“I’ve been working from home since it happened,” Marshal said, as though assuming her first question would be why he was home in the middle of the day. “Laurel’s been quite fraught, of course, and we’re getting so many questions. At least you had the manners to call instead of just showing up at our door.”
He glanced over his shoulder, then lowered his voice. “Like I told you on the phone, she wants to talk to everybody. Absolutely everybody. Doesn’t matter who they work for. Trying to get the word out. Boyd was her favorite brother. They were very close. She wants justice for him.”
“That’s understandable,” said Thea. “Everyone deserves justice.”
“She doesn’t think the police are doing enough. Or looking in the right places.”
“What do you mean?” Thea asked. “Which places are the right ones?”
His jaw tightened. “I’ll let her go into her theories. But I’m warning you right now. Sometimes she gets a little overwrought. If that happens, the interview is over. Understood?”
“Understood,” said Thea.
Laurel came in a few minutes later, carrying a tray of coffee and cookies. “Please, help yourself. And whatever my husband’s been telling you, feel free to ignore it.”
“Laurel,” Marshal said, but she waved him off.
“You think I’m more delicate than I am, Marshal. I want to talk about this.”
“You’ve made that pretty obvious.”
Laurel took her own advice and ignored her husband as she sat down on the couch beside Thea. “Now, where would you like to start?”
Thea opened her mouth, then remembered she was supposed to be a reporter, and paused to take out a tablet she’d borrowed from Cora. “Do you mind if I record? I can just type notes instead, whatever you’re more comfortable with.”
“Record away,” said Laurel.
“Thank you. If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask about Talbott.” Thea held up a hand to ward off Marshal’s disapproving look. “Not about where he is or anything. Although I’d love to hear how he’s doing. I’m very sorry for what he’s gone through.”
“He’s being well cared for,” Marshal said tightly. Laurel only stared at her hands.
Thea nodded. “That’s good to hear. What I wanted to ask is, someone at Hemlock Heights told me that Talbott had been talking about monsters. Do you think that has anything to do with this picture that’s been going around? Of whoever rescued him from the house?”
“I don’t know what to say about that picture,” Laurel said with a shake of her head. “It’s the first thing everyone asks about, of course, but I don’t know any more than you do.”
Actually, you know a great deal less than I do.
“We’ve heard the same rumors you have,” Marshal added. “It’s an alien. It’s a demon. The president of the Hemlock Heights HOA called to tell us that these creatures live in some sort of commune and sell curses. And that one of those curses is what happened to their neighborhood.”
Did he, now? Who else has he been calling, I wonder?
Not that Thea was surprised Caulfield was pushing his agenda wherever he could. He and his Concerned Citizens wouldn’t be happy until Hexing House was out of business.
Or until they’ve left a dead bat on every pillow, at least.
“But you don’t believe any of that?” she asked.
“Oh, I might believe in a curse,” Laurel said. “The rest is just hysteria, I would think.”
“What makes you say that?” asked Thea. “About the curse, I mean?”
“Because I know my brother. And that wasn’t him.”
Marshal shot an uneasy glance at his wife, then said to Thea, “Don’t worry, she doesn’t mean she thinks he was replaced by an alien or something.”
“No, I’m not blaming pod people,” Laurel agreed. “But something happened to him. When Talbott talked about monsters, he was talking about Boyd. He kept saying Boyd turned into a monster.”
Daddy’s monster.
Not a visiting monster, then, but a monster inside Daddy? And Mommy and Miss Wanda, too?
Thea took a sip of coffee and considered this. A little kid seeing an adult manifesting hex-level sins might certainly think that person had turned into a monster.
“What do you think Talbott meant by that?” she asked.
“I can tell you exactly what he meant,” Laurel said. “Talbott was scared, and not just of his father.” She raised her chin, and quite obviously avoided Marshal’s eye as he let out an exasperated sigh and muttered something under his breath.
“Hemlock Heights was… something was going on there,” Laurel said.
“What do you mean?” asked Thea.
“We were at a party of Boyd and Cindy’s, a couple of months or so ago,” Laurel said. “A little after the new year. Almost all of their neighbors were there. They were pretty close on that street, you know. They were really lucky because so many of the kids were the same age. And almost all of the adults got along.”
Thea nodded. That matched what she’d seen on Megaira’s television just before the test. It was clear that the mothers were good friends. “Sounds like an ideal situation.”
“It was,” Laurel agreed. “And they hung out together all the time.”
“So what happened at this party?” Thea prompted.
“Nothing happened, exactly, at least not that I saw, but Marshal and I both agreed that some of them were acting awfully strange.” She finally looked at her husband, and it was a sharp look. “And don’t you dare try to deny it now, because you said so at the time.”
Marshal just shrugged and kept drinking his coffee.
Laurel turned back to Thea. “Boyd was an easy-going guy. But he’d started to get this temper lately. He kept yelling at the kids. I mean really yelling. Scary yelling. Not even his own kids! And his next-door neighbor, Wanda, she was really close friends with Cindy. But I swear to you she was hitting on Boyd. Like, obviously hitting on him. To the point it was embarrassing. And Cindy…” Laurel shrugged. “She just couldn’t be bothered with any of it, to tell you the truth. I wondered if she was on something.”
