We held hands until we reached the tree line and then let go of each other with one last wistful glance. As we walked, the storm in the distance quieted and blue skies returned.
Several big black cars formed a semi-circle on the wide lawn, just off the front drive. Moose's Rubicon was among them. Nick and I took off at a jog and approached the group of household staff. Benny stood there in his three-piece suit with his arms across his chest, scowling at a pile of ash on the ground. Moose held Marcie with her arms behind her, warded cuffs on her wrists—the usual gold kind we used at the Agency, not the fancy crystal ones. She thrashed and snarled in his grip. He had a fat lip and one eye was swollen nearly shut. Kiki hovered at the edge of the group, barely visible in the bright light. A little further away, Fenssa Gampeg and the strikingly lovely weasel couple watched the drama unfold.
Price and another guy in a black suit squatted beside the ashes. When he saw us, he rose to his full height. "Mr. Adamos, where were you in the hour after your release from our holding facility?"
"I went to The Agency to clean up." Nick took another step toward the ashes and then scanned the group. "It's Ford?"
Marcie screamed incoherent threats that had something to do with disembowelment and the eternal fire of Hell. Spit flew from her host body's mouth. Nausea steamrolled over all my residual warm fuzzies.b
"Get her out of here!" Price bellowed. Benny coaxed and Moose hauled on the handcuffs and they managed to get Marcie inside the house. Once she was gone, Price asked, "What makes you think this is Ford?"
"This stinks like demon and he's not here. Marcie is, and she's furious you put her in warded cuffs to keep her under control. Who else would it be?"
Instead of answering, Price asked, "Do you have an alibi for your trip to The Agency?"
"Yes. Nowicki drove me there, and we came here together afterward. Mx. Landry saw me there as well."
Price's lip curled like demon stink wasn't the worst thing he was smelling. "Do you have any other alibi? Someone we can actually trust?"
"Security logs, camera footage, GPS tracker on the car."
I didn't always run as fast as the other kids, but I got to the park, eventually. Holy mackerel! Somebody killed Ford. And Manbar. But there was no way to know if Price knew about Manbar yet and no way to ask without giving away the fact that we found the body and left it.
"You got here and came through the kitchen," Price went on. "You spoke with Marcie."
"That's right," Nick said.
"And then where did you go?"
"To the steps. I was hoping that retracing my steps would trigger some kind of memory, but when I got that far I had no success. However, I thought about the lake." He gestured toward the general area where we'd just been fooling around while a murderer wreaked havoc. "I thought maybe I'd find some trace of what was upsetting Aglaope out there."
"I see. And did you?"
"No."
"I see," Price said again.
"And do you have an alibi for that time at the lake? Besides Agent Nowicki?"
Enough was too much. I planted my hands on my hips. "Is the lead investigator that you hired in this case not a good enough alibi for you?"
He made a noncommittal grunt and turned his attention to Moose, who had just come back. "What are you doing here?"
"Like Nowicki said, boss. You hired us to do a job. I'm just looking around."
Price made eye contact for the briefest of moments with Benny, who'd returned without his entourage, and then rolled his shoulders. "Fine. Adamos, I'm taking you back into custody."
I lunged at him and would have hit him if Moose didn't grab me and hold me back. "You can't do that," I insisted. "He didn't do this. He was with me the whole time."
"Of course I can. The man is a prime suspect in a murder, now on the scene of another murder. I'm wondering if it would be in the public interest to detain you as well, Agent Nowicki."
Moose didn't let go of my upper arm. He rubbed his free hand over his big, bald head. "Of course, we've all had the urge to lock Nowicki in a soundproof cage from time to time, but it'd be a damned shame if she was right, and you came out of this looking like a fool."
"Excuse me?" Price's face turned an alarming shade of purple.
"I'm just saying, she's annoying like a tiny, yappy, chihuahua, and half the time she don't even know what she's barking at. But girl's got good instincts. What if she's right?" He gestured toward Nick. "Nick's capable of killing. We all know that. But he's not a cold-blooded murderer." It was just about the most I'd ever heard him say at once, but he wasn't done yet. "Now, Nowicki said if you set Nick free, you'd draw the real killer out. She was right. Nick was no sooner walking free than the killer was right on his heels. If you're as smart as your fancy ass title suggests, you'll let this play out."
