I weaved to the coffeepot and poured myself a mug of brain-starter.
“Good morning,” Julian said. He pointed to the bread on the counter. “Toast?”
I raised the mug and said, “Cheers.”
Looking amused, he put slices of bread in the toaster. “How late were you up with your girl talk?”
Girl talk. Natasha not quite explaining vampire mating rituals, although I do remember her saying Ilya was a very skilled kisser. And me not quite explaining trust issues and how fear of bad breath even after brushing your teeth got in the way of finding out if you liked how a friend kissed—and being anxious about what might happen if, after a kiss, you discovered you didn’t have that kind of chemistry but still wanted to be friends.
I think we decided that Sanguinati courting rituals went on longer than human courting rituals and were more complex before a pair made the final commitment, but things were easier once the individuals reached the actual mating. I think. Since I don’t remember Natasha leaving my apartment, I can’t say if we reached any other conclusions. Or any conclusions.
“Natasha?” I said.
Julian put a piece of toast on a plate and handed it to me. “She’s around somewhere. She’s catching a ride to the village with me.” He dropped a piece of toast on his own plate and spread butter and berry jam over it. “Aggie, Jozi, and Eddie left with Conan. They’re still in Crow form, so I’m not sure they’ll be working today. Safety in numbers—and the ability to fly away from danger—seems to be the Crowgard thinking this morning. Conan said there is some concern about a friend of theirs—Clara Crowgard. There’s been some argy-bargy between your employees and Clara—Conan wasn’t sure about what—and she’s been going off on her own. But after last night . . . Well, friends are still friends.”
The Crows didn’t have an argument. They had some argy-bargy.
Julian came up with such interesting words.
“I hope the idiot who made that costume is pleased with himself,” I grumbled as I slathered butter and jam on my piece of toast, then took a big bite. Somewhere between bites I realized Julian’s silence wasn’t a way to ignore or disapprove of what I’d said. “Julian?”
“Be careful out there,” he said quietly. “Know where your guests are going today.”
When I sucked in air, I realized I had stopped breathing. “Should I warn Ineke?”
“I already called her.”
Oh, gosh golly. Julian was seriously spooked. “It was a person in a costume.” I wanted to believe it, wanted him to agree.
He hesitated. “Maybe.”
“But it’s daylight.” I glanced at the kitchen windows that looked out over the screened porch. “Sort of. The spookies should be tucked under their blankies for a good day’s sleep.”
That got a tiny laugh out of him. Then he sobered. “Let someone know where you are whenever you leave the main house. Okay?”
That’s when Natasha walked into the kitchen and said, “Conan and Bobcat wanted you to know that they found a partially eaten donkey close to the main house.”
CHAPTER 14
Grimshaw
Thaisday, Novembros 1
By the clock, it was morning, and the gloomy start to the day fit his mood even before Grimshaw spotted the bundle someone had dumped in the middle parking space, reserved for the police station. Pulling across all three spaces, he turned on his flashing lights, grabbed the flashlight he’d left on the passenger seat, and got out of the cruiser. Walking around the front of the cruiser, he took careful steps in the first open space until he reached the bundle.
He touched the gold medal under his shirt, said a quick prayer to Mikhos, then turned on the flashlight to get a good look at what had been left where the police would find it.
Blood-soaked jeans. Bloody shoes. The ripped shirt was the worst because he could see the hollowed-out torso and part of the rib cage stripped to the bone.
Gods above and below.
He unlocked the police station, called the Bristol station, and informed the dispatcher that he needed Detective Kipp and his CIU team in Sproing as soon as possible. Kipp headed one of the two CIU teams that worked out of Bristol and had been the lead investigator who had come to The Jumble that summer. The man wouldn’t thank him for the specific request, but Grimshaw figured a team that had some experience working around Lake Silence had a better chance of staying alive.
He also called Captain Hargreaves, catching his former boss as the man was walking out the door to go to work, and repeated his request for assistance from Kipp and his CIU team.
After he hung up, a thought occurred to him. Chilled him. Taking a pair of crime scene gloves out of his desk, he went outside and studied the bundle. Last night he’d had a head without a body. This morning he had a body without a head.
If this wasn’t a taunt or a threat . . .
Trying to disturb as little as possible, he eased a wallet out of a back pocket of the jeans. When he opened the wallet, he sucked in a breath.
Just a kid, he thought as he looked at a student photo ID belonging to Adam Fewks. Just a damn fool college boy.
He stripped off one blood-smeared glove, removed the ID, then laid the wallet beside the remains before he slipped the ID into his shirt pocket. Having stripped off the other glove, he dropped the gloves in the empty parking space, to be collected with whatever debris the CIU team would create.
He fetched the two manila envelopes from the passenger seat of his cruiser and brought them into the station—two sets of the photos he’d taken last night at The Jumble and Ames Funeral Home. One set would go to Bristol with Kipp. The other would stay here.
He opened one envelope and pulled out one of the prints of the head. Then he set Fewks’s photo ID next to the headshot—and swore with quiet savagery before slipping the ID back into his shirt pocket and going outside to stand guard until Kipp arrived.
Just a ballsy college boy who, like every boy that age, believed he could survive anything and everything, and a prank would have no consequences.
Then he thought about the academics from various universities and colleges around the Finger Lakes who had gathered at The Jumble last night and were staying at the Mill Creek Cabins. And he thought about the Elementals who were guarding the gravel road, preventing anyone from driving away. And he thought about the car keys he’d found next to his cabin’s front door when he got home last night.
And he thought about how he and Ilya had talked about police procedure while something Ilya didn’t recognize had watched them from the dark.
Not a taunt or a threat. Someone had left evidence where he would find it.
Grimshaw recognized Julian’s car and gave his friend a nod as the car slowed, then turned into the narrow driveway that led to the parking area behind Lettuce Reed. A minute later, Julian and Natasha Sanguinati were standing next to him.
“Gods,” Julian said softly.
“Maybe we can rig a tarp or block the space with cars until the CIU team arrives,” Grimshaw said. “We’ve got too many tourists in town, and we need to keep people from seeing this.”
“Ah,” Natasha said at the same time Grimshaw spotted the black luxury sedan heading toward them.