Flame in the Dark (Soulwood #3)(29)

Sonya Tolliver sobbed, gathered her children close, and herded them toward a big SUV. She opened the door with the keypad and climbed in with the children, shutting the door on the fire and the unwelcome information. Her husband looked us over and then fled after his family.

When the vehicle door closed, Rick asked me, “Ingram, what did you determine?”

“It’s the same attacker,” I said. “Or the same species as the previous attacker, a paranormal.”

“You can’t know that,” Schultz said.

“In a couple of days, the plants in a specific trail are going to start to die. If you want, I can mark it off for you once the fire department is finished. At the Holloways’ house, I detected the same kind of trail. There should be dead plants along it now. Go look.”

“And how do we know you didn’t create this ‘trail’?” Hamilton asked, his eyes hard, piercing me through the smoke-filled air that swirled our way. This man, like other law enforcement officials, knew that Unit Eighteen was composed of mostly paranormals. Although he probably didn’t know what I was, it was a good guess that I wasn’t human. My cuz didn’t like paranormals. Which just ticked me off something terrible.

I narrowed my eyes at him and drew on my churchwoman accent. I had learned that deliberately using it seemed to throw people off their game, as if they didn’t quite know how to relate to me. Oddly enough, it had become part of my arsenal. “Are you’un asking me if I am the unknown suspect who shot the people at the Holloways’ fund-raiser party?” I asked, squaring my shoulders and advancing on him. “Are you’un asking me if I have a flamethrower? Are you’un jist trying to cause trouble, or are you’un trying to make me, specifically, mad? I’m jist curious, since you’un’s bein’ an ass an’ all.”

Rick coughed, but I had a feeling the choked sound was laughter stuck in his throat. It also let me know that Hamilton was being difficult to all the paranormals, and not just me.

Schultz said, “Hamilton, do you have a problem with Special Agent Ingram? If not, back off, probie.”

Hamilton shoved his fists into his suit coat pockets and took a step back, but he was staring back and forth at Rick and me. Hamilton was looking more and more like a paranormal hater and had decided to dump me in with the weres and witches on PsyLED Unit Eighteen. Or maybe he was another one who hated me for exposing his former boss as a shape-shifter and cannibal, when they’d had no idea. That seemed to have left a bad taste in a lot of FBI agents’ mouths.

Schultz went on as if nothing rude had been said on either side. “So either Justin Tolliver was the primary target all along, or the entire family is under attack.”

“Politics or money?” Rick asked.

“Both?” She looked at the house. “First I’ll get Hamilton to pull records: financials, political contributions, life insurance, marital problems.” She glanced at the SUV where the Tollivers had taken refuge. “Follow the money.”

“I agree,” Rick said. “This means we’ll have to guard the senator and his entire family at work, home, governmental buildings, travel, and school.”

Schultz made a rude sound and said, “I’ll call it in. We need more people until we stop this guy.” She studied Rick. “Can you, you know, smell anything?”

“You mean like smoke?” Rick asked, an amused glint in his eyes.

“Something humans can’t pick up?” E. M. Schultz shrugged, her gaze taking in the lean wereleopard. “House is damaged, too hot to work up right now, but U-18’s investigatory technique goes about things a bit differently, I’ve heard.”

“Sometimes,” Rick acknowledged. “And underneath the stench of burning wood, brick, synthetic fibers, wallboard, shingles, stone, and a dozen other household stinks, I do smell something odd. Not magical, not were, not anything I can put my finger on. But if it comes to me, I’ll call.”

Schultz tilted two fingers into a chest pocket and removed a card. “Business and personal numbers. Anytime.”

I watched Rick take the card, his eyes alight, but when Schultz glanced back at the house, the flirty glow in his gaze faded fast, into something bitter and grieving. Weres can’t have sexual relations with humans without passing along to them the were-taint, which was an automatic death sentence carried out by grindylows—the cute but deadly judge, jury, and executioner of the were community. Not that many humans knew all that, likely Schultz included. Which meant that if I was interpreting the little scene correctly, Schultz wanted to date Rick and he couldn’t date her, but wanted to, and maybe flirted by instinct. Even outside of a polygamous church, romantic and physical relationships weren’t easy.

I scowled, my mind envisioning Occam, the way he had looked last time I saw him, blond hair floating, scruffy beard. And for some reason that image hurt me on a level that made no sense, except that Occam couldn’t have anyone either. Unless he and Rick wanted to get together . . . And I didn’t see either of them wanting the other.

Unless . . . My body and mind stilled. I wasn’t human. That meant that Occam and I could—

“Nell?”

I flinched, looked up into Rick’s black eyes, and realized he had been talking to me for a while. The other agents were gone and it was just Rick and me under the trees. “Ummm. Yeah?”