River Road (28 page)

“Think about it—it could be important,” I urged Tish. “Which water species hated wizards the most back then?”

She shook her head. “I know what you’re thinking—one of the merpeople. But did the mers hate us more than the nymphs or the others? I honestly don’t know. It was so long ago and the water species aren’t usually violent. You know, they’ll try to seduce you but they won’t slit your throat. Look at Libby.”

“No thanks. I’ve seen enough of Libby. Although she’s a lot brighter than she acts.”

“So where does that leave us?” Tish asked.

“Exactly where we started.”

*   *   *

After a couple of hours at the office, I headed to La Boulangerie for lunch with Eugenie before digging into my afternoon of research. I was anxious to see her out of sheer prurient curiosity. She was bringing our new neighbor, Quince Randolph. I’d never seen her fall for anybody so fast.

I’d been busy the last week, what with the Styx contamination, the murder investigation, my close encounter with an elf, and my disastrous date with Jake, so I hadn’t found time to meet the new guy. His Plantasy Island sign had gone up over the weekend, and Eugenie said his landscaping business was almost stocked and ready to open. The neighborhood already looked better since he’d stripped the windows of their graffiti-covered plywood.

The god of parking spaces found me an opening a block from the restaurant, and from the door I spotted Eugenie waving from a small table in back. Since I’d had a late breakfast, I just picked up a coffee on my way through the shop, although I looked longingly at the array of croissants and breads and inhaled the feel-good aromas of fresh-baked cookies as I passed the counters. I wondered if Rene was enjoying any of my quirks. Would serve him right if he’d developed a taste for Cheetos.

Eugenie looked great, her short spiky auburn hair edged with conservative blond tips and her face wearing a minimum of makeup. Must be Mr. Natural’s influence. I gave her a hug and turned to meet Quince, who was sitting across from her.

Okay, I could see the attraction. He had thick, honey-blond hair pulled back in a ponytail not unlike my own, and a green gemstone stud in one ear. Mr. Green Jeans. He reached out and grasped my hand, shaking it firmly. “It’s great to meet you. Eugenie talks about you all the time.”

“She talks a lot about you too, Quince.” The man had no idea.

He smiled, and his blue-green eyes were almost enthralling. “Most people call me Rand, but Eugenie likes my real name better than my nickname.”

After a half hour of small talk, I wasn’t sure I liked Quince Randolph. He was drop-dead gorgeous, no question about that. But there was something off about him I couldn’t quite pinpoint. He stared too hard when he talked to you, made more eye contact than a normal person. I tried to dig into his head a little but came up blank, which was weird, except I’d done a heavy grounding ritual this morning.

“You know, I just noticed something.” Eugenie had a funny look on her face. “You guys have the same hair and eye color. I’d never realized it till I saw you sitting there across from each other.”

“Maybe we’re very distantly related.” Rand smiled.

“I doubt it,” I said, frowning. “I don’t have much family. And if we were related, I’d be pissed off that you have better cheekbones.”

Eugenie giggled like a thirteen-year-old at a Justin Bieber concert. She never giggled. Quince or Rand or whatever the hell his name was laughed with her, all pleasant and soothing. Too bad I wasn’t joking. He did have better cheekbones.

“So DJ, I’m sure Quince won’t mind hearing a little girl talk. How did your date with Jake go? I need details.”

He turned to me with a slight smile and a tilt of the head.

“It was fine.” My voice brimmed with ill temper. “We’re going to take it slow and see what happens.”

“What would you like to happen?” Quince looked at me so steadily I worried Eugenie would notice. What kind of busybody question was that?

“Lord, she’s the last one you should ask,” said my blind and lovestruck friend. “DJ is hopeless when it comes to men. The one she really likes is his cousin, her FBI partner—she just doesn’t know it yet. That one’s a keeper if she can hold her temper and smartass tongue in check.”

I thumped a sugar packet at her.
“Moi?”
She needed to let this Alex thing go. I was beginning to get fixated on it myself.

“You have a temper?” Rand’s eyes never left my face.

What was
with
this guy? I was going to have a serious talk with Eugenie to see how much she knew about him. What was that man’s name back in the 1980s who was such a charming, handsome guy that he was the darling of single women everywhere—right until they found the three dozen mutilated bodies in his basement? I got that vibe off Quince Randolph.

