Nite Fire: Flash Point

by C. L. Schneider

  The apartment had gone still and quiet. I was thinking how to pacify him without talking myself into a dangerously public corner, when he started again.

  “This city’s never won any safety awards. At best, we hold the crime rate somewhere around tolerable. But lately, I’m not sure why we bother. Goddamn self-defense classes are more popular than yoga, yet the morgue still never gets a night off. The mayor can’t control the department. The department can’t control the streets. Justice has become how fast you can close the fucking case, not the truth or the facts. It’s not about crime prevention. It’s not about protecting anyone or saving anyone, because we clearly can’t do that anymore. Just ask Liza.”

  The guilt in his voice was palpable. “You couldn’t have done anything to prevent this.”

  “You’re right. All we’re good for is coming in and cleaning up the mess. We’re not cops,” he laughed angrily. “We’re fucking garbage men. And the worst part is…we know it. We know we’re useless,” he said, gesturing at our audience. “Yet we’re still here, working the case, pretending something we do will make a damn bit of difference. And the fact that you, Miss Nite, have moved back into this shit tells me you’re as fucked up as the rest of us.”

  I glanced around at his gape-mouthed colleagues. I met a few stunned eyes. They looked away in record time and went back to work—except for Creed. He needed an answer, and not just for this case. Not having them had been consuming him quietly for a long time, but not anymore. Whatever drove the man, whatever made him need the truth, was done being quiet.

  I could tell him, I thought. I could tell him exactly how the murders were done. I could show him. And after that, he could arrest me for murder.

  Coming clean with Detective Creed wouldn’t end the same way it had with Evans. Yet, I couldn’t keep butting heads with the man. Regardless of what he didn’t know about me or Reech, or whatever bit of dirty Drimeran politics were behind the rash of killings. Creed was intelligent. He was determined, curious, and discontent. They were dangerous traits for me to be around, but they were exactly what the city needed. They were also qualities I could use, if I found a way to coax him in the right direction.

  Composed, like he hadn’t yelled at me in a room full of people, I said, “Can I talk to you a moment, Detective? In private.”

  In his blue eyes was an unequivocal ‘no’. But I didn’t wait for him to say it. I looked around the crowded apartment and headed for the one empty place I could find: the bathroom.

  It was small, but the tropical motif was cute, with little palm tree shower curtain hooks. I sat on the edge of the tub and Creed came in a moment later. He closed the door and leaned against it.

  I was surprised when he spoke first.

  “We shouldn’t be arguing in front of them.” Releasing an exasperated breath, he crossed his arms tightly over his chest, straining the buttons on his white shirt. “It’s just this damn case. It feels like all we’re doing is watching the bodies pile up.”

  “I know you’re under pressure, Detective. I get that you’re frustrated and lost. You’re not the only one. I don’t know what our next move is or how to get ahead of this. And you have no idea how hard it is for me to admit that.”

  “Actually, I think I might.”

  “When Barnes called me in, he said he needed a unique perspective. That’s us. Not me or you. Us.” His gaze perked up. He knew exactly what I meant. “We need to put that perspective to use and stop acting like enemies. Because I’m not your enemy, Alex. I’m just a lousy partner, same as you.”

  He drew an irritated breath and pushed up his glasses.

  “Barnes put us together,” I said. “But we’re still working alone. And it’s getting us nowhere. So when I’m done here, I’ll come to the station. I’ll see your sketch artist. Then you and I will sit down and go over the evidence and try to find something; a lead, a connection between the victims. There must be something we missed.”

  “Okay,” was all he said, but by his wary, slightly puzzled tone, I knew I’d disarmed him. I also knew I’d taken the first successful step toward winning him over.

  “Did you get anything back on the deed yet?”

  “I was going to call you on that this morning. Apparently, Ella grew up in the house. So did her mother, her grandmother, and her great grandmother. Each had one daughter and died in their fifties. Natural causes,” he added dubiously.

