“Princess,” she clarified. “Mavis Greenlee’s Persian. I talked to animal control and the shelter. Since Archer gave her up, I’m adopting her. Kinda like you did with Billy Huber’s dog.”
“We could start our own rescue,” he grouched.
“How’re you getting along with … what was his name? Arnold?”
“Arlo. And it’s been okay,” he admitted, as he liked the shepherd. Surprisingly. “But if we find any others, we’re out.”
“I heard Jeanne LaRoux kept chickens. And maybe pigs.”
“Forget it.” He really had no time for small talk. Not with the three homicides and Naomi Kittle being MIA. Glancing down at the autopsyreports again, he asked, “So where does a killer get a goat, a pig, and a female human so he can drain off their blood?”
She took a pull from her energy drink and scrutinized the map again. “Probably not in the city.” What she didn’t add was that she knew more than her partner.
Reed’s cell interrupted her thoughts.
He answered abruptly, then without explanation, he left the office quickly. He didn’t bother with his jacket. Which meant he probably wouldn’t be gone long and wasn’t leaving the building.
Right now, she couldn’t tell him what she knew, because he wouldn’t want to know and wouldn’t believe her.
Last night, with the moon and stars to guide her, she’d driven to Jeanne LaRoux’s swampy patch of land. Sol had been careful and parked her truck a mile down the road at what appeared to be a fisherman’s turnout near the river. Using her flashlight sparingly, she’d hiked back to the property, feeling the moist air, smelling the heavy scent of the swamp. She’d wandered through the live oaks, with their gauzy, ghostly veils of Spanish moss moving with the breeze, and eyed the darkened cabin and sheds in the clearing where Jeanne LaRoux had lived and practiced what many considered the dark arts.
Sol understood.
She felt the older woman’s presence in the ramshackle buildings as she tuned her senses in to the still night air. She heard mosquitoes and bullfrogs, crickets and bats as they swooped overhead and noticed the leftover scent of ash in the air. The water was dark as she crossed the rotting bridge to the sanctuary, a hut of bleached wood. Inside, she’d caught the aromas of eucalyptus and something else—patchouli, she thought—along with the odor of charred wood.
And blood.
She recognized the metallic scent of blood in this sanctuary of sorts, its altar having been desecrated, violated by those who had been here before her.
Quietly, she slid out of her clothes and laid them carefully near the door. Then she stepped into the center of the fire pit, her bare feet sinking into the ash, the bits of blackened wood rubbing against her ankles.
She felt nothing.
No restless soul stirring.
“Come to me,” she whispered and, balancing on one foot, placed the other on a rock rimming the cold embers, a rock stained with Jeanne LaRoux’s blood. “Please, come to me.”
The night seemed to close in on her.
The crickets and frogs and bats grew silent.
She felt a breath of wind as it slipped through the open doorway.
It seemed to swirl around her in a gentle cocoon.
“Jeanne,” she said under her breath.
She sensed a movement, just a whisper, deep in her soul.
Closing her eyes, she murmured, “Who did this to you?”
The movement, a tingling breeze within her, curled around her heart.
“Who?” she demanded.
“Le fils de Satan,” was the answer. The son of Satan.
“Il m’a pris la vie.”
