A blast of ice-cold air hit him. Arctic cold.
A tinkling sounded, like icicles falling and shattering, and he pushed open the door. The blast of cold hit again, fresh and pure cold, like plunging into icy water, exhilarating and terrifying and--
A wizened hand yanked the door shut.
"What do you think you're doing, Mr. Gallagher?" Grace crossed her arms. "You'd better have a good excuse, poking around my building."
"TC's in there."
"Huh?"
"Liv's cat--"
"I know who TC is. Stupidest name ever. If that damned beast ran off, I can promise you he's not in there."
"I heard him yowling."
"Unless he's learned to pick locks, he's not in that apartment."
"It isn't locked."
She jangled the handle. "Yes, it is."
"Look, I don't care what's in there. Just bring TC out. I won't even peek."
"Peek at what? There's nothing inside but dusty old furniture."
He sighed. "Fine, Grace. Just let the cat out. I can't sleep with him yowling."
Her wrinkled face puckered. "What yowling?"
"Damn it, Grace. Just--"
A meow cut him short. TC came trotting from the stairwell. He saw Ricky and gave another meow, sounding exasperated now, as if to say, There you are. He walked over and planted himself in front of Ricky. Then he looked at the stairwell and meowed again.
"Someone's telling you to get back to bed," Grace said.
"He was in there. I heard him." Ricky turned to the apartment door.
Grace reached up and took hold of his chin. He let her tilt his face down to hers as she straightened to her full five feet and squinted up into his eyes.
"You got in after dinner last night," she said.
"Right. You were out front. I brought you a scone."
"I'm not senile, boy. I'm asking if you had dinner first."
"No, you were stating a fact, which I was confirming. A question is worded--"
She gave his chin a sharp shake and glowered up at him, but there was no malice in it, no honest annoyance, either. As if he was a kid mouthing back, and she was glad to see he had spine.
"I'm asking if you had anything to eat or drink in Cainsville."
"Then say that," he said. "No, I didn't."
"And in Olivia's apartment?"
"A beer and half a sandwich. Peanut butter, if that helps."
"Did you speak to anyone when you got here? Other than me?"
"No, I--" He stiffened. "Liv."
"Well, I'd hope you'd speak to her, though from the sounds of things you two are usually a little too busy for talking."
He wasn't going to ask how she could hear that from three stories down. He shook it off, said a quick good night, and started down the hall.
Grace was in front of him so fast she seemed to teleport into his path. "You're worried about Olivia. That's what you meant."
"Right." He started around her. "If TC wasn't down here, it was a trick to get me out of her apartment."
"No one will harm her here," Grace said as she followed him up the stairs.
He kept going, climbing two at a time. When he reached the top, he jogged down the hall, nearly tripping over TC, who loped along beside him.
"Fine," Grace called from the stairwell. "Check on her. Then get your ass back out here. We need to talk."
He went into the apartment. Liv lay exactly where he'd left her. TC hopped onto the bed and settled at the end. Then he looked at Ricky, his eyes narrowed, as if to say, Well, get in already.
Ricky searched the apartment as TC wound around his legs, trying to get him back to bed where he belonged.
Ricky checked everything twice. Then he returned to the hall, where Grace waited.
"Satisfied?" she said. "You really are Cwn Annwn. As faithful as a hound."
When he didn't reply, she peered up at him. "Not going to take offense at that?"
"Nope."
"I knew Arawn," she said. When he looked at her sharply, she gave a croaking laugh. "Oh, that gets a reaction. I was there, back in the day. I've met a couple of his embodiments, too. Pale imitations. I didn't see him in them. I do in you."
"Aspects," he said. "I have things in common with him. I won't deny that. But there are differences. I'm not going to make his mistakes."
"No?"
"Arawn was careless, reckless, and impulsive. Petty and self-absorbed. He couldn't stand to lose Matilda to Gwynn and that was about him, not what was best for her, which ultimately would have been best for him, to let Gwynn have her as his wife and keep them both as friends."
"Oh, you are clever. Far too clever for a biker."
