White Witch, Black Curse. Ким Харрисон

were few, but in one of them he was shaking hands with Denon, my old boss at the I.S. It would worry me if I hadn’t once heard the pleasure Edden had taken in jerking a case out from under him. The smell of old coffee seemed embedded in the gray tiles and institutional-yellow walls. A new laptop sat open on his desk instead of a monitor, and the clock that had once been behind him was now behind me. Otherwise, it was the same as the last time I had sat here, waiting for Edden to bring me coffee.

      I heard Edden’s footsteps before his bulky silhouette showed through the blinds between his office and the rest of the other offices, all open. The man came in with two china mugs instead of the expected foam ones. New rules again? One was clearly his by the brown-stained rim. I got the clean one with rainbows. How sweet…

      Jenks rose up in a column of blue sparkles as Edden sat behind his desk, the pixy taking the packet almost as large as he was and retreating to a corner, out of my reach. “Thanks, Edden,” he said, wrestling with the plastic to tear it open.

      I leaned to shut the door with my foot, and Edden eyed me. “You have something to say in private, Rachel?” he asked, and I shook my head. Taking the packet from Jenks, I tore it open and handed it back.

      “Trust me,” I said, thinking that having the harried FIB officers deal with a drunk pixy was too much to ask for. My reputation was bad enough as it was.

      “So,” I said to draw Edden’s attention from Jenks, who was humming happily and starting to list already, one wing not fanning as fast as the other. “Isn’t a felony charge a little harsh for failure to register a new address?”

      Edden’s gaze darted from me to Jenks, and then back. “It’s not for failure to register. It’s because she’s a suspect.”

      “‘S good honey, Eddie,” Jenks interrupted, and I set my coffee mug down loud enough to make his wings hum.

      “The banshee is a suspect?” I questioned. “Why? All she did was leave a tear.”

      Edden leaned back in his chair and sipped his coffee. “Alex took her photo out to the neighbors to see if she had been near the scene recently. Babysitter, cosmetics lady, whatever. Every single person asked ID’d Ms. Harbor as Mrs. Tilson.”

      “What?” I yelped, sitting up fast.

      “Holy crap,” Jenks swore, almost crashing into the stack of files on Edden’s desk as he took flight with his honey packet. “The banshee took a human’s name? What the hell for?”

      My first wash of surprise ebbed into an uneasy answer, and by looking at Edden’s severe face, I knew he had the same idea. Mia had killed them and was trying to cover it up. Good God. Tom is trying to tag a banshee? By himself? Go for it, coffin bait. “That might explain why Tom Bansen was under our kitchen floor yesterday,” I said, and Edden started.

      “Under your—”

      “Kitchen floor,” I finished. “All dressed up like a military guy on urban-assault detail. Bis and one of my friends caught him trying to bug the church.”

      “Why didn’t you call me?” Edden said, and I made a face while Jenks slurred something about the gargoyle.

      “Because Tom’s been, ah, shunned,” I said, flushing. “No Inderlander will hire him, the I.S. included. He has no choice but to go independent. Bringing in a banshee will probably earn him enough money to get himself set up somewhere he can live his life out in the wilds. He warned me off the case. Now that I think about it, he told me specifically to stay away from Mia. He probably knows at least as much as we do.”

      “Then why bug you?” he asked, and I shrugged.

      “Because if he’s been shunned, he lacks the resources of both the FIB and the I.S. I guess he figured he’d listen in to what we found and act on it before we did. Tom probably knows exactly where she’s gone. Maybe I should try to bug him.”

      Edden looked grim, rubbing his mustache, when I finally looked back. “Want a car at your house?”

      Immediately I shook my head. “No, but one at my mom’s might be nice.”

      “Within the hour,” he promised, the pen almost lost in his grip as he made a note.

      Jenks had started climbing Edden’s desk files like a drunken mountaineer, and I blushed when I found out what happened on the tenth day of pixy Christmas. Shaking off the visual, I turned to Edden. “If Mia is Mrs. Tilson, we need to find her fast. The man with her is in danger.”

      Edden made an ugly sound and just about threw the pen in the cup. “I don’t care.”

      “He’s liable to wind up dead,” I protested, then took a sip of my coffee now that Jenks wasn’t hiding behind it. My eyes closed in bliss for a moment. I’d give the FIB one thing: They knew how to make coffee. “A banshee’s liveins never live long,” I said. “And if Mia has a baby, her emotion requirements will be almost triple.” I paused in my motion to take another drink. That was probably why she had to put five years between her children.

      Edden’s mustache was bunched up, and his expression was hard. “I’m not concerned about Mia’s accomplice,” he said. “He was healthy enough to beat up my son. We pulled his record this morning by way of his fingerprints. His name is Remus, and we would never have found him this fast but he’s got a file thicker than my fist, starting from high school with an attempted date rape, up to about three years ago when he spent time in a psychiatric jail for an especially foul animal-cruelty charge. They let him out, and he dropped off the face of the earth. No credit card activity, no rental history, no W-2 forms. Nothing until now. So you can understand if I don’t rush out and try to find him for the sake of his own health.”

      My stomach hurt. God, the two of them had probably killed the Tilsons together. They had killed those happy faces that were in that yearbook and taken their names, their lives, everything. Shoved what they didn’t want into boxes in their garage.

      Jenks dropped the empty honey packet, staggering under the desk lamp and staring up at it. Realizing that he was singing to it to get it to turn on, I flicked the switch. Jenks exploded into gold sparkles and collapsed, giggling. My expression went blank. He was stuck on the tenth day of Christmas, but finally he gave up and started singing about four purple condoms.

      I looked at Edden and shrugged. “Maybe the little girl belongs to Remus,” I said, and Edden jerked the topmost file out from under Jenks. The pixy rose three inches before falling down, mumbling as he pillowed his head on his folded arms and fell asleep in the artificial warmth of the light. Edden handed me the file, and I opened it. “What is this?”

      He leaned back to lace his hands over his middle. “Everything we have on Mia. That baby makes her a lot easier to track. Without her, Remus wouldn’t exist. We found another licensed day care that Mia frequents, making four now and at least two more informal ones.”

      I leafed through the small packet to read the addresses, impressed again with the FIB’s investigative techniques. The day cares were mostly in Ohio, on Cincy’s outskirts.

      “I called them all this morning,” Edden said. “Mia didn’t show up anywhere yesterday, and the one she was scheduled for was concerned. Apparently she always stays to help instead of paying them for care, claiming that she wants Holly to have more socialization skills.”

      “No kidding?” I said, eyebrows high. I could buy that, but not if she was taking her daughter to five other day cares to do the same thing.

      “No, no, no,” Jenks slurred from under the glaring light. His eyes weren’t open, and I was surprised he was conscious enough to listen, much less comment on the conversation. “Kid isn’t socializing. The kid is sucking down emotion like…”

      His words trailed off in confusion, and I offered, “A pixy with honey?”

      Jenks cracked an eye and gave me a thumbs-up. “Yeah.” His eyes closed, and he started to snore. I didn’t know why, but I unwound my scarf and covered him. Embarrassment, maybe?

      Edden