“Kara,” Pellini said, and I realized it wasn’t the first time he’d called my name. “You okay?”
I put on a big smile. “I’m cool. Need coffee, that’s all. Everything will be right with the world then.”
What a lie.
• • •
Pellini followed me back to the house, but I got as far as dumping out the stale coffee before my phone rang. I glanced at the number then set the coffeepot in the sink and ran water into it.
“Who the hell’s calling you at eight in the morning on a Saturday?” Pellini asked.
“It’s Detective O’Connor from the Sheriff’s office,” I said as my phone continued to ring. I didn’t have to answer it, did I? Whether I talked to him or not wouldn’t make a difference in the long run. It wasn’t as if there was anything he could say that would change my mind about giving him a statement.
Then again the same reasoning supported taking the call. After all, what did I have to lose? Maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as I expected. Y’know, like a root canal.
Pellini had questions in his eyes that I didn’t want to answer. I mumbled a “scuse me” then snatched up my phone and headed toward the living room as I answered. “Kara Gillian.”
“Ms. Gillian, it’s Detective O’Connor.” No fake smile in his voice this time. Instead I heard a timbre of confidence that didn’t leave me feeling happy-go-lucky.
“Good morning, Detective.” I continued through the living room and out to the porch, closing the front door behind me. “A bit early for a social call, which leads me to believe you have a more official agenda in mind?”
“You might say that, ma’am,” he replied, cool and calm. I had no trouble picturing him in his office, kicked back in his chair with his feet up on his desk. “Ms. Gillian, if you’d be kind enough to spare me a few minutes, I’d like to tell you a little story.”
Shit. I settled in one of the rocking chairs but didn’t rock. “Be my guest.”
“It’s the story of a woman who got in over her head,” he began. “It might have started when she was working a case. After all, investigations and undercover assignments can get pretty tricky, and lines get crossed. But however it came about, she made a big mistake and stood by while a man was shot twice in the head.”
“Go on,” I said in lieu of any number of smartass remarks that came to mind.
“The problem is that even though this woman isn’t a bad person, now she’s looking at being charged as a principal to murder.” He paused. “She used to be a police officer, which means she knows it doesn’t matter who pulled the trigger. Any principal to the crime gets the same sentence as the shooter.”
“Yes, I’ve heard that.” Anyone who aided and abetted in the commission of a crime was considered a principal. In other words, a guy who robbed a bank at gunpoint would be charged with armed robbery—as would the getaway driver and the third party who planned it, even if neither participated in the actual holdup.
But how did he think he could charge me as a principal? Even if they’d found my fingerprints and DNA at the scene, that was circumstantial evidence, at best.
O’Connor was clearly warming to his story. “The woman thought no one knew she was there when this terrible thing happened. And the detective thought he had no chance of ever finding the real shooter and solving this crime because, after all, she had no reason to risk herself by giving testimony. Or so she thought. But then . . .” He trailed off.
I was tempted to let the silence hang until he gave up and went on, but I decided being mean was pointless. “But then?”
“But then a witness appeared,” he said, triumph dripping from his voice. “A dutiful citizen who came forward and placed the woman at that scene.”
“There were a lot of people at that scene, from what I hear,” I said, pulse hammering. “Do all of them get charged as principals?”
He rewarded me with a dry chuckle. “Well, you see, this witness saw her leave with the shooter. And that changes everything.”
The driver of the getaway car. I tightened my hand on the phone to keep from shaking. With great effort, I forced myself to let go of arguments about the technicalities that separated Principal from Accessory After the Fact from Uninvolved. None of that mattered. But there was one point I couldn’t hold back. “Pretty darn lucky for you that a witness decided to step forward after a couple of weeks of silence.”
“Nothing to do with luck. Injuries sustained in the fire prevented the witness from giving a statement before now,” he said, all trace of lightness gone from his voice. “But despite that, this person came forward and did the right thing. I want the shooter, Ms. Gillian. You also need to do the right thing, or you’re going to find yourself wearing an orange jumpsuit. And ex-cops and prison don’t always go well together.”