Price trembled like a volcano about to blow.
Benny watched all this play out with his hands in his pockets, looking for all the world like the most relaxed guy who ever was. No one would guess his home was the site of multiple homicides, based on his laid-back demeanor.
Moose continued. "Send 'em out on the town tonight. You and I will tail them. Together, if you want. Or send some of your lackeys, if you think they can run a tail without blowing the operation. Find out who's following them, and you'll solve this once and for all, just like Nowicki said."
"It sounds to me like the only plan anyone has," Benny interjected.
The muscles in Price's jaw jumped and flexed as he ground his teeth. He looked at me, at Nick, at Benny, at Moose, back to Nick, at Benny again. "Fine!" He stomped away, presumably to vent his impotent rage elsewhere.
One of the guys in my mental file room stumbled across something interesting, but I couldn't quite see it. I carefully avoided looking too hard in that direction.
That was about the time a fat calico cat came loing along with a finger dangling from its mouth. One end was bloody and chewed up, but the thick gold wedding band was still clearly visible. Fenssa Gampeg gasped and started screaming hysterically.
And as if everything needed to be ratcheted up one more notch, a black limousine drove right across the grass to where our group was huddled. We were all so surprised, Manbar's remains were forgotten for a moment. The door of the car opened, and Hawwa stepped out and faced us.
Her long braids hung down her back, past her waist. Gold beads on the ends sparkled in the sunlight. She wore a creamy white wool pantsuit with a long matching jacket that had gold buttons. Large gold hoop earrings flashed when she moved. "I see things are not yet settled. How can I help?" Her voice was expensive chocolate slowly melting on the tongue. It was the fragrance of lilacs on a warm spring day and fireflies floating above a freshly mown hayfield. The whole group leaned in toward her as if to draw from her beautiful, life-giving energy. Her gaze landed on Nick and a sad smile turned her lips. "Hello, Nicolai."
Nick bowed his head. "Mother." His eyes remained fixed on the ground while she studied him.
After a moment, she looked at me. "Olivia. It's lovely to see you again, my dear."
"You too," I managed.
She stretched a hand toward Benny, and he shook it.
"It is always a delight, Hawwa," Benny said.
"I'm sorry for the troubles you've had here, Joseph. I'm confident in Olivia's ability to sort it out."
Well, that made one of us.
Price straightened his tie. "Ma'am, I appreciate your concern, but this is an active crime scene, and you really can't be here."
Hawwa turned her dark eyes on him.
Like Nick, he found something in the grass worth staring at.
"Nicolai?" Hawwa said.
Nick swallowed hard before looking up.
"Are you well?"
"I'm fine."
"You are bound."
"Yes."
"Is this a condition of your release?"
"It was my choice." Her gaze darted to me, to Price, back to Nick. "I see."
Hawwa drew close to her son. She pressed a hand to his cheek and studied his eyes while we all just stood there, enraptured by her very existence. At last, she said, "Well, I will be in town if I am needed. You have my number." She turned to get back in the car.
Nick took a step in her direction. "Hawwa?"
She stopped and looked at him again.
"It's good to see you, even under strange circumstances."
Some of the sadness left her expression. "And you, my dear one."
"Is Adom with you?"
"No." And I guess that's all she had to say about that because she got into the car, and it drove away.
It was as if the universe had been paused while we were in Hawwa's presence. Now that she was gone, everything lurched back into motion. More yellow tape was added to what already surrounded the area where Ford's ashes lay. Photographs were snapped. Fenssa Gampeg was asked a hundred questions, most of which she had no answers for.
Did Manbar have enemies? Not that she knew of.
When had he last been seen? Probably that morning, she wasn't sure.
Was he working on anything in particular? She assumed just the usual.
Moose, Nick and I stayed back, listening, watching, occasionally taking notes. It was all vague and all of it had that tiny voice in the back of my head muttering about... something.
