Thanks to the pickup service this morning, I rated curbside delivery at the Trudeaus’ house. Call me crazy, but I was starting to feel like a takeout order, and I missed my Bronco.
Country living made carpooling too much of a hassle. Dad and I had always driven our personal vehicles to the station then rode out with our partners from there. Regulations required patrol cars to remain within the city limits, so it made more sense for our partners, who both resided in town, to keep the cruisers with them.
Letting myself in the front door, I was drawn toward the living room by raucous laughter. I crept down the hall, listening until I could pick out the individual voices. Each one belonged to one of Dad’s fishing buddies, and his voice threaded through the rowdy conversation. Careful to keep out of sight, I leaned my head against the wall and soaked up the atmosphere until the happy chaos made my eyelids heavy.
On soft feet, I backtracked to the entryway and dashed through the kitchen to avoid giving myself away. I didn’t want to spoil his fun while he felt well enough for visitors. I scooted into the sewing room, ready to hit the air mattress face-first. As I unsnapped the first keeper supporting my gun belt, I froze when a sixth sense tingled across my skin. The weapon was in my hand, aimed at the far corner, when I reached over and flipped on the light.
“Cole.” I puffed out my cheeks then lowered the weapon. “Hiding out in darkened bedrooms is a good way to get shot.”
“You hung up on me.”
Shrugging, I set the gun on the sewing table and started back on the snaps. “You sounded busy.”
His heavy brows furrowed. “I was busy.”
“I don’t need details.” Me and my overactive imagination could fill in the blanks just fine. “What are you doing here?” Finished with the fasteners, I looped my duty belt over a chair that threatened to tip backward until I kicked off my boots and sat them on the seat. “What happened with Ivashov? I haven’t heard from Miller since I left the hospital.”
“He refused to give up his mistress or any details of his operation, even with her stink embedded in his skin, so Miller is taking care of the problem.”
Since Miller tended to solve problems by dunking his victims in stomach acid after a short trip down his esophagus, there was nothing to say except, “Okay.”
“I thought you might be interested in this.” Cole extended a folder toward me. “The lab sent it over this morning.”
“I read their email.” I took it, careful not to brush his fingers, and flipped it open. “Is this more of the same?” Rather than answer, he stood there and watched until I hit the amendment at the bottom. “This report is on the second plant.” I skimmed lower. “The soil mixture from the Orvis nursery sample matched those taken from the roots of the ones planted in my yard.” A sigh welled up in me. “Why does this not surprise me after the day I’ve had?”
Cole accepted the file and tossed it on a stack with others I kept on the sewing desk. “What happened?”
“That’s right.” I started unbuttoning my uniform shirt. “I lost my shadow. How crazy did that make you?” Cole held his tongue while I tossed the heavy polyester shirt onto my pile of dirties. I still wore a long-sleeved silk pointelle undershirt that covered my arms and hugged my curves. I always kept the farmhouse like an icebox to compensate for the layers I wore, but Uncle Harold and Aunt Nancy weren’t used to the cold. “I’m roasting in here. Can you turn around while I slide on some shorts?”
The mountain uprooted itself and pivoted toward the wall to give me privacy.
A shower was mandatory before changing into my pajamas, so I slid on last night’s cotton shorts and sank cross-legged onto the mattress with my backpack in my lap. “I’m decent.” I patted the carpet. “Have a seat.”
With more grace than a man of his mass ought to possess, Cole folded himself into lotus position on the floor opposite me. “You have something to share?”
“I do.” I pulled out my hardcopies of the crime scene photos and passed them over. “This is my only paper set, but scans of the originals are floating around in Miller’s and Santiago’s inboxes.”
“These must be the Madison victims,” he murmured. “What am I missing?”
“Four are children, all under the age of eight. Ms. Orvis was five-six and weighed one seventy-five.”
“Ms. Orvis must have been a long-term host to a viscarre. That would explain why she burnt to a husk.”
“It makes sense, given the link between the valerian plants, that Ms. Orvis was a host. I can buy that she was facilitating a Drosera. What I don’t get is why this evidence was left for us to find.”
“Parasitic charun have, in the past, acted as sleeper agents. Once activated, they complete their mission and then suicide. A charun who has remained in a host for too long won’t leave anything but skin behind unless they sacrifice themselves too. The real question is – What was the assignment? And does the presence of a husk indicate a completed mission or an aborted one?”
While those were both perfectly good questions, I had gotten stuck on the mechanics. “Are you telling me that if a coroner sliced open one of these sleeper agents, she would find a charun under its skin?”
“Cohabitation is more complicated than a stack of Russian nesting dolls, Luce. The charun interested in pairing will be absorbed by the host. Cutting open a host would reveal abnormalities in the organs and blood, small adaptations created when two species merge, but there wouldn’t be an actual charun folded up inside the host, no.”
“That makes no sense.” I ground the heels of my palms into my eyes. “How does it work?”
