They had made some progress. They had IDs now on three of the victims—one in Oceanside, another in Escondido, the third in Temecula, like Curtis. All three had been ruled death by natural causes and would have to be ritually examined. Lily felt a pang of sympathy for the coven from L.A. who’d been given that chore. They seemed competent, though—it had taken them about thirty minutes to confirm that Curtis had been killed by death magic.
Lily had spoken with the Temecula police chief and with three witnesses from the Cactus Corral, including the not-quite-boyfriend. She was waiting on another witness now—the bartender who’d apparently waited on Harlowe. It was his night off, and they hadn’t tracked him down yet.
It was weird, hanging around waiting for others to turn up the witnesses and bring them to her. She was used to being out there hunting them herself, but someone had to coordinate the federal efforts with the local ones. Right now, that was her.
She’d be glad when Croft got here. “If he did have victims on the missing days”—and she believed in her gut that he had—“then he held back those photos for a reason. Why? Were there other victims we don’t know about? The first one we have a picture of is from the twenty-fifth of last month.”
“Eight days after you busted his operation with the Azá. Yeah, I’d like to know what he was doing for that week.”
Maybe hiding out in hell. Lily hadn’t mentioned that possibility to Baxter. Not only was it outlandish enough to make him doubt everything else she said, but it came from a source she couldn’t reveal.
“We’ll have another victim soon,” Baxter was saying,
“if you’re right about the staff and him having to feed it. I hope to God you’re wrong, but I’m not counting on it.”
She knew it. She knew it, and the certainty ate at her gut. “It keeps coming back to these pictures. Why take them? Why give them to us? Why did he want or need us to know so much?”
“He might not have known how much he was giving us. Lots of people aren’t computer savvy. I’d never heard of that EXIT data before, myself.”
“EXIF,” Lily corrected absently, frowning at the map pinned to one end of the long bulletin board. They only had three vies identified so far, not enough to establish a definite pattern. But those three seemed to lead them north, away from San Diego. “Even if you didn’t know the terminology, you’d have found out, wouldn’t you? Before sharing your trophy photos with the FBI, you’d have made sure the images didn’t give away more than you wanted them to.”
Baxter smiled sourly. “Can’t count on Harlowe being as bright as me.”
“He’s bright enough.” Lily had spent enough hours learning about the man, getting to know him through the eyes of others, to be sure of that.
“The whizzes in profiling think he craves recognition. He was outwitting us, but that wasn’t enough. He had to be sure we knew how clever he was.”
“Maybe.” Lily drummed her fingers once on the desk. “No, dammit, it doesn’t fit. It just doesn’t fit with the man he was before—ambitious, amoral, but not a serial killer, and damn good at taking care of his own hide. Something’s changed, or we’re reading this wrong.”
The door opened. “Maybe he’s decided he’s invincible,” Rule said. He held a flat cardboard box that gave off wonderful aromas—pepperoni and pizza sauce. “That he can’t be caught or killed.”
“What the hell,” Baxter said. “You listening at the door?”
Lily frowned. Usually Rule took care not to make the humans around him uncomfortable. Maybe he was tired.
“I have good hearing.” Rule walked up to the desk and put down the carton. “It’s nearly eight o’clock, and I’m hungry. I thought you might like a couple of slices. I’m hoping,” he said, glancing at Lily, “to share the rest with my lady.”
My lady. Only Rule could say something like that and make it sound normal. “It would be handy if Harlowe cherished delusions of invincibility, but Cullen said that Helen was the one who took risks. Harlowe was more cautious.”
“That was when Helen held the staff. Harlowe has it now.”
“You think it changes the user’s personality?”
“I think we’ve got lots of guesses and very little knowledge. I also think it’s suppertime. There’s a break room down the hall where we could take however much of this Baxter can spare us.”
Baxter had already off-loaded three slices. “Go on, go on. The Bureau can survive without you for a few minutes.”
The break room was only four doors away and deserted at this hour. “Where’s Cynna?” Rule asked.
“There’s nothing for her to use to Find Harlowe, so she’s helping another team. Parental kidnapping. She was pretty sure she could Find the boy.” Lily ripped off a few paper towels to serve as both plates and napkins. “What was that ‘my lady’ bit about?”
Rule was feeding coins into the vending machine. He smiled at her over his shoulder. “Aren’t you?”
“It sounds…” Like the way he referred to his goddess, but Lily didn’t want to go there. “Medieval. As if you’re about to hop on your charger and go lance someone.”
“I’ll skip the charger. Horses don’t tolerate us well.” He brought two cans of soda to the table—Diet Coke for her, the straight stuff for himself. “Baxter’s unusually comfortable with my presence.”
“I explained that you’re a civilian consult.”
“It’s more than that. Usually there’s some sort of threat response, either fear or aggression or both. It’s a visceral thing, not under conscious control. He mostly ignores me. That’s rare.”
She could believe that. Rule was hard to overlook. “He’s got a touch of… well, otherness. It’s too faint for me to identify, but there’s something there. I’m guessing he’s got a witch, maybe even someone of the Blood, in his ancestry. That might make him more tolerant than most.” The smell was making her mouth water. She retrieved a slice and bit in.
“Perhaps.” He sat and removed a slice, the warm cheese stretching in a long string. “Your sister had a civil ceremony, not a religious one.”
She blinked. “Where did that come from?”
“Weren’t you thinking that ‘my lady’ sounds a lot like the Lady?”
“Have you picked up a telepathy Gift?”
“No, you make me work for whatever insights I can come up with. Is it specifically my beliefs that bother you, or religion in general?”
She resisted the urge to squirm in her chair. “I just think that sort of thing is private. It makes me uncomfortable when people wear their beliefs out in public.”
“Like underwear, you mean.”
She grinned. “Maybe.”
“I’m wondering if that’s a personal opinion or one your family shares.”
There were mushrooms on the pizza. Lily didn’t exactly hate mushrooms, but she didn’t exactly like them, either. She picked one off. “Family, I guess. The religious wars were mostly over by the time I was six, but we’re talking an armed truce with occasional skirmishes, not real peace.”
“They are of different faiths?”
“Mother’s a twice-a-year Christian—Easter and Christmas. My father was raised Buddhist, but I’m not sure how much it really matters to him. You’d think they could have compromised, since they aren’t especially devout, but…” She shrugged her good shoulder. Her pizza was getting cold, so she bit in.
“You would have gotten used to avoiding the whole subject, then, to avoid conflict in your family.” He nodded. “Did you stop thinking about it, too?”
Pretty much. Lily picked off more mushrooms, not looking up. “I went through the usual questioning period in my teens. You know—why are we here, what does it all mean, that sort of thing. It seemed like everyone had a different answer, and no way to back it up.”