Circle of the Moon (Soulwood #4)

“You do. You’re a lone witch. You need a coven to fight this, even if it’s only a small coven. A coven of two is better than none.”

True.

Rick said, “Step out into the hallway. Close the door. Wait.”

Loriann opened her mouth to argue, closed it. Followed orders. The door shut with a soft snap. “Secure us,” he said to T. Laine and JoJo. Our witch nodded, withdrew a small moonstone from a pocket, and tapped it three times on the table. A small hedge of thorns leaped up around us, tingling on my skin. The hedge made sure our magical visitor couldn’t hear. JoJo switched off Clementine so there was no recording.

“I don’t know if she can be believed about anything relating to this case.” Rick sat back in his chair, relaxing for the first time since he woke. Thoughtfully, he shifted his eyes around the table. “Assessment. Kent?”

“If it was up to me, I’d set her tail on fire and put her on a flight back to New Orleans,” T. Laine said.

“I’m not rich, but I’ll pay her way myself,” JoJo grumped. “That girl sets my teeth on edge.”

“Occam?” Rick asked.

The werecat shook his head, his eyes still haunted. “We got some bad stuff happening, boss. Too much bad stuff. If she has a snowball’s chance in hell of helping out on even a portion of it, then let her stay.”

“Tandy?” Rick asked.

“Loriann Ethier is lying. She is so full of anger, guilt, and jealousy that the emotions swirl around her like a slow-moving, dark tornado. But—” Tandy looked at JoJo, and she nodded at him to continue, as if there had been some silent communication between them, question and answer. “But I think the tornado is destroying her inside, rather than a landscape outside of herself. I think she’s profoundly self-destructive and utterly, dreadfully dangerous.”

Rick nodded slowly, his head moving against the windows. “Yes. Yes. She has always carried those emotions, always been turned against herself. I think it started when she couldn’t protect her family from Isleen. Nell?”

“If she stays, someone has to watch her. And I don’t want her at Soulwood.”

“Why?” Rick asked.

Because the land will view her as a threat and eat her. But I didn’t say those words. Instead I said, “Because Soulwood will magnify everything she’s feeling and it will affect everything that we do.”

A single word appeared on my cell phone. True.

I looked at Tandy. “Stop assessing me.”

Tandy tilted his head in a tiny shrug.

Rick sighed and said, “Open the door, please.”

I was closest so I stood and opened the door. Loriann stepped from the hallway lights into the darkness of the unlit room, blinking.

“You have a car?” Rick asked her.

Loriann bobbed her head. “Yes. Rental.”

“If a liaison position is approved, you can stay,” Rick said. “JoJo, you have her number. Make a hotel reservation and text her the particulars.” To Loriann, he added, “We’ll see you at four p.m. For now”—he gave her a heartless, unamused smile and rested his arms on the chair arms, a king at ease—“you are dismissed.”

I held in my grin. Rick had learned a thing or two from vampires and dismissing a lesser being was one of them. It put Loriann in her place. She frowned at us, whirled away, and left the building.

Rick’s shoulders relaxed as he looked us over. “Well done.” Everyone blew out a breath and the overhead lights came on, making us all squint into the brightness. Rick stood and slid the donut box around the table. The others tossed in a few dollars and took a donut.

I took another of the fantastic pastries and bit in, studying Rick even as he studied us. The vampire kidnapping and murder had to be triggering memories. Loriann’s reappearance had to be triggering memories. Occam’s distress had to be affecting his cat. Yet the boss didn’t look freaked out. He met my eyes and gave me a twisted smile. He tapped his ear, and said, “Music. It helps.” I realized he was listening to the spell music, which was why he was okay.

The day shift poured coffee. I took a water bottle from the fridge, the label marked with an X and my name. It was a reused bottle filled with Soulwood water. When we were all settled again, Rick said, “JoJo, track Loriann’s cell phone.”