  His suspicion was justified. It was a pattern that screamed of a lyrriken trying to cover their slow aging. Sloppily, I thought. “I didn’t think the house was so old.”

  “Several permits are on file with the building inspector for renovations going back years, but a portion of the original structure is still there. The property behind it and the one across the street are all owned by the same man. Elwood Cole. I’m assuming they were passed down, since the original purchaser back in 1872 shared the same last name. We’re looking for birth records to officially tie them together, but it looks like Elwood is Aidric Cole’s descendant.”

  “A man named Aidric was the original purchaser of Ella’s house?” Of course he was, I thought. “What do you have on him?”

  “Nothing yet, though it looks like he was some sort of local tycoon back in the day.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “The Cole name is old, like ‘one of the original settlers in the area’ old. There were a couple of Aidrics back then, too. One helped found and name this city. Not sure yet how they came into money, but that family owned a lot of land around here a hundred years ago. Still do.”

  “You said Ella inherited the house. Is she related to the Coles?”

  “We’re still looking. But why else would Ella’s family be allowed to live there for generations? And you’ll love this. Dan and Ella are clean. Abnormally clean,” he said, slowly, emphasizing his point. “No gambling. No affairs. No drug use. No overdue credit cards. No parking tickets or bounced check. Not even a goddamn overdue library book. And they had zero debt. Want to take a stab at who’s been paying their bills?”

  “The very generous Elwood Cole?

  “Exactly. The man doesn’t seem to exist anywhere but on paper, where his name is loosely tied to a string of companies all across the country. While everyone says the Chandlers lived a quiet life.”

  “They always do. Are any of Ella’s family still alive?”

  “All deceased. She had a few friends at the hair salon where she worked, but no one close. Her co-workers said she mostly kept to herself.”

  “She was too busy organizing that stock room in her basement.

  Surrendering to the absurdity of it all, he grinned. “The question is why. What was it all for?”

  “Maybe the Chandlers were operating a modern-day Underground Railroad. With the amount of clothes and accessories down there, they could have outfitted an influx of refugees or illegals or…”

  His grin straightened. He tilted his head. “Finish your thought.”

  “An army,” I said, reluctantly, because with an exit to Drimera on the other side of the basement wall, any one of my suggestions made far too much sense. Before Creed thought so too, I shrugged dismissively. “What about the evidence from the hospital?”

  “Forensics lifted a partial print off the necklace, but nothing’s come back. We know the piece is old, probably antique. Maybe stolen. But we can’t identify it and it’s not in the system.”

  “Could be part of a private collection.”

  “That’s what I was thinking. I want to take it over to the museum. Maybe they have an expert who can date the damn thing and tell us its history. With all the theatrics, these could be ritualistic kills of some kind.”

  “Not a bad theory.” But inside I was thinking that I needed to call Oren. He had people in the police lab skewing results our way, but someone would have to be sent to the museum. A studious professor of archeology might uncover something he shouldn’t. “So far I haven’t been able to classify that claw. You get anything on it?�
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  “Not yet.” He put a hand on the doorknob. “So we’re good?”

  I stood. “We’re good.”

  A few heads turned as we walked out into the living room, but there were a lot less people in the apartment now. Less was still too many for what I had to do.

  I decided to put our new understanding to the test. “Think you can clear the place out?” I asked him. “I prefer not to do this with an audience.”

  “How long do you need?”

  I picked my bag up off the floor. “Forty-five minutes.”

  Creed eyed me a second, thinking, then shouted, “You heard her! Everybody out!”

  No one questioned him. I imagined his recent outburst had a lot to do with their quick exit. Either way, within five minutes, we were the only ones left in the apartment.

  I gave him a patient smile. “You too, Detective.

  Creed turned away. “I have some calls to make. I can do it from the bedroom.”

  “Not what I meant. I work faster with no distractions.”

  Pausing, he shot me a look. “Having me in the bedroom is a distraction?”

  He hadn’t meant it that way. I still grinned. “I imagine having you anywhere would be a nice diversion, Detective. But I prefer not to mix business with pleasure.”

