Circle of the Moon (Soulwood #4)

I put a sweet look on my face and let my voice rise a little, more high-pitched than my normal tone, as I stepped in, interrupting the chitchat. “Mr. Paton, I’m probationary special agent Nell Ingram with PsyLED. I understand you saw the girl abducted?”

Paton turned to me, and I understood Margot’s church-dar comment. Paton surveyed me in one swift glance, evaluating and categorizing me, my voice, body type, hair, shoes, and gun. It was fast, so fast I’d have missed it had I not been focused so tightly on him.

“Probationary? Such a sweet young woman for such a dangerous job.” He shook his head. “I was just about to fix Officer Cobb a cup of coffee. Would you like one? Or maybe tea?”

“No, thank you,” I said, my voice going a little more girlish. “I know you’ve already told your story several times, but can you tell me what you saw?”

“I came in from work, got a cola from the fridge”—he pointed at the gold antique—“and sat in my recliner. I looked out the front window and saw Raynay walking to the mailbox. A black panel van rolled up, braked, and I saw several pairs of feet moving faster than a human possibly can. The van sped off. Raynay was gone. I raced across the street, banged on the door, and told Lonie what I had seen. Lonie Blalock. That’s Raynay’s mother. We called the police together. They got here fast and said it sounded like a vampire kidnapping. Do you know anything new?”

“Did you see a license plate? Get a look at the driver?”

“The van was between Raynay and me.” He put a hand over his heart, a gesture of commiseration, but … it looked off. Affected. Fake. My newly described church-dar for creepy old men was clanging loudly. “The windows were tinted,” he continued. “It happened so fast. I didn’t see anything else.”

“I see,” I said. “You were in the recliner? In the living room?”

Paton’s face altered just a hint. Barest tightening of the creases around his smiling blue eyes. “That’s what I said.”

“The recliner in the living room?”

Paton said nothing.

“The recliner in the living room?” I repeated.

“Yes,” Paton said, and he pasted a happy, innocent smile on his face.

“Thank you.” I left the kitchen for the living room and stood near the recliner. The drapes were closed, but I couldn’t rule out that Paton had closed them. I opened the drapes. A puff of dust filtered out. I retook my position at the recliner, looking out the front windows. I bent to where Paton’s head would have been when he used the chair. Shifting back and forth, I considered his line of sight along the recline position. The draperies obscured most of the yard across the street. The area where the crime scene tech worked was hidden behind the trees. I opened the front door and studied Paton’s house. There was one window that gave a clear line of sight to the place where the girl supposedly had been abducted. I texted Margot and JoJo on the same thread. Witness lying. Margot, get over here. Jo, check databases for past domestic abuse or sexual assault allegations on Paton.

Margot strode across the street to me. Jo texted back, In process. Margot called out, “What do we have?”

I shut the door to give us privacy. “Witness says he was in his recliner when he saw the girl abducted. He saw several pairs of feet beneath a van. You can’t see the house from his chair. But there’s a bedroom window that might work.” I pointed. “And it’s low enough that he might see feet.”

Margot changed direction and walked to the window. She leaned in and made a circle of her hands against the screen, pressing her face close. “Gotcha, you lying son of a bitch.” She raced to the porch, past me, and inside, one hand on her weapon. She looked heated and cold all at once, focused and scary. I followed her more slowly. “Mr. Paton,” she said. “You’ve told us several times about seeing Raynay abducted. Tell me again. Starting with where you were when you saw the event. And this time? I want the truth.”

“I’ll be calling my lawyer,” Paton said calmly.

“In that case I’ll be taking you in for questioning.” There was something gleeful in Margot’s voice. “Read Mr. Paton his rights, Officer. Cuff him, and put him in my unit.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the cop said.

“Don’t touch anything,” she added. “I want a warrant for this one.” Margot came back in the main room.

“Be sure to include the backyard in the warrant,” I said softly for her ears only. “And his business office. And any properties he might own or rent. And whatever he watches on the TV in the main room.”

“Why’s that?” Margot asked.

“Church-dar. For creepy old men.” For things that seem wrong.

? ? ?

Back in the Blalock yard, I asked the crime scene tech to step back and used the psy-meter 2.0, reading the spot where Raynay disappeared. I caught a hint of vampire. Which was strange because vampires in the daylight were impossible. But Paton’s description of the abduction sounded like the way well-fed blood-servants moved—faster than normal. And paneled vans with tinted windows were a common method of transportation for vampires.

I looked back at the window of Paton’s house that faced this spot. Compared it to the front of the house where Raynay lived. On a hunch I packed up the psy-meter, thanked the tech, and made my way to the Blalock house. Quietly, I made my way down the hall to the bedroom where two cops and a crime scene tech were standing. Green walls and carpet. Unmade bed. Clothes on the floor. High school banners hung on one wall. The room of the abducted girl faced the front of the house, overlooking Paton’s house, with a clear view of the window where Margot had said, Gotcha, you lying son of a bitch. What had she seen?

My cell dinged. JoJo had sent a text to Margot and me. Found a Peeping Tom report from twenty years ago, and one count of lewd behavior with a minor. Nothing since.

Margot texted back, He went underground.

She meant that Paton was a sexual predator who had learned to hide his activities enough to be considered safe around neighbors. But why would a sexual predator claim he had witnessed an abduction if he was the culprit? Why not just remain silent? I thought about the sanctimonious predators at the church and considered them in light of the evidence here. I texted back, I’ll access all reports of missing girls when I get back to HQ. But I think he really saw the girl abducted. It fits the MO of a man hiding his own activities. In warrant, look for child pornography.

Margot texted back, My money says we got him.

I hoped her money was right, but just in case, I sent a text to Yummy that said, Can vampires smell other vampires and their blood-servants? If so, when you wake and get this, I’d like you to take a sniff at the abduction site of a human teenager. Then I sent a shorter text, Please.

? ? ?

Because a child was missing, Margot got her paper in record time. I spent the next hours working on my search on Isleen and Loriann, running back and forth between Paton’s house and the Blalock home, updating people at HQ, and keeping my nose in everything important.

In the middle of the running around, my laptop dinged. I took it to the truck and plugged it in to charge while I looked at the results of my search. I sat for a while, sweating, my fingers on the keyboard, limp, as I stared at the results. Then I called JoJo on her cell.

“Jones,” she said.

“I may have found Loriann, Rick’s ink blood-magic witch.”

“Go, probie!”

“Not really. Things areconvoluted. There’s an NOPD complication from the two years after Rick was inked.” I told what I had discovered.

Jo listened and then said softly, “I’ll do some more research and then call Soul.”

“Copy that.” I ended the call. If I was right about what I had discovered, Rick had been hiding things from his unit.

? ? ?

Two hours after the call had first come in, we had significant evidence against Jim Paton for possessing child pornography and for watching Raynay Blalock through her window with a telescope that was usually set up on a tripod in his bedroom. The scope was found under the bed, but the feet of the stand had made indentations in the carpet that were impossible to explain away. Jim claimed he had nothing to do with Raynay’s kidnapping, but he was in deep trouble and his lawyer was trying to arrange bail and a safe place for the man to stay. So far no judge was willing to consider letting him out on personal recognizance, and Jim wasn’t going to be safe in his own house anymore, not since word had gotten out to his neighbors that he was into abuse of children.