Chapter 24

T he hotel buzzed with activity when we arrived, and I sat in the wagon for a minute to gather my courage to go in and face the techs dusting for prints and searching for clues. There were others, at the house Harrow had rented when he got back in town, and still more swept Lyle's property for any hint as to where Harrow might have taken Matty.

When my phone rang, I figured Carter had spotted me and was about to tell me to get my butt upstairs, but a quick check of the caller ID disabused me of that notion. "Harrow."

"I know you're pissed at me."

"Pissed?" His voice pierced my brain like an ice pick through the ear. "No. Pissed isn't the right word."

Spirits roused beneath the pavement, their moans growing in volume, but Kierce set his hand on mine. It didn't stop them. I was too wired for that. But it did dial them down enough for me to hear what Harrow said next without giving away that Kierce was beside me.

"I heard about the recordings from a friend in the 514. I can guess what you think of me."

"You kidnapped my brother. You don't have to guess. I'll tell you. You're dead to me. Hurt him and you'll be dead to everyone else too. I might kill you anyway for thinking you can put hands on Matty after you tried it with me." I drew in a ragged breath. "Where is he?"

"Safe."

"Safe isn't a location." I gritted my jaw to keep from screaming at him. "Where is my brother?"

"Meet me at Wormsloe at ten, alone, and listen to what I have to say."

"Bring him with you." I trembled with rage at his gall. "If I don't see him when I pull up, I won't stop."

A bluff. A bad one. I would scour every inch of the plantation for the slightest hope of finding him.

"That's fair," he soothed, propelling my fury into a whole new dimension, where entire worlds died from my salty tears poisoning their lakes and my sobs crackled across the skies with deadly electric promise.

"What about Badb?"

"What about her?"

"You almost killed her."

"She's the one who assaulted me. I didn't touch that damn bird."

For no good reason, I believed him. But I didn't want to, so I ignored it in favor of embracing more anger.

Unable to stomach talking to him for one more second, I ended the call and forced myself to release the death grip on my phone rather than throwing it as far as I could across the parking lot.

"I would kill him for you."

Kierce said it conversationally, and again I was put in a frame of mind to reflect on what Bash had said to me about how Kierce reacted to my words. "If I decide he needs to die, I'll kill him myself."

"Do you believe him?"

"About Badb?" I wanted to lie and say no, but the best I could do was admit, "I don't know."

We had time before the meeting at Wormsloe Plantation, so we got out and went in search of Carter.

By the time we reached the correct floor, word must have traveled, because she waited for us two steps away from the elevator doors. Her eyes met mine then dropped to the pink-striped fabric straps crossing Kierce's chest. I wasn't sure what she meant to tell me before the sight of him sent her thought train smashing into the tunnel walls of her mind.

After taking a healthy step back, she asked me, "How fast do necromancers reproduce?"

"Nine months." I almost laughed to see her squirming. "The same as humans."

"Mmm-hmm." She gestured toward the baby sling he wore knotted at his left hip. "Then what…?"

Leaning forward, Kierce revealed our "child" in her nest of blankets.

"I can't decide if you two producing an actual baby in the time it takes for a pizza delivery is more or less creepy than this latest fashion choice Kierce has made." She flicked her wrist, urging him to straighten. "I guess this is good news? She must be doing better if she feels up to a ride along."

"She's healing," Kierce confirmed, tucking Badb in again, "but I want to keep her close."

"We need to talk." I jerked my head toward the elevator. "Let's hit the bar."

"I can't drink on the clock," Carter countered, "but I'll watch you do it."

After conferring with a tall man with dark skin and short hair more salt than pepper, she returned to us. I felt his stare boring into me. A smile crinkled the corners of his eyes when he caught me looking back. As the doors closed between us, he tipped his head as if saying he would see me again.

"Who was that?" I bristled at his certainty. "The guy you were talking to just now?"

"Chief Leer." She pulled out a bag of cheddar puffs. "He's taken a personal interest in this case."

"As long as it's the case and not me."

The suspicion he had driven out to get a look at me, not the crime scene, left me uneasy.

So did Carter's lack of response.

"You're riled up," she said as we filed out into the lobby. "Did something happen on the way here?"

"Harrow called while I was sitting in the parking lot. He wants to meet at Wormsloe tonight."

"Come alone or else?" Her jaw clicked as she slid it back and forth. "He's a damn fool if he thinks?—"

"I'm not risking Matty. I'll go in, listen to his excuses, take my brother, and leave."

