Tangled Souls (40 page)

When he ran out of options, he’d called Gavenia’s aunt, and Lucy Merin reinforced his worst fears; there had been no sign of the witch since she left the shelter earlier that evening. She’d simply vanished like one of her ghosts.

He checked his watch—it was nearing ten thirty. They’d blown almost two and a half hours on the dead woman.

“If they’d just given her this much attention when she was still alive . . . ,” he grumbled.
Seamus.
He’d completely forgotten the parrot’s dinner. He dialed his housekeeper, offered profuse apologies for the late hour, and made hasty arrangements to get his roomie fed.

“Come on, guys, let’s move it,” he muttered, watching the detectives from a distance. They kept putting questions to Adam and he kept nodding in reply. “They’re just being pricks about this. Cut him loose and let’s go.”

The phone rang in his hand. It wasn’t Gavenia. “Yes?” he demanded

“And good evening to you, too.” It was Zimansky.

“Sorry; things have gone to hell here. Janet Alliford’s dead.”

A low sigh. “OD?”

“Looks like it. They’re still working the scene.”

“Did you get to talk to her?”

“No. But someone else did, and that someone is now missing.”

“That doesn’t sound good. We’ve ID’d the guy who stole the SUV. Name’s LaRue Taylor.”

Taylor.
O’Fallon shivered.
Just like in the vision
.

Zimansky continued on, oblivious to the reaction he’d caused. “He’s got an impressive rap sheet, mostly dealing drugs, with some aggravated assault thrown in for good measure. The lab kicked it into overdrive for us, and the fingerprints in the SUV and on the little boy’s packing tube are a match. We’ve even got security-tape footage of LaRue in the SUV at the parking lot. He works for one of the landscaping companies, and they have contracts with Alliford and the owner of the Caddy. Before that, he worked at a place that serviced cars so he’d know how to disable one.”

Bingo.
“You got a lead on where he is?”

“That’s why I’m calling. We’re working a search warrant on his apartment. We just got here. It took time to make nice with Downtown and line up some uniforms.”

“Still, that was fast.”

“All you have to do is mention a dead kid, and judges take notice.”

“So what have you found?”

“A key for the Escalade. He ordered it from a Cadillac dealership and had it sent to the owner’s address after the guy left town. Pretty clever. He had the ransom letter all ready to go. He was going to ask for four million. And we found some bloody bandages. He must have tangled with something that cut him up pretty badly.”

“The dog, maybe?”

“Perhaps. We’ll have the lab work them over.” A pause, and then, “Hold on.” There was muffled conversation.

Adam returned at that moment.

O’Fallon asked, “Are we free to go?” The young cop gave a nod. O’Fallon pointed at the phone. “It’s Zimansky. They’re searching Taylor’s apartment.”

Another nod.

“You there, O’Fallon?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s the name of the missing party who spoke to the Alliford woman?”

“Kingsgrave; Gavenia Kingsgrave.”

“Well, part of her isn’t missing anymore. We got her driver’s license and credit cards.”

Oh, God, LaRue found her.
His face must have given him away. Adam shook his head and sighed expressively.

“She was driving a red Miata,” O’Fallon offered. He dug out his notebook and relayed the license plate number and a detailed description of his lover.

“We’ll put out an APB,” Zimansky said.

“Gavenia called me right before she met with Janet Alliford and was supposed to call back the moment the interview was complete. She never did.”

“This isn’t lookin’ good, O’Fallon.”

“No, it isn’t.” He paused and added, “Thanks for your help, Zimansky.”

“Yeah, yeah. Wait until we bag this bastard, then you can thank me.”

* * *

“I told you I took care of the problem,” Taylor said, pointing to the body deep in the pit. Behind the corpse glowing rodent eyes glinted in the beam of Glass’s flashlight. “See? Rat food. Now can we get outta here? This place is creepy.”

“Where’s her car?” Glass demanded.

“Chop shop. It’ll be in pieces by morning.”

“How’d you kill her?”

Taylor pointed to the gun in his waistband. “A round in the head,” he boasted.

“Why’d you kill the kid?”

“He ran. I didn’t have . . . any . . .” Taylor jammed his lips together.

The warehouse fell silent and then Glass hissed, “They traced you to the SUV, asshole. They’ve got an APB out for you and the woman down there,” he said, gesturing with the flashlight.

“How the hell . . .” Taylor jittered nervously on the uneven floor. “What do I do? I got no money to run.”

“You don’t have to run. I’ll take care of everything.”

Taylor gave a sigh. “That’s cool. I’d have cut you in on the boy’s ransom money.”

