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“I know. But the ‘I’s have been dotted and the ‘T’s crossed, so now I can say I did my due diligence.”
Meaning…what? That he now thought it was safe to date me, as he’d hinted the other evening?
“Well, that’s something.” I glanced down at the baggie that held my knives, but I didn’t bother to pick it up. Before I could use them again, I’d have to make sure they were cleansed and recharged. The Goddess only knew what kind of weird energy they’d picked up at the police station.
Calvin followed my gaze, and a small frown puckered his eyebrows. Maybe he was wondering why I hadn’t gone ahead and taken the knives back into the room that held my altar. His next question was one I’d halfway been expecting.
“Are you going to tell me where you were when I called?”
For someone who wasn’t psychic, he had good instincts. Too good, actually.
I’d lied on the phone, but I didn’t have the guts to lie to his face.
No, it was something more than that. I didn’t want to lie to him at all.
“I was down at the river.”
At once, his frown deepened. Voice full of warning, he began, “Selena — ”
“I know,” I cut in. Maybe I’d earned a scolding, but I wasn’t in the mood for one. “It’s just — you cut me short the last time I was down there. I hoped I might be able to pick up something more if I was by myself.”
“Did you?”
“Yes,” I said. “At least, at first. Lucien’s spirit is definitely hanging around there. He tried to communicate with me, but I couldn’t understand what he was saying. Something about something vile and something huge.”
Calvin rubbed his chin. Although it was late in the day, I didn’t notice much stubble. “Was he trying to describe the person who murdered him?”
“Possibly. His spirit was very agitated, and so I think that was making it harder for him to get his point across.”
That piece of information didn’t seem to sit very well. Alarm flickered in Calvin’s eyes, and he asked, “Agitated how?”
I shrugged. “He was manifesting as a wind. It broke a branch off a tree and pulled the scrunchie out of my hair.”
Remembering the scene, I frowned. That had been one of my favorite scrunchies.
“You could have been hurt.”
“I don’t think so,” I said quickly. Why I felt compelled to defend Lucien, I didn’t know. Most likely, I just didn’t want to upset Calvin. “The branch didn’t fall anywhere near me. But it doesn’t matter, because you called, and that interruption was enough to break up his energy. He disappeared, and we’re not any closer to figuring out who the suspect is than we were before.”
His expression was still troubled, but to my relief, he didn’t give me any more grief over going down to the river. Was it possible he felt a little guilty about calling at exactly the wrong time?
“You tried,” he said. “And we’re working the other angles.”
“Like the medallion,” I replied. “Any news on that?”
A pause, and I wondered if he was going to tell me for the umpteenth time that he couldn’t discuss the particulars of the case with me.
It seemed he’d given that up as a lost cause, though, because he said, “We found a partial print on it, but so far that doesn’t seem to be much of a lead, since it’s not pinging any of our databases. Otherwise, there wasn’t anything else. No DNA or something that might give us a clue to who it belonged to.”
I’d expected as much — even if it had been spattered with blood during the murder, spending more than twenty-four hours underwater in the riverbed would have pretty much wiped it clean.
“That’s too bad,” I said.
He gave a philosophical lift of his shoulders. “It happens. Not that I’ve worked many murder cases, but a lot of the time, it’s two steps forward, one step back. We’ll get to the bottom of it eventually.”
I hoped he was right. Since he had a lot more experience in this sort of thing than I did, I’d have to take his word for it. “And Travis’s car?”
Calvin shook his head. “Nothing. No mechanical failure, no signs of tampering. Chief Lewis wants to blame it on Travis driving under the influence, but he seemed sober enough. Shaken, but I didn’t see any sign of him being high.”
