen gust of magic rolled back and vanished, leaving him just a man, but paler than his normal golden skin tones. Hungry looking.