The weight of Kierce's displeasure sizzled across my senses as he turned to me. "We can't trust him."

"I don't trust him. At all. Not after this." I rested my hand on his arm. "I would love to have backup, trust me. I don't want to face him on my own. I'm afraid I might kill him. I wish I could bring you with me, but I would be endangering Matty. Harrow has a short fuse when it comes to you. His temper's not that much better when it comes to Carter, or I would let her come." I kept my voice firm. "I have to do this alone."

"We'll snag him when he leaves." Carter included Kierce in her plan. "As soon as Matty is safe, it's on."

So much for the firmness of my tone intimidating them into behaving themselves.

"You can sky barbecue him for all I care, just let me get my brother first."

"Sky barbecue?" Carter made a choking noise. "Are you asking Kierce to strike him with lightning?"

"No." I pinched the bridge of my nose. "I didn't mean that."

Though I would hold that punishment in reserve, depending on the condition I found Matty in.

"I wouldn't think any less of you." Kierce bounced Badb on our way to the empty bar, convincing me the jiggle-walk we do when carrying babies is genetically coded into all species. "The call is yours."

"As an officer of the law, I've got to veto murder. Also? Asking for divine intervention counts as premeditation."

We chose a booth in the back, waited for a yawning waitress to amble over, then placed our orders.

Alcohol helped ease my fraying nerves, but as we outlined our plan, I restrained myself from reaching for harder stuff. And as I sipped a mojito, I swear I tasted a Bijou.

Wormsloe Plantation was the colonial estate of Noble Jones, built on the Isle of Hope between 1739 and 1745, from a mixture known as tabby. Famous for its breathtaking avenue of live oaks draped in curling Spanish moss, Wormsloe was a favorite locale for the film industry and an even more popular wedding venue. Weirdly enough, given its history, I had never seen a ghost there.

Fifteen minutes before our agreed upon time, I walked under the wide arch leading into the historic site. Harrow must have magicked the gates open. Otherwise, they closed around five each afternoon. Had he meant it as a good faith gesture? Offering me a clear path? Driving home I was free to leave at any time?

The milelong avenue was too exposed for Harrow to risk meeting me there. He hadn't specified where I should go. I figured he would find me when I got close. Probably near the partial walls, sections of which stood eight feet tall, where they could shield him. And hide Matty.

Without Badb circling overhead as Kierce's eye in the sky, I was reminded how vulnerable I was and also why Badb wouldn't be flying anywhere for days yet. If Kierce hadn't planted that tree, she wouldn't ever fly again. Except in whatever afterlife was granted to crows.

"Right there is far enough."

A zing of tension shot down my spine. "Where's Matty?"

"Close and safe." Harrow's voice moved closer. "You can have him back as soon as I've said my piece."

"Talk fast." I spun to find him standing a few yards away. "The clock starts now."

The sight of him in faded jeans and a tee thinned from frequent washings called to mind the boy I had first met. The chaotic mess of his hair from where he had been raking his fingers through betrayed his anxiety. Good for him. He deserved to be stressed, to be afraid of the consequences of his actions.

"I could tell the old man was up to something, okay, so I waited until he left one night and followed him. He went to Armie's, which I knew was a hangout for you, so I went in. I was worried he would hassle you again, like when he stopped by your shop. I planned to confront him, to tell him to back off, but I walked in on him having drinks with Armie. Since you Marys tell each other everything, and some of that trickles out to your friends, I figured Armie might have had the same idea. To set him straight. I invited myself to join them to make sure things didn't get heated. That's it. I met them one time."

Until Carter's team finished viewing the footage, which was extensive, I had to take his word for that.

Ha ha ha.

Yeah.

Right.

I might have given him a chance if he hadn't taken Matty. We would never know now, since he had chosen the nuclear option. Despite the wiry grasses struggling through the shale walking path, I saw only scorched earth between us.

"Audrey Collins was your waitress that night." While watching the video, Carter remarked on how Harrow hadn't so much as looked her way, but I wasn't interested in absolving him. "Convenient how the only surviving witness to your clandestine meeting has gone missing."

"About that," a soft voice rose over the stone wall.

"You've got to be kidding me." I refused to turn my back on Harrow, but I registered motion on the edge of my vision. "Audrey?" Incredulousness dripped from her name. "Audrey Collins?"

