If Wishes Were Horses (10 page)

“Was there anybody else here with her? Based on your experience with that type of ritual?”

“It's best to do with at least one other  person. When you're calling spirits from the astral planes, you can run into trouble. It's like going swimming by yourself. If you get in too deep, there's no one to pull you out or run for help. But she might have  done it by  herself, if she was unwise.”

He motioned to their  surroundings. “The center of the pentagram, the pentagonshe's in here, next to the fire, this was where she intended to contain what she called.”  He nodded toward the portion of black powder  that had been scattered. “There's where it broke through and left her after it killed her. From her appearance, whatever it is froze her to death.”

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Sarah heard the uniform murmur behind her and tried not to let the same

incredulity she heard in his tone reflect in her voice. “You're serious. You

think…whatever she summoned did this to her?”

“I know it. You won't find any evidence of  another human being at this site, Chiefs.  I promise you that.”

She’d been fucked half-blind by a lunatic,  a Twilight Zone escapee who likely  believed in alien abductions.

“So, what was it?” She'd play along and see what she could learn.

“I'm not sure.” He hesitated, then pointed  at Lorraine Messenger's midriff. “There's  a tattoo  of a seal there, a sigil. It might represent what she called.” He lifted a shoulder.  “I can research it and let you know what it represents. I know you don't believe my  theory, Chief. You said I'd be useful to you for my ritual knowledge, so you can use it or  not, and discount the rest as the ravings of a lunatic, if it makes you sleep better at  night.”

“There are things you're not telling me,” she realized.

“Many things, Sarah.” His gaze came back to  hers, and she felt the heat rise in her  face. “But they're things you wouldn't believe and aren't ready to hear. What you need  to know about this woman's death, I've told you.”

“Cops tend to like to decide for themselves  what they need to know. You know the charge for obstruction, Herne?”

“There are penances of the soul  that are  far more harsh to bear than the longest  prison sentence.” He gazed down at Lorraine  Messenger again. “You are looking at  someone who has paid hers.

“You've no reason to trust me, Chief Sarah,” he added quietly. His attention went to  Wassler. “But believe me when I tell you what  else I know about this woman is simply  the sad story of a wasted life, with  no bearing on your investigation.”

“And, regardless, it's all you're going to tell us.”

“Yes. I'm sorry. The rest should be between her and the Goddess. I would like to  give her a final blessing.”

“Why?” Wassler frowned.

“I am a priest of my faith, and this woman was of that faith.”

Sarah glanced at Eric, gave him a slight nod. The Marion police chief grunted, took  out a cigarette and stepped away, nodding his reluctant agreement.

Justin knelt, pressing his fancy slacks into  the earthen floor at the woman's side. He  took Lorraine Messenger's right hand in the gentle grip of his gloved one. He bowed his  head and began to murmur words Sarah could not hear. She  felt that heat gather  around him, like the blast from the circle she had experienced the night before. It was a  different heat from what she had felt in her home. That had been an intimate energy  between the two of them. This was magic and power, and the difference disturbed her.  She would have preferred not to discern the difference, so she could claim Herne had

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used some hocus pocus on her, rather than  just brought out something in  her that  readily accepted him into her bed. Something  that she felt even now with every look he  shot her  way, every time his scent reached her nostrils, or his body brushed hers in the most casual  contact.

She turned to Wassler.

“At least we have an ID, and that's a start,” the chief commented, tearing his gaze

from Herne. He didn't  look any happier than Sarah did.

“Yeah, but he's not telling us everything he knows,” she murmured.

“You still think he might have done this.”

“No, actually, I don’t, but  I think he might suspect who did.” At  Eric's narrowed  expression, she put a hand out to stay him.  “And I don’t think it’s some demon from another plane. You know him better. I won't tell you your business, but if it were me, I'd  take him down to your office and grill him for a while, try to get it out of him with a  duty-to-the-community approach.” She turned  so her back was to Herne and drew  Wassler a few steps further away. “Have your investigative team head over to  Gainesville and see if they can use the department's computers to run any connections between Justin Herne and Lorraine Messenger.  Sometimes if  you can wiggle your toe in  through the door of the room where the witness or suspect is hiding their information,  they'll give  in and open up.”

She turned at a rustle of leaves. Justin rose  to his feet. “If you're done with me, I'd like to go home. I can walk from here. There's a trail to my house just over that rise.”

It was pretty ballsy of him to draw their attention to it, Sarah thought. He'd  have made a good cop, Eric was right, except for the fact she now thought his polished shoe  tips hadn’t brushed the tallest grass blades of the ground of reality in awhile.

“I'd like to talk to you down at my office  for a bit, Justin,” Wassler said. “Go over  some of the things you talked to Sarah about.”

“All right,” Justin nodded, “but I'd like to  go home for about an hour. I can bring  you some books and printouts that will confirm what some of this means, give you  some other sources on  it. Will that  work?”

“That'll be fine,” Eric said after a glance  at Sarah. She stood impassively, letting him  take the lead on that decision. “My office in an hour.”

Justin nodded, accepted his  shoes from Sarah. He  turned away, stopped. “You already solved one crime today, officers.”

“What’s that?” Sarah asked, brow raised.

He glanced back at her, and she  thought a  ghost couldn’t look as transparent and

haunted as he did.

“That’s my  wig she’s wearing, the one missing from my shop.”

He walked out of the circle, away  from the body and them, his back tense. He took  the trail up the ravine side with familiar confidence, but as he came out of the shadows  at the top of the rise, Sarah  noticed his shoulders had slumped, his control slipping.

