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Goddammit, he had a point. That didn’t mean I liked it.
“I’ll—”
“Text me when you’re done,” he said.
“I will.”
I wanted him to tell me to come back, to take his keys. But he didn’t. “Be careful, Val,” he said, instead.
“You, too,” I replied, bending far enough to press a lingering kiss against his forehead. “Please.”
His warm hand rested on my side. “I will,” he promised.
“Call or text me if you need anything.”
“Okay.”
This was much harder than it had any right to be, but I needed to go. The dead might not get any deader, but they also didn’t like to wait too long for the living.
I kissed him once more, this time on the lips, and left, swallowing around the lump in my throat and knowing my life would never be the same.
13
“Tellme you foundsomethingyou can tell me about,” I said to Seth Mays, the big blond CSI tech who was sitting on the edge of a raised planter in Kanawha Plaza. I passed him a brown paper bag that held a slow-roasted pulled pork sandwich, a side of macaroni and cheese, jalapeño cornbread, and a butterscotch blondie.
I sat down near him, pulling my trainwreck burrito out of my bag—barbeque mushrooms, beans, mac and cheese, cornbread, onions, and jalapenos all wrapped in a tortilla. I also had a blondie, although I’d decided against any other sides, given the size of this thing.
Mays sniffed appreciatively at his food before taking a huge bite of his sandwich. “Can, yes,” he said around his food. “Should, no.”
“Are you going to tell me anyway?”
“Obviously.”
I smirked at him and took a bite of my burrito. “So what you got?”
Mays handed me a file folder, which—I discovered upon opening it—contained the coroner’s reports for Faith Oldham, Ian Whitehead, and Richard Bazan, our most recent disappearing bullet victim.
No bullets found—not surprising—and a single, clean shot to the head for all of them.
Every victim before Oldham had been shot in the chest, including Doc. Of course, the original shooter, Victor Picton, was dead. But whoever was doing the shooting now was also using a different gun—what Tierney thought was a nine mil based on the size of the bullet hole in all three victims. None of these people worked for Tranquil Brook, either, of course. And while I hadn’t been able to really research Whitehead or Bazan, the Oldhams had no connection to any of the Ordo members we’d identified.
Everything said it was a different killer, a different series of homicides, except for the fact that there was only one way to make a bullet go through walls or windows and then disappear.
And it was magic. Magic used by the Antiquus Ordo Arcanum.
Doc didn’t think there was more than one way to do that particular thing, which meant thatsomeonefrom the first set of killings had to be involved in the second, either because they were making these new bullets or because they’d taught someone else how to. And thatsomeonewas Ordo.
And that meant that the people who were dying—Oldham, Whitehead, and Bazan—were enemies of the Ordo.
I knew the old saying—enemies of my enemies and all that shit—but there was no way in fucking hell I was calling Faith Oldham a friend. The jury was still out on Whitehead and Bazan. I’d started digging into Whitehead a week or so ago, but I hadn’t found anything that pointed specifically to what it was that he’d done to piss off the Ordo. Of course, I didn’t know what Faith Oldham had done, either, but her virulent anti-magic stance probably hadn’t made her many warlock friends.
Ian Whitehead had been in shipping and imports, working out of the Port of Richmond on the James River. No obvious enemies or ties to either magic or the MFM. Nothing to connect him to the Oldhams, either. I’d passed him off to Doc to see if he had any ties to old magic, and then Taavi had happened, and then Bazan, so I hadn’t had a chance to come back to Whitehead.
Bazan was more difficult. He’d been a lawyer, and getting access to client lists was a pain in the ass—and I didn’t have that kind of access. That had to be left up to Dan, warrants, and the legal system. And Villanova had iced it yesterday morning.
Dan’s text had been short and angry—fucking ice box. I’d tried to ask him about it, but all I’d gotten wascant talk.Then radio silence. Even to my offer of beers and burgers.
So now I was worried about Dan, worried about Taavi, and pissed off at the fact that Villanova was hamstringing the whole goddamn thing.