I wanted to punch Harrow in his pretty face. I wanted to kick him in the balls. I wanted to rip off his arms and beat him to death with them. Of all the stunts to pull, this belonged in the Dumbass Hall of Fame.

"That night…" Harrow lost his voice. "You called me." His rasp scraped my ears. "I was at my uncle's." He gathered himself. "I told you someone had been there."

"There was a loud pop, the line went dead, and I sent Kierce to you."

A girl inched forward, cutting across my periphery, until she stood next to Harrow. Like he would protect her. Like she viewed him as safe. Like…they had spent enough time together to build trust.

"That dirtbag Lyle kidnapped me," Audrey said, braver with Harrow in her corner.

Another truth, one I had seen in black and white on the recording, but I didn't let it faze me.

"The pop was me tripping an enchantment Armie set to contain Audrey in Uncle Lyle's safe room."

The irony of a safe room used as a prison cell didn't escape me, but I was finding it hard to care.

The resulting mess must have come from Lyle's attempts at restraining her until he could contain her.

No matter how this shook out, Harrow had lied to me. And to Carter. And to his boss.

The 514 had allocated resources to find the missing girls, of which Audrey was believed to be one, but it looked to me like Harrow had known her whereabouts for a good long time and not breathed a word.

"Kierce left you to finish breaking the enchantment," I recalled softly. "That's why he didn't see her."

"Sam has been letting me stay at his place." Audrey might as well have had hearts dancing in her eyes. "I worked closing shifts mostly. I was always last to go. I had to wait on Ian to pick me up, and he was never on time. I saw things, heard things, I shouldn't have. Sam wanted to make sure I was safe from Armie." Her adoration hit a snag. "Then Sam told me about the other girls." Her voice thinned. "He said I could have the spare room if I promised not to leave the house until after y'all caught the killer."

Sam.

She was calling him Sam .

Good Lord, he was out of his mind for allowing an underage girl to play house with him.

Police officers were tried in the court of public opinion, and he was already halfway to a conviction after this boneheaded move.

"The 514 sent an officer to search Lyle's house after his death." I answered my own question. "Audrey hid in the safe room until they left. I'm guessing no one knew he had one." I rubbed my eyes. "Otherwise, it would defeat the purpose."

"He must have installed it after I moved out." Harrow came across as tired rather than defensive. "I didn't know it was there until the mess gave it away." He massaged his temples with his thumbs like it might ease his obvious headache if he punctured his auditory cortex. "Unless he kept more secrets than I've uncovered so far."

"That strikes me as a safe bet."

"Hey." Audrey stuck up for him. "It's not his fault his uncle?—"

"Kid," I bit out, spirits rustling, my bones trembling with cold, "you do not want to test me right now."

"I would be dead if he hadn't found me." Audrey clung to his arm. "He's one of the good guys, lady."

"He kidnapped my brother." Blood rushed in my ears. "He's lucky I haven't killed him yet."

Bristling at my threat, she put herself between Harrow and me. "You'll have to go through me first."

"You underestimate the lengths I'll go to for my family. You're not an obstacle to overcome. You're not a wall I can't scale or a hurdle I can't jump. You're, at best, a speed bump on the road to retribution. Don't think I won't run over you without slowing down or looking back."

"Take your anger out on me." Harrow shoved her behind him. "Not Audrey."

Restless souls slid their chill fingers down my arms, tugging on my fingers, leading me toward…

I didn't know where they kept trying to guide me, and it terrified me.

Spooked me enough to blurt a sudden realization. "You never blamed Kierce for Lyle, did you?"

"No." Shoulders rounding, he hunched into himself. "I'm well aware his death is my fault."

"Then why the act? You let me think you were coming for Kierce."

"To ensure you kept him, and more importantly his crow, away from me."

"You couldn't risk Badb following you to report back to me." Clever how he boxed me in so well. I had been so afraid for Kierce, I had done exactly what Harrow wanted and kept Badb locked down. "When you followed me to drop off Little, you picked a fight on purpose. You wanted an excuse to file for leave right then and there since you hadn't asked for it sooner." He really had thought of everything. "I'm done with this conversation until I see my brother."

"Go get him," Harrow told Audrey over his shoulder, and I saw red that he had entrusted Matty to her.

We stood there, neither of us speaking, until she helped Matty stumble to where Harrow stood with legs braced apart like he expected the sight of my brother would send me spiraling into a mindless frenzy he wanted to tackle head-on. He was trying to mitigate the damage. To himself.

