Occam made a cat sound. “FireWind wants us in the barn manager’s office. I’m figuring the manager is dead. T. Laine’s pulling the trailer around and backing it in close. And I have a feeling this case is never gonna end.” He stood and held down a hand. “Nell, sugar, I’d offer my hand to any linebacker who got tackled. And you got tackled by a treeandadeath and decayworking.”
I managed a smile and looked at my white, waxy fingers in the meager darkness. They ached. The damage looked similar to frostbite. “Where’d you put the tree?”
“In your car.”
I wanted to smile at his tone, but I thought he might think I was laughing at him instead of commiserating. “It’s jist a tree, cat-man.” I put my hand into his and he clasped it gently, pulling me to my feet.
When I wavered, he put an arm around me and steadied me. “It ain’t jist a tree, Nell, sugar, and you and me both know it.”
I sighed and stood on my own. He was right. I did know it. “Come on. Let’s check out the barn.”
“Don’t get in FireWind’s way. He’s back to being a dog and he’s in nose-suck.”
“Squirrelly and all over the place? Tail wagging?”
Occam snorted. “More like a two-hundred-pound wrecking ball. On a mission to knock down all his coworkers.”
I leaned into Occam again. Pressed into his warmth. Knew I was safe, just for this moment. His longer-than-normal hair was soft under my cheek and he rubbed his jaw into my hair, cat-scent-marking me. I rubbed a fist along his jaw the way his cat liked and gave him a final hug, pushed away, and walked to the barn door under my own power. The stench hit me before I opened the door, the foul, sweet-sick reek of thedeathworking. The lights were on and, though it wasn’t glaring, it was bright enough to see that the stalls were all empty, the tack room door was open, and so was the manager’s office door. The body was lying in the wide central area between stalls.
I had expected to see Credence Pacillo, the breeder and trainer, or perhaps the farm manager, Pam Gower, who had been away on vacation when Stella died, and who I hadn’t met, but who had been interviewed over the phone by Occam. I’d seen her bio and photograph, and Pam was a bulldog of a woman, midforties with prematurely gray hair. This body was female, but it wasn’t Pam. Instead it was a short, slender, young white woman with cropped blond hair, a girl I had seen on the first day; I had taken her preliminary statement. Ingrid Wayns, a twenty-one-year-old college student, had been ready to graduate, a part-time rider looking to find work in the agribusiness industry. She was stretched out, facedown much like Stella had been, her arms under her as if she fell forward. She was still human looking, still had skin, hair, and her flesh was nearly normal, not oozing green bubbles. Yet.
Ingrid had not been inside the house and there was no reason for anyone in the barn to be dead.
I touched Occam’s elbow to get his attention. Softly, I said, “I need to reread the earth here and around the barn to see if the energies have changed or worsened or spread.”
“I don’t like it, Nell,” he said.
My instant response was less than nice, because it was clear he was talking like a boyfriend and not like my coworker. I held in my reaction and said instead, “I’m not too fond of the idea either, Special Agent Occam, but I wasn’t asking your permission.”
A strange look crossed his face, to be replaced with a dawning comprehension. “Oh.” He stepped back. “It’s hard to let someone I love do things that might hurt ’em.”
“I get that. But that’s the way life is, cat-man. Difficult, dangerous, and disturbing.”
Occam laughed, a single odd, pained note. “You got a point, Ingram. Otherwise you’d be boring. And I reckon I never signed on for boring, not with you, woman. Fine. I’ll accept it. Jist remember. I’m here if you need me.” He flipped me a companionable wave and vanished into the night.
As Occam, the security guys, and T. Laine maneuvered the null room trailer into the barn and scooped up the dead girl, I took a fortifying breath and leaned down to touch the ground with an uninjured pinkie. The death sensation was present but not nearly as strong as the sensation at the house. I stepped into a stall and tested the earth beneath the deep wood shavings. Less strong. I moved into each stall, testing, and most were without thedeathworking. Then I checked the manager’s office. The sensation there was much more powerful, but not on the floor. More as if someone had walked in, touched things, and then left. The coffeemaker was particularly strong, the plastic cracking, and I left a note in the grounds bin that the appliance was contaminated.
Satisfied that the barn was not inherently dangerous in the short term, I sat and opened my laptop, signed on, and started work, but my fingers, still looking frostbitten, ached and my typing was slow. I looked longingly at the coffeemaker and reached slowly back over the chair, stretching my spine.
High in the corner, in the rafters, I spotted a small camera. I managed not to flinch or shout or do anything else, and went back to my business, thinking, wondering why I hadn’t noticed it before. I pulled up the schematics of the house and barn’s security system. There was no camera listed in the manager’s office. Had someone else put a camera here? A spy camera? If so, what was so interesting about this table and the manager’s desk?
I got up, stretched again as if I hadn’t noticed anything, and walked to the spot where I had sat when Occam and I talked to Credence Pacillo. The camera was placed behind a rafter and looked directly down over the desk and the one spot at the table. The angle seemed perfect to watch the laptop that sat there. Someone had been spying on the office. Pacillo? Or maybe Pam Gower? Stella herself?
Out of sight of the camera, I texted the information to HQ and pretty quickly got back a comment from Tandy.Interesting. Overall security feed is not kept in storage but is overwritten every week. Camera is not part of security grid. Will search more on this end. Does camera have memory card?
I texted back,Beats me. 12 ft overhead?
Careful to make sure the camera couldn’t view what I wrote now, but concerned that it might have already captured my password entry, I retook my seat, adjusted the laptop so the camera couldn’t capture the screen, and continued with my work. But working, or trying to work, under the eye of a camera was challenging, an exercise in thorny memories. It was like being under the watchful eye of the churchmen. There was no,absolutely noprivacy.
I got up and moved away from the chair, out of sight of the camera. I was breathing too fast and anxiety skittered up my spine, which was stupid. Except it wasn’t stupid. It made total sense. I thought about the churchmen. I thought about the ones who tried the hardest to hurt me. I had fed them to the earth. I had won. I had defeated them and I had survived.Ihad survived.
I had PTSD of a sort, I knew that. But I had survived. I was still surviving.
My breathing steadied. Okay.So what do I do with the camera?I asked myself, thinking like a PsyLED officer, not a victim. I propped myself against the doorway, considering.
A red-brindle and white St. Bernard rammed inside the office, shoving me against the wall. I nearly fell and I whacked FireWind’s shoulder with the flat of my hand. “I ain’t never in my life smacked a dog, but you’uns know better,” I said, shaking my finger at him. “Shame on you,” I said, louder. Just like the mamas might. I clamped my mouth shut on the church words.
The St. Bernard went still, turned his head in a totally not-dog manner, and glared at me.
