“Unless—” Soul stopped. “Perhaps the males can mask all scent traces as they age. We don’t know enough and I have a bad feeling that we need to move quickly, need to tear the fabric of this case apart and knot it back together again.” Soul slowly twisted her hair into a coil, an unconscious gesture of self-soothing while she summarized. “The Tollivers own DNAKeys. DNAKeys is doing genetic research on paranormal beings to accomplish some amorphous goal. We don’t know what that goal is, so we have to consider the possibility that it pertains to this case. Brainstorm, people.”
“Okay,” I said, following her reasoning and guesswork. “What if the testing at DNAKeys has to do with some genetic problem the pyros have, or a falling birthrate, or a predisposition to some dire illness? Maybe the attacks lead back to that research.”
Coiling her hair tighter, she frowned, staring into space. “I want us to go back over everything we’ve done to this point and get a fresh perspective.”
Rick spoke for the first time, with what might have been amusement. “There’s no evidence for any connection between the pyros and DNAKeys except that it’s a business the Tolliver family owns. There’s no logic, in a world full of paranormals, to suggest that, if we have pyros, then we must have vampires and werewolves involved on the periphery of these crimes.”
“And mad scientists,” JoJo said with a straight face.
“True,” Soul said. “I agree we have no hard evidence other than the presence of known and unknown paranormals scented there and the Tollivers owning this medical research facility; however, a pyro is coming after the Tollivers and the Tollivers may be pyros. We have circumstantial evidence pointing to this facility and want to leave no stone unturned.” She seemed to realize she was coiling her hair and placed her hands at her sides instead. “I know it isn’t safe for you to read deeply,” Soul said to me, “but if you could read specifically for the traces you picked up in the ground at the crime scenes, it might help.”
“What do special agents with children at home do when they have a case like this, that requires long hours?”
Soul looked perplexed at my non sequitur. “Woolgathering again, Ingram?”
I said, “Yes, I’ll do the reading. No, not shearing sheep. What do people do with their children?”
“They have family. Spouses. Or day care,” Soul said.
“Day care is for babies. What about a twelve-year-old who can’t stay alone at night. What about that?”
Occam was watching me with sharp eyes. “Nell, sugar, you talking about Mindy?”
“Maybe,” I said.
“You’re gonna adopt that girl to keep her safe.” His mouth spread into a smile, his dimple peeking out on the side. “I’m proud of you, Nellie.”
I scowled. What he said was nice, but I wasn’t sure I wanted anyone to be proud of me for something I should have started months ago.
“We would have to make concessions with your schedule,” Rick said.
“In an emergency, a child of twelve or older could sleep here while you pull paperwork hours,” JoJo said. “I’d never tell.”
Rick and Soul exchanged a look that I couldn’t interpret. As a child raised in God’s Cloud of Glory Church, I had gotten pretty good at reading body language, but some things were beyond me. Rick said, “We’ll chat once you know if this will be a conflict or a problem. For now, I’d like you to go read the land near DNAKeys.”
“I’ll go with,” Occam said, too casually, too offhand.
JoJo coughed into her hand, burying the words, “Captain Obvious,” in the fake cough.
Without looking at him, knowing my face was flaming, I got up and left the conference room, and then HQ. Outside, the weather was dry and warm. It would get up to sixty tomorrow as the cold front moved off and a front from Southern California moved in, desert dry. Weather in the South—you don’t like it today, wait a couple days and the entire season will change.
I threw my gear into the space behind the seat and climbed in. Gunned my C10 out of the parking lot and out toward Rutledge Pike. Within a few minutes, I spotted Occam’s headlights in my rearview mirror. My cell rang. I glanced at it, not surprised to see Occam’s number. I punched answer and put it on speaker. “Ingram,” I said, setting the tone for conversation.
Occam hesitated at the name. “Ingram. I apologize for anything untoward I may have said or done. Sometimes I’m jist stupid. And my cat is stupider.”
I smiled out into the night, remembering him sitting on the floor, blocking the hallway. Remembered his cat scent-marking me, claiming me. “Apology accepted.”
“I was trying to find a time when we could chat, face-to-face. In private.”
“We’re pretty private right now.”
I heard him sigh. “I reckon we are.” He sounded mighty Texan in that moment. “You going to date Ben Aden?”
“No. Ben’s human. Ben needs a human wife. I’m not human.” I scowled out at the world through the windshield. “I plan on having a chat with my parents about being not human.”
“And Mud ain’t human either? So you figure you might have to shelter her.”
“Correct.”
“I’m good with that. You gonna date me?”
Was I? I thought again about what that might mean. It made my insides clench. But that was fear talking and uncertainty and distrust that hadn’t been earned. “Dinner and a movie,” I said softly, “in a theater. The first night we have off at the same time.”
“Steak?”
“Pizza. And a comedy.”
“Chick flick,” he said. His tone was only slightly scathing.
I smiled and changed lanes. His headlights followed. “If you don’t like comedy I’ll go for historical drama or even something like Star Wars.”
“Okay. I can make that happen.” His tone was smiling. That might not be a real thing, but I could hear it nonetheless.
“And, despite the approval already given by Pea, what if an older, more experienced grindylow is against us . . .” I didn’t know what to call it, but settled on, “. . . dating. Pea’s a baby still.”
“That won’t be a problem, Nell, sugar.” He sounded pleased, maybe a tad smug.
“Yeah,” I said. Because I wasn’t human and so might be unable to contract the were-taint, the prion that caused were-ism. “Hey, Occam. I put in for a car ages ago. How do I get it approved and make sure it has heated seats?”
“JoJo can make that happen.”
“Yeah? JoJo can do anything.”
“JoJo is the queen of making things happen, sugar.”
THIRTEEN
I pulled off the narrow private road on the far side of House Mountain and backed into a weed-covered drive, about half a mile from the place where Rick and Occam had parked last time. Maybe the distance would give us some protection from spying eyes who might remember the cars or surveillance equipment that the cats might have missed. Occam pulled in behind me, his car facing out too. There would be no time-consuming three-point turns to slow down our escape route if we needed out fast.