Circle of the Moon (Soulwood #4)

I didn’t really know what I was looking for, so I started with Rick’s NOPD sleeve, the parts that my clearance level allowed. This was not the same as a personnel folder, but the kind of information that other law enforcement officials had access to. A lot was redacted, but I refreshed my memory on his history.

Richard LaFleur graduated from high school in three years, started university at seventeen in prelaw, and got his degree in criminal justice in two years. He was spotted early on, recruited and fast-tracked into undercover, researching the New Orleans vampires, which was where he met Isleen and Loriann Ethier. At the age of twenty-one he started living on the dark side, where he stayed for nine years, far longer than the one or two years for most undercover operatives. He had been in the public, visible side of law enforcement for only about three years, since he was bitten. His long history undercover explained his willingness to accept JoJo’s less-than-lawful talents. And perhaps my own, much darker, gifts.

I buried myself in research on curse spells, on blood-magic bindings and tattoo magic, and into Loriann Ethier, digging as deep as I could, saving reports to study later. Sadly, the magic stuff looked apocryphal, like boogeyman stories, not like reality. Loriann’s sleeve and social media presence were sparse to nonexistent. I was getting nowhere.

JoJo left to sleep, giving me a wave of her hand on the way past. Rick went into his cage soon after, taking a mattress and a fluffy comforter. The office went quiet. Lights low.

At three a.m. Tandy buzzed my desk phone. “What’s up, Tandy?”

“Get up here. I just heard a report on official police radio frequencies that the body of a young girl has been found in a ditch. Passing motorist, grisly crime scene, according to the chatter.”

I raced to the conference room. “We’ve got voice-to-text,” Tandy said, pointing to a screen that had text across the bottom, dedicating it to KCLE—Knox County law enforcement.

“Is it the Blalock girl?”

Tandy shook his head, his pale skin and Lichtenberg lines picking up the glow from the screens in the darkened conference room. “I don’t know.”

I got coffee for us and waited with him, the volume on the radio chatter turned low, watching the screen. We sipped, listened, read as things were updated, Tandy still tapping away on his tablet, his body mechanics currently a lot like JoJo’s. It made me wonder if he was picking up more than just an intro into information gathering—hacking—from JoJo, but also taking on her personality and habits. I wondered if that meant the empath was losing bits of himself, of his own personality. Taking on bits of everyone else. Wondered if that was common to all empaths or something peculiar to Tandy.

Most of what Margot had put together about missing girls and our suspect would be incorrect if the body was ID’d as Raynay Blalock. There was no way creepy Jim Paton could have taken her, stashed her, banged on her mother’s door, and killed her. The timeline was impossible. And Paton was in custody now. He wasn’t the killer.

Within half an hour, we saw text from the investigator who had taken over the scene, calling for the chief forensic pathologist and the chief medical examiner of Knox County.

Tandy muttered, “Odd that both were called.”

Having both the forensic pathologist and the ME on-site was a rare event under any circumstances, TV and films notwithstanding. “What does it mean?”

“At a guess, it implies that the crime scene is so bad, or so weird, that the top brass are needed personally to handle the body at the scene and direct the evidence collection.”

“If it’s weird, then PsyLED should be there,” I said. But the phones didn’t ring.

I drank too much coffee and ingested too much chatter that told me nothing, but in my rooty gut I had a feeling that the girl—the body—was Raynay Blalock.

The coroner’s van arrived. KPD set up a live-feed camera and Tandy put it up on the screens. More lights lit the scenes.

A woman in a white Tyvek uni with mask and gloves stepped into a ditch. We got a view of the body from the camera on her suit. I looked away.

“Someone from PsyLED needs to be there,” Tandy said.

“Yes,” I said. “And the officers at the scene had to know that. They didn’t contact us.”

“I’ve got their names and the name of the investigator who showed up first. Detective Emery Hamm.”

