ShiftingHeat (15 page)

She stared at the two bodies, both violently killed. One by
her. “I just reacted. He had a gun.”

Nick bent down and hefted the weapon. “You don’t see many of
these around these days. It’s a Schofield .44. An antique. Should be in a
museum.”

He laid the firearm on the metal filing cabinet. “I’m pretty
sure he’s dead, but some Talents have the ability to feign it. Sorcerers can
even fake serious injuries.” He bent and examined the body. “Nope. He’s dead.”

“I don’t know why he’d do this. He never seemed violent
before.” She’d burned him down one side of his body, the stink of seared meat
tainted the atmosphere. She swallowed down her involuntary gag. Seeing her
throat move convulsively, Andros crossed the room and opened the window. The
gush of fresh air felt like a new start.

The professor lay with his head facing the window and Serena,
whose blood was congealing now, forming globulous pools. It had dripped off the
end of her desk to gather in a puddle on the floor. Faye stared, couldn’t stop
staring. “Who did this? Do you think Harken did it?” Stupid question. She just
couldn’t get her mind to work properly. Of course he did. Killed Serena, left
Andros to take the rap, then came back when it was obvious Faye didn’t believe
it and tried to control her. As he’d done before.

Nick’s cell phone rang, jolting her into awareness. He
answered it. “Someone’s called the police.”

“Hardly surprising.” Andros sounded more together than she
felt. Just as well someone was. “Someone must have heard the gunshot.”

Serena was wearing indoor clothes. She must have a coat
somewhere. With renewed purpose, Faye stood up again and took in the details of
the room. An olive-green raincoat hung on the back of the door. She had no
compunction taking it after she’d searched the pockets. Empty. She slipped out
of Andros’ coat and donned the better-fitting garment. When she’d tucked the
scarf hanging with it into her neckline, she looked almost normal. “We can tell
them I took my shoes off when they got marked with blood.” She’d lost them
during the shape-shift.

“Wait.”

Nick looked outside the room, murmured to someone there. It
sounded conciliatory, although she couldn’t hear the words. When he returned,
he had her shoes in his hand. A little scorched, but not too badly damaged. “I
came with another agent. She’s watching the hallway.” Faye slipped on the flat
ballet-style shoes, savoring their familiar contours and, although she felt far
from normal, at least she looked better. She wouldn’t have to greet the cops
half naked. Somehow, that mattered.

“Tell the truth,” Nick said. “Don’t lie, but don’t tell them
anything they don’t need to know.”

She was glad he’d said that, because she’d decided she
wouldn’t lie for anyone or anything about this. She wanted this to end and lies
wouldn’t get that done. Better to have the police on their side.

A rap on the door heralded the cops’ arrival. They didn’t
bother to wait for a summons to enter. Faye reached for Andros’ hand.

Surprised that the police had arrived before STORM, she was even
less impressed when she saw the two shabbily dressed men who came in. But their
eyes were sharp, their gazes sweeping around the room as they entered, taking
everything in. Nick introduced himself as a STORM agent and explained he’d been
working with Serena, also an agent.

The men nodded and gave their own names. Detectives Abrahams
and Holstadt. They wore their shields on their jackets. “And you are…?”
Abrahams asked, with a jerk of his sharp chin.

“Faye McCauley. I’m a lecturer here. And this is Andros
Zelinski, a doctoral student.”

Andros drew a heavy breath. “We’re STORM agents too. Working
on a case with Serena. I arrived first. I saw her then heard the shot. It came
from behind me.”

“She’s pretty dead.” Holstadt crossed to the desk and stared
at Serena. “Did you see her attacker?”

“Possibly.” She gestured in the direction of the body on the
floor. “Unless there were two of them. I heard the trigger go back and I
knocked it out of his hand.” She paused. “And I burned him. I killed him.” All
the vigor, the identity had gone from Nordheim. He was truly the body rather
than a man.

Andros curved his arm around her waist, hugging her close as
the tears she’d been fending off finally arrived. “He threatened us. He could
have killed us both.” He sounded grim. She buried her head against his
shoulder, a wave of shuddering sobs racking her body. He held her close, made
her feel absurdly safe in the shelter of his arms. “I’ll come with you.”

