Autumn Whispers o-14 Read online

  “If anybody wanted to rob her via her ATM cards and kidnapped her from home, they would have probably stolen other stuff too. Though her laptop is missing.” Camille shrugged. “Let’s get busy.”

  As we combed the area, rain beat steadily down. Camille shrugged her capelet tightly around her shoulders and I turned up my collar. The trees offered some protection, but the drops still filtered through.

  The cedars creaked in the wind, and the firs followed suit. The sky was getting progressively darker, even though it was barely past noon. The clouds banked up thick, and looming, and though the rain had been steadily pouring, thunder rumbled through the air. The ground shook with the echo of the clap, as a streak of lightning bolted through the sky, flashing so bright it blinded me for a second. I blinked, shading my eyes, and then began to hunt around. We were relatively safe here, out of the open, and if the storm got worse, we could always leave.

  On the west coast of Washington State, the ground is wet most of the year. There’s almost always a layer of moisture trapped in the fallen leaves and needles that turns the trails and soil in forests to a rich mulch-like consistency, which makes—if you’re off trail—twisting an ankle fairly easy. It also creates a thick layer of loose detritus, and if you drop something, half the time it will disappear into the compost. And if you happen to drop something and not notice it . . . well . . . that’s what we were looking for.

  The ground here was covered with the usual mixture of sodden leaves, dead fir, and cedar needles that had dropped to make way for new growth next spring, and a plush layer of brilliant green moss. Mushrooms were everywhere—toadstools mostly, but I recognized a chanterelle here and there. Expensive taste treats, but we weren’t here to collect wildcraft edibles.

  I knelt down and began pushing the leaves aside, sifting through the mass of debris. The usual mixture of fungi, insects, and banana slugs. The latter were both cool and freaky: six-inch-long funky town mollusks that made their home up and down the west coast, eating plants, leaving a trail of slime.

  A spider scuttled across my hand and I shook it away. Ever since my ordeal with the Hunters Moon Clan—a group of hobo werespiders—I tended to err on the side of caution around the eight-legged beasties, but then, before I could dwell on it, something caught my eye. A tamped-out cigarette. I had learned enough from Chase so that I didn’t immediately pick it up, but instead pulled out a plastic baggie and used that to cover my hand as I lifted the butt. No lipstick, but that didn’t mean it had to be a man. I dropped it in a second baggie, and held it up.

  “Someone was here. These things don’t just put themselves out. Comb this area thoroughly.” I went back to scavenging and came up with a candy wrapper. Not for a candy bar, but for one of those expensive truffles. I added that to the bag. Then Camille let out a shout and both Shade and I hurried over.

  She pointed to a footprint. It was caught in the moist dirt beneath a tree, shaded from the rain. While it was mildly eroded, it hadn’t been washed away. I knelt down, examining it and looking around the nearby area. There was another partial print right near it, half in, half out of the foliage. Enough of it showed to tell me it was the matching print, the other foot.

  I frowned. “We should take a cast, I suppose.”

  Camille joined me, cautiously squatting down in the mud. “What about calling Chase? He could send out a man to do that and it would be professionally done.”

  I glanced at her. “We can’t. Chase would have to open an official file if we called him in and I promised Tad and Albert we wouldn’t do that. Not yet. But if I get enough quick dry cement, we can make our own.”

  “I don’t know if that’s going to work—” She broke off as I pursed my lips and cocked my head. “Fine. But if we ruin the results, don’t blame me.”

  Shrugging, I looked up at Shade. “I need you to run out and get us some quick dry cement. Hurry back.”

  He stared at the two of us, and it was impossible to read what his thoughts were, but the next moment, he was gone and we were alone. I marked out the corners of the prints with large enough rocks to keep us from plowing through them by mistake, then Camille and I withdrew beneath the trees, trying to avoid the downpour. It was silly, we were both soaked to the bone, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

  As we stood there, the park grew quiet, and I began to feel an odd sense that we were being watched. I glanced up and found myself staring toward Violet’s bedroom window. It was an easy gander from here, but then . . . how easy was here to get to from the main park trail? Could someone just out for a stroll have dropped that cigarette?

