“It takes a special sort of self-righteousness to steal a cross from a church to burn on somebody’s lawn,” he agreed. “Also, usually some alcohol.”
“Check that off your list. I saw the bottles in their hands.”
“Recognize anyone?”
“Ski masks,” I said.
“License plate?”
“Did you miss the part where I said we were in bed?”
“Then why am I here, Caldwell?” His voice had taken on a weary edge, and I realized he thought I was just taking advantage of the fact that we’d worked together a couple of times before. I missed Detective Prieto. He’d been surly and difficult, but I’d always known where he stood.
A lot of people thought it was my fault he was dead. They weren’t completely wrong about that. His murder had stirred up all kinds of trouble in Austin, and now, six months later, it was becoming popular to hate our witches. Churches were more vocal. None of us much dared to have a Facebook or Twitter account, which might be used to track us down; the digital threats made it almost useless, anyway. Considering that Austin had always been a model of tolerance and support, it felt like a last-stand situation to me.
“Come look at this,” I said to Rosen, and walked him over to the picture. He examined it as closely as I had, shook his head, and took some photos of his own. “The woman in the photo is named Portia. I don’t know her last name. She’s a foreseer witch, runs some kind of tarot-reading business.”
“Here in Austin?”
“I think so,” I said. “I’ve never been to her place. I met her at a conference.”
Rosen glanced up at me, and his gaze lingered. He had a long, rectangular face and a fringe of thick silver hair, with thick eyebrows to match. Kind of a silver fox, actually. “Witches have conferences? What do you do, exchange spells? Sell each other cauldrons?”
“Something like that,” I said. I wasn’t in the mood for mockery. “A woman is dead, Detective. So maybe you could stop judging and investigate?”
“We fully investigate everything that’s reported,” Rosen said. “Even when it’s a waste of time.”
“You think a dead witch is a waste of time?” That calm, quiet voice came from behind me. Andy had walked over to join us, probably drawn by the dark energy of our face-off. He did love a good fight. “Where I come from, the law had to pretend to do a little more work before they gave up, at least.”
“Where you’re from, the law was whatever the man with the fastest gun said it was. At least, that’s what the stories say.” Rosen studied Andy for a moment. “Can’t see it, personally. All this gunfighter bullshit.”
Thank God Andy wasn’t wearing a holster and a six-gun. I still saw the impulse travel through his body, the twitching of fingers on his right hand. And I saw the dark, uneven slice of the smile on his face. “Probably is bullshit,” he agreed. “I’d stick with that, Detective. But, hand to God, you’d best get to digging on Portia’s death, or I will.”
Rosen kept eyeballing him. “Is that a threat, Mr. Toland?”
“Not toward you, sir.”
So very polite, all this male aggression. “Do you need anything else?” I asked Rosen. I was regretting that I’d asked for him on this, but I honestly couldn’t name a single detective at APD who would have been any more receptive just now. “Because it’s been a hell of a night so far.”
“I’d expect it’s been worse for the woman in that picture,” he said. “I know my job, and I’ll do it. You two stay the hell out of everybody’s way. We don’t need amateurs cock-blocking us and blowing up the investigation.”
“You mean you’re going to do one?”
“If she’s really dead,” Rosen said. “Right now, I see a picture that might be a fake. Once I have an honest-to-God corpse, I’ll get to work. Other than that, maybe you ought to put a fence around your yard and get a big dog, unless you enjoy this kind of thing.”
“So you’re just going to file it and forget it,” I said. “Right?”
“Miss Caldwell, every hate crime gets reported to the FBI, and I’m going to flag it that way. So just quit punching me. It’s not a fight.”
He sounded tired, and in that moment I saw the strain in the tight wrinkles around his eyes. He’d probably been up for hours, and maybe had been just kicking off for the night when he’d gotten the call to come to us. Made sense he wasn’t thrilled to be here.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Bad night?”
Some of the tension left his body. “Yeah, bad enough. We had a teen girl missing over in Clarksville. Found her in a cardboard box behind a bar. Not a pretty sight. I’ve got a daughter her age.”