“I was going to suggest that.” Holstadt’s voice was heavy
with sarcasm. “We have a room prepared especially for you.”

Abrahams spoke. “I’ll stay and wait for the others to get
here.” The people who’d take away the bodies, the forensics people, or whatever
they were called these days. Were they really called CSI officers, or was that
an invented name?

Then the STORM agents arrived and the arguments started.

In the end Faye was glad to get away, but it didn’t happen
until nearly midnight. She’d worn Serena’s coat all that time, the officers not
giving her a chance to change into the clothes the agents had brought for her.
They put her into a room with one of those telltale huge mirrors. She didn’t
know who stood on the other side and she didn’t want to give them a free show.
While Talents understood the difference between nude and naked, mortals didn’t.

They questioned her for hours but she stayed as calm as she
could, answering only what she had to. She’d wept all the way to the station
and then found the strength to control herself, to remain as calm as she could.
She settled into a kind of numb awareness, answering questions. “You can go
now.” Holstadt scraped his chair back, got to his feet and crossed the room to
the door, opening it wide.

The lawyer STORM had sent for her stood too. “It’s fairly
obvious Ms. McCauley acted in self-defense. So I take it you’ll be letting us
know?”

“Yeah.” Holstadt gave a wry grin. “Don’t leave town.”

She glared at him. “I’ll be at work, or home. Or at STORM.”

That was where they took her. Where Andros was waiting, in a
much more comfortable room, albeit another conference room, with a pot of hot
coffee and a plate of sandwiches.

How she could feel hungry she didn’t know, but she devoured
her share and drank the freshly made brew, so different from the coffee she’d
forced down at the station. She needed that caffeine jolt.

Nick sprawled in a chair and nodded to her, one colleague to
another. Ann gave her a thin smile. For once, her face showed the evidence of
strain, the fine lines around her mouth and the corners of her eyes deeper,
creases between her brow as she gave them the bad news. “It’s unlikely that
Professor Nordheim killed Serena Duval. We still have a killer out there.”

“Oh shit.” The others must have known, because they watched
her, waited for her reaction. She swore and picked up another sandwich. She
wasn’t entirely surprised, as she’d seen once before the results of a close-up
shooting by vintage weapon, the kind that Nordheim had used on her. And when
she’d first entered Serena’s office, she hadn’t scented the distinctive odor of
black powder but Serena had been shot all the same. She hadn’t voiced her
concerns to the police. It might have revealed just how much she knew about
weapons of the Old West.

“I want the mission to continue. There are obviously other
people out there left to discover.” Ann sighed. “Johann wants to come back, but
he’s been working nonstop for the past six months and I’d prefer to give him
some downtime.” Andros gave a curt nod. “If you want to pull out, I’ll make
other arrangements,” Ann told them. She still wore one of her power suits, even
though it was nearly one a.m. She appeared immaculate. Faye was beginning to
tire of the perfection of the women she met these days.

She grabbed another sandwich. “No way do I want to stop,”
she said. “I’m in the best position. Put somebody else in and they’ll work for
months to get where I am now.” Not to mention the personal scores she wanted to
settle. She wanted to be able to sleep at night. She wanted to know who killed Serena,
why Harken had done what he had.

Ann nodded. “But this has shaken you.”

“It’s supposed to,” she said. “But I’ve seen it before.”

“When?” The woman was too sharp, not giving her any respite.

“My parents. They were murdered.”

Andros heard Faye’s statement with a dull sense of wonder.
After a day as exhausting, as traumatic as this one, he felt battered and
shaken up as badly as he could ever remember being. This operation was going
wrong, fast. He’d sat in on enough missions, acted as research and backup to know
the difference between smooth-flowing as opposed to “Ohshitohshitohshit”. They
were somewhere between the two, but the murders had affected him badly. He
hadn’t known Serena well, but that didn’t mean he didn’t mourn her or feel
impotent fury at her unpredictable and untimely death. He did both, sorrow
hollowing him out, fury filling him up again, and remembered terror when he’d
seen Nordheim aim that gun at Faye giving him a depth of despair he never
wanted to experience again.