  His eyes widened briefly, thinking he’d erred. Then they narrowed, confused by my intentions. Perfect. Playing nice with the man was a necessity, but as suspicious as Detective Creed was of my motives, the less he could pin down about me the better.

  Deciding his discomfort had gone on long enough, I saved him from the awkward moment. “I’ll meet you back at the station?”

  He nodded. “Call me if you find anything.”

  The front door closed behind him and I stared at it, silently speculating how long I had until Alex Creed became a serious problem. Oren would tell me to cut him loose now. If I couldn’t control him, he was a danger to me. Leaving the man to his own devices shifted the danger off me and onto him, but it was equally risky. By continuing as his partner, I had a better chance of shielding him from whatever beehive he stuck his hand in.

  Pulling on a pair of gloves, I grabbed my camera and lowered myself down onto my stomach, alongside the body. I took a few shots of the point of combustion and water stains on her shirt. After, I prepped the room; laying out supplies to make it appear I was hard at work taking samples. Satisfied my bases were covered if someone were to walk in, I took off the gloves. I let the scales out on my hands and face, and walked the apartment.

  I checked for the scent of lyrriken first. It was strongest near the window, on one side of the couch, and around the body. All three places smelled of one lyrriken. Unless Reech could generate the water to drown Liza, it had to be the girl.

  More importantly, Ronan hadn’t been here. After reacquainting myself with him in the shower yesterday, I was sure. Nothing in the apartment smelled like him, not the lock, not Liza. That didn’t mean Ronan was off the hook for Ella and her family. Someone else had been in the house that I still couldn’t account for.

  I should go back, I thought. I hadn’t been able to separate the smells before, but maybe if I tried again. It was the only way to know for sure if he was lying.

  Putting that worry away for later, I reached out to the trauma I’d noticed when I first walked in. I did a thorough search, but there was nothing now. Liza’s suffering had ended too quickly. It hadn’t left an imprint. Whatever ghost she gave birth to in those few seconds, had died with her. The black sludge I’d seen earlier on the floor had belonged to the investigators, not the victim.

  I wasn’t surprised. Many in law enforcement carried a good deal of scars from past trauma, and this particular group had been subjected to an excessive, rapid-fire amount of graphic images the last few days. There hadn’t been time to process the stress or, in some cases, even recognize the effect it was having.

  Without any of Liza’s residual trauma, to get a glimpse of how she died, I had to touch her. In reality, it wasn’t any more intimate, but I was leery of welcoming anything in too deeply after what happened on the street. If Coen hadn’t intervened, I would have been hit by a car. I might have died in front of witnesses. Worse, I might have woken up in front of them—in the morgue. But none of that happened. And I had a job to do.

  I sat on the kitchen floor in front of Liza. It was a strange and disconcerting position, being at eye-level with her body. My legs were folded beneath me. She had none.

  I kept my back to the door. I wanted to lock it, but that would invite suspicion. If Creed learned I’d locked myself in alone with evidence, after he cleared the room for me, it would dissolve the little bit of ground I’d gained with the man.

  Thankfully, the kitchen wasn’t a clear shot from the door. If the two officers in the hall decided to come in, I’d have a few seconds to shift back.

  I looked at Liza. Hesitating, I studied her body. As I worked my way up to the face, I looked into her still-open eyes, and an odd sensation crawled over me. There was something there, beneath the glaze of death; a distinct sense of pleading. It was strong, like a magnet, similar to what had drawn me into the street last night. Yet, this time, it wasn’t pulling me blindly. I wanted to answer it. I wanted to see her death, in a way that had nothing to do with solving it.

  I put a hand on the body. I gave not a passing thought to contaminating the crime scene. It was instinct as I placed my palm on her chest, over her heart. It was a powerful organ. The elders claimed it was where the soul resided. If they were right, it was where the suffering and trauma I saw collected. Adhering to the outside of the organ, the heavy black ethereal scars built up over time, eroding the vessel and damaging the soul it contained. Some were more resilient to the emotional debris than others, but eventually, when the damage became too great, their pain would seep out into the world for me to see.

