Flame in the Dark (Soulwood #3)(105)

“You think your daddy sold you?”

“I know he did. I remember.”

“When were you going to tell me this?”

“When you finally admitted that you were in love with me.”

I flushed. In love . . . I had no idea what that even meant except from reading a rare romance book and living the skewed life of a God’s Cloud wife, neither of which was probably normal. “Ummm.” I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say or do now.

“I didn’t want no pity getting in the way of us . . . becoming whatever we’re becoming.”

“I don’t pity you, Occam,” I whispered.

“Damn good thing.”

I fought a smile.

Occam said, “So. Back to our original subject. You’re saying you’re against spanking?”

I thought about a child reaching to touch a hot stove. A child ignoring a parent’s caution and running for a swift-moving river. A child scaring a horse or a mother pig even after being told of a danger. Worse, and more of an issue when it came to abuse, an older child, one old enough to know better, deliberately hurting another, younger child. Was there a difference between a swat and a beating? Was there ever a time to hit a child, even one growing up evil? Was Brother Ephraim beaten when he was a child? Most likely. It hadn’t helped him a lick. If I hadn’t been whupped, would I have grown up mean and evil? Probably not. “Lots of the church folk beat their young’uns. But ninety-nine point nine times out of a hundred, a whuppin’ isn’t necessary. It’s the adult’s emotional problem, not the kid needing a beating.”

“I’ll concede that. Are we having a philosophical discussion about corporal punishment in child-rearing, Nell, sugar?”

I ducked my head and looked out the window. We didn’t talk again until we were in HQ, and giving Rick and Soul our impressions of the Tolliver household. It didn’t take long. I finished my part with the words, “I’m worried that things are about to go to hell in a handbasket at the Tollivers’.”

Rick put his head down, studying his hands on the table-top, thinking. “I hate to send you back out, but I want Unit Eighteen on the grounds tonight,” Rick said. “With the private security and the feds gone, it’s the perfect time for an attack. Also the perfect time for us to look around.”

“We don’t have a warrant,” I said.

“We also haven’t received a call from Tolliver relieving us of responsibility for the welfare and protection of the family. And I don’t listen to third-party claims—like those of ALT Security.”

“Occam and me aren’t exactly a third party.”

“No. You’re not,” Rick said. “And you told me you were worried about the salamanders and what was going on there.”

“Sneaky,” Occam said. “I like it.”





SEVENTEEN




It was just after two a.m. We were wearing night-gear camo unis in shades of gray with PsyLED in huge white letters across the back. The unis were combined with high-tech bullet-and stab-resistant personal armor and dark field boots. I wore a low-light monocle lens on one eye. Occam had cat eyes that could see in the dark. We both had vest cams running and comms headsets. An RVAC was giving us flyover protection and eyes in the sky. We were carrying our service weapons just in case.

T. Laine was off duty, getting some rest. JoJo was in the passenger seat of PsyLED’s old panel van, all her electronics fired up and running. Tandy was belted in behind her, looking sick from the excitement he was surely picking up. Rick had been driving, but now he slid open the doors and we stepped from the van, watching as we slid into the shadows, Occam more graceful and silent, me uncoordinated and noisy by comparison, shuffling in the fall leaves behind him. We walked from shadow to shadow down the road and entered the property. I heard the van door shut, Rick now safely inside with the others.

Back at HQ, Soul was watching the whole thing on the big screens. Having the assistant director observing was difficult. If the probie screwed up, I might be out of a job. Worse, if I screwed up, people might die.

Someone had lit a bonfire in the backyard, near the pools, and smoke blew on the uncertain river wind. Shadows and light danced through the night as we circled the house to approach on the river side. We stopped in the protection of a dead spruce, hearing splashing and grunts and soft laughter, the sounds advertising that people were there. Someone was swimming in the heated pools.

I touched my communications gear. “Ingram here. RVAC?”

“Coming in now. Stay put. I see you,” JoJo said.

“Copy,” I said.

“We have a swim party,” Rick said. “Looks like humans and salamanders in their natural forms. Mostly eel-looking things, some three feet, like our egg at HQ, some five feet, some longer. In physiology and morphology, they match our dissected egg salamander. What?” Rick’s voice moved away from the mic. “What? Soul? What the—” His voice returned to the mic. “Soul is incoming from HQ,” he said, irritated. “Looks like there will be three of you.”

“Copy,” I said again, trying to control my breathing. Ops training said that whenever our side moved away from agreed-upon strategy and tactics, without that action forced by provocation from the enemy, it indicated things were about to go south. Fast. I checked my weapon and fingered the extra mags through the ammo pockets in my camo pants.