I thought about the first time I saw death up close. I'd been fourteen years old when an uncle had died. He had no spouse or children, and my grandfather was the one who had to take care of all the business of his brother's death. Watching him, I realized that the death of a loved one is a chore. This had come to me at a time when I was beginning to wonder if adulthood was just one long, unending "to-do" list. From the moment the accident happened, there had been tasks to be accomplished. Provide information to the police. Identify the body. Call the lawyers. Notify the insurer. Choose a funeral home. Cremation or burial? What kind of container do you want for the remains? Will you bury them? Put them in a vault? Bring them home and set them on the mantel? Do you want photographs displayed? What kinds of flowers do you prefer? On and on it went. It was a full-time job for a while, and it left little time for the person who was sad to just simply mourn as they should.
I stood beside Moose, both of us leaning against his Rubicon, and watched the business of death begin in earnest. Guys in white coveralls were sweeping the demon ashes into a large plastic jar. A woman in a black pantsuit had gone inside to face Marcie's rage and explain about some of the things that would need to be done. Fenssa listened with a blank stare as a man explained about autopsy timelines. Nick paced the driveway, speaking to Mx. Landry on the phone about where we would go in a few hours and how the tailing operation was to take place.
It was strange to realize I was part of the business side of death now.
"If you had to guess right now, who do you think did it?" I asked Moose.
"Not Nick," he said.
"Why not?"
He peered at me from the corner of his eye.
"I'm just saying, he had the time. It's possible he had a few unsupervised moments here and there that we failed to mention to the others."
Moose made a sound like an alligator with his eye on a chicken. "What's his motive?"
"Maybe he's just a homicidal maniac."
"He's not."
I scratched my belly near my belt buckle. The skin there prickled tenderly. "You get anything back on the fingerprints?"
"Nothing useful," he said. "Damn near everyone in that house, including Benny, had fingerprints in the siren's room. Everyone else's rooms, too."
"I mean, it's his house. Maybe he did inspections or something," I offered lamely.
"Yeah. I'm sure he was inspecting her on a regular basis."
"Do you have proof?" I asked.
"She was a siren, Nowicki."
I tried to imagine being married to a succubus and having a siren on the side. I peeked over at Benny with his thin, blah hair and wire-rimmed glasses, his hooked nose and weak chin. He who has the gold, I guess.
Moose rubbed his swollen jaw.
"What happened to you, anyway?" I asked.
"I caught that demigod."
I opened my mouth to say something about getting a bruising from my fugitive, too, remembered my bruising was gone now, and shut my mouth again. Time for a new subject. "Any word on those symbols?"
"Atlantian warding," he said.
I made a mental note that Atlantis was a real place and filed it under: Things I Should Learn More About. That particular category had an astonishing number of entries. I scratched my stomach again.
Price came stumping across the grass in our general direction. He stood too close and pointed a finger right up in my face. "I want this settled. Do you understand me? I want it finished tonight, and you're going to be the one who finishes it. If you ball this up, I will see to it that your memory is wiped of any knowledge that this community exists and make arrangements to have you working as a desk clerk at a hotel in fucking Cornfield, Iowa for the rest of your days do you understand me?"
As threats went, it was fairly effective. I peeled my tongue off the roof of my mouth and told him he needed to calm down. That's not what I meant to say. It just came out.
He turned purple and began to shake. Leaning in so close I could smell the peppermint he'd recently chewed, he said, "You have a fucking glowing blue handprint on your stomach."
I yanked the hem of my shirt down over my belt, fighting hard against the urge to either look at what he was describing or scratch it again.
"I don't know what's going on between you and that cursed mutt, but if you think for one second, I won't do what I just promised you, you might as well start packing your bags tonight. Nicolai Adamos is a dangerous animal and, one way or another, I'll see him caged."
"So, you're saying you're gonna do whatever you're gonna do regardless of the evidence," Moose rumbled. "Why you bothering with all this charade, then?"
If looks could kill, Moose would be dead. "The evidence exists and you're going to find it. That's your job."
"It wasn't until you made it our job."
"Just find it!" Little bits of spit flew from his mouth. I dodged and managed to avoid the worst of it.
Price stormed off again.
Moose said, "I'm going to talk to Mx. Landry and ask them to look up any shared history between Price and Nick. This is personal. I want to know why."