“I told you before I would open a line of credit for you.”

I loved books, and given a line of credit, I could imagine having to sell my car to feed my book addiction and pay off my bookstore debt.

“Two-hundred-dollar limit,” Julian said.

I needed some kind of solace, and it was either books or ice cream. If I bought the books, I’d have more than an evening’s pleasure, and I could justify it because other beings would read them too.

But I’d ask Aggie if she liked ice cream, just for future reference.

I left the store with a stuffed Lettuce Reed carry bag, and Officer Osgood left with three of the five books he’d originally selected.

We scanned the street, noticed Officer Grimshaw’s cruiser was gone, and scurried back to the police station, relieved that there was no sign of Detectives Swinn and Reynolds. Of course, that didn’t mean anything. They could be waiting for me inside the station. The bad guys in stories always managed to slither out of hiding places just before the hapless protagonist thought she had reached safety.

But it was my yummy vampire attorney who opened the station door and stepped aside. As we walked in, I wondered—briefly—if I should switch to reading romances again. At least those stories wouldn’t keep me up at night.

CHAPTER 18

Grimshaw

Windsday, Juin 14

Grimshaw studied Swinn’s face as the man stepped out between two parked cars and then realized how much attention he would draw to himself if he tried to get through the line of Sproingers in order to reach Vicki DeVine.

Fury.

“I assume you wanted me to stay in order to discuss something in particular,” Grimshaw said, glancing at Ilya Sanguinati, who was also watching Detective Swinn.

“How is your hearing, Officer Grimshaw?” the Sanguinati asked.

The words were polite, courteous even. But Grimshaw heard the frosty anger underneath. He understood the anger, felt it himself.

“My hearing is just fine,” he replied. He’d seen the stunned hurt on Vicki DeVine’s face when she walked past Swinn to leave the safe-deposit privacy room. And having heard the words, he understood why she’d erupted once she reached the police station.

“You humans have a saying about sticks and stones breaking bones but words not hurting.”

“A dumb-ass piece of wisdom that has been proven wrong too many times to count. Words can cause as much damage as a fist. They can leave deep scars that never fully heal. And they can kill.”

Was that what had happened at The Jumble? Despite insisting otherwise, had Vicki DeVine met Franklin Cartwright on the farm track? Had he told her why he was there? Or had he made an excuse—surveying the property line or something like that—and didn’t reveal he was there to evict her? Did he know enough about her to realize she could, and probably would, get lost on her own land? Had he counted on her wandering around while he hurried to The Jumble’s main house to search for whatever he’d gone there to find?

Or had Cartwright said something, like Swinn had at the bank, thinking he had pushed the right button to make her cave in to his demands and, instead, had triggered a more physical and violent reaction?

The biggest problem with that theory was that nothing human could have killed Franklin Cartwright.

Ilya Sanguinati turned away from the window to look at him. “‘You really do look like a fireplug with feet.’ Would you say that to a stranger or a female you had met recently?”

“I wouldn’t say it at all, even if it were true,” Grimshaw snapped. Vicki DeVine was short and plump and shaped more like a box than an hourglass, but only a crass idiot would say something that mean to a woman he’d met in passing.

He stiffened when he realized what the vampire was driving at. “No, I wouldn’t say it to a stranger or an acquaintance. Saying that to a woman . . . That’s personal.” Sexual. Intimate. Something an abusive lover might say, in jest of course, to undermine a woman’s self-confidence.

Ilya Sanguinati nodded. “Yes, it’s personal. And Detective Swinn’s phrasing, to me, sounded like he was agreeing with something someone else had said.”

Crap. There were a couple of questions he needed to ask Captain Hargreaves, but not here. He didn’t want to bring anyone to the Sanguinati’s attention.

“There are some things I need to do for the investigation,” he said. “You’re welcome to wait here until Ms. DeVine and Officer Osgood return. It shouldn’t be much longer.” He couldn’t be certain of that, and if it had been anyone else, he might have insisted on locking up. But everyone on the police force knew the Sanguinati’s other form was smoke, and they could flow through a keyhole if they wanted to enter a building—not to mention that Silence Lodge owned the building and Ilya most likely had keys to the station. He would show a little trust in the hope of having it reciprocated—especially if he discovered anything that was going to enrage the terra indigene.

“Thank you. I will wait.”

Grimshaw scanned the street before getting into his vehicle. Swinn and Reynolds were nowhere in sight. Maybe they had gone back to the boardinghouse. He knew they weren’t in the bookstore. He was pretty sure that would have caused a Sproinger riot.

Chesnik’s body had been taken to Bristol for the autopsy, but the other two bodies might still be at the funeral home, and hopefully, the mortician and Dr. Wallace could supply a few answers.

* * *

• • •

Sheridan Ames, the public face of Ames Funeral Home, was a stringy woman in her late forties. Her hard features were accented by a severe black pantsuit. The only soft thing about her was her luxuriously thick hair, which was a rich brown with red highlights.

Yesterday she had been professionally pleasant when he’d stopped in to confirm that the two bodies had arrived at the funeral home. Today she was cold.

“If you’ve come to look at the bodies again, they’ve been taken to Bristol for autopsy to determine cause of death,” she said.

Grimshaw studied her. Not just cold; she was seriously pissed off at police in general. Since that hadn’t been her attitude yesterday, he took a guess at the reason she had changed. “Detective Swinn was already here.”

“I don’t appreciate being accused of tampering with evidence. I don’t appreciate being accused of taking evidence. Dr. Wallace did go through the pockets of those two men, did confirm their ID. I was with him the whole time, and I made a list of every single item as it was removed and identified. And despite what Detective Swinn wants to put on the report, nothing human killed those three men.”

“Three?” Calhoun had died of the head and neck injuries before the ambulance had reached the hospital in Bristol, but there was no reason Sheridan Ames would have known that.

“The first dead man. The one Vicki DeVine found at The Jumble.”

“Any thoughts about what did kill them?” he asked.

“You should talk to Dr. Wallace.”

“I will. But I’d like your opinion too.”

She had been standing behind her desk, making it clear that she didn’t want to give him time or answers. Now she sat down and invited him to do the same.

“Let’s start with Detective Chesnik,” Grimshaw said.

“The one who died of blood loss?”

He nodded. “His legs were ripped up. Clawed. Could a bear or a big cat have done that?” He remembered seeing a picture of a grizzly bear’s paw next to a human head. The paw was bigger.

“Gods,” Sheridan said. “It should have occurred to me, but I didn’t think about the significance of big forms of terra indigene hunting in The Jumble. Has anyone warned Vicki DeVine?”

“The big shifters aren’t hunting, exactly. Her employees now include one of the Beargard and one of the Panthergard.” And the gods only knew what lived in the wooded land around the northern end of the lake.

She sat back. Grimshaw said nothing, just gave her time to think it through. Finally she shook her head.

“Whatever clawed that man’s legs was bigger than a Bear or a Panther. A lot bigger,” she said. “And I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the same thing that killed the other two men. At least, it didn’t take the same form. Clawed hand versus clawed paw.”