Besides, he had to comfort and care for her now. He couldn’t
think of himself. Mustn’t. If he did, he might blow. Too many shocks too close
together over the last year, and then the conversion. He wasn’t sure where he
was, what he was doing anymore. He was in the process of changing into a
different person. Fuck, a different being. And now this. He listened to her
story in a state of disbelief.

“I came home from school one day and they were just gone,”
she said. “In those days nobody knew about Talents, so I was fostered out with
a mortal family after my parents disappeared. I knew I’d be a dragon, both my biological
parents had been and I was their only child. So when I reached puberty, I had
my first shape-shift. I scared the shit out of them. My foster parents sent me
away, even though they’d wanted to adopt me before.” She swallowed. “Then the
police discovered what had happened to my parents when someone stumbled on the
bodies. Or what was left of them. They’d been murdered the same night they
disappeared, or shortly afterward. Shot. We lived in Michigan, and there was a
lot of land out back of our farmhouse.” She glanced at Andros, revealing for
one telling moment the hurt she was bottling up inside.

He knew, he could sense it, but while she told the story she
was shutting him out too. He tried not to take it personally. She could do
without trouble from him too, but he couldn’t deny his hurt. She turned her
attention back to Ann.

“From the vicious way they were killed, I’ve always
suspected that the anti-Talent people had something to do with it. My mother
was a loving spirit and she’d shared her secret with some of her friends.”

“So you think someone there killed her.”

He was glad Ann said that. Words were choking him right now.
He shoved his hands in his pocket and felt something he didn’t recognize. He
drew it out and then immediately dropped it back in. Shit, he’d picked up that
fucking watch, the one on Serena’s desk. He’d think about it later. Too much to
cope with right now.

Faye swallowed. “I’m sure someone did. You know how it goes
in small communities. Mom’s friend Susie told her friend Carole, and Carole was
the sister of Joyce Cardross. And Joyce was married to the chief of police. He
didn’t like my parents, and he ran our town as if it belonged to him.”

“You know it for sure? That he killed them?” Ann demanded
sharply.

She shook her head. “I never found any proof. I left town
after my foster parents disowned me and I lived nearby, in the woods for a
while. I didn’t know what to do. So I saw them dig up my parents. When I
realized there was no reason for me to stay, I went into a big city. Lost
myself. But I know from reading the newspapers about the case that the bullets
that killed them came from a vintage Colt. Cardross was the only man in town
with a vintage gun collection. He used to boast that he was as good a shot with
an old army Colt as he was with his standard issue firearm. He used to practice
in the woods, and I’d hear him and shudder. I never liked the sound, even then.
It would be like him to prove what he said. But I never went back. I promised
myself I wouldn’t.”

She dropped her head. It sagged forward before she jerked it
back up but that second of exhaustion wasn’t lost on Andros. He yearned to hold
her but he understood her need to appear strong.

Ann touched her hand before she withdrew it. “And this business
is bringing it back for you?”

Faye shook her head. “Not exactly. Except when I heard the
shot, smelled the discharge and saw that gun in Nordheim’s hand. He had a
vintage weapon.”

“She’s right,” Nick put in. “The cops have it now. A strange
choice of weapon.”

“Not unusual, though. Plenty of people have collections,”
Andros said. He collected vintage games consoles. Other people collected guns.

“I don’t know.” Ann leaned back and opened her desk drawer.
She drew out a CD. “This is the record of an old case, from before Talents were
outed. Several Talents were tracked and killed, all with bullets from vintage
weapons that mostly dated to the nineteenth century. We never solved that one,
it’s still on the books. Maybe they’re starting again. Maybe it’s a
coincidence.”

“Maybe it isn’t,” Nick said.

Ann tapped the CD. “I’ll make sure you get a copy, Andros.”
Her eyes narrowed when she looked at Faye. “Are you sure you’re okay? If you
left, it would come as a setback. But you’re not indispensible. If you need
out, tell me now and I’ll put somebody else in your place.”

Faye shook her head. “I want to know what’s going on. End it
for sure and kill all the ghosts. I’ll be fine.”