  “Come on, let’s try to track his path.” The his was automatic, even though we’d faced more than one female adversary.

  I looked around. The undergrowth was so thick it would be hard going except for one direction, where it looked like the fern fronds on both sides had been crushed, as if somebody had walked between them. As I followed the line of trampled fronds, with Camille behind me, it led out into an open area that looked like it was used for picnics. Beyond that, a path looked like it wound through the rest of the park. We stopped, the pelting rain soaking us even further. Camille frowned looking back.

  “You can’t see her house from here,” she said.

  “What?” I was busy scouting out the area, trying to assess where the voyeur may have come from.

  “You can’t see her house from here. Unless somebody just happened to trample that path through the ferns, they couldn’t see Violet’s cottage from here. So either it was someone who stumbled on the area behind her house by mistake, or it was somebody who knew where she lived in relation to this area of the park.” She smiled as I realized what she was saying.

  “I’ll be damned. You’re right. Hell, you are so right. No, whoever was watching her house wasn’t there by accident. I know it—my gut’s tingling.” And it was. That little voice inside was whispering, Whoever set her up, they were watching her. Which meant she had been stalked.

  “I think so, too.” Camille shook her hair back, her makeup smearing in the downpour. “Should we check the garbage cans over by the picnic tables?” She pointed to one of the wooden benches. “There’s no guarantee that whoever we’re looking for stopped there, but we’re here and we might as well have a look.”

  We split up, tackling the four tables that were scattered around the clearing. There was also a barbecue grill, set in concrete, but that yielded nothing. Two large garbage receptacles and a recycling bin showed a mishmash of garbage, but nothing stood out of place to either one of us.

  A few minutes later, I shook my head. “All we’re doing now is just getting wetter and wetter. Let’s get back to that footprint. Shade should be here any time with the concrete.”

  We retraced our steps through the bushes, and by the time we arrived at our original spot, Shade had returned. He could travel between the worlds, but if he took someone alive with him, they didn’t fare so well. Morio had been sick as a dog the one time Shade had transported him.

  Shade was holding a bag of concrete—the quick dry kind—and a bucket. It had water in it already.

  “You thought of everything,” I said.

  Shade grinned. “I filled it from her tap out back. Seemed a waste of time to wait till you two were back, and I figured if there was trouble, my Spidey-sense would be tingling.” He’d recently discovered the Spider-Man comics—or rather, I’d turned him onto them—and he had developed an inordinate fascination with the superhero. I knelt down to examine the print again, as Shade began to stir the cement.

  Camille stood back. “No offense, but I don’t want to mess up my clothes. And you know me. If I can spill it down my bra, or on my skirt, I will.”

  I motioned her back as Shade carried over the bucket. “No problem. We can do this.” As he poured the concrete, I smoothed it out. He’d also thought to bring a mini-tarp to cover it with until it dried. Speaking of . . . “How long till this stuff sets?”

  Shade checked the bag. �
�For this amount? Probably twenty minutes. What do you want to do until then?”

  Camille snorted. “I vote we wait in the car so we don’t get any wetter than we already are.”

  That would give me plenty of time to go through Violet’s mail. But there was one little issue. “Sounds good, but I don’t want to leave this alone. I doubt whoever made it will return today, but . . .”

  Shade rolled his eyes. “But if he does come back, he might realize someone is on to him and destroy the evidence. All right you two. Get your butts to the car and dry out, and I’ll wait here. I’ll bring the casts when they’re done. Don’t you dare drive off and leave me, though.” He swatted my ass, then pulled me to him for a deep kiss. I melted in his arms with a contented sigh.

  Camille was already on her way to the front yard, but I caught up with her. The minute we were inside the car, she turned on the ignition and jacked up the heater. She shrugged out of her jacket and I did the same, and we draped them in the backseat.

