Missing, Suspected Dead
Elisabeth Hicks, Witch Detective
Rachel Graves
Copyright © 2021 by Rachel Graves
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
* * *
Edited by:
Latoya C. Smith LCS Literary Services
* * *
Cover Art by:
Taria Reed www.TariaReed.net
Cover Model: Angelina Cavanaugh
Stop trying to please everyone or live up to their standards. Do what makes you happy
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Thank you for reading!
About the Author
Also by Rachel Graves
1
The man with the gun pointed at my face called me Rebecca. My name is Elisabeth. I was willing to overlook his mistake, if he was willing not to kill me.
“Why, Rebecca? Why did you do it?”
On the tile floor in front of us my client’s body cooled slowly. By now, less than an hour after death, the corpse would be only a few degrees lower than the rest of us. He’d hired me to prove his wife was scheming against him, he’d never realized she was plotting murder.
“Why?” The muzzle of the gun bounced up and down as the old man’s hands shook. The skin there had enough scars, age spots, and freckles to look tea stained compared to the aged white of his face. His bent figure reflected in the shiny chrome and black marble surfaces of the kitchen.
“I’m not Rebecca.” I spoke as calmly and gently as I could. Rebecca had been my client’s mother. “Rebecca’s been dead for a long time.”
“Dead?” he asked me even though he’d known the answer once. Tears started down his face. “Rebecca’s dead.”
The gun stayed pointed at my chest. Behind him the ghost that had been my client rose up near the corpse. You could see the resemblance between father and son, both had strong noses and broad jaw lines, but the ghost was transparent, barely there. It stepped forward and embraced the old man. I took the chance to reach out tentatively, putting my hand over the gun with just a touch of pressure, hoping to ease it down.
The fake tissue in my left arm betrayed me. Muscles cramped, turning my hand into a claw, and he squealed with the pressure. The gun went off with a loud retort. The bullet rushed by my right leg, the good one without any replacement tissue, on its way to the floor. As it splintered the wood, I had one clear thought: I was going on vacation.
By the time my hearing came back, the real cops had arrived. Detective Garcia shouldn’t have been there. She was internal affairs and there was nothing internal about this. But I’m her favorite witch so she made a special effort.
“Old guy goes nuts, shoots his son, almost shoots you?” she summed up.
“No.” I shook my head. “Guy’s wife shoots him, then hands the gun to his father and convinces the old man he did it.”
“And you know this from?”
“From the corpse.” Actually, from the corpse’s spirit, but why quibble with details?
“What’s the wife driving?”
“New model Lexus in silver. It’s in the dead guy’s name.”
“I’ll search it through the MVA. You hang tight.”
A massage is about the only thing that helps when my muscles lock up. Massaging my arm in public killed my badass image, but helped to ease the pain. When this was over I’d see the best massage therapist in town, a wonderful guy who happened to be in love with me. With a little luck, he’d even agree to join me on that vacation.
The old man, the one who almost shot me, was on an ambulance gurney headed my way. He was calling for Rebecca again.
“It’s okay, I’m here.” I slipped him the hand on my good side. The moment my skin touched his I could see his wife, Rebecca, in my mind. He remembered her as twenty-something, with a rounded figure and a ready smile. Her hair bounced with brown curls, softer than my own black, wavy hair, but close enough to explain his confusion.
“Rebecca, where’s Andy? Am I going to see him at the hospital?”
My magic let me feel his confusion and doubt. He was lucid but not by much. I had two choices: the truth, that his son was dead and he had no one left in the world, or a comforting lie. With his Alzheimer’s and a small magical push, he’d believe me. Like a lot of my work, it was illegal, but the right thing to do.
“You’ll see him soon. Try not to worry, just trust the ambulance team, okay? And Emily is waiting for you, too.”
“Emily.” His face lit up, making me wonder who the hell Emily was.
“Emily?” the EMT pushing his cart asked.
“My daughter, Emily.” He smiled as he said it, and bliss came off him in waves, happiness, delight, straight joy. My magic gave me enough of a contact high from his emotions that I almost felt guilty. “I haven’t seen her in so long. Since her birthday, her fortieth birthday.”
Emily died of a heart attack on that birthday. The information bubbled up to me from the part of his brain that still held the memory. I shook my head at the EMT. He took the gurney away, and my unnatural good mood left along with it. Hopefully, the old guy would be okay. It was sad to think of someone suddenly alone, without a friend in the world, and sick, too, with an illness that robbed him of his mind. Garcia found me shaking my head.
“What’s going to happen to him?” I asked before she could tell me whatever she was going to say.
“Who knows. Without family, there isn’t much. Scary, huh?” Garcia had a huge family, with someone that was always ready to lend a hand. Her mother was Black, her father Hispanic. Both sides embraced her. She’d never be alone the way the guy on the gurney was. “We got the wife. She claims she saw the old man shoot the husband, freaked out, and ran. We’re running her hands for gun powder now.”