JoJo’s eyebrows went up. “Can do. But do you want a warrant first?”

“Soul is getting papers. Once you get the cell tracking, I also want the photos of the circles enhanced and enlarged as much as you possibly can. T. Laine, I want you to search the photos of the enhanced circles again, looking for anything we might have missed. Anything, no matter how small. And when Loriann joins us, someone needs to take her to the most recent sites and observe her. Whatever she’s hiding, it’s at the circles.” The IT tech and the witch both agreed. “Occam,” Rick said. “You went to a crime scene. Report.”

? ? ?

Occam was on the phone to someone in local law enforcement. He looked tired, despondent, and sounded frustrated. He was focused on his call and lifted a hand to me when I came by, but didn’t try to flag me down. I got a small potted rosemary plant from my cubicle and brought it to him. I placed it on his desk and when he looked up at me, quizzically, listening to the masculine voice on the other end of the phone, I captured his fused fingers and guided them to the soil. Soulwood soil.

Occam took a slow breath and blew it out. He focused on me as if he had never seen me before and said, “Hold on.” He tapped his cell, set it down, and reached for me. I placed my fingers into his unscarred hand and he closed it around mine. He was werecat-warm. “That’s … Thank you.”

I bobbed my head, slid my fingers free, and left him to his call, satisfied that I had helped.

I was late leaving work and Margot Racer drove up just as I got into my C10. She lowered the window of her car and waved a listless hand at me. I was pretty sure she was wearing the same shirt from the day before.

I walked over. “You just left the Blalock girl’s crime scene?”

“Yeah. It was bad. Crimes against children always are. Now I’m heading to talk to Jim Paton again, after letting him stew in a cell all night.”

“He was watching the girl?”

She nodded. “There was a lot of porn on his PC, and a lot of it was photos of young girls he had taken himself.” A look of sly, repressed fury settled on her face. “Then someone took her.”

“She was his,” I said softly. “He couldn’t stand that. That’s why he got involved. Why he reported it.”

“Yeah. I can’t see any evidence that he physically abused girls since the one time he was caught, but I’m still on him. If he has secrets, I’ll find them. And I’ll find the vamps who killed Raynay Blalock.” Margot sped away, her tires screeching on the pavement. I wasn’t sure why she had come by, or why she hadn’t gone inside HQ. Unless she had been looking for me. Like a friend might. That made me feel oddly warm inside.

I went home to a house that was already miserably hot. Mud was staying with her half sibs and true sibs, these last weeks before school started. Knowing I wouldn’t be interrupted, I took a short shower and fell into bed. But sleep was elusive so I grabbed the computer and stretched out on the hammock on the back porch. It was stiff and covered in cat hair, but the porch was cooler than the stuffy house. I made a few calls to my local bank and started filing information online for a loan, for what turned out to be a line of credit on the house and land. When I was done, I closed my eyes. I was turning into a townie. Mud and me together. Sleep took its own good time finding me.

? ? ?

To make up for the two donuts, I made a sizable fresh veggie and greens salad from the garden, enough to share, if a certain cat-man happened to stay over for a while after he got off work. I got to work early and put the salad in the break room fridge, beneath Rick’s takeout and on top of a pizza box. The entire second floor stank of fast food, and the sound of voices, both from video footage and from the office cubicles, was everywhere. I locked up my gobags and my weapon and eased into my seat for the end-of-day debriefing, listening to catch up on where everyone was.

Occam slid into his chair, cat-fast, finishing off a burger. Rick’s hair was tangled and flyaway and his clothes were wrinkled. He looked tired and poorly groomed and irritable again. Everyone took places for the meeting except for Loriann Ethier and Margot Racer. Loriann was due in an hour. Margot was busy with the Blalock investigation. Rick pointed to the overhead screens and I saw footage of Margot and the sheriff giving a news conference on the body they had found. There was no mention of vampires as the killers. Not yet.