"No, just clever enough to be a good biker."
She snorted a laugh. "All right, boy. But you're too hard on Arawn. He was young. The young make foolish mistakes for foolish reasons, like a girl they can't live without. You might seem young, too, but you're not. It's the part of you that is him that sees his folly, like an old man looking back on his youth."
"So you think I was lured out by someone trying to get to me, not Liv?"
"Clever boy."
"Then the upshot is that I need to learn from that. Don't go chasing yowling cats in the night. Question everything that could be luring me into trouble."
She chuckled. "You are indeed Arawn. Good. This will make things very interesting."
"Not sure I want to know what you mean by that."
She reached to squeeze his arm. "I mean that you are not a child, easily led from the path by those who wish to harm you. You are Arawn. Lord of the Otherworld."
"Thanks. I think." He glanced at the apartment door.
"Yes, yes. Your girl waits. But before you go, you said you won't make Arawn's mistake. What do you think that was?"
He told her.
She studied him. "And you think you can avoid that? That when the time comes, you'll be able to do it?"
"I'll have to, won't I?"
She nodded and let him go into the apartment.
CHAPTER NINE
The next morning, after I'd enjoyed a very pleasant wakeup, Ricky told me about his night's adventure.
"I hate to give you an extra reason to worry about me," he said. "But I figure you'd want to know."
"You figured right." I stretched and rolled out of bed. "Let's continue this conversation in the kitchen, with caffeine."
"Actually, I was going to suggest we head someplace that has the caffeine premade. Breakfast at the diner?"
"So if any of the elders were behind last night's stunt, they'll see you're well rested and unrattled? Good plan."
"Well, no, I thought you could use a good breakfast before a day of investigating." He pulled on his jeans. "But that's a good idea, too. Though I sometimes wonder if you aren't the one who should be aiming for bike gang leader. You're much better at figuring out the devious angles."
"I take that as a compliment."
"It is."
--
None of the elders were at the diner, so we had a fine and undisturbed breakfast. Back at my place, we hoped to check out that first-floor apartment, but Grace was already on the porch and followed us inside.
Gabriel arrived at ten. To give Ricky some quiet study time, Gabriel and I walked to the park and sat down to talk. Gabriel's mood from the night before hadn't changed, and finally I had to say, "You don't need to help me with this, Gabriel. Ricky hasn't been charged, so at this point I can dig around on my own. Which is my job." And you clearly have other places you want to be, I was tempted to add. That sounded pissy. I felt pissy, though. On Friday he'd wanted me to spend the night working on this together, and not even two days later it felt like discussing the same case was a huge imposition.
"You obviously have other things on your mind," I said.
He blinked hard, as if shaking off sleep. "No, I-- Yes, something came up, in regards to..."
When he didn't finish, I said, "Something personal. Okay. I won't pry. But if
you need to go, I understand."
"Personal?" He frowned, as if not recognizing the word. "No, I was going to say it was in regards to Todd's case. It's a legal matter, nothing to be concerned about, simply something I was working through. We can talk about it later." He pulled off his shades, letting them rest on his knee. "I'm fully engaged in this, and I apologize if it seemed as if I wasn't."
I was about to respond when someone hailed us.
Gabriel rose, murmuring, "I'll handle this. You can head back to the apartment."
"No, we'll get it over with," I said. "Hello, Ida. Walter."
They'd heard about the lamiae deaths and wanted me to stop investigating. Immediately. Which might sound suspicious, but their reasoning was exactly what I'd expect: this didn't concern me, so I shouldn't waste my time with it. I listened, I thanked them for their input, and Gabriel extricated me from the situation as soon as possible.
--
Back at the apartment, Gabriel fixed coffee and brought a plate of cookies from my freezer. They were Rose's cookies. She liked baking and liked sharing what she baked, handing me a box every other week, without a word, the first time having said only, "I have extra. They freeze well."
Gabriel didn't say, "Hey, do you want me to make a plate of those cookies you have in the freezer?" No more than he said, "Hey, do you guys want coffee?" Like Rose wordlessly handing me those boxes of cookies, this was Gabriel being thoughtful.