“You’ll find it. The guy tells me he came home, she was standing in the kitchen and she shot him. Probably wanted to make it look like the father thought he was a burglar.”
“Not a bad plan.” Garcia considered this for a minute, nodding. “Does it ever bother you? I mean, when someone dead shows up and starts talking like they’re alive; doesn’t that bug you?”
“Nah,” I lied. “Just another day, right?”
“Uh-huh.” Garcia gave me a long look up and down. “Except you look like hell.”
“I don’t like this.” I waved my hand at the scene. “When you can feel other peoples’ emotions, domestic disputes are a lot more trouble. I’d rather help a drug dealer finger a thieving employee than deal with the emotional damage that ruins lives.”
“So you’re not a detective for the money?” She gestured out the front door of the place where my shiny new purple motorcycle attracted more than a little
attention.
“That bike was a gift, and you know it.” A thousand police officers swirled around and Garcia took the time to needle me. She was my favorite cop but still a pain in my backside. “You know how Douglas died—well, not died but went vamp, and then that crooked jerk declared it a suicide without even blinking?”
“I remember you going after a dirty cop who was taking bribes from a succubus, not that I could ever prove anything. Succs are a problem that way.”
“Exactly. That’s what started this, the law just doesn’t cover some situations.”
“Well, the law does cover traffic accidents. So, why don’t you sit down and rest up before you wrap your pretty gift of a bike around a tree?”
I took her advice and parked myself under a tree until it was time to ride home.
One of the homeless half-slept outside my front door. We did each other favors, so when he greeted me with a seemingly sleepy nod, I paid attention. I dropped down, kneeling as if to tie my boot laces. Instead, I touched his ankle. His memory of pale flesh and bodies that didn’t breathe jumped into my mind. A vampire was waiting for me.
My gun made me feel safe, even though it was useless against a vamp. I learned that in the war, when my squad pumped lead into the vampire who ripped the tissue off my arm and leg. Left arm, right leg, they both sported new muscles grown in a lab and held together by silver bands. The bands helped the nerve impulses move along, letting the fake tissue feel like the real stuff. Now, I had friends who were vampires, three to be exact. There were another three or four I would trust in a pinch, though none of that stopped me from holding on to my gun as I walked through the opening in the wall to the parking lot.
“He wants to talk to you,” a vampire sneered from above me. Nondescript, with brown hair and rat-like dark eyes; his name was Samuel. A few months back I’d saved his life and he’d never forgiven me for it.
When I reached the top of the stairs, a second vampire, Calvin, smiled at me from the corner by my front door.
“Hey, Hicks.” The corners of his mouth were accented with the kind of thin mustache in vogue during the 20s, the last time he was alive. The matching dark blond hair on his head was pomaded back. Calvin was one of the few vampires in the world I didn’t mind. He made out-of-date look good. “It’s about a favor, something for her.”
“Why show up here?” If their master, Jean-Laurent LaRue, was inside I wouldn’t rush. I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction.
“It’s a secret,” Calvin winked. “A surprise.”
“Oh goodie.”
Calvin’s laughter sent me on my way, but when I opened the door, there was no one there.
* * *
LaRue wasn’t waiting for me in the living room or even the kitchen. No, for a man like him there was only one place to wait for a woman: the bedroom. My best friend Jo’s old furniture had been a blessing, saving me from spending money I didn’t have. The way LaRue looked on it made me think it might become a problem someday.
“Dearest Elisabeth, I cannot believe I denied myself the pleasure of this bed.” He sprawled over Jo’s peach silk comforter, his shirt open to his navel, revealing soft tawny hair that matched the long locks on his head. Black leather pants wrapped around a figure made lean by a life of hard work and missed meals centuries ago. He almost never talked about that life. Instead, he flirted like the craving for the next conquest or the need for a new lover was all that mattered to him. But he’d shown me glimpses that even though seduction was what Jean-Laurent LaRue did—and he was very good at it—there were deeper parts to his soul. I’d never embarrass him by mentioning that though.
“You don’t deny yourself much, do you?” I didn’t bother to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
“Life has denied me enough.” Suddenly, he stood next to me, his green eyes flashing with anger. LaRue was mercurial, happy one minute, angry the next. I didn’t like it, but I’d gotten used to it. “Or have you forgotten?”
