Last Grave (9781101593172)

  Samantha stumbled toward the pay phone. She had no coins, so she had to call Lance collect. She braced herself for the questioning she was going to get for doing so.

  “What happened to you?” he asked.

  “It’s a very long story. I lost my cell phone.”

  “Okay. That’s going to be an interesting story.”

  “No, it’s really not,” she said firmly.

  “Okay. So, time to meet?”

  “Give me an hour and a half. I’m still in Santa Cruz.”

  He sighed. “Fine. I’ll meet you at Tony’s.”

  Tony’s was an Italian restaurant downtown that Lance practically lived at.

  “See you there.”

  She hung up and trudged to her car. Once inside, she cranked up the heater. Her clothes were still sopping wet and it was freezing cold. Now that she was sitting and not moving, the cold began to overtake her and she was shaking like a leaf. She waited a couple of minutes until she got control of herself again. Finally, she pulled out of the parking lot and hit the highway.

  The drive home seemed longer than her entire trek through the forest. Maybe it was because she was so exhausted and the heat was making her drowsy. Her body was still struggling to heal, and hunger was the only thing keeping her awake.

  At least by the time she parked outside of Tony’s her clothes were dry. As she surveyed them, though, she realized they were shredded in several places. She looked like she’d been through a meat grinder.

  She bit her lip. If she went home, she’d never be able to make herself leave again. She held her hand up to the heating vent, pulling the energy out of the warm air. She put a glamour on herself so that no one would notice her ripped clothing.

  Finally, she got out of the car and staggered into the restaurant, collapsing in a chair across from Lance.

  “You’ve looked better,” he noted.

  She panicked for a moment, thinking her glamour had failed, and then realized while her clothes should look fine to him, her hair and face were still a mess. Sloppy. I should have thought about that before I came in here. It was too late to do anything about it, though.

  She grimaced. “I’ve felt better,” she admitted. It was quite possibly the understatement of the century.

  “How was your day?” he asked.

  “I’ve had better. My lead didn’t pan out,” she added hastily, hoping to steer him off that topic. “What about you? Any luck?”

  “Struggling to remember a worse day. At least I got the report filed so the captain can get off my back about that.”

  “Sometimes you’ve got to thank God for the small miracles,” she said.

  “We’re alive.”

  “That’s not a small miracle,” she said with a grunt.

  “I was thinking it’s time we work on a motive in this case.”

  “Right there with you.”

  “Let’s start fresh in the morning. I’ve made a list of friends and colleagues we should go talk to. People don’t get murdered for no reason.”

  “I’m with you. Let’s make it happen.”

  “I don’t know why this whole thing has been so screwed up,” he said. “It’s like it started wrong all the way around. And then the thing with your roommate. It’s just been like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. Maybe it’s the quakes. Everyone’s rattled.”

  “I thought Californians didn’t get rattled.”

  “Some do,” he said with a shrug. “And there are a bunch who live here who weren’t born here.”

  “Like me.”

  They were interrupted by the waiter, who brought a giant bowl of spaghetti with meatballs and two plates.

  “You’ll like their spaghetti,” Lance said as the waiter walked away.

  She didn’t. And she’d told Lance that a dozen times, but it didn’t seem to sink in. They loaded it with garlic, which wasn’t what she was used to. He loved it and therefore he believed everyone must. At the moment, though, she was too tired to complain.

  She shoveled some of the pasta onto her plate and was grateful that it was at least hot. She shoved a spoonful into her mouth and nearly gagged. She looked up at Lance in shock.

  “Oh, yeah, I had them add extra garlic today. I know how much you like it.”

  She managed to swallow her bite and then she grabbed for her water. She drank half the glass and then looked up at him.

  “I’m going to kill you.”

  “Nah, you love me. We both know it.”

  She considered her options. At the moment, killing Lance seemed like an excellent idea. Productive even.

  She felt a flash of heat through her body and realized with a start that the thought of killing someone was actually exciting her. That realization flooded her with horror. She reached up and gripped her cross, trying to ground herself. What was wrong with her? Had all the attacks brought this on?

  She took several deep breaths and struggled to banish the dark thoughts that were threatening to consume her. Focus. Choose something you can control to focus on.

  Slowly, she raised a shaking hand, signaling to the waiter, who scurried over.

  “Actually, I’d like chicken fettuccine Alfredo, hold the garlic.”

  He nodded and headed for the kitchen.

  “What are you doing?” Lance asked incredulously.

  “Saving your life.”

  He smiled. “You crack me up, Ryan.”

  You wouldn’t say that if you knew I wasn’t joking, she thought. She gripped the edge of the table with her free hand as she struggled to bring herself under control. She could feel the wood giving way beneath her fingers, heating up and warping.

  Ten minutes later, when the waiter returned with her food and set it down in front of her, she finally let go of the table. She glanced down at the wood and could see indentations from her fingers. She hadn’t left her fingerprints on the table so much as in it.

