Flame in the Dark (Soulwood #3)(30)

“The feds will be providing protection for the senator and his family, and Justin and his family, and they have requested a paranormal LEO on-site. That means that our unit will be doing double duty, tracking the assassin and providing body detail.”

I tilted out my thumb in a gesture that meant, Please continue.

“The senator’s house is a huge chunk of real estate, with a six-thousand-square-foot main house, a guesthouse, three pools, and tennis courts, in Sequoyah Hills, on Cherokee Boulevard. It backs up to the Tennessee River and is well protected from all sides. The feds intend to move all the extended family onto the property.”

I tapped my cell and checked the time. It was a little after four a.m. The night had flown by as I read and communed with the grounds. “You want me there?”

“You can go home. I want you to sleep today if you can and take the night shift tonight, nine to nine a.m.”

“Good, I’d like to sleep me some sleep.”

“Go. I’ll send Senator Tolliver’s address to your cell. Be on time.”

“Copy,” I said and made my way to my truck. I could barely keep my eyes open on the drive back home. But I didn’t make it home before my cell rang and I knew instantly that my morning nap was about to be tampered with. “Good morning, Mama,” I said, tiredly.

“Nellie girl, I’d be most appreciative if’n you’un would drop by for a bit. Breakfast in half an hour?”

“Mama, I—”

“We’uns having French toast and waffles and eggs and bacon. Thank you’un, pum’kin. See you in a bit.”

The connection ended. I didn’t know what Mama wanted or what she had up her sleeve, but I knew it was likely something sneaky. Probably several somethings sneaky. Manipulation was an art form among the women in the church. Knowing I should go straight home to my bed, I put on the blinker and turned toward the church lands.





FIVE




My ID was sufficient to get me onto the compound of God’s Cloud of Glory Church and I turned off the C10’s lights as the truck crawled forward. Holding my flash out the driver’s window I searched into the shadows on either side of the road, looking for fresh shoots of the vampire tree. It was too dark to make out anything in the gloom of a cloudy dawn, in the darkness beneath the scrub pressing up against the twelve-foot-tall fence that surrounded the church grounds.

Dissatisfied with my perusal, but unwilling to abandon the heated air and search on foot, I rolled the window back up, put the lights back on, and took the most direct route to the Nicholson house. The fact that the most direct route bypassed the vampire tree was just happenstance. Mostly. It was still there. Still creepy.

I parked the old Chevy beneath the trees in front of the three-story structure that was home to my extended family: my father, my mama, her two sister-wives, and all the assorted sibs and half sibs. Before I could get out of the truck, the door was yanked open and Mud, or Mindy as the rest of the family called her, threw herself inside and hugged me so hard I thought I might break in two. “I missed you’un,” she mumbled into my coat. Before I could respond, she reared back and said, “You’un stink like fire. Not like a campfire, but like garbage burning.”

I dropped off the seat, to the ground, and said, “I was at a house fire. Part of my job.”

She narrowed her eyes and studied me like she might an unfamiliar beetle she found eating basil in the greenhouse. “Did somebody try to burn a family out? Was they witches?” Her voice dropped. “Did they burn her at the stake?”

“No one got burned. No stake. All house fires stink really bad. And in the real human world, witches don’t get burned at the stake.”

Mud made a sound of disagreement that was remarkably like Mama’s and took my hand, pulling me up the steps to the porch. “Breakfast is on. You’un comin’ to church with us this morning?”

“No. Just breakfast and then home.”

“You’un fallin’ away? The mamas say you’un’s fallin’ away and driftin’ into sin.”

“I have a job. And no, I’m not falling into sin. But I don’t worship at God’s Cloud anymore.”

“You’un going to church somewheres else? ’Cause if’n you ain’t going to church then you’un’s falling into sin. Sam said so.”

“Did he now?” Sam was my older full sib and a bit of a worrywart. He also didn’t always know when to keep his big mouth shut. “I’ll speak to Sam. Let him know I’m not falling into evil and damnation.” Except I’d killed two men . . . so maybe I was.

Mud shoved open the door to the house and dragged me inside. The roar of voices hit me in the face like a huge fluffy pillow, warm and soft and smothering. I hung my winter coat on the wall tree, smelling bacon and waffles and French toast and coffee as I followed Mud into the kitchen, where she pushed me onto a bench and brought me a cup of steaming tea. “Mama, Nell worked all night putting out a fire and she needs to sleep so don’t nobody be giving her no coffee. It’ll keep her awake.”

Instantly I was bombarded with questions from the young’uns about fires and the exciting life of a firefighter and when did they start letting some puny woman fight fires. And then I had to explain about not being a firefighter, but that women could do any job a man could except produce sperm to father children.