Country living made carpooling too much of a hassle. Dad and I had always driven our personal vehicles to the station then rode out with our partners from there. Regulations required patrol cars to remain within the city limits, so it made more sense for our partners, who both resided in town, to keep the cruisers with them.
Letting myself in the front door, I was drawn toward the living room by raucous laughter. I crept down the hall, listening until I could pick out the individual voices. Each one belonged to one of Dad’s fishing buddies, and his voice threaded through the rowdy conversation. Careful to keep out of sight, I leaned my head against the wall and soaked up the atmosphere until the happy chaos made my eyelids heavy.
On soft feet, I backtracked to the entryway and dashed through the kitchen to avoid giving myself away. I didn’t want to spoil his fun while he felt well enough for visitors. I scooted into the sewing room, ready to hit the air mattress face-first. As I unsnapped the first keeper supporting my gun belt, I froze when a sixth sense tingled across my skin. The weapon was in my hand, aimed at the far corner, when I reached over and flipped on the light.
“Cole.” I puffed out my cheeks then lowered the weapon. “Hiding out in darkened bedrooms is a good way to get shot.”
“You hung up on me.”
Shrugging, I set the gun on the sewing table and started back on the snaps. “You sounded busy.”
His heavy brows furrowed. “I was busy.”
“I don’t need details.” Me and my overactive imagination could fill in the blanks just fine. “What are you doing here?” Finished with the fasteners, I looped my duty belt over a chair that threatened to tip backward until I kicked off my boots and sat them on the seat. “What happened with Ivashov? I haven’t heard from Miller since I left the hospital.”
“He refused to give up his mistress or any details of his operation, even with her stink embedded in his skin, so Miller is taking care of the problem.”
Since Miller tended to solve problems by dunking his victims in stomach acid after a short trip down his esophagus, there was nothing to say except, “Okay.”
“I thought you might be interested in this.” Cole extended a folder toward me. “The lab sent it over this morning.”
“I read their email.” I took it, careful not to brush his fingers, and flipped it open. “Is this more of the same?” Rather than answer, he stood there and watched until I hit the amendment at the bottom. “This report is on the second plant.” I skimmed lower. “The soil mixture from the Orvis nursery sample matched those taken from the roots of the ones planted in my yard.” A sigh welled up in me. “Why does this not surprise me after the day I’ve had?”
Cole accepted the file and tossed it on a stack with others I kept on the sewing desk. “What happened?”
“That’s right.” I started unbuttoning my uniform shirt. “I lost my shadow. How crazy did that make you?” Cole held his tongue while I tossed the heavy polyester shirt onto my pile of dirties. I still wore a long-sleeved silk pointelle undershirt that covered my arms and hugged my curves. I always kept the farmhouse like an icebox to compensate for the layers I wore, but Uncle Harold and Aunt Nancy weren’t used to the cold. “I’m roasting in here. Can you turn around while I slide on some shorts?”
The mountain uprooted itself and pivoted toward the wall to give me privacy.
A shower was mandatory before changing into my pajamas, so I slid on last night’s cotton shorts and sank cross-legged onto the mattress with my backpack in my lap. “I’m decent.” I patted the carpet. “Have a seat.”
With more grace than a man of his mass ought to possess, Cole folded himself into lotus position on the floor opposite me. “You have something to share?”
“I do.” I pulled out my hardcopies of the crime scene photos and passed them over. “This is my only paper set, but scans of the originals are floating around in Miller’s and Santiago’s inboxes.”
“These must be the Madison victims,” he murmured. “What am I missing?”
“Four are children, all under the age of eight. Ms. Orvis was five-six and weighed one seventy-five.”
“Ms. Orvis must have been a long-term host to a viscarre. That would explain why she burnt to a husk.”
“It makes sense, given the link between the valerian plants, that Ms. Orvis was a host. I can buy that she was facilitating a Drosera. What I don’t get is why this evidence was left for us to find.”
“Parasitic charun have, in the past, acted as sleeper agents. Once activated, they complete their mission and then suicide. A charun who has remained in a host for too long won’t leave anything but skin behind unless they sacrifice themselves too. The real question is – What was the assignment? And does the presence of a husk indicate a completed mission or an aborted one?”
While those were both perfectly good questions, I had gotten stuck on the mechanics. “Are you telling me that if a coroner sliced open one of these sleeper agents, she would find a charun under its skin?”
“Cohabitation is more complicated than a stack of Russian nesting dolls, Luce. The charun interested in pairing will be absorbed by the host. Cutting open a host would reveal abnormalities in the organs and blood, small adaptations created when two species merge, but there wouldn’t be an actual charun folded up inside the host, no.”
“That makes no sense.” I ground the heels of my palms into my eyes. “How does it work?”
“Call it what you want: thaumaturgy, alchemy, diabolism, magic.”
“Let’s stick with magic.” At least it was less alien than the alternatives. I had never heard of thaumaturgy and would have mistaken it for thermology or another heat-based study rather than dealing with the occult. “Though, after this talk, I’m going to imagine charun in search of cohabitation shrinking down to multivitamin size then getting swallowed by a host.”
“I’m not sure that would work.” One corner of his lips curled the slightest bit. “The host would digest them.”
“Sure, expect me to believe a super gator can merge with a human, but scoff at a magical multivitamin.”
The wondering regard he bestowed on me ruched his meltwater eyes into crow’s feet. Both fond and amused, frustrated and annoyed, fascinated and apprehensive, it vanished from his expression in a blink, making it impossible for me to glean more from him than the fact an unfathomable magnetism kept attracting us when it ought to have repelled.
“You hung up on me,” he said, a lion-headed dragon with a thorn stuck in his paw.
Just as quickly as he resurrected the topic, I buried it down deep where it would be forgotten. To make certain he dropped it this time, I flung out bait he couldn’t resist. “Wu was in Madison. He paid a visit to the arson investigator. Summers claimed he wanted copies of the coroner’s reports, but when she went digging, she discovered the bodies had never reached the coroner’s office.” I tapped the papers in his hand. “No official record of these exists. Someone erased them. We’re talking dug into private mail servers and scrubbed inboxes clean.”
“Sounds like your future partner is working overtime to bury this case.” His dedication obviously troubled Cole. “Has he mentioned it to you?”
“We talked about the possibility of an infiltration over dinner that night, but our speculation was prior to the Madison incident. New evidence might have prompted him to act since he was already aware of the situation.” Without my permission, my gaze slid to the pocket where I kept the black phone. I would have to woman-up and call Wu at some point to confess my sins. “He’s kind of pissed at me right now.”
Cole followed my line of sight. “Any particular reason?”
“Santiago dissected the phone Wu gave me and screwed with the GPS for kicks.” I scratched my nail over the zippered compartment. “When Wu chatted up Summers, he told her I was sightseeing in New York.”