  She picked up her napkin and wiped her forehead. From freezing to boiling. She was going to get sick if she wasn’t careful. At the moment, though, something so mundane as a cold seemed the least of her worries.

  Lance was still talking, and she struggled to figure out what about. It had to have something to do with the case they were working. But she didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t want to talk about anything. She had nearly died a few hours before. And as far as her body was concerned, she had died.

  “You bored, Ryan?” Lance asked suddenly, his voice seeming unnaturally loud to her.

  She shook her head. “I don’t feel so good. I think I’m coming down with something.”

  He made a show of moving his food farther away from her. “Well, keep it to yourself, whatever it is.”

  She couldn’t think of anything sarcastic to say in return. She was beginning to sweat. She really was too exhausted. She shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t have cast the glamour on her clothes.

  Her legs were beginning to shake.

  I’m still in shock.

  She felt the glamour starting to slip. She didn’t have enough energy to take care of her body and keep the glamour up. She dropped her knife on the floor on purpose. She bent over to pick it up, blood rushing to her brain as she did so.

  She pressed her fingers to the wood floor and pulled for all she was worth. Energy from everyone in the room flowed into her, bolstering her. She had to force herself to let go as her body eagerly drank up what she was feeding it.

  She sat up slowly.

  Lance looked slightly dazed.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “It’s been a rough couple of days. I guess it’s all sort of catching up to me.”

  “Let’s finish eating so we can get out of here. I for one need to sleep for about a week,” she said.

  “Good idea.”

  They ate the rest o
f their meal quickly. Lance paid without a word about her fettuccine and they got up and left the restaurant. She could see other people around the restaurant looking tired. That was her doing, but it couldn’t be helped.

  Outside in the parking lot, Lance breathed in deeply of the cold air and it seemed to revive him a bit. “Walk with me for a minute,” he said. “There’s something I want to show you.”

  She wanted nothing more than to refuse, but she didn’t want to arouse his suspicions. They walked two blocks in silence, and she looked around, wondering what it was he wanted to talk about, to show her.

  “You know, Lance, is this going to take much longer? I’m really beat,” she finally said.

  “Take a look around,” he said, slowing to a stop.

  “I have been,” she said, wondering what was going on in his head.

  “You notice anything weird around here lately?”

  Samantha glanced at him, wondering if this was some kind of trap. If he could prove his partner was crazy, he could get her transferred or suspended. She hadn’t known him long enough to be sure just exactly what he was capable of.

  “Define weird,” she said, keeping her tone carefully neutral.

  “I haven’t seen a homeless person in two days.”

  “You know, you’re right,” she said. It was surprising. The city’s homeless were usually everywhere. She remembered how surprised she’d been the night of the murder not to find any of them in the area.

  She looked around. “Usually there’s half a dozen guys on the street at this hour.”

  “At least. They’ve been gone so long, even the urine smell is fading.”

  He was right. It was something she’d trained herself to ignore, but things had definitely changed.

  “Has the department been cracking down lately?” she asked. “Is there a new shelter open that serves better food?”

  He shook his head. “Not that I’ve heard. Even if the department were cracking down, it wouldn’t be this effective. And we’d have heard about any new shelters.”

  “Where do you think they’ve all gone?”

  “I don’t know. But that’s the seventh missing dog poster I’ve seen in two blocks,” he said, pointing to a flyer on a utility pole.

  “And the third moving van,” Samantha said, pointing across the street.

  “You ever get the feeling there’s something someone’s not telling us? Maybe there’s something they know that we don’t?”

  She shrugged, not trusting herself to answer that question.

  “I’m not wrong here, am I?” he asked.

  There was an edge to his voice, a pleading.

  She nodded toward the woman directing the movers. “Isn’t that the famous palm reader from the pier?”

  “It looks like her. Why?”

  Samantha glanced at him. “Just wait here a minute for me,” she said. She dropped her voice and pushed a little bit of persuasion into her words, not enough to overpower him, but more than enough to make her feel guilty about it.

  She made it across the street, dodging a couple of cars.

  The woman turned to watch her. Her long gray hair hung in a single braid down her back. Her face was heavily lined, but she had the eyes of a much younger woman.

  “You should arrest yourself for jaywalking, Detective,” the woman drawled as Samantha stopped in front of her.

  “Who was walking?” Samantha retorted. “And how did you know I was a detective?”

  “I’ve seen you around. Something I can do for you?”

  “Yes. A friend of mine is a fan of yours and wanted to know why you’re leaving and where you’re planning on setting up shop?”

  The woman chuckled. “I seriously doubt any friend of yours is interested in me.”

  “Just because I’m a detective—”

  “It isn’t that, witchy.”

  “Excuse me?” Samantha asked, forcing herself to stand her ground and not take a step away from the older woman.

  “Just ’cuz I don’t have the power doesn’t mean I can’t sense it.”

