37. I Didn’t Know Raccoons Could Knock

"Wait!" I called, running after him. "This is what they want. They're probably here to hurt you, stab you, something so that Logan wins."

He stood by the door, fists clenched, his breathing ragged. This close to the full moon, I couldn't believe he'd listened and stopped.

"This is my home. Allow me." I could see on the video that they were trying to grab the tentacle but then were quickly pulling their hands away. I'd put a protective spell on it so anyone trying to destroy it would receive a sting, much like a jellyfish's. They were shaking out their hands, the red welts already rising.

Raging, they pounded the door, the wall, the railing, and each surface gave them more stings. Watching them on my phone, I held up a hand, a spell at the ready, and shoved them off my porch.

When they were scrambling up from the gravel, I flicked my fingers, adding a layer of protection to the stairs and porch so they couldn't come back up. Twirling my index finger, I spun a spell I hadn't had to use for a while. When I flicked my finger, the men stopped slamming at the invisible wall. Their red, swollen hands flew to their eyes and then shot out before them.

"What did you do?" Declan had settled down and was now looking over my shoulder at the video feed on my phone.

"I blinded them."

The men were yelling at each other while rubbing at their eyes. I gave it another thirty seconds and then lifted the blindness. With one more shove, they took off running to the truck they'd hidden down the road.

"I heard tires squealing. They're gone." After a moment, he added, "I also hear knocking on the back door." When I turned to go answer it, he said, "Don't forget your force field or we'll never get our pizzas."

"Oops." I waved a hand and then jogged back into the studio. I didn't see anyone through the door, but Declan was chuckling behind me.

"Look down."

Otis lifted his little paw and knocked again.

"Just a minute," I called, going to the kitchen to collect three muffins. "It's like getting trick-or-treaters at the door."

Declan sat on the couch. "Maybe I should pick them up little pumpkin buckets."

Defrosting the muffins in my gloved hands, I said, "Could you? I'd love that." I went out on the deck. "Hi, guys. I hope you're all doing well this evening."

Otis and Daisy sat with their paws clasped in front of them. Jasper had his paws up, reaching for the food. Otis made a sound somewhere between a hiss and a chitter. Jasper lowered his paws and mirrored his siblings.

Crouching, I handed the first muffin to Otis, who took it carefully and then moved away. Daisy was also quite polite. Jasper snatched and ran, causing his siblings to chitter and screech. Poor Jasper was getting it from both of them. He eventually came back and placed the muffin in front of me, stealing a quick bite and then going to sit beside Otis and Daisy. I nodded my thanks and then picked it up and held it out to him again. He looked at his siblings first and when neither yelled at him, he scampered over and took it gently from my hand.

Standing, I said, "You three be careful out there. We've had some wolves in the neighborhood." I left them to their dinner and went back in. My phone buzzed again. When I pulled up the video feed this time, it was the delivery guy leaving the pizza boxes on the gallery porch.

"Pizza's here. Be right back." I readied a spell in case the three stooges returned. Thankfully, my porch was wolf free. I bent down to pick up the boxes and heard, "It is you."

Righting myself, I watched a tall, dark-haired man walk into the porch light. "You're the sea wicche, aren't you?"

"I am." I smiled nervously, luring him in. The face was a little different, the cheeks more prominent, but he was wearing the false chin again. There was nothing he could do about the dead eyes, though. "Can I help you?" I lowered my walls, listening to his plans for me, including the syringe in his pocket.

"I'm a fan of your work. I purchased one of your paintings last year when I was summering in London. It hangs in my study." He gave me a self-deprecating eyeroll and grin, as though realizing that sounded pretentious as hell.

I nodded, my eyes darting to the door. I hadn't been stalked by predators all my life without learning a few things, like how much they love to prey on those they see as small, weak, and frightened.

"I didn't mean to interrupt your evening," he said, taking another step closer.

Three pairs of eyes shined outside the circle of light, watching. My sweet little raccoon buddies had my back.

I met Dorian's gaze and saw it: an image of myself, at the base of the stairs at Cypress Academy. I'd been lost in a vision before snapping my head up and staring into his eyes. He'd followed Detective Hernández here and then had begun watching me, trying to suss out why an artist was consulting on an accidental death investigation.

He gestured to the boxes in my hands, the ones I tried to look as though I was hiding behind. My reputation as a recluse was working to my advantage. "Am I interrupting a party?" he asked. In other words, was I alone?

"Oh." I ducked my head, letting my hair fall in my face. "No. It's silly. I just—I bought two pizzas so I can have leftovers for the next couple of days." I shrugged. "I should eat healthier, but I'm racing to get everything ready for the opening and I was too tired to cook."

"I'd love nothing more than to take you out to dinner. I know a quiet bistro you'd love." That grin again. "It's close by. A woman as gifted as you shouldn't have to worry about such mundane things."

