“There’s a good chance that a neighbor will notice us and call the cops. Even now, we kind of stand out,” Herne said.
“Then let’s just go. Rush the place before she has time to think or take action.” I paused, then said, “Let me go in. I can always play the part of a neighbor who needs to borrow a couple of eggs.” It was an old ruse, but it might work.
“Fine. Go, then. We’ll be close outside. Find out what you can.” Herne didn’t look happy, but he knew I was right. If we tried to pull a raid, there were so many ways it could go wrong.
I jogged up to the driveway, then steeled myself and headed toward the house. It was a pretty house, two stories, with white siding and blue trim. The place had a nautical feel to it, and almost looked Cape Cod in style.
As I passed the Lexus in the driveway, I stopped to take a quick picture of the license plate. It couldn’t hurt to have extra insurance in case she got away. The rain was still pouring, and I was drenched by the time I reached the door and rang the bell.
A moment later, and the curtain on the door inched back as the porch light came on. Another moment, and the door opened.
“May I help you?” Natasha asked. She looked just like the picture in her mug shot and I wondered if she had planned on dyeing her hair. Apparently, she hadn’t thought about it.
“I’m your neighbor from a few houses down. I wonder if you have a couple eggs I could borrow. I’m making a cake and didn’t realize I was out.” I put on my best smile, and shivered. “Can you believe how much it’s raining?”
Natasha stared at me a moment longer, then opened the door and invited me in. “Come on in. I’ll get your eggs.” She left me in the foyer and vanished. I took advantage of the moment to look around.
The house was decorated in a minimalist, breezy fashion. I craned my neck, trying to see into the nearest room. Natasha had vanished through a different door, so I edged over toward the archway and managed to peek in. I was looking into the living room.
Nothing. The TV was on, replaying some old game show, but I didn’t see Eleanor anywhere. I listened, my hearing focused to pick up any faint sound I could hear. There were several sounds of movement, but I thought they were probably from the kitchen.
Another moment, and Natasha returned, startling me. She gave me a long look.
“Here. Your eggs.” She handed me a container with three eggs in it. “Is that all?” Her voice had gone from wary to frigid, and I recognized the shift in mood. If I set her off in any way, there was no telling what she might do.
“Thanks.” I glanced back outside. “It’s really coming down out there.”
She nodded. “Yes, it is.”
“I’m Ember, what’s your name?” I decided to try to forge some kind of bond.
“Do you really need to know? I’m sorry, but I’m not that interested in joining the welcome wagon or whatever little group you might have going. In fact, I’m not much of a neighborly person. And I’m busy, so I’d appreciate it if you’d leave.”
There was a sound from up the stairs and she glanced nervously over her shoulder. “I have to check on something. You need to leave.”
I had the feeling that if she went up those steps, we’d never see Eleanor alive again.
“I don’t think so. You need to come with me.” I tossed the container of eggs on the floor and lunged for her, grabbing her wrist.
She was surprising strong—I had forgotten how strong shifters were—and she twisted away from me, breaking free. As she raced toward the back of the house, I punched the speed dial for Herne.
“Get down here. She knows and she’s bolting. I’m going after her. Check upstairs for Eleanor.” Stuffing my phone in my jacket pocket, I dashed through the house. The door onto the back porch was open and I followed, glancing out into the night. There was no one in the yard that I could see. “Crap,” I said, swinging back inside. She was still in the house. I charged for the stairs, thinking maybe she went after Eleanor, but I froze when I heard a soft click behind me.
I turned in time to see the door to the patio close. Natasha had darted out the door, which meant she probably didn’t have a gun, or she would have used it on me. I was headed toward the door when Herne and Viktor raced in.
“She’s gone out back. Viktor, check upstairs for Eleanor. Herne, come on.” I yanked open the door in time to see a woman running toward the lake. But even from here, in the floodlights that illuminated the backyard, I could see that she wasn’t alone. She was carrying something in her arms. “She has the child!”