The dread within my chest shifted, expanded. “Thank you for that advice, Detective,” I said. “Enjoy your weekend.” I hung up without waiting for a reply then set the chair slowly rocking. I remained there until my pulse slowed and my palms stopped sweating, then pygahed and rocked some more.
After at least ten minutes of doing and thinking as little as possible, I got up and returned inside. Pellini sat at the table, while Bryce busied himself at the stove.
“Was about to come get you,” Pellini said. “Coffee’s ready, and Bryce is making bacon and eggs.”
I plastered a smile onto my face and pitched in to help Bryce. “Coffee and breakfast with friends. What more could a girl ask for?”
Chapter 15
For being an enforced guest, Pellini wasn’t a bad housemate at all. I had no idea if he was sucking up or naturally neat and helpful, but as soon as we finished eating he pitched right in with cleanup without batting an eyelash. Bryce got a pass on dishwashing since he’d cooked, and he marched out to do battle with the Malibu engine. Pellini impressed me even more by knowing how to load the dishwasher—wedging light items against heavier things so we didn’t end up with cups full of dirty water.
Idris slammed up from the basement as I scrubbed cookware that couldn’t go into the dishwasher. “There’s bacon if you’re hungry,” I told him. “Or, if you want eggs or toast, that’s no trouble.”
I expected him to head straight through the kitchen and out the back again, but apparently his need for sustenance overpowered his dislike of Pellini’s presence.
“Yeah. Thanks,” he muttered. “Bacon sounds good.”
“The plate’s on the stove,” I said. I rinsed the frying pan and handed it to Pellini for drying. Idris stuck bread into the toaster and did his best to pretend Pellini didn’t exist. Pellini slid a look toward him, mustache twitching as though he held back a comment with effort.
This shit needed to stop here and now. I’d allowed a similar veiled antipathy between Ryan and Eilahn to fester for too long before I put my foot down. Learned my lesson. I was sorely tempted to let my snark-monster out and say, “Now, boys, play nice and shake hands,” but decided that might be counterproductive.
“We’re living and working in the same house,” I said instead. “My house, though I like to think of it as our house. You two are going to indulge me with a civil conversation if it kills you.” I nailed both with a steely glare. Common ground, here we come.
Idris frowned as he settled at the table with bacon, toast, and juice. I ignored the frown and turned to Pellini. “I’ve been thinking over what you told me,” I said and passed him another pan to dry. “I can’t imagine how hard it was for you to see the arcane and not have anyone you could share it with. I mean, I had my aunt from the very beginning to tell me what the deal was.”
Pellini hesitated, face bunching into a scowl as he decided whether or not he’d play my game. “It sucked. Not going to lie.” He dried the pan with harsh swipes of the towel.
“Have you ever told anyone?”
“No humans. Not once.” He glanced at Idris then to me. “It was cool at first, y’know? Like being accepted to Hogwarts. I was special.” He snorted. ?
??But imagine going to Hogwarts and being the only student there. Oh, and you still have to go to regular school but can’t tell a soul about this other cooler shit.”
Idris kept his eyes on his food, but I didn’t miss that he had yet to take a bite from the bacon in his hand.
“Idris, you learned from a neighbor, didn’t you?” I asked.
He blinked, dropped the piece of bacon back onto his plate. “Um. Yeah.”
I waited to see if he had more to say, but he remained silent. He wasn’t going to make this easy, but at least he hadn’t stormed out. “You were what, fourteen?” I asked. “Fifteen?”
“Fourteen,” he said with obvious reluctance then blew out a breath as if accepting my refusal to give up. “I’d been with the Palatinos three months when this dude moved in across the street. A week or so later I started seeing strange glimmers around his house. He noticed me gawking.” Idris jerked his shoulders up in a shrug. “Started training as a summoner not long after that.”
Did Pellini know Idris was adopted? Probably so, I decided. He would have researched everything he could find on anyone related to the Amber Palatino Gavin case. Idris had been adopted twice, once as a baby, and then by the Palatinos when he was fourteen after the first couple died in an automobile accident.