Furious magic coated the back of my throat, and I wanted to spit it at him.

"What did you do to him?" I took a menacing step forward. "Mary, are you okay?"

"I used a sedation spell." Harrow helped Matty sit at his feet. "It's already wearing off again."

"Again?" Knuckles popped as my fingers curled ever tighter. "How many times have you spelled him?"

So much for Carter's certainty he hadn't been using his magic. Yet another secret he had been keeping.

"M'fine." Matty listed hard to the right, leaning against Harrow's knees. "S'okay."

"You'll have to forgive me if your protestations of innocence ring false." I couldn't tear my gaze from Matty to scowl at Harrow. "Why did you take my brother?"

"To make sure I held your full attention." He spread his hands in a helpless gesture. "Josie?—"

"Do not speak her name." I shut my eyes, forced myself to breathe. "She's not part of this conversation." Warmth hit my cheeks, mortifying me that I was angry enough to cry. "You wouldn't walk out of here alive if you had taken her. She's been through enough. Forget you know her. Forget you ever knew her." I got my rage under control, mostly. "You want to prove you're a good guy? I'm listening. Hit me."

"I meant it when I said I didn't know about the recordings. I had no idea Armie was watching Jo—" Teeth clicked together, biting off her name. "I didn't know Armie was watching you and your family."

"Stalking." I suppressed a shudder exposing a vulnerability he didn't deserve to share. "He stalked us."

"I've known where to find Audrey, yeah, but I've been searching for the other girls too. The same as you and Carter."

Not working with us, or he would have told us what he knew. But maybe not against us either.

"What about the other girls?" I drilled my stare into Audrey's temple. "Do you know who hurt them?"

"Everyone loved Farah." She tucked her hands under her armpits. "She was Ian's girl, and Ian ran things. So, they listened to her. Even without him, they would have done anything for her. She was just good ."

Spoken like a true best friend, one who had yet to grasp the perilous hierarchy of her new status.

"And in return for her taking you in when you ran away, you stole your best friend's boyfriend."

"No." Her face turned blotchy. "He wanted me. I didn't want him. He told me if I didn't agree to…" Hate I recognized, born of helplessness, darkened her eyes. "He would have kicked her out. Little too. He knew how much Farah loved that kid. He let Farah keep her like a pet. A human pet." Tears rolled off the tip of her lashes. "Ian told me not to tell her the bargain. That it was our secret. And I let her die thinking that I betrayed her. But I didn't. I did it for her."

After the brief moment required to partition my anger at Harrow in a separate box away from her, I told her the truth. "She knows." I overlooked her adoration of him to comfort her. "Her spirit stayed behind. For you. To make sure you were okay."

Audrey was a victim in all this. I had to remember that. I had been where she was, and I understood how easy it would be for a girl in her position to fall prey to Harrow in the sense he was offering her shelter, a safe place to stay, and asking nothing of her in return. Not sex. Not money. Not violence.

Her fanatical loyalty to him, forged in such a brief time, was understandable.

After all, he had tamed me to his hand with far less when I had been just as wild.

A sob broke free of her that cracked open some deep well of tears, and snot, within her.

"Tell me what put you on Armie's radar," I bargained, feeling two inches tall for withholding aid, "and I'll act as go-between when this is over. You can say a proper goodbye and put her mind at ease."

Maybe learning the truth and seeing for herself that Audrey was okay would help Farah to move on.

"You can do that?" She sniffled. "Really?"

"She can," Harrow confirmed, knowing his word carried more weight with her than mine.

"The first time I saw the guy with flames for hair—" she wiped her cheeks dry on her palms, "—I didn't think much about it. I figured he was an elemental or something. Armie met him out back, and he didn't seem worried, so I figured the guy was a friend and that's why he dropped his glamour in front of him."

Except it hadn't been a human glamour concealing an elemental, no, it was a dybbuk consuming its host, rising for the hunt.

"You saw him before the flames." I could tell where this was heading. "You saw him as a human."

Even if she hadn't noticed Lyle around before, she could have identified him later.

"I didn't know who he was then." Audrey cut Harrow a look. "Armie didn't see me, I don't think."

"He would have dealt with you sooner if he had," I confirmed, hating how hard it was to carve someone out of a heart, out of a life. "You said the first time. There were others?"

"Ian got a flat one night on his way to pick me up, so I knew I would be stuck at the restaurant for a few extra hours. I figured I might as well take a nap, but I hid so no one could see me from the road."