I hadn’t. I couldn’t. I’d met LaRue when Josephine, the bed’s first owner, had been kidnapped by a succubus. For LaRue, it had been the last in a long string of kidnappings. Usually, the person who took his wife was his mother-in-law. Josephine’s Maman was sure LaRue was a devil who had ruined her daughter and drove the girl into sin. Both of those things might have been turn but it didn’t stop him from being heartbroken every time he lost the woman he loved. I found her using a magical necklace, which connected me to both of them, and their memories of each other. His sadness and longing for her wasn’t just something I knew about; it was something I remembered. LaRue went to a very dark place without Josephine. With the memories we’d all shared I could see why.
He put his hand on my cheek, using my magic as a bridge to make a connection between us. His blond hair fell down around his shoulders, a touch of a wave to the golden tresses, his green eyes somber. His grief over what he’d missed and how she’d had to live apart from him nearly overwhelmed me. He had her back now, but that didn’t stop him from becoming morose when he remembered the past.
“Why are you here, Jean-Laurent?” I asked quietly, not sure of his mood. “Why not be with her?”
His fingers dropped and he moved too fast for me to watch. The next time he spoke he was in the living room, lounging on the couch. He looked as natural on it as he had on the bed.
“She needs something,” he hesitated. “Something to love.”
“What?”
“No doubt you have heard about the child, the infant.”
“I heard.” Jo was a singer, one of the best I’d seen, classically trained over a hundred years ago. These days she sang at a club in LA, Burgundy and Blues. One of the servers there had had a baby a few months back. Jo’s head turned into a mix of want, pain, sadness, and anger each time she talked about it. “I don’t know what to do to help her.”
“I only know what worked before.” He was quiet for a minute, reflective. “Giving her a child would not be as easy as it once was. When we adopted our son, it was simple, a business transaction. A payment to his birth parents and the child was ours. There was no need to hide.”
“Times have changed.” Jo and LaRue had raised a son in India before electricity was common. Jo taught him how to swim, and read to him before bed at night. She was a good mom, but that didn’t matter these days. The complex laws that governed vampires and other supernatural creatures meant adoptions almost never went through.
“But she wants something to love and so I find myself in need of a favor from you.”
“What kind of a favor?” I leaned on the kitchen counter, glad for the space between us.
“I need you to keep something for me, a small thing, soft and sweet enough for her to coo over.”
“What are we talking about here? It’s alive, right? I’d need to take to care of it for how long?”
“Not long, only until the right moment. No more than a week, perhaps just a few days.”
“But it’s small, like a baby? Babies can be a lot of trouble.” Jo had been broken up over the baby for a while. I was happy to help perk her up, but worried, too. LaRue and Jo had crew of vampire servants to take care of the messy parts of everyday life. That meant LaRue didn’t have a good idea how much trouble things could be. He never seemed to notice when his “little favors” turned into big annoyances.
“It is only a cat, Elisabeth.” His eyes glowed with mirth. “Or have you forgotten what she calls me?”
Lyon, it meant lion. She called him Lyon in the heat of passion, the name of the city they’d taken their honeymoon in. Lion because of the way the hair on his chest felt like a lion’s fur. My cheeks got hot remembering the way she’d felt when she used that name. I walked into the kitchen to hide my reaction. “Why can’t you take the cat home?”
“Because she’ll smell it, on me, on the servants, even if it’s just in the house. And I’m not fool enough to hand it off to her at the wrong time. I don’t want her to think she’s only worthy of mothering a pe
t. Her feelings are delicate, and this gift must be carefully given. Or do you think I would rush into something, crassly forcing my will on someone instead of waiting to be invited?”
And we were back to seduction again. I reached into the fridge trying to cool off before I had to face him. LaRue wasn’t just a dangerous vampire, he was also very good in bed. At least he was in Jo’s memories. Part of me wanted to test that in real life, the rest of me knew better. I grabbed a beer but then put it back, deciding I needed a clear head more than anything else. “I can handle a cat.”
“I have no doubt of your abilities.” The way his voice sounded he wasn’t talking about kitten-sitting. When I stood back from the fridge, he was behind me, his cool skin against my back. “Will you let me thank you for this, when it is done?”
For a second, just a second, I leaned against him. His vibe was half lust and half fun. He enjoyed sparring with me. He relished the challenge I presented.
“Sure.” I stepped at least four feet away before I turned around. “You can pay me like everyone else.”
“That was not what I had in mind.” His eyebrows went up and a sly smile came across his lips.
“I know. When does the kitten get here?”
“Tomorrow night?” He laughed at the way it always went between us.
“Fine, call me whenever.” I sauntered over to the door, and held it open for him.
“A bien tot, Elisabeth.” He walked out my door. Handsome, seductive, and deadly. Good thing LaRue was on my side. I shut the door behind him and rested my back on the solid steel. The clock on the stove told me it was only nine thirty. Early enough to call the man I loved, the one I could sleep with and still trust in the morning. He picked up on the second ring.
Missing, Suspected Dead: Elisabeth Hicks, Witch Detective Page 1