I heard a low growl on the other side of the door, but Dorian, with his human hearing, did not. Poor Pearl. She'd been too overwhelmed, too flustered, to see behind the mask.

"That's very kind, but I don't want to be a bother," I responded, glancing at the door again.

He leaned in and said with a wink, "Spending time with such a beautiful woman is never a bother."

I ducked my head again, waiting for the lunge with the syringe, but he was having too much fun. Control and power. They were a heady combination, and he was drawing this out longer than he'd intended.

"Here," he said, taking the pizza boxes out of my hands. "Those must be getting heavy." He balanced them on the railing before turning back, a feral grin on his face. "There. That's better. Now I can see you."

I gave him a wide-eyed, deer in the headlight stare and I felt his adrenaline race. Laughing, I dropped the scared schtick and said, "She never saw you coming, did she?"

He was too busy looking me up and down to notice the change. Lost, fantasizing about how he'd kill me once I was overpowered and restrained, it took a moment to meet my gaze.

"Sorry. I didn't get that." He reached out for my curls, and I ducked away from his hand. I was not letting him put his hands on me.

"My cousin. She couldn't see past the face putty and makeup to the entitled sociopath from her middle school class."

He stepped back, the grin slipping off his face.

"I know exactly who you are." Fingers twitching at my side, I had spells locked and loaded. "Poor baby. The world has been so cruel to you, hasn't it? A wealthy family, the best of everything. I can see how that kind of privilege would make you vengeful."

His mouth opened and closed. I felt his shock, his disbelief.

"How will a superior individual, such as yourself, deal with prison? I mean, they're the unwashed masses, right? The ones who have to follow laws and be punished when they break them. Not you, though, huh?"

Sneering, I added, "Maybe not too superior after all. Poor little Dorian needs a murder buddy, though. You pull Brandon in so you can plot and plan together, so you can build each other up and pretend you're strong and important. Special. Brandon's a weak-willed follower with sadistic tendencies you helped him uncover. You, though, are a true narcissist and psychopath. It's more than you deserving everything you want, isn't it? You believe it's owed you."

His hand went to his pocket. Face red, eyes murderous, he said, "You have no idea who you're dealing with."

"Trust me, I do. And what brings me comfort is knowing when you finally shake off this mortal coil—you'll get shivved in the prison cafeteria because you're insufferable—you're headed to Hell, a place I happen to know is real."

On a wail of fury, he lunged, his thumb on the stopper of the syringe. I flicked my fingers and he froze as three little raccoons leapt and bit him, their sharp claws digging through his clothes.

Grinning, I leaned in. "How does it feel, being on the other side? Do you enjoy being at my mercy? Not being strong enough to overpower me? Not really even understanding what's going on? You should get used to this feeling. You're going to experience it a lot where you're going."

Sirens sounded in the distance and sweat broke out on Dorian's forehead.

I whispered in his ear, "Pearl may be dead, but she's in a good, loving place now. You, my young serial killer, will know nothing but pain for the rest of your days, and that brings me comfort."

The sirens were getting close, so I moved back to where I'd been standing when I froze him. With a flick of my fingers, the cameras began recording again, and he completed his lunge. I spun out of his reach, turning and punching him in the back of the head. My hand may have hurt like hell, but Dad's DNA helped me do it with enough force to knock him out.

"Okay, you three, hide. The cops are coming. And thank you!" They scampered off the porch and into the night.

When a cop car skidded to a halt, I stepped back from the sprawled figure.

The same cop who'd drawn his gun on me before did it again. I pointed at the unconscious man.

"It would be cool if you'd stop pointing your gun at me," I said. "He's the one with poison in a syringe who just attacked me."

The cop kept his gun on me while he talked into the radio on his shoulder.

Thankfully, Hernández pulled up and slammed out of her car. "What the hell are you doing? You have a gun pointed at the victim, a woman who is a police consultant, while the serial killer hasn't been cuffed and still has a weapon in his hand."

Hernández couldn't see it as she was walking up the steps to me, but the gun moved in her direction before he finally holstered it. She was asking me something, but I was focused on him. Lots of rage in that one. And fear. He hated to take orders from a *racial slur *gender slur.

When he moved back to his car, I turned to a concerned-looking Hernández. "He hates you," I whispered.

She looked down at Dorian. "I'm not fond of him either."

When she started to move away, I grabbed her elbow and pulled her back. "The cop. Don't trust him. In fact, see if you can get him off the force. Someone like him, someone who only respects white men, shouldn't have authority and a gun."

She blinked and then looked over her shoulder.

"He's filled with rage and righteous indignation, believing you and Osso leapfrogged over him, took his detective's badge, because of your ethnicities."

Her expression turned to stone. "Is that so?"

