Flame in the Dark (Soulwood #3)
Faith Hunter
To my Renaissance Man,
who keeps me relaxed through months of writing.
You make life worth living.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Teri Lee, Timeline and Continuity Editor Extraordinaire. Where have you been all my life?
Misty Massey, Overseer of the copy edit!
Mindy “Mud” Mymudes, Beta Reader and PR.
Let’s Talk Promotions at ltpromos.com, for getting me where I am today.
Lee Williams Watts for being the best travel companion and PA a girl can have!
Beast Claws! Best Street Team Evah!
Mike Pruette at celticleatherworks.com for all the fab merch!
Lucienne Diver of The Knight Agency, as always, for guiding my career, being a font of wisdom when I need advice, and for applying your agile and splendid mind to my writing and my career.
Cliff Nielsen . . . for all the work and talent that goes into the covers.
As always, a huge thank-you to Jessica Wade of Penguin Random House. Without you there would be no book at all!
ONE
I walked the length of Turtle Point Lane near Jones Cove, my tactical flash illuminating the street and the ditch, trying to keep my eyes off the lawn and runnel of water and mature trees to the side. I should be in the trees, not here in the street, wasting my gifts on asphalt. I hated asphalt. To my touch, it was cold and dead and it stank of tar and gasoline.
But the K9 teams had dibs on the grass and were already in the backyard, the mundane tracker dog and the paranormal tracker dog, with their handlers, and lights so bright they hurt my eyes when I looked that way. As a paranormal investigator, I had to wait until the human and canine investigators were finished, so my scent didn’t confuse the Para-K9s. Standard operating procedure and forensic protocol. But that didn’t mean I had to like it.
Armed special weapons and tactics team—SWAT—officers, on loan from the city, patrolled the boundaries of the grounds, dressed in tactical gear and toting automatic rifles. Knoxville’s rural/metro fire department patrolled inside the house along with uniformed cops, suited detectives, and federal and state agents in this multiagency emergency investigation.
The PsyLED SAC—special agent in charge of Unit Eighteen, and my boss—had put me to work on menial stuff to keep me off the grass and out of the way until the dogs were completely done. As a probationary agent, I did what I was told. Most of the time.
My steps were slow and deliberate, my eyes taking in everything. Crushed cigarette butts stained by yesterday’s rain, soggy leaves, broken auto safety glass in tiny pellets, flattened aluminum cans in the brush and a depression: an energy drink and a lite beer. A gum box. Nothing new, from the last twenty-four hours. I was surprised at the amount of detritus on a street with such upmarket houses. Maybe the county had no street sweeper machine, or maybe the worst of the filth ended up hidden in the weeds, hard to see, making the street appear cleaner than it really was. Life was like that too, with lots of secrets hidden from sight.
I had already searched the entire street with the psy-meter 2.0, and put the bulky device in the truck. There were no odd levels of paranormal energies anywhere. A small spike on level four at the edge of the drive, but it went away. An anomaly. The psy-meter 2.0 measured four different kinds of paranormal energies called psysitopes, and the patterns could indicate a were-creature, a witch, an arcenciel, and even Welsh gwyllgi—shape-shifting devil dogs. I had nothing yet, but I needed onto the lawn to do a proper reading. I’d get my wish. Eventually.
I searched the area around a Lexus. Then a short row of BMWs. I took photos of each vehicle plate and sent them to JoJo, Unit Eighteen’s second in command and best IT person, to cross-check the plate numbers with the guest list. The air was frigid and I was frozen, even though I was wearing long underwear, flannel-lined slacks, layered T-shirts, a heavy jacket, wool socks, and field boots. But then, along with uniformed county officers, I’d been at the grounds search for two hours, since the midnight call yanked me out of my nice warm bed and onto the job at a PsyLED crime scene. Field examination was scut work, the bane of all probie special agents, and we had found nothing on the street or driveway that might relate to the crime at the überfancy house on a cove of the Tennessee River.
To make me more miserable, because I had drunk down a half gallon of strong coffee, I had to use the ladies’, pretty desperately. I stared at the Holloways’ house, trying to figure out what to do.
“I just went to the back door and knocked,” a voice said.
I whirled. I’d been so intent that I hadn’t heard her walk up. A young female sheriff’s deputy grinned at me. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you,” she said.
“Oh. It’s okay.” But it wasn’t. I was jumpy and ill at ease for reasons I didn’t understand. There were woods with fairly mature trees all around, water in the cove nearby, and well-maintained lawns the length of the street, all full of life that should have made me feel at home. Instead I was jumpy. All that coffee maybe. “I’m Nell. Special Agent Ingram.” I put out my hand and the woman shook it, businesslike.
“You don’t remember me,” she said, “but we met at the hospital during the outbreak of the slime molds back a few weeks. You gave me your keys and let my partner and me get unis out of your vehicle. I never got the chance to thank you. May Ree Holler, and my partner, Chris Skeeter.” She pointed to a taller, skinny man up the road.