“Call it what you want: thaumaturgy, alchemy, diabolism, magic.”
“Let’s stick with magic.” At least it was less alien than the alternatives. I had never heard of thaumaturgy and would have mistaken it for thermology or another heat-based study rather than dealing with the occult. “Though, after this talk, I’m going to imagine charun in search of cohabitation shrinking down to multivitamin size then getting swallowed by a host.”
“I’m not sure that would work.” One corner of his lips curled the slightest bit. “The host would digest them.”
“Sure, expect me to believe a super gator can merge with a human, but scoff at a magical multivitamin.”
The wondering regard he bestowed on me ruched his meltwater eyes into crow’s feet. Both fond and amused, frustrated and annoyed, fascinated and apprehensive, it vanished from his expression in a blink, making it impossible for me to glean more from him than the fact an unfathomable magnetism kept attracting us when it ought to have repelled.
“You hung up on me,” he said, a lion-headed dragon with a thorn stuck in his paw.
Just as quickly as he resurrected the topic, I buried it down deep where it would be forgotten. To make certain he dropped it this time, I flung out bait he couldn’t resist. “Wu was in Madison. He paid a visit to the arson investigator. Summers claimed he wanted copies of the coroner’s reports, but when she went digging, she discovered the bodies had never reached the coroner’s office.” I tapped the papers in his hand. “No official record of these exists. Someone erased them. We’re talking dug into private mail servers and scrubbed inboxes clean.”
“Sounds like your future partner is working overtime to bury this case.” His dedication obviously troubled Cole. “Has he mentioned it to you?”
“We talked about the possibility of an infiltration over dinner that night, but our speculation was prior to the Madison incident. New evidence might have prompted him to act since he was already aware of the situation.” Without my permission, my gaze slid to the pocket where I kept the black phone. I would have to woman-up and call Wu at some point to confess my sins. “He’s kind of pissed at me right now.”
Cole followed my line of sight. “Any particular reason?”
“Santiago dissected the phone Wu gave me and screwed with the GPS for kicks.” I scratched my nail over the zippered compartment. “When Wu chatted up Summers, he told her I
was sightseeing in New York.”
A slow grin wreathed Cole’s face, and his deep chuckles did uncomfortable things to my stomach. “I knew we kept him around for some damn reason.”
“We have to learn to play nice with Wu. We’re stuck with him for the time being.” I let my head fall back on my neck and stared at the ceiling. “I have to put in my notice.” It wasn’t what I’d meant to say, but it was out there now. “Once I do that, this gets real.”
Cole palmed my knee and squeezed once, his fingers stretching up my thigh in hot streaks that burned like starbursts. “We’ll be with you every step of the way.”
Covering his hand with mine crossed lines, but I couldn’t resist the scratch of his scarred knuckles under my palm for the fleeting seconds he allowed the contact before withdrawing. “I appreciate that.” Cole got to his feet and offered me a hand up, but I shook my head. “I’m tired. I think I’ll go to bed early tonight.”
“I have something to show you.” He kept his arm extended. “The fresh air will do you good.”
“I don’t know.” I stared at my knee, where I still felt the imprint of each of his fingers, and wished I was strong enough to boot him out the same way he got in. “Can this wait?”
“You hung up on me,” he said for the third time. “You owe me.”
I scoffed at his gall. “I owe you for many things, but not for that.”
“Fine.” His shoulders tightened. “I’ll cash in a different token. Take your pick, but get dressed. You’re coming with me even if I have to carry you out of the house barefoot and in pajamas.”
I glared up at him. “You’re bossy, you know that?”
“Get moving.” He snapped his fingers. “I’m giving you ten minutes, and then I’m taking you however I can get you.”
Shutting my eyes, I allowed myself a second to hold onto the wish he meant those words differently before releasing them into the ether. “What’s the dress code?”
“Wear something comfortable.” He tromped to the far corner of the room, snagged my waterproof boots, then dumped them at my feet. “Nine minutes.” He turned his back and crossed his arms over his chest, his muscles pulling his shirt taut. “Eight.”
“That wasn’t a full minute,” I grumbled while scurrying to meet his deadline. I stripped down to my underwear, pulled on fresh socks, jeans, boots, and then a shirt suitable for public consumption before knotting my hair at the base of my neck and shrugging on my backpack. “Ready.”
Cole raked his gaze over me, assessing my choice of outfit, then nodded. “Let’s go.”
“How did you —? Ah. Never mind.” I crossed the room to the window. “You fit through that?”
“I’m flexible,” he deadpanned.
“Is this what you wanted to show me?” I teased. “Your contortionist routine?”
A low growl pumped through his chest as he eased past me and shoved up the sash. “Watch and learn.”
“Too bad this show doesn’t come with popcorn,” I mused as Cole maneuvered until he sat on the windowsill, his back to me. “I could have greased you up with some of that butter-flavored oil theaters float their kernels in.” I bit my tongue. “Um, pretend I didn’t say that.”