Herne and I went sprinting across the yard, trying to gain ground on her. Herne could run faster than I could, but I wasn’t far behind, though every muscle was protesting. Natasha headed for the lake. She looked over her shoulder and tossed her bundle to the side, putting on speed.
Herne sped up. “Check that!” He gestured to the bundle that she had let go of. I wanted to keep after her, but Herne was faster, and so I peeled off to the side, kneeling by the mound of blankets. There was crying from within, and I frantically untangled the layers to reveal a little girl. She was blond, about two years old, and she held her arms up to me, wailing at the top of her lungs. I caught her up in my arms just as Viktor came charging out of the house.
“Nothing but a dog up there—” he started to say, but stopped when he saw that I was holding the toddler.
“Herne’s after Natasha. Here, take her inside and see if she’s okay. I’ll catch up to him.” I thrust the girl into Viktor’s arms and took off at a dead run, putting on the speed. My muscles complained but, thanks to the regular gym workouts, responded.
Natasha had run out on a pier, and Herne slowed, walking toward her with careful deliberation. I slowed too, joining him.
“Natasha, give yourself up. We can help you.” Herne had his hands up, and was slowing his pace.
“No, I can’t. I have to find Rhiannon. She’s out there, and somebody has her. I have to find her!” She was crying, standing at the end of the pier, eyeing the water.
“Rhiannon is dead, Natasha. Don’t you remember? You killed her, just like you killed those other little girls. Let us take you to someone who can help you.” Herne was speaking slowly, his voice persuasive and soothing. He motioned for me to stop and I froze.
“You can’t help me. No one can help me. I’m lost. I’m so lost,” Natasha said, taking another step toward the water. “I didn’t kill my little girl. I didn’t… Somebody took her. If I don’t find her, she’ll never let me rest.” She was babbling now, tears streaking her cheeks. “I told her I’d find her again once I was free. I can’t break my promise—I have to keep my promise.”
Herne glanced at me. “If we get any closer, she’ll throw herself in the water.”
“I can swim and so can you. We can’t just leave her here.” I gauged the distance between Natasha and where we were standing. “I can make that in one good leap.”
“But can you stop her? Can you—” He stopped as Natasha withdrew something from her pocket. It looked like a syringe.
“You have to let me go back to the house. I need to give her medicine. She’s sick. She needs her medicine.” She waved the syringe toward us, looking more and more frantic with each passing minute.
“Oh my gods. Maybe she hasn’t been realizing they’re not her daughter and then killing them. Maybe she thinks she’s giving them insulin like Rhiannon needed, but she’s really giving them crackalaine, just like she did her daughter. She’s reliving her daughter’s death over and over, trying to change the outcome.” I stared at Natasha, simultaneously feeling sorry for her and wondering if it would be such a bad thing if she just vanished off the face of the planet.
“Please,” Natasha begged, sinking to her knees. “You have to let me help her.”
“Come on, then. We’ll go back to the house. But you have to put the needle down.” Herne stretched out his hand, waiting.
Natasha stared at it, and then a look dawned in her eyes and she shook her head. “No
. No, you’re going to lock me up again for trying to help my daughter.” She glanced toward the lake, but instead of jumping in, she brought the needle up and stabbed it into her leg, injecting the crackalaine.
Herne and I raced toward her, but she had already slumped on the ground before we could reach her side. I felt for a pulse. There was one, thready and weak, but there.
“She’s alive,” I said.
Herne nodded. He caught my gaze and held up his phone, then paused, a wretched look on his face. “She’s never going to get well.”
“I know,” I said, staring at her prone figure next to me. Her breath was slowing, and I could barely feel a pulse at all. “But you have to call the paramedics.”
“I know,” he said, ducking his head. He waited for another minute, then slowly made the call for the paramedics as Natasha’s breath left her lungs forever.
I pushed myself to my feet, wincing. Every muscle hurt. We headed back to where Viktor was holding the child.
“How is she?” I asked, anxious. The syringe had been full and she hadn’t given Eleanor the “medicine” yet from the way it had sounded.