“And none of this was normal behavior for any of them?” asked Thea.
Wrath. Lust. Apathy.
“No,” said Laurel. “They were all acting completely out of character.”
They were all manifesting sins.
“What about the kids?” Thea asked. “Were any of them acting strangely?”
“I didn’t know most of them well enough to say, but Talbott and Charlotte, his sister, you know, our niece—” Laurel stopped, took a sip of coffee, cleared her throat. “Charlotte was just six years old.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Thea said, then waited what she hoped was a respectful amount of time before repeating the question. “Was Charlotte acting strangely, too?”
“Charlotte was—” Before she could get any further, Laurel covered her face with her hands, and abruptly left the room.
“She loved Charlotte,” Marshal said quietly. “She loved them all, of course, but Charlotte was like the daughter we couldn’t have. She insists on talking to you people, but it’s a mistake. Every time. I have to stop letting her.”
“What does she think happened?” Thea asked.
“You want to know what she really thinks?” Marshal shook his head and sighed. “She thinks it’s some kind of government or corporate conspiracy. Like someone accidentally let loose some toxic waste or something, something that messed with all of their brains. And now whoever’s responsible is trying to cover it up.”
Smart lady.
“And what about you?” asked Thea. “What do you think?”
Marshal stood up. “I’m just trying to get my wife through this.” When Thea didn’t get up right away he added, “And as you might recall, we agreed to end this interview if Laurel got too upset to continue.”
Dammit. She hadn’t gotten any hints about Talbott, or had a chance to work the conversation around to s
omething that might have been his. “Of course. But before I go, would you have any… family photos? Of the Lexingtons?”
Marshal frowned at that. “Why don’t you give me your card, and I might be able to email you something?”
Because I can’t touch a digital picture. Or bleed on one.
“Or anything of Talbott’s that I could borrow for a minute, just to take a picture of it? Like, did he leave any stuffed animals or toys or anything here?”
Marshal stared at her. “What?”
Shit. Don’t be so clumsy.
“I’m not trying to be exploitative,” Thea added quickly. “But more people will read my article if it’s got that personal connection. And the more people who read it, the bigger the outcry, and the more likely we are to get answers for your wife.”
But Marshal was looking at her with suspicion now, if not outright hostility. “I don’t think it’s my wife you want answers for. You want to put a picture of one of his toys with your story? What kind of tabloid do you work for?”
Thea’s frustration started to rise. Her heart sped up.
Not now, Thea. This would be a very bad time to lose control.
“You’re right. It was probably a bad idea.” Thea pasted on a fake smile. Her smile, at least, had never failed her. Especially not with men.
But Marshal’s face didn’t soften. He just looked tired. Thea did a quick scan of his virtues and sins, looking for some angle she could use. There was plenty of loyalty and compassion for his wife. But once lost, his patience would be difficult to recover.
“Thank you for your time,” she said finally.
“I’ll walk you out,” he said.
“Can I just say goodbye to Laurel?”
“I’ll pass on the message.”
Why did he insist on shutting her down? Could he not give her just the tiniest bit of fucking cooperation? Thea’s fingers were tingling again. Her ears were ringing.
Calm down. Deep breaths, light voice. Smile.
“I’d really rather thank her personally. It would only take a second. I promise I wouldn’t mention—”
“I need you to leave,” Marshal said bluntly. “Now.”
“No! Will you just wait a second?”
He grabbed her elbow. Thea’s claws came out.
And Marshal Bowman saw them.
“What the HELL!”
Laurel heard his scream and came running back into the living room, but Marshal had already lunged at Thea.
Luckily, the brief bubble of wrath had passed. Thea chose to retreat rather than attack. She pulled out of Marshal’s grip and hurried for the door.
“Get out of my house!” Marshal shouted. “I have a gun!” He was reaching for her again, pushing her in the back. Could he feel her wings, despite the illusion? She’d never thought to ask if it was only visual.
Thea ran out of the Bowman house. She was shaking when she got back into the SUV.
What just happened?
What the hell just happened?
The flares of temper, the impatience, how quickly it all seemed to boil over these days. She’d been telling herself it was nothing, or that it was just stress. That she would deal with it when she had time to think about it.
But she’d gone too far, now.
Something was wrong with her.
Something was wrong with Boyd Lexington, too.
Shit. Shit shit shit.
Thea desperately wished she could ditch the SUV and just fly back home. She needed to talk to Langdon. But she’d be in huge trouble if she didn’t bring the company car back.
Breathe. Drive. Use the time to calm yourself down.
Her phone rang half an hour later. It was Detective Holgersen.
“Why were you asking about Seth Bates today?” he asked without preamble.
“Because I wanted to see him and nobody would tell me where he is,” Thea said. “Why were they giving me the runaround about it?”
“Why did you want to see him?”
“Is this another one of those things where only you get to ask questions?”