Again, that pang of camaraderie struck me. "That was smart."

"Thanks." Her gaze slid to the shale path. "I was curled up under one of the benches. Since my jacket was brown too, I used it as a curtain." She drew in a slow breath. "Their voices woke me. Armie and the elemental guy. They were discussing how to kill vampires."

"They managed it too," I said bitterly, grief at losing the Minchins still fresh.

"Yeah." She held herself tighter. "I heard." She darted a glance at Harrow. "The third time, the last time I saw the one I thought was an elemental, I was on the clock. He sat in my section, so I had to wait on him. I didn't like how he smiled at me. And then Armie joined him."

When she stalled out, I nodded along to get her going again.

"I knew they were on to me. I could tell." She shifted her weight from side to side. "The old guy watched me the whole time. He didn't try to hide it. Armie saw it, but he didn't ask him to stop like I thought he would. He had a zero harassment policy. Mess with his employees, and you got banned. But I guess he didn't expect me to be his problem much longer. It was like, I don't know, they were waiting to see what I would do. If I would run. I wanted to, so badly, but Armie was a shifter. That's what everyone said. I didn't want to trigger his instincts or whatever."

"Then Harrow joined them."

I made a point of inserting that detail to ensure she didn't gloss over his role.

"Yeah." A scowl cut her face when she looked at me, as if I were asking her to slice out her own heart for me to crush beneath my heel rather than verify known—and video-documented—facts. "He showed up, chewed out his uncle, and then left."

"Lyle came back after the restaurant closed. He knew she would be alone and vulnerable. He took her to his house, locked her up, and had Armie ward her in." Harrow kept tracing the outline of the ruins with a keen eye, as if he had seen or heard something. "That was why he burned the car. To get rid of evidence of the kidnapping. Armie hadn't planned on dying that night, and he didn't want Lyle to get him caught."

Which meant Ian had arrived at the restaurant to find Audrey gone and assumed she ditched him.

But Farah hadn't believed Audrey would disappear and had begun searching for her friend that night.

"He ran over you in it. The auction car." Audrey wasn't exactly asking. "He kept babbling nonsense about it. About you."

"I can imagine." I had heard most of his opinions on me later, in person, and I wasn't interested in asking her for a rundown. "Committing two crimes in the same car was asking to be caught."

Almost wistfully, Harrow asked, "Do you think so?"

"Lyle was a half-crazed murderer—make that just plain crazy—too stupid to put his years on the force to good use helping him get away with his crimes. That's what I think. He didn't want to get caught. He was a bad person, Harrow. I'm sorry, but he wasn't leaving clues for the authorities to follow in the hopes they would stop him before it was too late."

"Damn." Audrey flinched on his behalf. "You could have just said no ."

"Why keep you alive?" I aimed my candor at her. "I'm glad they did, but I don't see the point."

Damn it.

I hadn't meant it to come out so harsh, but Harrow had a talent for bringing out the worst in me.

"No. I get it. I thought I was dead too." She tilted her head. "Armie called me ‘a necessary component'."

"That sounds like he needed you for something else." I considered what I knew about Ankou, about how he intercepted prayers and was forced to fulfill them to the letter, if not the intent, of his victims. "You're smart enough to appreciate the power of leverage. Who did you tell about what you saw and heard?"

"Farah." She shut her eyes as a lump of guilt caught in her throat. "I told Farah."

"No one else?"

"I don't— didn't —trust anyone else."

"I lived under the thumb of a guy like Ian once. He had ears and eyes everywhere. Even on his own people." A memory threatened to surface, but I drowned it before the details crystalized. "Maybe especially on us. The ones he didn't want to get away. He paid his spies well enough they didn't mind turning on their friends. Can you think of anyone who might have overheard you? Someone who traded with Ian regularly? A kid, or kids, who needed to remain in Ian's good graces more than the rest?"

"No." She raised a hand to her mouth. "There's no way."

"You have someone in mind?" Harrow studied her. "You can tell us."

"Little." Her gaze bounced between us. "She was Farah's shadow."

"She's human." Harrow thought about it. "Ian only tolerated her for Farah's sake."

That might have been true at the start, but I got the feeling he kept her around because she was good at her job. Her stowaway act hit different when I reflected on it. Had she been spying for him even then?

"We need to find her." I got the feeling she hadn't gone home when we gave her a lift. "Question her."

But first I needed to get a demigod perspective on prayers, bargains, and delivery fees.