“I’m sorry.” I didn’t know Rosen all that well on a personal level; he wore a wedding ring, but I knew nothing about his home life, if he had much of one at all. Some cops didn’t. On impulse, I held up a finger. “Wait here, okay? Be right back.” I dashed into the house and opened up a cardboard box sitting on the sofa in the living room. In it were small bottles with the printed label HOLLY’S BALM. It was magic, but benign and shelf-stable. Not my creation. Andy’s. And it was selling like hotcakes.
I grabbed a bottle from the carton and went back outside to Rosen. “Stress relief,” I said, holding it out to him. “No charge, and I promise, it won’t damn your immortal soul or anything. But it works.”
He looked at it with a frown, but opened the cap and sniffed. I watched the change come over him: pure, simple peace, flowing like air over his body. He let out a breath, capped the bottle, and said, “Well, holy shit. That’s good stuff.”
“It’s effective for up to six months once opened,” I said. “I figured someone in your position probably needs it more than most.”
He thanked me with another nod, more pleasant this time, and said his good-byes. They weren’t effusive, but I didn’t expect them to be. The patrol officers left soon after, and Andy and I wrestled the heavy, soot-encrusted cross out of the ground and dragged it around back. Our neighbor’s German shepherd took exception, but I wasn’t impressed. He hadn’t bothered to bark when the cross went up. “Rosen could be right about the fence and the dog,” Andy said. “Might be a reasonable step. Otherwise, I’m sleeping on the front porch with a shotgun. A little buckshot in their asses might move ’em on.”
“We’ll get a fence,” I said, and stripped off my blackened work gloves, which I dropped on top of the cross. “But you know what I want most?”
“What?” He opened the back door and pulled me inside the house and into his arms.
“I want you in my bed,” I said. “Not out on the porch.”
“You going to change into what you were wearing before?”
“After I wash off the smoke smell.”
“Join you in two shakes,” he said.
I looked back when I reached the top of the stairs, and saw that he had locked the door and was standing at the window staring out at the yard.
Detective Rosen had taken the dagger and the photo with him, as evidence. I didn’t know what Andy was looking at now. Maybe nothing.
“Andy?” I asked.
He dropped the curtain, turned, and said, “On my way.”
Whatever was bothering him, he seemed to have let it go. By the time he was in the shower with me, damp and soapy, neither one of us was wondering about the future very much.
It was a mistake. Obviously.
—
I went to work the next morning just as I normally did, albeit still smelling a little like smoke (you can never get that stuff off) and feeling gritty and raw on only about three hours of solid sleep during the entire night. Also feeling pleasantly buzzed by the very intense attention Andy had paid to my every need. So on balance, it evened out, at least until I finished my drive to work.
I turned the last corner, going on autopilot (as you do) and thinking about what I had waiting on my desk. I was an accountant—nothing too exciting or even too challenging, but it paid the bills and kept me in medical insurance, which even potions witches need. You can’t brew it all. I’ve tried.
I hit the brakes, because on the sidewalk in front of my building was a crowd. Okay, it wasn’t a mob, but it was at least thirty people, chanting and carrying homemade signs.
Signs that read GOD HATES WITCHES and FIRE THE WITCH.
I knew, with a sinking feeling, exactly who they were talking about.
My coworkers were having to run the gauntlet to get into the building, and were being handed neon-bright flyers (some were crumpled up on the ground, which made me happy). I was certain every flyer had my name, my picture, and some white-hot speculation on just how horrible and evil I was.
I realized that if I just sat in the car, they’d see me anyway, so I made the turn into the parking lot and pulled into a space at the back. Deep breaths.
I was preparing to face the lions, but then the phone rang. Saved by the bell, I thought. I was hoping it was Andy, but it wasn’t, and I wasn’t saved, either.
It was my boss, Heather. Heather said, “Hey, um, Holly? I think—maybe you should take some time off. Don’t come into the office, okay?”
“Really?” I felt shaky and cold, but I tried to sound clueless. “Why?”
“We have a little—situation here. HR and Public Relations are handling it, but everyone agrees that having you come in right now would really escalate things.” She lowered her voice almost to a whisper. “I’m so sorry—you know I hate this, but there are . . . people out here. Saying bad things. And everybody’s very upset.”
“They don’t think it’s my fault, do they? Because I didn’t do anything!”
“I know that, and honestly, Holly, you’re great, but . . . let us try to sort this out. Just take a few days off. I’ll cover it. You’ll be paid for your time. Just . . . go home and relax, okay? I’ll call.”