“Are you crazy? No way!” Mary stood up fast.
My cell dinged again and I held up a hand as if to pacify Mary. JoJo had texted,Justin Tolliver’s wife Sonya and the senator’s son Devin—motorcade just attacked. Limo in flames. Sonya presumed dead. Child saved by Soul. Get back here.
I pocketed my cell. “Fine. I need to check some things, verify your claims. Can we chat again?”
Mary Smith walked away. Actually she stomped away like a petulant child. She hadn’t touched a single thing; I had no way to obtain prints. As she left the room, she muttered, “Bitch.”
I frowned. “What did I do?”
Ten seconds later, Occam stuck his head in the door. “You ticked her off, Nell, sugar. Whatever she wanted, you didn’t give it to her. Let’s go. We’re wanted at HQ.”
“I got the texts. Soul saved a kid from a fire. We got too many fires, Occam.”
He pushed open the library’s security door and we stepped into a shadow, looking around, making sure that Mary Smith didn’t see us leave together. When we were reasonably sure that Mary—and no one else either—was watching us, we raced to Occam’s fancy car and got in, out of the icy wind that had blown up.
“Fire. Yeah,” he said thoughtfully, starting the engine. “Yeah. You’re right. There is fire at every crime scene. The firesseemednatural, but fire is the single consistent factor at every incident. Fire is what makes this investigation a single, unified, cohesive case.”
I thought back to the Holloways’ party. “We thought the gunshots knocked over candles and started the fire. But what if they didn’t? What if our shooter is a firestarter?”
Occam punched a screen on his dash and told the car to call HQ. It did. He passed our speculations to JoJo.
Over the tinny connection, Jo said, “Roger that. Running a search on that angle now. Checking the mythical creatures compendium with the addition of fire, hoping it’s part of the existing mythos.” We heard keys clacking softly and before Occam could sign off, she added, “FYI. Soul and the kid she rescued are at HQ; the others are heading in.”
“We might beat them there.” He peeled out of the parking lot, tires fishtailing on the thin layer of freezing rain. “ETA soonest depending on traffic.” He ended the call.
Trusting in my seat belt to hold me in place, I snuggled my arms out of my sleeves and tucked my hands beneath my armpits to warm them. Occam’s fancy new car had come with seat warmers and he adjusted mine to warm. This small service was mystifying to me, disorienting, bewildering. I tucked my chin down into my coat collar so I didn’t have to look at him. I didn’t have words to respond to all the strange feelings that were... not assaulting me, but hopping up and down on my heart.
I hated this. I had been a perfectly happy widder-woman—
I snorted out a soft giggle.
“What?” Occam asked as he maneuvered around a corner and the tires sashayed back and forth harder.
My giggle went louder. I shook my head and giggled some more, saying, “Nothing.” And then the giggles went away. I breathed out and felt some of the tension I hadn’t recognized fade. “Nothing at all. Except that I’m happier now than before I joined PsyLED. I miss spending time in my garden. I miss time with my hands in the dirt and supporting my plants and herbs and veggies and trees. I miss time alone in my house. But I’m happier now. And that’s weird.”
“Not so weird, Nell, sugar,” Occam said softly. “You got friends now. People who will protect you. Defend you. Stand with you. And you’re getting your family back—on your terms. This is all good. It’s stuff that makes for happiness.”
I slid my eyes to the side and studied him. He was slouched in his seat, enfolded in layers that were all open down the front except the Henley T-shirt beneath. His hair was too long and swinging. His beard was always scruffy.He was a cat-man. His body felt hotter than a normal human’s. He would purr in his sleep from time to time. And... I liked him. Maybe too much.
I slid my arms back through my sleeves and scooted my hands under my thighs, squishing them between flesh and warm seat. Maybe smiling, just a little. “What about you?” I asked. “What do you do for family?”
“I spent twenty years in a cage as part of a traveling circus. Don’t remember much before that. Went to school when I got away and then joined PsyLED pretty soon after. The job’s my family right now. Hopefully that’ll improve, and sooner than later.”
I wasn’t sure what the last words meant. But I blushed again, my flaming face hidden in the cold and dark of the car.
•••
Back at HQ, we opened the door to the narrow stairway up to the second floor, and the stink of fire struck instantly. Occam stepped back outside, his nose wrinkled like a cat’s snout. I didn’t laugh. Much. I raced up the stairs, yanking the pins and the tight-fitting wig from my head, scratching my fingernails through my sweaty hair and scalp, pulling at the tiny green leaves growing at my nape, smoothing my short bob down over them. I’d have pulled the wig off sooner except I knew the sweat would make me colder. I slid my ID through the reader and straight-armed my way inside.
The stench of burned gasoline and scorched upholstery hung heavy and foul, polluting the air. Along with the smell of burned human flesh. Surely Soul hadn’t brought a burned child here, one who needed medical attention.
I dumped my gobags in my office cubicle and made sure my weapons were locked up, then went in search of Soul and the child she had rescued. The little boy, whose name I didn’t remember, was asleep in the break room, curled on the couch. Someone had found a blanket and it was tucked around him, but his collar and sleeves showed, singed and charred. I wanted to take him for a shower and give him aclean shirt, but that wasn’t happening. Not in a law enforcement office where allegations of abuse might be made.
His face was coated in soot and streaked with tears, dried snot at his nose. His chapped lips made little fluttering sounds as he breathed. Brown hair curled over his head and he looked younger than the eleven years I remembered the senator’s son being. Beneath the soot, his flesh was red, but not burned. No visible burns on him at all. Just that awful stench of... the burned body of his aunt. That was what I’d been told, that Soul had saved the boy, not his aunt Sonya. In his sleep, his hands clasped the blanket and he whimpered. My heart clenched and melted all at once. I had seen children cry themselves to sleep after some awful trauma. This little boy was sleeping the sleep of survival.
•••
I went to the conference room, where the other members of the team were gathered. T. Laine vacated my chair, which I realized was positioned with a clear view of the break room doorway. I nodded to her that I’d keep watch.