  There was no use denying it, Samantha realized quickly, so she dropped the pretense. “Why are you leaving?”

  “Same reason so many others are.”

  “And exactly what is that?” Samantha asked, struggling to keep her growing irritation out of her voice.

  “Problem with your kind is you aren’t good with telling the future.”

  “And you are?”

  “Better than you, it would seem. I’ve at least got the good sense to get out of here.”

  “But why? What’s coming?” Samantha asked, feeling fear prick her scalp even as she voiced the question.

  “I don’t know. But it’s time to go before it gets here. I can feel that in here,” she said, patting her chest. “When something deep inside tells you to run, you usually don’t have time to stop and ask why. Now, if you’ll excuse me, dear, I have to go.”

  Samantha sighed and headed back across the street.

  “Everything okay?” Lance asked.

  “Yup. She’s definitely headed out of town, though.”

  “What were we talking about?” Lance asked.

  “All the people leaving the city.”

  “Oh, yeah. Weird, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “Yeah. Okay, I’ve got to go get some rest so we can try to tackle this thing fresh,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “I parked on the next street over.”

  “All right. See you in the morning.”

  He turned and walked away. Samantha squared her shoulders and headed back to her car. She puzzled over what they had been talking about as she drove.

  Samantha made it back home and noticed that there was a moving van parked in front of the building next door.

  “Careful! Okay, tilt it toward me.”

  She looked up and saw a man and a woman trying to get a couch down the stairs. The man’s hands looked like they were slipping. Samantha moved quickly and grabbed one end of the couch, bolstering it up before he could lose control.

  “Thanks,” he grunted.

  “You’re welcome.”

  Together the three of them got the couch the rest of the way down the stairs and up into the moving van. As soon as they’d put it down, the man extended his hand. She shook it.

  “Thanks for the assist. Sorry that we’re leaving before we had a chance to really get acquainted.”

  “Where are you guys headed?” Samantha asked.

  “A church in Texas called two days ago looking for a new pastor, and here we are heading out,” the woman said with a smile.

  “It was the funniest thing too. We’ve been here six years. Love the church, love the parishioners. About a week ago, though, it hit both of us at the same time. It was time to go. And the Lord provided an opportunity. Just like he sent you to save me from killing myself just now,” he said.

  “What kind of church?” Samantha asked.

  “Evangelical,” the couple answered in unison before bursting into laughter.

  Samantha nodded. “And about a week ago you both just decided it was time to move on?”

  The wife’s face clouded over slightly. “It was the oddest thing. We used to love it here, but it’s, I don’t know, different somehow.” She shook her head. “And now we’re off. A new adventure.”

  “Well, good luck to you both,” Samantha said, before climbing down out of the van.

  “Thanks. Same to you!” he answered.

  Lance was right. People were leaving the city. But it wasn’t everyone. It was those who had a slightly different view of things than the rest of them. Many of the city’s homeless, through drink or mental illness, had always been a bit off. The woman who claimed to be psychic. The Wiccan coven she had met in the park. Now evangelical C
hristians who were sensitive to the interactions of the supernatural in their lives.

  And if she was being honest with herself, she’d been feeling the urge to leave as well. At first she’d thought it was because she wanted to get away from the witch activity that seemed to be surrounding this case. Now she wasn’t so sure. Were all these people picking up on some kind of early-warning system? She couldn’t help but think about George Wakefield and what he’d said about animals fleeing their homes before earthquakes. Samantha didn’t have to be a witch to know that dogs and cats were sensitive to things, people, and events that most humans weren’t. She thought of all the lost-dog fliers. And from where she was standing, she could see one for a lost cat.

  And she knew, deep in her gut, that her fears were true.

  Something was coming.

  She managed to get upstairs. Helping with the couch had drained a lot of her borrowed energy. She really was in need of a week’s worth of sleep. She made it inside her apartment and felt herself relax. Jill was sitting on the couch watching television. She glanced up at Samantha but didn’t say anything.

  They needed to talk, but Samantha didn’t have it in her to talk tonight. She kicked off her shoes and hung her keys on the hook beside the front door. She heaved a sigh of relief. She was home. Safe.

  She turned to head toward her bedroom and Jill screamed.

  “What?” Samantha asked, spinning to look at her roommate.

  Jill was pointing at her, eyes wide.

  Samantha glanced down and saw that the glamour had failed. Her torn, dirty clothes were showing in all their glory.

  “I’m okay,” she hastened to assure the other woman. “It was a rough day, but I’m fine.”

  Jill shook her head violently from side to side.

  Samantha took a step forward, and Jill scooted farther away from her on the couch.

  “Jill, it’s me, Samantha. What’s wrong?”

  “You, you’re wrong,” Jill said.

  Warning bells went off in Samantha’s head. “Wh-what do you mean by that?” she asked, trying to keep her voice from shaking.

  “I saw . . . I saw . . .” Jill said, sounding like she was babbling.