“Asleep. I sang her a lullaby,” Viktor said. “Dead?” He nodded toward the pier.
“Yeah, she OD’d.” I moved to Viktor’s side. “Can I hold her?” I wasn’t much for kids, but the fragility of the little girl, and the realization that, had we decided to wait for tomorrow, Eleanor would probably be dead now, made me all too aware of how precious life was.
Viktor settled her in my arms and she woke up briefly.
“Mama?” she whispered.
“We’ll take you to your mother, Lani. We’ll take you home.” I kissed her forehead and rocked her gently. “I’m going to take her inside away from the rain.” We were all soaked and the last thing she needed was to catch a cold.
“All right. Viktor, go with her. Direct the medics out here.”
Viktor and I headed back into the house. I slid into a kitchen chair, staring at the chaotic mess on the counters. It was just an outward symbol of the tempest that had been brewing inside Natasha. She had been in a whirlwind, caught up in a spiral that she couldn’t break free from.
“I wonder…was she always messed up, or did the drugs do it?” I asked, looking over at Viktor.
“It’s hard to tell. The drugs may have just set her off. She could have been primed to break down anyway. There’s no way to tell. She was clean for ten years in prison, but she came out with full-blown psychosis.” He pointed to Eleanor. “You ever want one of those?”
“They’re so fragile, aren’t they?” I shrugged. “I don’t know. Definitely not now, maybe not ever. But it’s too soon to tell. At least the Fae are fertile for far longer than humans, so I have a long time to decide.”
The doorbell rang and Viktor moved to get it. The paramedics came trooping through.
“We’ve got a dead woman out back. She OD’d herself with crackalaine. And you need to check out this little girl.”
“Her daughter?” one of the paramedics asked.
I shook my head. “No, but she’s somebody else’s daughter, and I think her mom needs to know that she’s okay.” I handed over Eleanor and one of the medics checked her out while the other headed out back. Herne walked him over to Natasha’s body.
Viktor and I waited till the medic—his name was Jon—pronounced Eleanor fit and fine. She was hungry, but she checked out okay.
I called Angel. “Call Amanda. Tell her to get down to the Wild Hunt right away. Everybody needs to be there. We’re bringing Eleanor home. Alive and well.”
“Oh my gods, you found her? Alive?” Angel said, and I could hear her voice cracking.
“Yeah, but Natasha’s dead. If we hadn’t come by this evening, Eleanor probably would be too, but don’t tell her mother that. We’ll see you in an hour or so.” I hung up, and turned just in time to see Herne coming through the door.
“The coroner will be here soon. I’ll wait and talk to him. You two take Eleanor back to the agency and call her mother—”
“Already on it,” I said, giving him a broad smile. “We won this one. Kind of.”
“Yeah, kind of. But I doubt if Natasha would have ever pulled through, so maybe it’s a good thing she didn’t make it. How would you react if your head cleared and you found out that you had murdered three children? Four, including your own? Sometimes, being lost in your mind can be a blessing.”
I nodded. Viktor called Erica and she said she was on her way, but for us to go ahead and take Lani to her mother. She would talk to Herne.
I poked my head into the Lexus on the way out and grabbed the car seat. Viktor helped me set it up and then we headed out, with Lani in my backseat. All the way back to the agency, all I could think about was Natasha’s frantic pleas to be allowed to “medicate” her baby. That, and the fact that Lani was in my car kept me barely breathing until I made it safely back downtown.
As I carried Lani up the steps into the building, a froth of emotions whipped inside me. Eleanor was awake now, and fussy, and by the time the elevator opened, I was looking forward to handing her over to her mother. I definitely wasn’t ready for kids, that I could tell.
“Lani! Lani!” Amanda was standing at the counter, anxious, and when she turned and saw me carrying her daughter in, she burst into tears and held out her arms.
“Mama!” Lani started to cry and as I made the exchange, barely getting out of the way before being squished in a massive hug, I could smell the pheromones of relief wafting off Amanda. She was crying and laughing, and she buried her head in Eleanor’s neck, kissing her again and again.