“Say what?” Bracing his hands on the jambs, he slid his hips forward until he poured himself out the window. He ended up kneeling on mulch in the front flower bed and shot a daring grin over his shoulder as if challenging me to compete with his exit. “Get a move on.”
I was an old pro at sneaking out, and I had the advantage of having less mass than some mountains I could name. All I had to do was throw one leg out the window, brace it on the ground, duck under the sash, then straighten and pull my other leg out to be standing. This was a cake walk compared to the stunts I’d pulled climbing out of my second-floor bedroom back home. Those late-night escapes had required stealth, rope, and sneakers for outrunning Dad’s sixth sense for when I was about to get up to no good.
“You’re lucky you didn’t trample the azaleas.” I breezed past him. “Aunt Nancy would have dragged you by the ear to Mervin’s to buy her new ones, and then she would have stood over your shoulder and watched while you planted the replacements and redid her mulch.”
His long strides overtook me in two steps. “Is that the voice of experience I hear?”
“I might have smashed her impatiens once. And there was an incident with caladiums.” I let him keep pace with me since I had no idea where he had hidden his SUV. “I had to buy replacements out of my allowance, and I spent the weekends doing penance. I missed more than one softball game on account of midnight shenanigans.”
He palmed his keys. “Where did you go?”
“Nowhere and everywhere.” Just me and Mags against the world, against our parents, a united front too stubborn to realize how much better we had it than most. “Usually it was just Maggie and me doing our worst, which was still pretty tame. We drank beers in hayfields, drove too fast, went too far, sneaked into clubs down in Jackson where folks were less likely to know who to call if I got caught. Dumb teenager stuff.”
Lights flashed ahead as Cole unlocked the SUV. “Why did you do it?”
“You might have noticed Dad can be guilty of smothering me at times. Busting out of my room and going to hang with my bestie without his permission? It was downright illicit as far as I was concerned. I felt so badass breaking his rules and getting a taste of freedom when I had none. Things are better now that I’m grown and carry a firearm when I leave the house, but we could have fallen out in a big way if we hadn’t worked so hard to find middle ground.” Patience must be Dad’s middle name. It sure wasn’t mine. I had the adoption papers to prove it. “Mags was on the run from her parents’ expectations. They’re old money, and they anticipated she would marry well and young, pop out heirs, then spend her days planning parties and playing hostess.”
We reached the SUV, and he held my door open for me. “She broke the mold.”
“Smashed it.” I smiled through the twinge in my chest as I climbed in and got buckled. “She chose her own path. I’ve always been proud of her for that. I rebelled enough to fill my quota, but I never made a clean break from my roots.”
“I disagree.” His hand, where it rested on the doorframe, flexed as though he were fighting the impulse to slam the door in my face before he finished his thought. “The person you are now is nothing like who you used to be. You might not have made a conscious choice to break from tradition, to turn your back on your past, but you created this life all on your own. You have a family who loves you, friends who are loyal to you, a job that serves your community. This person is remarkable.”
The door closed before I formulated a response, and he took his time joining me. I hadn’t noticed him taking the backpack from my hand, but he stowed it in the rear then got behind the wheel.
Heaviness weighted the air, stretching into infinity before shattering when he flipped on his blinker, and I realized where he was taking me. “We’re going to Cypress Swamp?”
“Yep.”
We parked the SUV in a well-worn patch of grass that had mostly gone to dirt. While I got out and took a look around to see what held his interest in this part of the swamp, he pulled a cooler from the rear and started walking down to the waterline. We had to pass through a patch of brambles to get the full view, and I hesitated when I spotted White Horse’s airboat lying in wait for us.
“We’re going on a boat ride?” I hadn’t been out here since the night I helped fish Jane Doe from the water. “I hadn’t been on an airboat in years until I met you.”
“Wait here.” Cole took a few jogging steps then leapt the five feet of shallow water between the shore and the deck, landing in a half-crouch that would have done Thom proud. He held his position while the boat rocked, kicking out waves that splashed duckweed onto my boots. “Let me strap this down, and I’ll maneuver closer for you.”
Once he secured the supplies, he removed a long metal pole from a strap and used it to push the b
oat closer to shore. Our fingers brushed when he reached for me, and his hand clamped down on my wrist, right along the first metal band. The brush of his thumb along the raised skin would have made me cringe had another man stroked me in such a way, but his caress sparked heat in my veins. I cleared the gap with a hop that slammed me into him, and I rode out the gentle swells tucked against his side while trying to control the scent of desire that clung to my skin around him.
“Thanks.” I disentangled from him and plopped down on the bench seat to put distance between us. “Do I get a hint?”
“You’ll see soon enough.” He cranked the engine, and the propeller mounted in a steel cage behind me whirred to life. “Hold on.”
Bone Driven Page 18