“It’s pretty much always one of those things.”
“Yeah well, too bad. I didn’t agree to be interrogated this time.” She hung up.
Okay. That was a little unstable. You’re not doing the best job of calming down.
When Holgersen called back a minute later, Thea mentally prepared a greeting, determined to keep her voice light and controlled this time. But he spoke before she could.
“Seth Bates died this morning.”
Her already overloaded mind had no idea what to make of that.
“How did he die?” she asked finally.
“Nobody seems to know. They think he was under the influence of something. A drug, a toxin. Did your people hex him again?”
“My people didn’t hex him the first time.”
“Was it a hex, is all I’m asking?”
His voice was actually shaking, he was so pissed off. Thea had been so caught up in trying to control herself, she hadn’t noticed that Holgersen sounded on the verge of losing it himself.
“I honestly don’t know if he was hexed or not,” she said.
There seems to be a lot of hexing going around that I don’t know about. Or understand.
“Well, how the hell do I find out?” Holgersen was nearly shouting. “Because I’d really like to do that before an official explanation comes down and closes my damn case right out from under me.”
“Closes it under you? That makes no sense.”
“Yeah well, pardon me for not being good at metaphors or whatever the hell it is.”
Thea frowned down at her phone. Holgersen had seemed so unflappable before. What had changed?
“What do you mean, an official explanation?” she asked. Then she remembered something he’d said, in Alecto’s office.
The IRS has never heard of you any more than the FBI has, or Homeland Security. Pretty much every Federal agency I can think of laughed me off the phone today when I checked with them.
It occurred to Thea for the first time to wonder what this investigation looked like, from his end.
“Holgersen, are you the only one there who even believes in us?”
“Oh, I’m sure there are plenty of others who believe in you. Plenty who know all about you, in fact. But they’re not people someone at my level has access to.”
Thea bit back a smile. So Alecto’s comment had gotten to him, then.
“And if you go to the ones you do have access to, like your actual boss, for example, with a story about flying purple people…”
“Exactly,” Holgersen said. “My immediate superior does not want to hear about furies. The consensus among most rational people is that the picture—your picture—is a hoax. That whatever happened at Hemlock Heights was some kind of chemical leak, or something.”
“That’s what Laurel Bowman thinks,” Thea said. “She’s Boyd Lexington’s sist—”
“I know who she is. I interviewed her.”
“So take more pictures,” Thea said. “You know where the colony is. You could find a way to show him the truth.”
It would do Holgersen no good to try to show his boss Hexing House directly. Being a stranger, the man would see nothing but ruined buildings and kudzu. But Holgersen himself had been invited onto the campus once before, which meant he would always see the truth. And presumably be able to photograph that truth, although Thea wasn’t absolutely sure whether the enchantment allowed for that or not.
“As a matter of fact, I showed him a picture.” Holgersen sighed. “He was not inclined to pursue that avenue of investigation. I don’t even know if that’s an order from above, or he’s just being pigheaded.”
“He just what, told you to forget about us?”
“Pretty much. It doesn’t matter if a dozen protesters were standing right outside your gates the other day. Or that your picture is all over the internet. Or that I have Alecto’s fucking business card. Officially, you guys
don’t exist.”
“Which is why you’re talking to me. Even though the other day you were treating me like a suspect and refusing to discuss anything you knew at all.” Thea finally put it all together, the reason for his call, why he was being so open with her about his problems.
“Your hands are tied.” She tried not to laugh as she said it. “If you want to investigate anything fury-related, you need me to do it for you.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Holgersen said. “But if what you told me was the truth, if Hexing House is being blamed unfairly for this other colony’s actions, then you have just as much of an interest in resolving this matter as I do. We’re sort of…”
There was an uncomfortable pause, which Thea made no attempt to fill.
“On the same side,” Holgersen finished finally. “So maybe we can help each other.”
“And right now, you want to know if Seth Bates was hexed,” Thea said.
“I do.”
“Well, you’re in luck. Because I want to know the same thing. I’m looking into it.”
“You keep me in your loop and I’ll keep you in mine,” Holgersen said. “How’s that for now?”
“Works for me.”
But for the moment, she had an even more urgent matter to attend to. One that couldn’t be put off any longer.
As soon as Thea got back to Hexing House, she flew to the Wellness building, where she drove Darnell so crazy with her pacing that he got her in to see Langdon within the hour.
“That’s not going to do you any good.” Thea nodded at the blood pressure cuff around her arm. “This isn’t a physical problem. Langdon, I seriously think I’m going crazy. Is there such a thing as a sin disease?”
Langdon laughed at that. “Nope, although I’m sure there are plenty of sinners who’d prefer to blame a disease.”
“So a hex is the only thing that can really make you sin.”
“That I know of. And of course, a hex always passes, eventually. Not to mention that you, my dear, are hex immune.”
“I’m not immune to the superhex.”
“Which passes more quickly than any other hex we’ve ever encountered,” Langdon reminded her. “What’s this about?”
Lasting Fury (Hexing House Book 2) Page 6