"He's not that different from this one. The world owes him. He doesn't look inward to question himself, only outward to blame everyone else. Because of that badge and gun, though, his petty grievances are worked out on the general public with impunity." The cop looked back in our direction, and I tipped my head so my hair blocked his view of my mouth. "I mean it. You have to get that guy fired. Get someone higher up to check his record. They're going to find more complaints than normal for a cop with his number of years on the job. Lots of little cruelties. That's what he enjoys."

"I'll take care of it," she said. "Tell me what happened here."

I gave my head a quick shake, pushing Josh, the asshole cop out of my head. "Dorian showed up as I was coming out here to get the pizza." I scanned the porch before remembering he'd put them on the railing. "Can I take these in now? Declan needs to eat."

"Do they have anything to do with what happened here?"

I shook my head. "They were just something I was holding." I grabbed the boxes and opened the door, finding a huge wolf. "Give me a minute," I said to the detective. I closed the door quickly and the wolf knocked the boxes out of my hands, crowding me against the door, sniffing me furiously.

I petted the top of his head. "I'm fine. He never laid a finger on me. He's human: no special powers, no unique protections. He never had a chance. Really, I'm fine."

He reared up on his back paws, his front paws on the door above my shoulders, and rested his head in the crook of my neck.

"I know what it must have cost you not to come out and kill him when you realized I wasn't talking to the delivery guy. Thank you. This is much cleaner and ultimately safer for me. There's no body to hide, no crime scene to clean up, no lies that have to be remembered. He's human and the human authorities are dealing with him. Okay?"

He rubbed his head against my jaw and then went back to the floor.

"And don't eat all the pizza," I added, slipping back out to the porch.

Dorian was cuffed and being walked to the police car by Officer Cross, the one who'd helped get me home when I was consulting on the child abduction case.

"Do you know who my father is?" Dorian blustered. "This is outrageous. I'll have your badges, all of you. I'll be bailed out in an hour and then you'll be dealing with a multimillion-dollar lawsuit for wrongful arrest." He kept yelling, but once Cross slammed the door, we didn't have to hear it.

"Did you get the syringe?" I glanced around the porch, not seeing it.

Osso, who'd joined Hernández, nodded. "It's been bagged and is heading to the lab. Do you know what's in it?"

I shook my head. "I don't think he intended to kill me here. I think it was something to put me out so he could kill me at his leisure elsewhere. He wanted to draw it out so it was more pleasurable for him."

"Okay," he said, pulling up the voice recorder on his phone. "Tell us what happened."

I did, leaving out my freezing him and the raccoons. "I have cameras up. I can give you the tape."

He turned off the voice recorder. "Is there audio?" Eyebrows raised, he knew they'd probably hear something that would be hard to explain.

"No."

"Good. We'll take that with us." He put his phone away. "We'll need you to stop by the station tomorr—"

"I'll bring it to her to sign," Hernández said. At Osso's look, she added, "She doesn't drive."

"Right. Of course. We'll bring the statement to you to sign." He took one last look at the porch and then nodded to himself. "We'll get out of your hair. Lock up," he said, going down the stairs. "There's still one more out there."

"Thanks for that," I grumbled. "Like I don't have enough trouble sleeping." When I went back in, Declan was once again himself and sitting on the floor.

"Hey, did you eat?"

"Yeah." He stood and picked up the boxes.

"Did you leave me a couple of slices?"

"I only ate one pizza." He took my hand. "Are you really all right?"

I glanced over. "Are you kidding? I got to scare the crap out of the asshole who killed my cousin. I'm great. And kinda hungry."

Waving a hand, I closed most of the windows, leaving the rows at the top open to continue airing out the paint fumes. I'd spelled the windows a while ago to only let air in and out. I didn't want to worry about randos crawling in at night, but I still felt more comfortable with the windows closed and locked.

We settled back in the studio with pizza and drinks, Declan lowering the screen so we could watch another British mystery.

"I fell asleep last time. Who done it?" I asked.

"The brother-in-law," he said, taking another big bite, the open box on his lap.

"What? I thought for sure it was the governess." I donned thin rubber gloves and then slid two pieces onto my plate.

"You missed some important details while you slept, namely that the brother-in-law was having an affair with the murder victim, who turned out to be pregnant."

"No."

He nodded.

"The bastard. Did you know more pregnant women die by violence from their partners than pregnancy-related issues?"

Declan stopped eating. "That can't be true."

"Yup," I said, shaking my head at the injustice of it all.

He closed the pizza box and placed it on the coffee table. "Bastards," he grumbled.

"Exactly."

He hit play and we watched the opening scene where the dead body was found. When the title sequence started, I turned to him. "Are we talking about tomorrow night?"

He shook his head. "I just want a nice, quiet evening with you, and I'll do what I need to do tomorrow so I can continue having nice, quiet evenings with you." He met my gaze. "Okay?"

Nodding, I took a bite of pizza and settled in to figure out who had killed the poor old lady.