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This girl was supposed to become a Rain Chaser.
And now she was dead.
“Cover her up.” I got to my feet again, offering Stowe a hand to get him back to eye level, wh
ich he took without complaint. “This wasn’t Seth. You know that right?”
“Unless gods are suddenly in a habit of killing temple brats before they come of age, I didn’t think it was him.” Snap.
Normally the gum popping would drive me nuts, but right now it was oddly comforting, anchoring me to the real world, rather than giving me too much time to think about the dead body nearby.
“Were you expecting any new kids at the temple?” he asked.
I lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I don’t deal with the onboarding. That’s all Sido’s job.”
“You mean Head Priestess Sidonie?” He was jotting something down in a notebook.
“Yes.”
“She might know who this girl is, then, if she was anticipating a new recruit.”
“Probably.” I didn’t know much about how clerics were brought in once their parents surrendered them. My only direct experience with the process had been when my own family dropped me off at the temple when I was seven years old. Mostly I remembered how heartbroken I was to be separated from my twin sister, Sunny. Not much else about those first days really stuck with me. Presumably, though, someone had brought this little girl to Seattle for her promised life of greatness, serving a god.
She got what we all get in the end, just a lot sooner.
Part of me—an ugly, bitter part—thought the girl had gotten off lucky.
Chapter Two
I wasn’t even back to my car before I saw the guy.
It was his absolute plainness that drew my attention. He was an ordinary man, standing on the sidewalk a block away from my 1970 Dodge Charger, staring at his cell phone.
Only he wasn’t really looking at it.
He held it, scrolling idly, but it was obvious to me when I gave him a second glance that he wasn’t actually doing anything. Rain was dripping down the edge of his raised hood and landing right on the phone’s screen. I had lived in Seattle long enough to know that rain on a phone screen rendered the touchpad all but useless. Yet this dude was still scrolling away.
A chill crept up my spine that I couldn’t blame on the weather.
I paused, still a few steps away from my ride, and sucked in a breath.
The man hadn’t done anything, hadn’t threatened me, hadn’t even looked at me yet, but my whole body was poised like I was about to be attacked. Every internal alarm bell I had was ringing off the hook.
This situation was all wrong.
In my line of work, where every decision I made could literally mean life or death, I had learned a thing or two about trusting my gut instincts. If my intuition said this guy was bad news, there was a reason.
I sized him up, hoping he hadn’t spotted me yet. It seemed likely he was standing where he was to better see me when I returned to the Charger. He was young, probably mid-twenties, and his black hair hung in his eyes. His build was lean, but his shoulders were wide, suggesting he was strong, or at least well-muscled under the rain jacket.
The coat itself was expensive looking, as were the brown leather shoes currently being ruined by the puddle at his feet.
He sniffed and lifted his gaze, his eyes locking on me.
Shit.
I wasn’t anticipating his reaction, however. Instead of coming at me or doing something else threatening, his eyes went wide, and he fumbled with his phone, almost dropping it. Once he caught hold of it again, he took off running in the opposite direction.
Wait…what?