  I’d never tried to put my empathy into such precise words before, but they were perfect words. I could see it now, how clearly it all worked. The black wrapping around, squeezing and invading, was a concept so vivid, my pulse was quickening.

  Oren had said many times that my empathy was a tool, a resource. He’d scolded me for not treating it that way enough, for not exploiting its full potential. I was more apt to let it take me where it willed. Not because he was wrong, but because it was easier.

  The few times I’d initiated the experience with true purpose, it had paid off. I needed that now.

  I closed my eyes. Without the distraction of sight, I could better ignore the traffic sounds outside, the phones ringing and doors closing in the building, and the wary voice in my head. Isolated, in the dark, was how I’d learned to shift small portions of myself; to bring a patch of skin or a finger deeply into focus. Now, my focus was on the fading smoky aroma, the stale bits of dried blood around Liza’s torso, and the charred meat-smell of her skin. The dominating scent of lyrriken hugged her clothes and her hair.

  I distinguished each extraneous sound and aroma. Then I spurned them all. My empathy was left alone in the spotlight, and it flourished.

  Twenty-Three

  She was perched on the edge of the couch in the dark room, scaled knees drawn up, watching her victim stumble out of the bedroom.

  Hair uncombed, her oversized gray t-shirt rumpled from sleep, Liza yawned as she turned robotically into the kitchen. She flipped on the dim nightlight by the microwave. Water ran in the sink. It glugged as she filled the coffeemaker—oblivious to what sat in her living room, waiting.

  Eyes down, staring at the phone in her hand, Liza shuffled down the short hall to the bathroom. She turned on the shower and her killer flopped back on the couch, making herself comfortable. Stretching out, she whistled something soft.

  The sudden wind in my ear was significantly louder.

  The dark flared. When it faded, time had gently lightened the shadows. The apartment smelled of fresh coffee and toast. Liza was standing where her body was found, dressed in brown khakis and a white bl
ouse with her nametag pinned on the front. The blue-haired girl was behind her, arms wrapped lovingly around. Her scaled fingers were pressed into Liza’s mouth, forcing it open while the poor woman shook in her embrace.

  Water bubbled from Liza’s mouth. It trickled down her chin to stain her blouse. She coughed on the stream, and I coughed with her—drowning in the woman’s panic. Liza’s terror and pain was filling me as suddenly and brutally as the water was filling her lungs.

  Struggling to expel the intangible black sludge, as Liza’s horrified eyes drifted in my direction, the suffocating sensation worsened. It stole my breath, my warmth.

  Shivering, watching the puddle of black pain slough off the dying woman, my gasps were silent. I stood in a wind that wasn’t there, in a moment that had happened without me. Yet Liza’s eyes stared into mine like Carly Chandler’s had. They stared and they pleaded. They hoped.

  Only this time, I understood. I knew what Liza wanted.

  But could I do it?

  Relaxing, I let her paralyzing distress waft over me. I faced her fear of dying, and suffered her shocked confusion as she was suddenly let go—her sheer agony as the fire consumed her body. I took it all. I felt it for her. And for a moment, for that split second before Liza’s heart stopped and her torso dropped to the floor, the pain left her eyes.

  Her trauma was in me now.

  I wanted to put it back. It hurt. But Liza was dead and her killer was standing over the still smoking body, looking down with an air of disappointment.

  Though it felt far longer, the whole ordeal had only lasted a matter of seconds.

  She’d wanted it to take longer. She’d planned to savor the kill but got carried away. Her impatience had left the moment lacking, and it hadn’t felt as good as she thought. It hadn’t felt as good as she needed it to. Next time, she’d go slower.

  I had the presence of mind to collapse backward, away from Liza’s body. But that’s where my coherence stopped. I couldn’t reason when terror had frozen the blood in my veins. The specter of water had replaced my air.