We did our research next. I tackled the obvious angle: the murders. According to Ioan, Halloran had killed two lamiae. That meant two teen prostitutes were dead, and I was surprised I hadn't heard about it. Working for years in shelters hadn't turned me into an activist, but it did raise my overall awareness, which means I tend to notice those articles. After an hour of searching, I realized I hadn't missed anything. The bodies apparently hadn't been found.
A social worker had noticed the girls' disappearances, though. I found a reference to that in a blog. A social worker who ran an outreach center for teen prostitutes said other girls had told her the two were missing and had asked for her help getting the police involved. The young woman went to the police but didn't get anywhere. What stopped me in my tracks, though, was the name of that social worker.
Aunika Madole.
Sister of Lucy Madole.
Sister-in-law to Ciro Halloran.
That set me off in a flurry of research. When I had a fuller picture of the Madole family, I shared it with Gabriel and Ricky.
"Their father died when the girls were young," I said. "Cancer. A profile piece on Aunika says insurance screwed them over, and the family was left in debt. Benefactors made sure her mother could continue running a nonprofit clinic for street kids. Their mother died two years ago. Also cancer. By that time, Aunika was working at the clinic full-time after getting her master's in social work."
"Did her sister have any connection to the center?" Ricky asked.
"According to the profile, Aunika said Lucy was 'instrumental' to it, providing donations and medical care."
"And two months ago she was stabbed to death a few blocks from the center," Ricky said. "Where her sister helped lamiae. And now the husband is killing lamiae."
"The obvious link is that Ciro somehow blames the lamiae for his wife's death. Or street girls in general, presuming he doesn't know what he's killing. He's murdering them, and his sister-in-law, ironically, is trying to bring those murders to the attention of the police."
"The alternative theory would be that Halloran murdered his wife," Gabriel said. "To do it, he lured her to that part of the city, which is easily accomplished if she has a prior connection to the area."
"The lamiae witnessed the murder, which gives him a motive to kill them. He makes it look ritualistic so their murders seem to not be connected to Lucy."
"Possible."
"Which is a working theory to add to any others," I said. "The point right now is that lamiae are dying and their killer is in the wind." I lifted my notebook. "Tomorrow I'll pay a visit to Ms. Aunika Madole."
CHAPTER TEN
I had no luck getting an interview with Aunika Madole during the day--her assistant blocked me--so I went by that evening instead. The drop-in center was in an industrial neighborhood that dated back to the days when the stench of livestock hung over Chicago and the city's gutters ran red with blood from the city's slaughterhouses. It was on the riverside, near equally old and equally empty docks. A tiny district--barely more than a few city blocks--nearly deserted at night but with city life thriving all around it.
From the looks of it, efforts had been made to revitalize this pocket, periodically, for the last hundred years--a building facade redone in a style from the forties, half a bar sign featuring a smoking girl with a sixties bob, long-dead neon from a later nightclub. The most recent effort was one strip of warehouses converted into office space, a weathered For Lease sign suggesting there'd been no new takers for years. Considering the stories I'd heard about the neighborhood, maybe the ghosts of dead mobsters didn't care to share their final resting place with the living.
There were a few lights on in those offices, as well as what looked like one successfully renovated building of condos for the brave and the antisocial. Madole's outreach center was located between the two, in a partially restored building that also housed an AA meeting place and a needle exchange. Cheap space for community services, near areas where those services would be needed.
Fog drifted along the street, the winds swirling it past. I could take that as an omen. It was certainly atmospheric. But the actual atmosphere was to blame for the fog, as a warm fall day gave way to a chilly night. With the window down, I could smell the river, adding to the night's haze.
A light shone from a window in the outreach center. There was also an older pickup truck parked out front. I got out of my car--I used the Jetta on the job, the Maserati not sending quite the right message for a PI. Rose keeps making jokes about some old TV show, calling me Magnum. I have no idea what she's talking about, but I humor her.