Angel guided her over to the sofa and helped her sit down while I headed toward the bathroom. By the time I came back, Angel handed me a hamburger and some fries, and a milkshake. Viktor had brought chairs out to the waiting room and we were all sitting around. Talia was talking to Amanda, and Yutani was doing something on his laptop.
“Herne should be back any time,” I said.
“Who took her? Was it that woman?” Amanda asked.
“Yeah, it was. Herne will fill you in on the details,” I started to say, but Yutani let out a yelp. I turned around. “What’s happened now?”
He motioned for Viktor and me to join him. There, on one of the local news sites, was the headline, “councilman warris found dead. light fae councilman beaten to death.”
“Oh shit,” I whispered. We may have solved one case, but we weren’t out of the woods yet.
Chapter Twelve
“We can’t possibly deal with this tonight,” Herne said when he returned to the office and found out about the councilman’s death. We trooped into the break room.
“It feels like we live in this room lately,” Viktor grumbled.
“I know. I asked Amanda to return tomorrow so we could settle up the case files.” Herne tossed her file folder on the table. “At least we saved the day for a mother and her daughter. That’s one thing we can be proud of tonight.”
“I’m so tired,” Angel said.
“Yeah, me too.” I yawned. “I hurt, too. My body doesn’t like running around right now. I feel like I could sleep for hours.”
Herne smiled apologetically. “Well, the good news is that I called the cops and told them I’d be down to view the crime scene. The rest of you can go home. I’m not affected by lack of sleep as much, so off with you.” He waved us toward the door. “Just be in tomorrow by nine. While we solved one problem today, we have a growing one on our hands and I’m not sure where to look next.”
“By the way, Ember, you realize we missed the snowboard match?” Viktor said.
I frowned. “Great. Do you know who won?”
He shook his head. “No, but I DVR’d it. Want to come over for a watch party tomorrow night?”
I grinned. “You couldn’t keep me away. Unless anything else earthshaking happens.”
As we broke for the evening, I leaned down to lightly plant a kiss on Herne’s lips. “I love you. See y
ou tomorrow.”
“Call me if you need me, for anything.” His eyes were beautiful blue lakes, searching my face. Then he smiled and a veil of clouds over them seemed to part.
“Bye. Be good,” I whispered, and then trooped toward the elevator with Angel.
I leaned back against the sofa, yawning loudly. “I am so tired but I don’t want to go to bed because that means tomorrow comes that much more quickly. I want a day off.”
Angel returned from the kitchen, carrying a big bowl of parmesan popcorn and two cans of diet cola. “Here. We’re not going to bed. Not until we’ve watched something giddy and goofy and fun.” She picked up the remote and turned on the television just as a rerun of Criminal Minds started.
“Oh gods, no. Turn the channel. I’ve had enough of serial killers to last me a long time.” I scooted over as Mr. Rumblebutt bounced up on the cushion next to me. He let out a long yawn, purring at the end of it so that he sounded a little like a motorboat sputtering. He circled twice, then curled up next to me and closed his eyes. I stroked his back.
“Silly goober,” Angel said, smiling at him. “I got a text from DJ today. He’s apologizing all over the place for hacking into that computer. I told him that he needed to get his act together because I’m not going to bail him out of any punishment for crap like that, and neither is Cooper.” She paused. “Also, Raven’s birthday is coming up on the first.”
“It would figure that she was born on Samhain,” I said. “It’s rather fitting. She having a party?”
“I don’t think she was planning on it, but Rafé asked if we wanted to help him throw a surprise party on Friday night. I told him I thought we could manage.” She paused, then said, “It’s odd. I would think having him around would be painful, given he’s a reminder of Ulstair. They looked so much alike. But I guess it gives her comfort.”
Raven’s fiancé had been murdered just a month ago. That’s actually how we met her—when we took her on as a client to look for her missing boyfriend.
I glanced over at her, a piece of popcorn in my fingers. “You aren’t jealous, by any chance, are you?”
The Hallowed Hunt Page 18