  “When I first bought this car, I didn’t want to get it dirty at all. Or water-stained or anything like that. Things have sure changed.” She laughed. “Considering how many bloody injuries we’ve had to ferry around, I’m amazed it’s in as good of a shape as it is.”

  “Don’t you feel the tiniest bit guilty about how we got our cars?” I grinned at her, already knowing her answer. We’d gone down to the dealerships after Chase had taught us to drive in a free-for-all nightmare of a two-week time, and between Camille’s boobs and our natural glamour, we had charmed the hell out of the salesmen. We’d gotten all of our cars at well below cost, with all the options we could want.

  “No. Do you?” She glanced over at me, shaking her head.

  “Well, no.” I picked up the stack of mail and divided it. “Here, you go through this pile while I go through this one. Look for anything out of the ordinary.”

  “What would be ordinary for her?”

  Damned if she didn’t have a point. I scrunched up my nose. “Whatever seems out of the ordinary to you, I guess.”

  “Fine. But you know we’re breaking federal laws by tampering with her mail.” Camille pressed her lips together and I could tell she was trying not to laugh.

  “Since when have you been concerned about breaking laws?” I stuck my tongue out and we got to work, flipping through the hefty stack of letters and fliers. The junk mail we could obviously discard, but the letters and bills were worth a look-over.

  Camille held up one envelope. “She has a pretty thick credit card bill.”

  “Open it—that will give us an idea of her shopping habits and might lead to answering where she hangs out.” I stopped at another envelope. It was from an online dating site—Supernatural Matchups. “I thought she had a boyfriend?”

  Camille glanced over at the return address. “So what? I have three husbands. You’re engaged to a half dragon and you also have the hots for an Elemental Lord. Menolly’s married to a werepuma and she’s also the consort of a vampire lord. Get my drift?”

  “Yeah,” I said slowly. “Violet is Fae. She’s not likely to be monogamous, like you told Tad.” I sliced open the envelope, using my pocket knife. A Spyderco Endura, my new blade was a handy affair, well-made. With a black nylon handle reinforced with fiberglass, and a lip that made it as easy to open as a switchblade, it had become my go-to knife for a dozen small jobs.

  The envelope open, I slid out the paper inside. It was a listing of several matchups, but with no names. Instead, it gave a list of numbers, as well as links to the online videos for her to look at, along with information on the potential hotties just waiting to fulfill her life. The letter also included her user name, but no password.

  I showed it to Camille and she gave me a long look. “Well, you’re good with computers, and if you need backup, you can always call Tim. I say you go online, hack her password, and log in as her. Any one of these guys . . . or women, I suppose, might have found out her private information and been stalking her.”

  “Me, hack her info? No can do, but I’ll bet Tim can.” Wading through a bunch of lonely heart Supes sounded like so much fun. Not. Chances were, eighty percent of them were pathetic, or desperate. Just like bar hookups or produce-aisle stalkers. “Crap. Why do I always get stuck with the dirty work?”

  “Because, my love, you are the detective, after all. Even if you don’t take on many cases.” Before I could protest, she laughed, pressed her hand to my cheek, and pointed toward Violet’s cottage. “Here comes Shade. At least you aren’t on the dating-go-round anymore. But you have to admit, there’s nothing quite like the anticipation of meeting someone new. Of that first kiss, that first hookup . . .” She sounded almost wistful, but then laughed again. “Of course, when it goes bad it usually goes really bad.”

  With that, we set aside the rest of the letters as Shade returned to the car and we headed for home.

  It was almost time to leave for Otherworld, where war was looming, and where Chase was about to be outed for sleeping with the Queen’s niece, where Sharah was about to confront her aunt and perhaps be disowned forever, and where we hoped to hear any sort of good news on the demon front.

  Chapter 9

  By the time we reached home, we were ready for hot showers. But first, we gave the evidence we’d gathered to Vanzir and asked him to check with Carter on it, to see if they could figure out anything.

  Camille took off to her room, looking for a bubble bath. Shade and I trudged upstairs to wash up and change clothes. Menolly wasn’t awake yet, so we put off talking about the Wayfarer till we were refreshed.