Pellini tugged at his mustache. “I swear to god I’m not trying to stir shit,” he said, “but doesn’t it strike you as awfully convenient that a summoner moved in across the street right when you started seeing all the woowoo crap?”
For an instant I thought Idris would respond with a snarl, but instead he picked up his fork and jammed it into his bacon. “Yeah,” he said, jaw tight. “My convenient neighbor and mentor for the first year was Anton Beck—one of Katashi’s inner circle summoners.”
A chill shuddered through me. “That explains how you ended up training under Katashi so young,” I murmured. Truths I’d avoided up to this point clarified into a lump of ice in my gut. “If my dad hadn’t conveniently been killed by a drunk driver, Tessa wouldn’t have raised me, and I wouldn’t have become a summoner.”
“It sounds premeditated,” Pellini said with dark suspicion. “Who orchestrated it and why?”
Idris shoved a mangled piece of bacon into his mouth. I rubbed the back of my neck, rankled that I didn’t have a satisfactory answer for Pellini. “We’ve each been molded and exploited to suit the goals of others,” I said. “And none of us know why, though at least Idris and I had context for most of it.”
Idris glanced at Pellini then dropped his gaze to his plate. Good. Harder for him to paint Pellini as the devil incarnate when he had something in common with him.
“I’m going to take a walk with Sammy,” Pellini announced before heading outside to cope with the shit in his own manner. I dried my hands, refreshed my coffee then took a seat at the table. My horrific exploitation pissed me right the fuck off but, until I scraped up more info, further brooding was a waste of time and energy. Besides, my focus needed to remain on my current goal—a cease fire in the Pellini-Idris war.
“Don’t say it,” Idris said as he slathered jelly on toast.
“Don’t say what?” I asked.
“Don’t say whatever you’re planning to say about how awful it must have been for him never being able to tell anyone.”
I shrugged and took a sip of my coffee. “Okay, I won’t say it.”
He gave me a withering look and took a savage bite of toast and jelly.
“What?” I asked innocently. “You told me not to say it, so I didn’t say it.”
“You might as well have. You do that thing with your eyes.” He licked jelly off his fingers.
“What thing with my eyes?”
“You do this sort of narrow-eyed smug disapproval thing,” he said.
“You’re insane.”
“And now you’re doing it again.”
I threw my hands up in defeat. Bryce unwisely chose that moment to step through the back door. “Bryce, Idris says I do a weird narrow-eyed smug disapproval thing with my eyes,” I said. “Tell him he’s imagining it.”
Bryce stopped, frowned, looked from me to Idris and then back to me. “Sorry. No can do.” He continued to the sink to wash grime from his hands.
“Afraid Idris will turn you into a newt?” I asked with a lift of my eyebrow.
Bryce shook his head. “No can do, because he’s right.”
“Traitor,” I growled.
He dried his hands, challenge glinting in his eyes. “You want to get Pellini’s take on it?”
I started to say yes, that was exactly what I wanted, but stopped before the words left my mouth. “No. He’ll agree with you both.”
A sound that might have been a chuckle came from Idris, but he took another bite of toast before I could be sure. Bryce gave me a wink then headed down the hall to the computer room. I masked a smile. Bryce was a damn good addition to the team.
“For what it’s worth,” I said to Idris after a moment, “apart from being victims of the overall machinations, you and Pellini have at least one common goal.”
Idris shoved up from the table, took his plate over to the trash can and scraped his crusts into it. “Fine, I’ll bite. What’s our common goal?”
“He’s hell-bent on nailing the perps in his latest case—your sister’s murder.”
He went still, fork poised above his plate. “Okay,” he finally said then took plate and fork to the sink. “Will you tell Bryce I’ll be ready to go in fifteen minutes?” It might have been wishful thinking on my part, but I detected less of the jagged edge in his voice than before.
“Sure thing.”