I started to pull her aside while Rand went to get the car but she was happy and, really, what was I going to tell her? That I didn’t like the way he looked me in the eye when he talked to me? That he was too charming?

Maybe I was spending way too much time with grumpy men.

Instead, I went home and spent the afternoon with Tish, lounging around my library and reading up on the Wizards’ War of 1976 and pondering theories about how it could be related to the mutilation of Doug Hebert and contamination from the River Styx.

I found a description of a generic sacrificial ritual where the pertinent body parts were cut off to appease a god for a wrong done. But it wasn’t specific to any species.

We stopped long enough to order Chinese, and I got an update from Alex—the full autopsy report on Melinda Hebert, complete with toxicology report, should be in his hands by tomorrow noon. Maybe it would have some answers.

About eleven, I closed my book with a thump. “I’m not finding anything. I’m going to make up a translation charm to use on those books of Greek mythology tomorrow morning.”

Tish laughed. “Leave it to Gerry for his most thorough Greek mythology books to be written in Greek.”

Tish decided to sleep over again since it was late, so I left her to make her way to the guest room downstairs and I went into my bedroom. Mahout was lying across my bed.

“I don’t think so, elf stick.” I stuck it in the back of my closet, then magically sealed the door shut using a premade charm and a little physical magic. Since the power-share, I’d been holding back my magic, letting it regenerate. When we had to do it again, I needed enough juice built up for Rene to borrow.

The room was quiet, the ceiling fan turned off, and the outside air left the house in that rare late-October state requiring neither heating nor air-conditioning. Big bad wizard that I am, I left my bedside lamp on. If elves broke in, I wanted to see them.

Shadows stretched across the deep green walls I’d painted last summer, and I drifted into pre-sleep, wondering how Jake was doing and if we’d ever be able to even be friends again. Whether Alex really was changing the rules of our relationship, and how I wasn’t sure what to think about that. How mermen and nymphs and poisoned water and dead wizards might possibly be connected.

I awoke with a jolt. I thought I’d just drifted off to sleep, but the bedside clock read 3:00 a.m. I started thinking again, and I came up with an idea. Jean Lafitte had been around a long time, and had a lot of experience with all kinds of pretes from his years in the Beyond. He was also extremely smart in his own self-serving kind of way. I should ask his opinion. I could even offer him a consulting fee. If he helped us solve the case, I’d owe him another debt. He’d like that.

I thought about calling him, because I was pretty sure the historical undead didn’t have to sleep. Probably should wait until morning, though.

I sighed and crawled out of bed, wide awake. I was a borderline insomniac. If I woke up during the night, it was hard for me to go back to sleep. Maybe cocoa would help.

Walking out of the bedroom into the den, I heard the radio downstairs playing soft bluesy tunes. If Tish was up, it meant I could go to the kitchen and make cocoa without bothering her. Maybe run my Jean Lafitte brainstorm past her.

I padded down the steps in the T-shirt and jogging pants that made up my non Harry Potter winter lingerie. “Tish! You are not going to believe this.”

She wasn’t in the office/guest room, but the radio next to the daybed played on the bedside table. The kitchen lights were on, but no sign of Tish. I threw some instant cocoa in a cup and set it in the microwave, then stuck my head into the front double parlor. No sign of her there, either, but the front door was ajar. She was probably having a smoke.

I retrieved the hot cocoa from the microwave and headed to the front porch. One of the benefits of being a wizard, I guess—we seemed immune to diseases like lung cancer and emphysema. I just didn’t like the smell of cigarette smoke, although tobacco was nice. Now, I would forever associate it with the pirate.

I felt my protective wards pressing against me lightly as I crossed the threshold. Just outside the door, my foot hit something slippery and shot from beneath me, and I cursed as I crashed at an awkward angle on my butt. The mug of cocoa went flying.

“Damn. Tish? Where are you?” I got to my feet, my hands wet. I looked out on the darkened street, wondering if it had rained, then reached inside the door and turned on the porch light.

Nothing registered at first. Blood covered my palms, but I was still frowning at it dumbly when I looked down and saw it pooled around my feet. Tish lay facedown and still.