As I got out of the car, I realized how quiet and still it was. The surrounding empty buildings should be chock-full of transient residents, but if they were, those residents were as silent as...well, as silent as the dead.
As I thought that, a figure moved in the shadows, but when I peered into the foggy darkness, no one was there.
When my phone rang, I jumped like a scalded cat. I didn't recognize the number. I did recognize the caller's voice, as soon as she said my name.
"Pamela?" I said. "How did you get this number?"
"I only have a minute. If you really don't want to speak to me, hang up and let me call back to leave a message. I wouldn't contact you if it wasn't urgent."
"You aren't supposed to contact me at all."
"Don't. Please." Her voice was firmer than usual, and I realized there was something else odd about this call--no message warning me I was being contacted from an Illinois penitentiary.
Before I could comment, she said, "I need to see you. I know Ricky is in trouble, and that concerns me."
"Why? Don't you want him dead, too?"
A pause. Then her voice came, tense, as if she was struggling not to snap a reply. "No, I do not. I like Ricky."
"You've never met Ricky."
"I like what he's done for you. He makes you happy."
So did James, once upon a time. So does Gabriel, in his way. I didn't say that. After a while, no matter how valid the reasons, arguing starts to feel like petty bickering. So I told her to just get on with it, and she did. The summary? She'd heard about Ricky and had information. Critical information.
"Really, Pamela? Is that the best you can do?"
I hung up before she could answer. Then I turned off my phone, jogged across the road, and rapped on the door of the drop-in center. It creaked open at my touch.
I backed up and looked around, checking for omens the way other people dip their toes into water. And there it was: a dead crow behind a tra
sh bin. Dead bird equals trouble. A dead crow ups the ante.
I took out my gun, and called, "Hello?" I eased through the doorway.
The room was lit by a single bulb, the light wavering. There were posters on the walls. Not cutesy motivational ones, like that damned cat exhorting you to just "hang in there." These were portraits of girls on the street. Half of them were accompanied by later photos of the same girls--one in a graduation cap, one laughing with a toddler, another behind a desk, another in an art studio. Before-and-after shots. Some of the pictures had no second portrait, the girls still on the streets. Two had a different sort of follow-up--a tattered Missing poster for one and a gravestone for the other. Yet even those were beautiful shots, respectful and haunting, reminders of the fates that could befall lost girls.
Lost girls never matter.
As I heard the lamia's words, my gaze fell on one of the portraits. It was the older girl I'd seen die. The photographer had caught her in motion, turning away, wide-eyed, like a rabbit that had thought it was hidden if it stayed perfectly still. A fitting portrait for a kid on the streets, feeling invisible, startled when someone notices her. Equally fitting for a fae, and in that portrait I swore I could see a shimmering glimpse of something not quite human.
"I knew you'd come back," a voice said.
I turned. It was a woman. Tiny--maybe five-two and a hundred pounds. A few years older than me, she wore a cropped leather jacket, faded jeans, and sneakers, her black hair gathered in a ponytail.
"Aunika Madole," I said, tucking my gun into my back pocket. "Yes, I--"
She threw water at me.
I looked down at my dripping jacket and up at her. I thought she mistook me for an intruder and had thrown the only thing she had on hand--a glass or bottle of water. Except she held what looked like an antique metal flask. And she wasn't grabbing her cell phone to call 911. She was staring at me, intently, as if expecting to see something.
"Holy water?" I plucked at my damp shirt. "Seriously? You threw holy water at me? Sure, I've heard the demon-spawn jokes, given who my parents are--"
She ran through the doorway. I went after her. In the middle of the room she spun, with a gun in her hand now...only to see me holding mine on her. Her gaze dropped to the threshold, and I followed it to see an odd metal plate.
I backed up, crouched, and put my hand on the metal. It felt abnormally chilled, and the tingle ran down my arm. Cold-forged iron. It wouldn't kill faeries on contact, but they'd be unable to cross it. I looked at the metal bottle in her hand. Not holy water. Some other kind of liquid detection.
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