Thanks to my careful timing, the station was as empty as it ever got when I arrived. None of the officers on duty stopped me to ask what was doing or offered me help with my burdens. Odds were high they figured I was schlepping for another Boudreau and had no words of condolences prepared for the ending of an era. Add to it the fact I wasn’t much on hugging it out, and pretending I was invisible was more comfortable for us all.
On my way past the chief’s office, I lingered in the doorway, expecting the framed newsprint to still be hung on the wall but knowing better. All of Timmons’ belongings had been boxed and dropped off at his house to make way for Jones.
I earned a few raised eyebrows when I dumped my supplies in the shift office since there was no hiding who the equipment belonged to at that point. I made sure to get full credit for each piece then pocketed my slip so that I couldn’t be accused of stealing from the department on top of everything else. While I was there, I sat down with Sergeant Albertson and got approval to ride out my notice using vacation time.
“Your comp and sick time will both show on your last check.” She handed me a printout, the last copy of the shift schedule I would ever receive, and it blocked out my name. “Take it up with payroll if the numbers are off.” Her hard eyes raked over me. “Good luck, Boudreau.”
“Thanks.” I escaped out the front and sat in the Bronco while my heart slowed its racing then dialed Wu. “Just giving you a heads up that Rixton is onto me. He pressed me for deets, and when I withheld them, he suggested I not show my face down at the station.”
His exhale tapered into silence. “I’m sorry, Luce.”
“I dropped off my gear just now and cleared two weeks of leave through the shift office.” I dashed my fingertips under my eyes. “After that, I’m all done here.”
“I’m in town if you need company,” he offered. “I can meet you wherever you’d like.”
“You don’t want that. Trust me. I’m in a mood, and even I don’t want to be around me.” Wu reminded me of what I would never have with Rixton again, and I doubted I could keep a civil tongue when it would be so easy to lash out at him for helping land me in my current predicament. “Raincheck?”
A fist pounding on my window shocked a curse out of me. A young girl, early teens, was hammering away, the front of her shirt drenched with blood, her eyes wide.
“There’s a man,” she sobbed, her voice muffled through the glass. “He grabbed me when I walked past, and I… I…”
“I have to go,” I snapped out to Wu. “There’s a situation here.”
One I was no longer qualified to handle, but I wanted an outlet, and she had provided me one.
“Who is that?” Wu demanded, his keen ears missing nothing. “Luce.”
Ending the call, I slid out on the asphalt beside the girl and pocketed my phone. “Can you show me?”
Her head wobbled on her thin neck, and she clasped my hand. As much as I wanted to snatch it back, I let the kid have her anchor while she hauled me to a shadowed nook between two buildings.
Crimson flecks dotted the sidewalk, and a larger pool spread from under the head of a downed man. I was about to call for backup when I recognized his profile and dread ballooned in my chest.
Forgetting about the kid, I ran to Santiago and dropped beside him. “Santiago?”
“I don’t think he’s going to wake up,” the girl informed me. “I hit him pretty hard.”
The comment snapped my head up, and I forced myself to look beneath the careful application of blood and grime, to see past the innocence to evaluate her as a potential threat.
There was no way a kid had done this much damage to him. Meaning either she was charun, and I was screwed, or she had help, and I was still screwed.
“With what?” Her empty hands gave me no clues. “Never mind. Doesn’t matter. I’m calling this in.”
“Mom won’t like it if you do that,” the child sing-songed. “She taught me to protect myself at all costs.” The wispy quality to her voice evaporated, leaving behind cold maturity. “Our parents share similar philosophies, it seems.”
Twisting my upper body toward her, I carefully worked the cell from my back pocket. With one hand behind my back, I fumbled to mash redial before she caught on. “You must be Sariah.”
“I am.” The girl plucked at the frayed hem of her cutoff shorts. “And you’re my auntie.”
Using the family angle was low, but it was my own fault for exposing that weakness in the first place. “You hurt my friend.”
“Your friend hurt me first.” She pushed out her bottom lip in a pout while pointing to her elbow, abraded and crusted with blood. “Want to kiss my boo-boo?”
Eyes on Sariah, I pressed two fingers to the steady pulse at Santiago’s throat. “What do you want?”
“I came to introduce myself.” She jerked her chin toward Santiago. “He tried to stop me.”
“That’s it?” My eyebrows popped up into my hairline. “You expect me to believe you just wanted to say hi?”
“I missed introductions.” She rocked back on her heels. “I was out playing, and Mom didn’t call me back in time.”
“Here’s an idea.” Ending the call to Wu, I brought the phone out and dialed up Cole. Thanks to her charun senses, she would have heard Wu’s voicemail recording. There was no point in hiding my SOS now. “The next time you play, how about break out the sidewalk chalk instead of someone’s skull?”
A short laugh shot out of her and ricocheted off the nearby buildings. “Okay, I’ll cut the crap.” Her demeanour shifted yet again, stretching the boundaries of what looked natural on the girl. “We need to talk. I hung out in that hospital forever waiting on you, but your human partner is a bulldog. He refused to give us a moment alone, and Miller caught up to me before I could go after you.”
Recalling my brief interaction with Ivashov, I had to wonder if Sariah had been testing me by speaking Otillian. Unlucky for us both, I hadn’t understood a word she’d spoken, so whatever chat she’d wanted to instigate over Rixton’s head never happened.
“I didn’t mind the change in venue. The swamp is quieter, and it leaves fewer witnesses.” That explained why she’d gone along willingly. It fit her agenda to use him as bait. “I’d hoped you would play knight in shining armor to Miller’s damsel in distress when my sibs and I ambushed him, but no matter how close I pushed him to the edge, he refused to call for help. He smashed his cell and tossed it in the water.”
All those unanswered texts explained away at last.
“I wanted to have this conversation on neutral ground, but that’s not going to happen. I see that now. You’re too well protected. But the fact remains I’ve got a proposition for you and intel you’re going to want.”
“What kind of proposition?” Against my ear, the phone rang and rang and rang. “The only information worth the risk would be intel on the cadre.” Sariah knew where her mother and father were hiding, what their plans entailed, but she wouldn’t give them up easily. That left me with one tempting alternative. “You know when Famine is coming.”
The call connected in my ear at long last. “Luce?”
“There’s only one way to find out.” She spun on her heel and walked away. “I’ll be in touch.”
“We’ve got a problem.” As much as I itched to track down Sariah, to exact vengeance for Miller, I would never leave Santiago vulnerable. Even if he was an ass ninety percent of the time, he was my ass. “Santiago is down a block from the station.”
“What happened?” A growl reverberated through my cheek where I pressed the phone. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.” A chill danced in the exposed juncture between my shoulder blades. “Sariah paid me a visit.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” A feminine voice rose in the background, in protest or encouragement, I couldn’t tell. He snapped back at her using liquid syllables that poured through my ear. “Don’t move.”
“What about Portia?” It had been her voice I heard. “You can’t leave her unguarded.”
“I won’t leave you unguarded either.” Icy finality glazed his vow. “Thom and Miller can stay with her.”