“Yeah, I’m sure.” The flashlight beam cut laterally through the darkness, burning into Taylor’s retinas, blinding him.

“Hey, don’t do that. You—”

Glass’s reply consisted of three staccato bursts of gunfire that scattered the frightened birds into the night sky like arrows. Taylor tried to say something, but crumpled to the warehouse floor before uttering a word. Positioning his flashlight on a pile of rubble to illuminate the scene, Glass pulled a pair of latex gloves out of his pocket and put them on. He stripped the body of its cell phone and gun, then pushed Taylor to the edge of the pit. The corpse teetered for a moment before landing with a heavy thud on the debris below.

“One asshole down, two to go,” Glass muttered. At least now Taylor wouldn’t try to sell him out to save his own skin.

He reclaimed his flashlight and wove his way out of the building.

* * *

Something brushed by Gavenia’s hand. Something furry. When she jerked herself into a tighter ball, shivering, an annoyed squeak said the rodent wasn’t amused. When her eyes fluttered open, for a moment she thought she was blind; the area around her was nearly pitch-black. As her eyes adjusted, she saw charred and warped timbers sticking through mounds of broken brick and concrete like ghostly trees. Strands of electrical conduit hung above her like a dismembered spider web.

Another squeak resounded near her. “Rats,” she muttered. No doubt they were passing around the dinner menu at this very moment, amazed at their good fortune. She touched the right side of her face; her fingers came away sticky.
Blood.
No wonder her head throbbed like a bongo drum. As she sat upright, the pain exploded and her stomach responded. She heaved hard and long until her stomach was empty.

A concussion. Just what I need.

How long had she been unconscious? Once the nausea subsided, Gavenia felt for her watch. The lighted display was gone, smashed by the debris. She remembered rousing a couple of times, thinking she heard voices, but had drifted back into the welcome embrace of painless oblivion.

By now O’Fallon would be frantic, ripping the city apart to find her. Her left hand began to cramp and when she opened it, the palm revealed two rose petals. Apparently, she had grabbed them and they’d remained with her during her swan dive. She took a deep sniff of their faint scent. It reminded her of the night before, of the inferno ignited between her and the Irishman.

“The hell I’m going to die now,” she said, glaring upward. “It’s just starting to get interesting.” As she tucked the petals into her jeans pocket for safekeeping, she encountered a pack of gum. She unwrapped a stick and savored it. The peppermint overcame the sour taste in her mouth and seemed to ease her thirst.

Gavenia rose very slowly, testing her weight on one foot and then the other. Both hips ached and her back burned in protest, but given the fall she’d taken, she was reasonably whole.

“Thank you,” she said, looking upward. Past the bare rafters, a pale first-quarter moon welcomed her. It was better than no light at all. She began a careful search of her surroundings, inching forward in the debris, fearful of discovering another hole that would lead deeper into the maw of the burned-out hulk.

The situation proved grim. She was apparently in some sort of pit, and the debris that surrounded her was at least two stories high. Climbing out would require skills she didn’t possess.

“Oh, this sucks,” she muttered. “This really sucks.” She heard multiple rodent movements, and a shiver coursed through her. “I’m not dinner,” she said defiantly. She wondered how long that boast might hold. Eventually she’d have to sleep, and if no one came for her . . .

The melodic strains of Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” filled the air. She slapped both her jacket pockets, but came up empty. The ringing stopped.

“No! Call again!” she shouted. As if obliging her, the phone began again. Triangulating on the melody, her hope melted. The sound came from above; her phone hadn’t made the journey into the pit. She slumped on a large piece of concrete in despair.

The night air began to burrow into her veins, causing her to shiver. Her thirst mounted despite the gum, growing stronger with each passing minute. Another round of rat skitters came from just ahead of her. How much would be left of her by the time they found her body? Would she be like one of those skeletons that Ari unearthed?

She extended her hand, palm upward as if holding a skull.

“Alas, poor Gavenia! I knew her: a witch of infinite . . . infinite . . . whatever.” Unable to summon the proper word, she gave the illusionary skull a toss. “Now what?” she muttered.

A faint glow emanated from the ground. Intrigued, she moved forward to investigate. Gavenia’s toe kicked the body before she realized what it was, and she jumped back with a startled squeak that rivaled the sounds of her rodent companions. As she bent over to check the body, the glow rose from it, shifting a few feet away as if unsure of her presence. It was a soul, a newly dead one, and its aura was muddy gray, the taint of a vile life.

The body was crumpled over the bricks like a discarded puppet, its chest a solid mass of clotted blood. Even in the faint light she recognized Taylor’s build and the half mermaid on his arm. She suppressed a shudder.

Her hunter had become prey.