Flame in the Dark (Soulwood #3)(104)

“I’m sorry, Connie,” Justin said. “Here. Take Devin to bed.” He transferred the boy’s hand to the nanny, and the little gray woman trotted off, Devin half dragged back up the stairs.

I wondered why Devin was human-colored and the nanny wasn’t. I wondered what I had missed while I was woolgathering.

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Tolliver,” Occam said. “You been mighty kind to let us take up so much of your time and Devin’s.”

“The funerals have been all held off,” Justin blurted out, “until they find or recover Clarisse. The services for Abrams and Clarisse will be held concurrently.” Justin shook his head and ran shaking fingers through his hair, which stayed sticking up in a disheveled mass. His fingernails looked a little blue.

Was Justin human or salamander? Had we messed that up too? Or were the male salamanders better able to fake human? Or maybe he was ill.

“My wife’s services . . . will be handled after the others. A more private ceremony.” He closed his eyes to cover his emotions, which were raw and fractured. He cleared his throat. “What should I do about the security team? Do you think I need to keep them on?”

Occam said, prevaricating, “Security is always important.”

A security team on the grounds was a waste of time when the danger might be inside already. And when the danger could throw flames hot enough to sear a man to the bone. I kept all that to myself.

“I hope you will keep me informed about your progress on the investigations,” Justin Tolliver said, in an obvious dismissal. He walked to the door. We followed. “If I can help in any way, please call.” He extended a card to Occam. He didn’t offer one to me, in unconscious sexism. Or maybe he had forgotten me, sitting so silent on the other sofa.

And then we were outside in the cool night air and, though it wasn’t freezing, I was glad I had worn my coat. Together we made our way to Occam’s fancy car, got in, and drove away.

“I wasn’t listening all the time,” I said. “What did I miss?”

“Not much. The little salamander doesn’t remember anything. And he’s a little snot. Needs a good tanning.”

“You talking about him asking me if I was retarded?” I asked, amusement in my tone. “And you talking about spanking the recently orphaned son of a deceased senator? Corporal punishment? Child abuse?”

“My daddy beat me with a belt, buckle to the skin,” he growled. “I don’t remember much about my life before the cage, but I remember that. And I learned my manners.”

Occam had said he didn’t remember much about his younger human life. Maybe he simply hadn’t been ready to share.

“No,” I said as he pulled out of the neighborhood. “You learned to be afraid of your daddy.”

“Didn’t say I was or wasn’t scared. Said I learned my manners.”

“Mm-hm.”

“You disapprove.”

“Your daddy leave bruises?”

“Every dang time.”

“You think you mighta learned manners without the bruises?”

He made a turn, thinking. Made another turn. “Probably,” he said grudgingly.

“Then he was venting his rage and violence, not teaching you manners.”

Occam thought about that for a while, shifting lanes, his speed inching up. “Werecats fight their sons. It’s the only way to teach them manners. ‘Manners’ in this case means not to eat or bite or harm humans. It’s a bloody lesson.”

“Different situation,” I said. “If a human child is rude, no one dies. If that human child takes a few dozen reminders to be taught a lesson, then the parent learns a little patience. Werecats are completely animal when they first shift. Their human is buried under the were-brain. If werecats don’t learn manners, and accidentally spread the were-taint by infecting a human, they get killed by a grindylow. What an adult cat does to teach them not to kill is different from teaching a human manners. Was your daddy a werecat?”

“No.”

“Your mama?”

“No. You really wanna do this now, Nell, sugar?” he demanded.

“Yes.”

Occam squinted into the distance. “I don’t remember much. Stuff is still coming back to me in bits and pieces.” His voice softened. “I was bit the day after I turned ten. My daddy was a minister in a hellfire-and-damnation church and when I came home from playing in a gulch with friends, with tooth marks from a big-cat, he locked me in a cage. The full moon came. I shifted.”

Were-creatures hadn’t been out of the closet then. His daddy had known what had happened to his son. Somehow. Or guessed. Or just took a chance on myths being real. “What happened after?”

“I woke up partially, found myself in a cage. Couldn’t shift back because somebody had put a silver-threaded mat in the cage with me. But the silver didn’t stop me from remembering, slowly, that I was human. It took me twenty years to get free and I did. Shifted back and found the nearest police station, telling them I had been hit on the head and had no memory. Got lucky and had a chance to go to school. Graduated from Texas Christian University with a degree in ranch management. I survived.”

“Your mama and daddy?” I whispered, my hands clenching on each other.

“Dead. Died in a car accident five years after I went ‘missing.’”