  By the time we came out of the shower, I felt halfway human again. The hot water had helped, but so had standing there after, aiming my blow dryer at various points on my body till the chill began to dissipate.

  For Otherworld, I usually dressed in clothing that I’d brought from home, but now I stared at my closet, and for the first time since we’d come over I didn’t feel like returning home dressed in a tunic and trousers.

  I fastened my gingham pink bra and slipped into my Hello Kitty panties, then decided on a pair of formfitting low-rise jeans in dark blue, a gray thermal long-sleeved shirt, and my Pikolinos Brujas in chocolate.

  The boots were knee-high, a Euro style that looked like a cross between motorcycle and cowboy boots. The straps and buckles were ornamental, but I loved them and they were so comfortable that lately they’d become my go-to boot. With the lower heel, I could maneuver through the woods as easily as I could stride down the street.

  Shade pulled on his brown cargo pants, a black turtleneck, and then his cowboy boots. He watched as I dressed, a barely concealed grin on his face.

  “Sometime I’m buying you new lingerie,” he said. “Maybe Powerpuff Girls instead of Hello Kitty? A step up, perhaps?”

  I grinned back. “I think they’re a little outdated. But Hello Kitty never goes out of style. At least with me.” I pulled my shirt over my head, tucked it into my pants, and tugged on my boots. “Ready to go. Oh—hold on.” I grabbed an espresso leather belt and fed it through the jean loops, then buckled it. “Okay, now I’m ready.”

  After a quick kiss, we headed downstairs, and by the time we neared the first floor, I could smell dinner. Bless Hanna’s heart.

  The kitchen was bustling, as it was almost every meal. Hanna had cooked up a big batch of fried chicken and mashed potatoes. Along with a salad, biscuits, and gravy, the food was spread along the counter buffet style. I grabbed a plate and loaded up, then slid into a chair next to Camille, who was busy working on a thigh and drumstick. She wasn’t wearing clothes from home either, but instead a black satin skirt, a plum-colored corset, and a pair of stiletto patent leather Mary Janes.

  We waited till everyone was seated, at which point Menolly appeared, awake for the night. She, too, was dressed in jeans and a button-down shirt. Her boots, though, were stilettos. It seemed we were all on the same page.

  I motioned for Menolly to sit down at the table, for once, inste
ad of taking her usual place up in the corner of the kitchen. She liked to hang out near the ceiling, floating, where she was out of the way of the hustle.

  “We have to talk about the Wayfarer.” I gave her a long look, wondering just how to tell her that her bar was pretty much gutted. And that eight, not seven, people had died.

  She held my gaze, those frosty eyes of hers turning grayer every day. Vamps’ eyes did that after they were turned. No matter what color before death, they eventually turned pale and silvery. The stronger the sire, the faster the color change. And first with Dredge, and then when Roman had re-sired her, she had some of the strongest vampire blood in her system.

  “I guess you’d better just blurt it out and get it over with.” She braced herself as she leaned forward. I could tell she was desperate for good news, and it tore me up that I couldn’t give it to her.

  Camille reached over and took one of her hands. “It’s not good.”

  I hung my head. “The Wayfarer . . . close to eighty percent destroyed. Eight people died, total. It looks like a burning candle ignited the curtains, in a locked room. We need to find out who had the keys to the rooms upstairs, and if we can account for all of them, then we have to figure it was somebody who picked the locks.”

  Menolly let out a little sound, and Camille grimaced. Vampires had incredible strength and the fact that she was holding on to Camille’s hand meant she was probably squeezing pretty damned hard.

  Trying to figure out a way to make things better, to shed some sort of hope on the issue, I reached out and took her other hand. “Derrick and the others were down there early this morning. They care about the Wayfarer. They care about you. They were down there to salvage what they could from the rubble.”

  Shade leaned forward. “And if you need money for rebuilding, well, I’m here.” He glanced at Smoky, who inclined his head. “And Smoky. We are dragons, we have great resources.”