Oh my God
. I couldn’t move for a few seconds, couldn’t breathe. I dropped to my knees, my hands hovering over her, unsure whether I should touch her. Finally, I stretched shaking fingers to press the side of her neck, underneath her curly brown hair. I couldn’t feel a pulse, and her body had already begun to cool.

“Tish?” My voice sounded like someone else—someone shrill—as I reached out and turned her over. My eyes riveted onto her throat. A horizontal slash, a harsh red cut in the shape of a smile on her pale neck, had bathed her body in dark crimson. I couldn’t look away from it.

“Let me call someone for you, DJ. Does she need an ambulance? Do you want the police?”

I screamed and started, staring into the shadows at the bottom of the porch steps. Quince Randolph stood there in a dark brown sweater and jeans, his hair falling loose around his shoulders.

“What have you done? Why her? I will kill you.” I knew something was off with him. I ran down the stairs, hoping I had enough physical energy to do him damage and wishing I hadn’t sealed the staff in my closet.

Rand met me halfway and dragged me back to the porch, avoiding the bloody heap that had been my friend and my last link to Gerry.

“You son of a bitch.” I raged at him and gouged at his eyes with my fingers as he reached toward me, and then zapped him with a ragged burst of magic. He hissed and stepped out of touching range, but when I didn’t move to follow, he reached for me again. I slapped at him, getting blood on his face.

“DJ, I didn’t do this.” His voice was calm, steady. “I was on my way home from Eugenie’s and saw your porch light. Who do you want me to call?”

“Call Gerry.”

“Who is Gerry?”

I quit fighting and stared at him, feeling the emptiness where Gerry had been, glad my mentor—my father—wasn’t alive to see what had happened to the woman he loved.

Rand tried to pull me against him, and I tried to zap him again but I didn’t have enough physical magic to do anything more than make him flinch a little.

“I don’t know how you’re doing that, but I just want your cell phone,” he said, dodging my hands.

I jerked it from my pocket and threw it at him.

He kept talking at me until I finally gave him Alex’s name and collapsed to the porch, leaning against the wooden spindle railings, looking away from Tish.

Rand walked back to the yard with my phone, and I heard him talking in a low voice, too softly for me to hear.

I jumped when he returned a couple of minutes later, then settled back in my stupor, shivering. It was so cold out here.

“Your partner is on his way.” Rand slid down and sat next to me, but didn’t try to touch me again. I tried to get in his head, to read his emotions, but I couldn’t focus enough to get anything.

My eyes landed on Tish again, and tears threatened. Had she made a sound or did someone take her by surprise? Was the reason I woke up the sound of her falling? Dying?

I closed my eyes and shivered in the night air. “Cold, she’s got to be cold. I need to get something to cover her up.” I tried to get up, but Rand slid an arm around my shoulders and held me still.

A car door slammed, and I heard Alex running through the house from the back door. He still has my house key, I thought idly. Probably a good idea to let him keep it. I wondered vaguely what time it was, and leaned back against the porch rails as Rand pulled his arm away and stood up. He was talking to Alex. Did he know Alex? Had I told Alex about Eugenie’s new boyfriend?

Alex knelt beside me and I slapped at him as he reached for me. “Stop it, DJ. You’re going into shock.” He picked me up and hauled me through the front door, careful to step over the blood I’d already fallen in, and carried me into the front parlor.

“Get a blanket out of the guest room,” he told Rand, and next thing I knew Alex was wrapping it around me after setting me down like a fragile china cup.

“DJ, talk to me.” Alex pushed my hair out of my eyes, knelt next to the chair, and turned my face to look at him.

I squinted. When had Alex gotten here? Frantic, I pointed toward the door, and tried to get up. I needed to show him what happened. Alex could help Tish.

“Shhh.” He pulled me into a hug. “It’s okay. Jake’s with her. Are you hurt?”

I buried my face in his chest, feeling his strong arms around me and smelling the soft scent I recognized as Alex. Once the tears started, I couldn’t stop them. He just held on and let me cry.

“Here, drink this.” In my peripheral vision, I saw Rand’s hand extended, holding a mug, and Alex pulled away to let me take it. I couldn’t hold it still enough to drink, and Alex wrapped a big hand around mine and guided it toward my mouth.