Which just confirmed his thought that Jones was an Intuit. “I try to be open-minded about things that don’t hurt another person or break the law.”
Jones just kept tidying the bins. Finally he stopped but didn’t look at Grimshaw. “I have a feeling the men who wear that tie clip wouldn’t be doing business with someone like me. They don’t feel the rhythm of a place or the people who live there. They don’t have a feel for anything but profit. You hear what I’m saying? Those detectives causing trouble for Miss Vicki. They didn’t come in, but Officer Osgood has come in to look at the sheet music, look at the instruments I have for sale. He feels the rhythm.”
Well, asking people about the tie clips had been a long shot.
A faraway look came into Jones’s eyes. Then he focused on Grimshaw. “You got a connection to any of the special girls?”
For a moment, Grimshaw’s body clenched. Special girls. Blood prophets. The cassandra sangue. Girls who could see the future when their skin was cut.
“No, I don’t have a connection to any of those girls,” he said. Not directly, anyway.
Some of the girls still lived in the compounds where they had been raised and trained. Others had left that “benevolent ownership” and tried to survive in the chaotic everyday world. Many hadn’t survived, and the ones who had were hidden away.
If you wanted to hide vulnerable girls, you’d ask someone who had an intuitive sense about a place to find communities where those girls would be safe. And Grimshaw didn’t know anyone who was better at sensing a place than Julian Farrow.
“Thanks for your help,” Grimshaw said. He hurried out of Grace Notes and went straight to Lettuce Reed.
“You alone?” he asked Julian as soon as he walked into the store.
“For the moment,” Julian replied. “Had a run on romantic suspense novels an hour ago. Probably not the type of story that is of interest to you.”
Grimshaw waved off the comment. “I need help answering a question. I need a special kind of help.” Too cryptic? No. Julian knew exactly what, or who, he was talking about—and said nothing. Expecting that to be Julian’s response, he added, “I know a man who knows a man who might know a blood prophet.”
Julian looked away. “What are we playing? Six degrees of separation or connect the dots?”
“Maybe both. What do detectives working in Putney, a bank manager in Sproing, and a businessman living in Hubb NE have in common?”
“You tell me.”
“They all have the same tie clip, which could be coincidence or could be a connection.”
Julian said nothing.
Grimshaw decided to push. “You helped hide some of those girls, didn’t you? Before you opened the store here.”
“We’re not talking about it. Ever,” Julian said fiercely.
No, Julian wouldn’t talk. Blood prophets were worth a fortune because of their ability to see the future, and a man who admitted that he knew where to find even one of them would be wearing a target on his back.
But there was one blood prophet who might be within reach.
“Captain Hargreaves knows a patrol captain in Lakeside. He might be able to reach out.” He didn’t want to ask Hargreaves to call in another favor on his behalf, but he also didn’t want this trouble at The Jumble to be the incident that started the next Great Predation.
“Do you really need this?”
“Gershwin Jones seems to think I do. He’s the one who asked if I knew any of the special girls.”
A crackling silence. Finally Julian sighed. “Some Intuits have a private information exchange. There’s been talk that some of the special girls are exploring ways to reveal prophecy without their skin being cut.” He smiled grimly. “I know a man who knows a Wolf who knows a girl who might be able to answer a question by reading cards.”
“If you could reach out,” Grimshaw said. “I trust Captain Hargreaves, but Swinn’s involvement raises the question of who else might be connected to this mess.”
“Work out exactly what you want to ask, and I’ll send the question. Might help if I can e-mail the photo of the tie clip too.”
“Thanks. I’ll be back.”
Grimshaw crossed the street and went inside the police station. Osgood was there, reading one of the books he’d purchased at Lettuce Reed.
“Why don’t you do a foot patrol?” Grimshaw said. He pulled out his wallet and handed Osgood a couple of bills. “Pick up some lunch for the two of us while you’re out and about.”
“Yes, sir.” Osgood hesitated. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to take some alone time to consider a question.”
CHAPTER 25
Vicki
Firesday, Juin 16
We were trapped in a building. Lots of pipes overhead and exposed steel support beams. Something was in there with us, hunting us. We’d found Dominique Xavier lying in a pool of her own blood, her blank eyes staring at us as we turned and ran, searching for a way out, desperate to escape the monster.
Ineke, Paige, and I fled in the same direction. As I swung around a corner, I heard Paige scream. I turned back, but Ineke shouted, “Run, Vicki, run! Get help!”
Then came a sound that didn’t—couldn’t—come from one of us.
I ran through a maze of rooms—gray metal walls, metal ceiling, wood floor. My heart pounded; my lungs struggled to breathe. Had to get out; had to find help.
The next room had baskets of bright-colored toys filling a row of metal tables—little bits of plastic no bigger than a thumb in the shape of animals. In a world reduced to metallic gray, the colors were startling, unnerving, life- affirming. I picked up a basket—and heard a sound behind me.
I don’t know what it was. It was human-shaped but nothing human. The head rising from a soiled white shirt and thin-striped brown suit looked like papier-mâché draped with dirty strips of gauze that settled around its shoulders. Instead of eyes, a pair of black goggles were somehow attached to the gauze—not tight, not like there were straps holding them on to provide some shape to the white lump. It was as if the goggles were its eyes. Several tie clips decorated the lapels of the suit.
I flung the plastic toys out of the basket, scattering them over the floor like wash water. The gauze-headed thing stumbled over the plastic bits, just a moment of unbalance. I dropped the empty basket, grabbed another that was full of the colored toys, and ran, pursued by the terrible thing that was dressed like a businessman but was deadly and monstrous.
I heard a ding, saw the freight elevator’s doors open. If I could get to the elevator, I could get to the ground floor, get out, get help. Paige was hurt—no one screamed that way if they weren’t hurt—and I didn’t know what had happened to Ineke.
I looked back—and it was there, right there, coming toward me. Did I have time to get in the elevator and press the button? Would the elevator doors close before that thing reached them—and me?
I threw the basket at it, but the basket turned into a pillow that bounced off its chest. I leaped into the elevator, slapped at the panel, and pushed the B button. Wrong button! There were bad things in the basement. There were always bad things in the basement. I pushed the button for the ground floor. The gauze-headed thing reached in as the elevator doors began to close. Reached in to grab me, to drag me back into something unspeakable. I flung myself to the side of the compartment, desperate to avoid that touch and . . .