He met my eyes and nodded once then went down to the basement. When the door closed I blew out a breath. It was a truce of sorts. I hoped.
I headed to the computer room—formerly a junk room that I’d pretended was a home office. The majority of the equipment was Paul’s from when he was briefly our resident computer supergenius. Unease whispered through me. Paul was with Kadir. But for how long? He was “out of phase” and would die if he left the matching out-of-phase-ness of Kadir’s realm. Would he ever be able to return to Earth or was he damned to spend his entire life kneeling at Kadir’s feet?
I pushed the unsettling questions aside. The answers would be worse than not knowing.
Bryce sat at the desk, fast-forwarding through surveillance video from my driveway gate and fence-line cameras.
“Idris will be ready in fifteen,” I said then lifted my chin toward the screen. “Anything good?”
“Family of raccoons on the northwest side. Nothing else of interest.”
“Baby raccoons?”
“Three of ’em. I took a screen shot.” He pulled it up so that I could make the obligatory awwwww noise. He snorted. “Adorable rabies factories.”
“I’ll gush over them from a distance,” I said as I settled in the chair beside his.
“Agreed. That’s why I’m not . . .” He trailed off, eyelids fluttering as he stared off into space.
Seizure? Worried, I grabbed his arm and shook him. “Hey, Bryce! You still with me?”
“Yeah, sorry,” he said to my relief then smiled wryly. “Seretis. Checking in, so to speak.”
Releasing him, I replayed his words in my mind, but they made no more sense the second time around. Why would a demonic lord be checking in with Bryce? And how? “Huh?” I asked oh-so-brilliantly.
Bryce beamed then swiveled his chair to face me. “The connection you have with Mzatal?” he said, leaning forward. “I, uh, kinda have that with Seretis. It’s not like we talk with words, but we can sense and understand each other.”
I stared at him, stunned. I’d have been right on board if he’d told me Seretis had placed a sigil on him or given him an artifact. But comparing it to my unique and intimate essence connection with Mzatal? A number of possible explanations ran through my mind, though none seemed to fit the scenario. Seretis and Lord Rayst were partners, but that meant little since the demonic l
ords weren’t much into the whole jealousy thing. After a few thousand years of existence, those sort of insecurities went out the window—if they’d ever had them in the first place. However, Seretis was bisexual and, as far as I knew, Bryce was firmly heterosexual. Not that it had ever come up. More than possible that I’d jumped to conclusions.
“Oh, okay,” I said as I readjusted my assumptions. “You and he are . . . lovers?”
Bryce laughed. “No,” he said, sitting back. “There’s no sex. But we hit it off from the start—like that childhood friend you wanted to do everything with and couldn’t imagine living without, only as adults.”
“Gotcha. A major bromance.”
“I guess,” he said reluctantly, “though I wish there was a more, er, macho description.”
“A sweaty bromance?”
“That’s worse.”
“A machomance?”
“Oh god, please stop,” he said with a laugh. “Anyway, now we have an essence bond. A conscious one.” He shook his head. “I realize now I should’ve told you earlier, but I’m still getting used to the concept, and things have been crazy since I got here.”
“Nah, it’s cool,” I said as I tried to shuffle pieces of info into a picture that made sense. Mzatal had what he called an essence bond with the reyza Gestamar, and Turek, an ancient savik, was essence-bound to Szerain. Maybe my bond with Mzatal was the same as that? Except, y’know, with sex.
The rest of Bryce’s words filtered into my brain. “You said that your bond is ‘a conscious one.’ What do you mean?”
“That’s kind of an odd story,” he said. “It didn’t start out conscious.” He ran a hand over his hair, blew out his breath. “After Paul went to Kadir, Mzatal sent me to Seretis’s realm. Considering all the shit I’d gone through with the plantation, Farouche, and everything else, I needed the mental health break and a change of scenery. For most of the first day everyone left me alone, and I wandered around or sat out on the beach. But that evening Seretis came out to talk to me and, well, we clicked.” A smile lit Bryce’s face. “We were damn near inseparable after that—like we’d known each other forever.”