Flame in the Dark (Soulwood #3)(38)
“I want JoJo in the office by day. Tandy, you’ll pull office coordinator on night shift. Occam, I want you to collate reports tonight, but cut it short. You’ll be with the senator by day, and T. Laine can spell you or split the assignment when the family isn’t all in one place. Nell, you’ll have to start early tonight and work long. I want you to ride by the Holloways’ house and check the dead vegetation left by our shooter, then go by Justin Tolliver’s and check for similar readings there. Make it fast. You’re first on night shift at the senator’s home, and he’s on the way there now with a motorcade. I’ve sent you the GPS and address. Read the land if you can without making it obvious. I don’t want you to take heat for being a para. Main purpose? Get a feel for things so you can spot anything new, anything that changes.” He held up a hand when I started to protest. “I know grass doesn’t spot anything new, doesn’t understand changes, short of fire and chain saws. I get it. Read it anyway. Confirm a baseline.”
“Yes, sir.” Even I heard my tone. It wasn’t as respectful as it should be. The thought that I had been rude to Daddy and enjoyed it a bit too much flashed through my mind. The thought that I had kissed Occam flashed through too.
Rick frowned at me. “Is there a problem, probie?”
“No, sir. Except that we’re stretched thin, since before you left for New Orleans. A little help might be nice. Why not ask Soul for a few people from Unit Twelve or Unit Fifteen? Especially if you think you’re going to be sent back to NOLA for the vampire Sangre Duello.”
Around the table, the team members were suddenly bent over tablets or taking notes by hand on pads. I frowned at them, trying to figure out what I had said.
Rick had grown up in New Orleans, knew it like the back of his hand. He and Soul had been sent to NOLA when a ship full of European vampires had attempted to debark from a cruise ship without proper or official papers. There had been bloodshed and political ramifications. And—though it hadn’t hit the media yet, and was something I knew only because I had access to Jane Yellowrock, a source not regulated by my low security clearance—the Master of the City of New Orleans was about to go up against the European emperor in a blood duel—Sangre Duello.
In the middle of the tense silence, I realized that no one in Unit Eighteen had ever spoken of the vampire war or the European vampires or NOLA around Rick. It was clear he had come back to Knoxville a quietly grieving man. He’d been sent packing by Yellowrock. She hadn’t been his first love, but she had, perhaps, been his most significant. It was complicated. The Sangre Duello was a sensitive subject, most of which was above my pay grade. And I had just galloped into all those complications like a barrel rider on a fast horse.
Stiffly, Rick said, “Soul is aware of our staffing situation. We’ll get help if this goes on much longer.”
“Ummm. Okay?”
T. Laine rolled her eyes and took a slice of pizza, muttering something that sounded like, “Family dynamics suck.”
Without meeting Occam’s eyes, I escaped the meeting.
? ? ?
Two hours later, I pulled in and checked out possible parking at the senator’s home. Sequoyah Hills was where the movers and shakers of Knoxville lived. If your home was on Cherokee Boulevard, the address itself said you had old money and political ties. The senator’s home, like his brother’s burned one only a few miles away, backed up to the Tennessee River.
I parked on the grass, got out, and gave my ID to the guard, who was a local cop, working after hours—heavy, about five-ten, with brown eyes. I almost remembered his name, but it wouldn’t come, and his name tag was hidden by the lapel of his winter coat. But I had met him when he pulled guard duty not that long ago, in a neighborhood full of slime mold and dead animals. Sharing territory with cops from different levels of law enforcement can be difficult. He had been easy to work with, and gestured me onto the grounds with, “We looking for a fanghead or a witch?”
“Why would we be looking for a vampire or a witch?” I asked, not sure from his tone if he was a paranormal hater.
“They sent you.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and led me down the drive.
“Ah.” That made sense. Paras were PsyLED’s area of expertise. “Neither. Not sure what we’re looking for right now. Except dead plants.”
He looked around the yard and said, “Everything’s dead.”
Midway, I stopped and he stopped with me. “Not dead. Dormant.”
“There’s a difference?”
We both took in the well-manicured but brown centipede lawn and the expensive imported plants. The inner borders of the property had been landscaped with river rock and planted with dozens of varieties of grasses, including feather reed grass, fountain grass, little bluestem, and purple millet, in an appealing array of heights and colors, with three birdbaths, and with birdhouses nailed to the trees everywhere. The bare branches suggested mostly maple varieties close in, with tall, skinny conifers behind them to provide a shield from the neighbors’ yards. Beneath and around the trees at the garage I spotted low hostas, sedges, and rounded mounds of winter-dead flowers, most in winter-dormant phase, protected by mulch. There was a rose garden that encircled a bow-windowed breakfast room, through which I could see a number of kids and three men in the black of ALT Security, as well as a man in a suit, guarding. I made a note to look at JoJo’s file on ALT employees again. I turned around and around slowly, taking more in.