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He'd done well, better than a lot of rookies  with their first body. Sarah had the absurd desire to follow him,  to be there to help make sure he could handle what  he had just

seen.

Where had the flash of tenderness come from? She hadn't acted so stupid over a

guy since she was fourteen.

She knelt, looked at the tattoo he had mentioned. It was on the woman's belly, just over the womb, and it was new. The skin  was still irritated around it and  the colors were vibrant, a swirling pattern that made no sense to Sarah.

A drug addict in a Florida forest, wearing a three-digit wig, sporting a new tattoo  and looking like she had died of exposure on  an Alaskan tundra. If  Marion was going  to have its first murder since pioneer days, why  couldn't it have been a flash of barroom temper, a domestic dispute instead of a Thomas Harris novel?

She just couldn't see Justin as Hannibal Lecter.

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Joey W. Hill

Chapter 7

She filled out a report, met with the Lilesville town manager to fill him in on  what she knew, and did the same with her men.  There was the usual business of traffic issues, animal control calls and the occasional squabble over a parking space or petty vandalism that made up typical  police work in a small town.

As she moved through her  day, a strange collage of  thoughts  stayed with her. Lorraine Messenger's vacant eyes, the sigil tattoo, Justin's smooth voice offering a bride guidance, a black powdered circle, the charred remains of a bonfire. Justin's body covering hers, surging into her and slamming  into her defenses, knocking them down one by one like dominos until she had nothing  separating her soul from his except the smashed ruins.

Another person would have discounted such  a strange grouping of thoughts tomental agitation from the murder, or indigestion. Sarah knew better. The images were linked somehow, and it was her job to find  out how. Eric Wassler's call gave her theexcuse, though she didn’t welcome it.

“Sarah, Eric here. I’ve talked to the coroner and the guys in Gainesville, but theyhad two college girls murdered up there last night, and they’ve already told  me pretty bluntly the  murder case of a junkie drifter  in our little county isn’t going to be put ahead of those two girls. They’re saying it  could be the end of the week or next week before we get any reports from the data we gave them.

“As far as Herne goes, he’s a cagey bastard. I didn't get any more out of him than you did, but you're right,  I think he has information he's not  sharing.  If it’s not toomuch to ask, since he's  in your town, dog him a bit this week for me. Maybe the new kid on the block will have better luck and I’ll keep after the Gainesville boys.”

Not too much to ask, unless you wanted to  avoid the man in question at all costs.

She found herself going back down the drive to
 
For Hers
 
at four thirty. Only his carwas in the parking lot. She’d hoped to  question him between the distractions of customers again. She hesitated, her engine  idling, then cursed herself for it, for her hesitation and her desire to avoid being alone with him had nothing to do with the job.  She switched off the engine and deliberately strode up to the door, slamming the screen on her way in.

The front foyer area was empty.

“I'll be right with you,” Herne's voice came from somewhere above, up a cordoned-off staircase, blocking the way to the  inventory in the attic, she supposed.

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Sarah wandered into the lingerie area. He  had moved the ice blue teddy from itsdisplay area on the armoire and had it hanging on  the privacy screen. Had someoneelse tried it on? She noticed it was her size.

She glanced around, touched the  watered silk. It shimmered like moonlight on ice.  Tiny pearls had been worked into the lace  of the neckline, and  there was padding and wiring to push up and out what you had,  that delightful overflowing tavern wench look that was the joy and awe of every small-breasted woman.

“I was going to send it to you as a gift.”

He was right behind her. When she turned, he stood inside her personal boundaries.

“I came back to buy it for a date I have  this  weekend,” she said, her eyes cool and  remote. “Cops don't accept bribes.”

“And here I figured you had come back to  see if you could pry the answers out of  me that Chief Wassler couldn’t get.” He leaned forward, bringing his shoulder within  touching distance of her lips, slipped the garment off the ivory quilted hanger and  handed it to her. When she drew in his smell, it hit her like a sensual caress to her

internal organs. “You'll want to try it on, then.”

There was nothing in his expression  but the well-meaning concern of the  professional shopkeeper, though she noticed  he did not remove himself physically from her even one inch. His dark  eyes were as intimate in their regard as the  garment clutched in her hand. “Make sure it fits your  body as well as the man for whom you're  wearing it. It's $150 and lingerie is non-refundable. That’s quite a lot to risk  on a cop's  salary.” His eyes glinted. “Especially if she doesn't take bribes.”

He motioned toward the screen. Trapped, Sarah  set her jaw. Fine. She'd go in, put it  on, tell him it didn't fit.

Only it  did. When she slid the  teddy on,  it fit so perfectly she relented to the inevitable purchase and slid her panties off  so she could see  the trim line of it from  waist to crotch. The thong back was soft, a stimulating friction between her cheeks as he  had told her it would be. The shaping of  the wired cups gave her bosom a lift so  awesome she couldn’t resist trailing her fingers in amazement over the plump curves of their tops. A movement snapped her gaze to the mirror.

“Hey,” she said, whirling around to confront Herne, watching her over the screen.

“I've seen you in less,” he pointed out,  and came around to place the matching  shoes on the floor. He went to one knee. “Hold onto my shoulder and step into them.”

Sarah deliberated on whether she should just plant her foot in his chest and knock him on his ass. Instead, she ignored his shoulder and braced herself on the wall for balance to slip into the soft gloved feel of the three inch pale blue heels.

Herne guided her second foot  into the shoe, his touch lingering  on her ankle anddrifting up her calf. He  raised his head slowly, and she watched his gaze cover the slopeof her thighs, the barely covered mound of her pussy, the curve of her belly and the riseof her breasts. By the time he got to her face, her breath  was shallow. He rose, so close

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