He punched in a number on the official line and Occam answered, “What’s up?” his voice carrying over the speakers in the conference room. He sounded groggy. Voice rough. The way a man did when he was waked from a deep sleep. Something warmed in me at the sound and Tandy sent me a look that said he had picked up on my reaction. I looked back at the screens, finding them suddenly fascinating.

“Hate to wake you, Occam,” Tandy said. “We have an incident. Deceased human female, vamp bites, and no one in PsyLED was notified. Nell shouldn’t handle it alone. Rick’s in his cage.”

“Is it the girl who went missing today?”

“Unknown.”

“Is Margot Racer on scene?” Occam asked. “She was in charge of the abduction earlier,” the werecat said, suddenly sounding alert.

“No. So far as we’ve been able to detect, she wasn’t notified either.”

“Already tarred with the brush. I’ll call her. Send the particulars to my cell. I’m on my way in five.”

“Copy that. Info going out now.” The connection ended and Tandy activated additional screens overhead as the officers and investigators on scene sent active video to their headquarters, something that would not have happened only a year past. Tech was making everything at crime scenes an instantaneous matter of record. Because of the same changes in tech, Tandy was also able to put up shots of the crime scene as they were uploaded to the coroner’s files and local law enforcement. All of which was supposed to be “eyes only” and encrypted.

I didn’t ask how Tandy got access to all the info. I also didn’t study anything too carefully. There were parts of being an investigator that I would never get used to, and seeing crime scenes involving children, even children who were seventeen and older, children I had once been accustomed to viewing as adults of marriageable age, was one of them.

Within an hour, Occam and Margot Racer were an active part of the investigation, though the conversation when the two special agents met with Detective Hamm was off the record. Hamm left the scene; minutes later a tentative ID went on record. The body was believed to be that of Raynay Blalock. Preliminary COD was exsanguination. She had been drained of blood from multiple vampire bites. PsyLED and the FBI were now lead on the case.

I wanted to contact Yummy. I wanted to track down every single aligned and rogue vampire in Knox County and fill them with silver, but I was bound by laws and protocol and, as probie, governed by Tandy, who levered a look at me each time I thought about investigating on my own or contacting Knoxville’s vampires. He was right. I wasn’t a private citizen, so I stayed put until I received orders otherwise. If a Knoxville vamp killed the girl, if that was even halfway provable, that vampire would be judged and punished by Ming. Punished in this case being a vamp euphemism meaning killed true-dead. If the vampire or vampires who had killed Blalock were Ming’s enemies, then … I didn’t know what happened in that case, but it still wouldn’t be me who dealt with it. Occam called in to HQ and discussed the lack of official communication with Tandy, who called the sheriff and complained. Again.

At four thirty, I peeked in on Rick, who was sleeping too hard, his breathing fast, too deep, his chest heaving up and down, as if he was chasing prey or racing for his life. The moon had risen around three a.m., and I wondered if the moon had affected his sleep. I decided that waking him would be dangerous and left him sleeping. I checked my plants again, this time looking for dead leaves, letting my mind wander through bits and pieces of information and memories, alighting on this or that, to no specific purpose.

As daybreak began to gray the world outside, a white female walked up to the exterior door and knocked. Tandy adjusted the camera to get a good look at her face. It was Loriann Ethier. From New Orleans. Tandy’s hands flew over the keys as he determined how she’d gotten here, and he said, “She took a red-eye direct. Go wake up Rick. Occam’s on his way. The others will be here in half an hour.”

“What about her?” I asked, staring at the screen with Loriann’s face on it.

“She can wait until Rick says to invite her up.”

Almost as if she had heard the words, Loriann looked into the camera, pointed to the side, and walked into the coffee shop that had opened at five for the morning’s business. Coffee’s On had the best coffee in the city, though I might be prejudiced. I was a regular. The security video from Coffee’s On appeared on the next screen. I looked at Tandy, who wore a defiant expression. “JoJo’s work. We have an in for Yoshi’s Deli’s security cameras too. In case someone goes after the neighbors.”

“And do they know we’ve invaded their privacy?”