Indigo(35)

“Well, we ain’t gonna find a body in here,” Symes grumbled.

Detective Mayhew wandered through the living room and the kitchen, flipping on the same lights Indigo had used.

“You haven’t even looked around,” Mayhew said.

“We woulda smelled it, Ange.”

Indigo wanted to get out of there. It would be simple enough to slip into the shadowpaths. But she wanted to know what had drawn the detectives to this place. If they thought they might find Winston’s corpse here, then the bodies at the warehouse had still not been discovered—at least not by the police—but what gave them the idea that the man might be dead?

“Must be nice to have that view of the park, to say nothing of the doorman,” Mayhew muttered. “Check the bedroom,” she said more loudly.

The detective had said her captain, Mueller, was friends with Marshall Winston. Could the police captain be involved with the Children of Phonos as well? Was that so hard to believe? Maybe the bodies had been found, but not by the police … or by police who were in league with the cult, or a part of it.

Indigo’s head spun. How far did the cult’s influence reach? How deep did their corruption run? Indigo could hear Mayhew rummaging around. It sounded to Indigo as if the detective was hurriedly looking for something while Symes was out of the room.

“Hey,” Symes called. “Ange, come look at all the watches this guy had. He lives alone. You think his estate’ll miss one?”

Indigo held her breath while she waited.

Finally, Angela Mayhew’s steps clicked as she stepped off the area rug in the living area and went into the bedroom.

Time to go.

Remembering the dearth of shadows in the hall, Indigo pictured the darkest moon shadows in Central Park. The next instant, she was there, in the center of a clump of trees. Two men were doing the nasty about a foot away. They were so intent on their pleasure that she was able to slip away again without their noticing either her arrival or departure.

Her next stop was the apartment of the high priestess, Charlotte Edwards.

Indigo knew the address was on the Upper East Side, and not far from an art studio she’d written about in her early days at NYChronicle. She shadow-walked to the studio, or rather to the alley behind it. After her encounter in Central Park she felt lucky that no one was peeing against the wall. Presumably even in the Upper East Side that happened.

Indigo stepped out, then set off at a brisk walk, searching for the right address. Soon her steps slowed. Edwards’s address was not a condo or a co-op, by all the signs. She and her husband owned the whole house. Nora had lived in New York long enough to know what that meant in terms of investment, so Indigo knew it, too. For a moment, Indigo felt a moment of dizziness. Did she know everything Nora knew? Did Nora know everything Indigo did? What if the answer was no?

The question terrified her, and she forced herself to focus on the task at hand.

Charlotte. Dead evil priestess. Who told me that all the children’s deaths were my fault.

Indigo wished she could kill the woman again. Once wasn’t enough.

The whole house was dark, with the exception of a dim light glowing somewhere in the tiny backyard. Indigo went there in a thought. The garden had been planted for privacy, with a brick patio outside the ground floor, right up to the kitchen door—at least, Indigo assumed the kitchen was at the rear.

In the middle of the city, this spot was peaceful and relaxing. And dark. Indigo went up the rear steps like a cloud of smoke. She looked through the windows, locating the source of the light, a small lamp on the counter of a kitchen she could only gape at. No one appeared to be home.

Everything was locked up tight, but Indigo couldn’t let that stop her. If someone had sent Angela Mayhew and Hugh Symes to search for the corpses of the cultists Indigo had killed, other detectives might show up here at any moment. She tried all the keys on Charlotte’s key ring, and none of them fit. This puzzled her, but she couldn’t take the time to figure it out.

Indigo became pure shadow and slid through the keyhole.

On the other side of the door she paused, shocked and delighted and more than a little bit frightened. She’d never done that before. Been pure darkness. Noncorporeal. It bore contemplation, but not here. Not now.

Indigo moved swiftly through the house, as quietly as she could manage, which was very quietly indeed. The children in Edwards’s wallet picture had grown up. Their rooms were the lairs of affluent teenagers. Marijuana was in the boy’s bedside drawer. The girl had a closet full of high fashion. But Indigo gave their rooms only the most cursory of examinations because she wanted to dig into all things Charlotte.

Charlotte and her husband, Graham, shared a beautifully appointed study, with his and hers mahogany rolltop desks. For a moment Indigo almost ignored the room, thinking Charlotte wouldn’t have hidden anything related to the Children of Phonos where her husband might easily discover it. But that was assuming Graham wasn’t also been a member. He hadn’t been at the warehouse, true enough, but was that conclusive proof that he did not belong to the cult along with his wife?

Something gave her pause. She hesitated, sensing something in the room.

At times in the past she had felt the presence of magic, of the occult. Until now she would have attributed that to the training she had received in Nepal. But that was all bullshit, wasn’t it?

She drifted toward Charlotte’s desk. There were built-in drawers and one had a lock. Indigo’s fingers turned to shadow, flowed through the tiny keyhole, unlatched the lock from inside.