Flame in the Dark (Soulwood #3)(84)

“Tell me what you find?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And this stays between us. I’ll catch up with you shortly.” Margot carried her steaming brew into the dark.

I read the land with the psy-meter 2.0 and then, quickly, touched the land with a fingertip. Hurt and pain surged up into my hand and I jerked away, shaking it. Something had injured the land where the senator lived. More gingerly, I touched the ground again. The pain was still there, but it was bearable and I was able to identify the specific and familiar sensation. The plants on the senator’s big lot were dying. Every single one of them. I didn’t have to move to a different place on the grounds; from this one spot I could tell that it was the same in each area. Dying, death, fire. I was pretty sure a pyro had been here in the last day or so and had covered the grounds. But it could be anyone—a groundskeeper, an employee. A law enforcement officer. I frowned and looked at P. Simon, standing in the shadows, his back to me.

Carrying my blanket, I walked toward the river, access to which was blocked off by a three-rail fence. On the far side of the river, I could see lights. Here there were no lights, just a frigid breeze blowing off the water.

I slipped between the rails and approached the Tennessee River. The senator’s land was deceptive, higher than I expected, almost on a bluff, the river flowing at the bottom of the sharp bank, rocks piled to keep it in place. The water was surging smoothly, a black ribbon in the night. A tiny deck was upstream, visible in the nearly full moonlight. From the deck, a set of steep steps led to the water, zigzagging down the cliff to a scant beach, the shore littered with driftwood, an entire tree, broken pale gray rocks, and whitish sand in small piles.

Among the wood and stones, black and white and striped and patched forms moved, leaped, hunted. Feral cats, everywhere, some in silent hunting mode, others mewling in what sounded like excitement. I searched out what might have attracted the cats, and finally saw dead fish floating on the water. Hundreds. Caught in the slow current, lying in low piles on the shore, white bellies swollen. I had thought they were piles of white sand, but the river sand in this area wasn’t white.

I was reminded of the slime mold that had grown from a curse, but there was no shimmer on the water, no evidence of a mold or a spell. I sat and tried to read the earth once more. It shocked fear and pain up into me and I shook my hand again. This time my fingertip was hot and painful to the touch. The land had burned me. I stood and yanked my blanket off the ground, swooping under the fence rail and toward the house.

“What do you have?”

I nearly jumped out of my skin. Margot was standing in the shadows. “You’un scared three years of gray into my hair,” I said. She had seen me read the earth. Seen me shake my hand. Rather than hide it, I reshook my hand.

“Something hurt you?” she asked.

Truth. Margot could read lies. “Yes. It feels like it’s burned.”

“Something stung you?” she pressed, her tone slightly different now, even and low and controlled.

I thought about that. Truth. No lies. “That’s what it feels like.”

Margot clicked on her flash and gave me a Let me see it gesture. I held my finger up in the beam of light. “Burned,” she said. “Blistered.”

“Really?” I leaned in, surprised that my pain came with a real cause. I looked back at the steep bank and then jiggled my blanket. Nothing fell out. Not that I expected it to. Lying by omission. I felt guilty as all get-out. To distract her, I said, “Something’s on the bank below. Dozens of feral cats and piles of fish. Any chance you could get one of your men to bring in some of the fish, send them to a lab for sampling?”

“Looking for what?” Margot asked, her tone still too uniform and too unemotional. She suspected something, knew I was hiding something. Her gift at work.

“Poisons? Parasites? Bacterial or viral infection? Industrial contamination? Magic?” I hazarded.

Margot walked past me, ducked under the rails, and shined her light down to the water. She made a sound like, “Humph.” She swept the light back and forth. “Look at that.” I heard a click and realized she was wearing a mic and was attached to a comms system. She said, “Probie, get over to the shore. I got a job right up your alley.” She clicked off the mic and muttered, “Collecting dead fish. Perfect.”

Hamilton jogged over and Margot adjusted her flash, creating a small personal light. I had never seen a flashlight that would do that, but it was a brilliant idea. I wanted one. Margot told my cousin what needed done.

“You gotta be kidding me. Do you know how much these shoes cost?”

“Don’t know, don’t care. Put on your field boots and get down there.”

“I didn’t—” He stopped.

“You didn’t what, Probationary Special Agent Hamilton? Please don’t tell me you packed your field boots in your gear bag and then left it at headquarters.”

Hamilton’s face contorted and then smoothed out. “I’ll be right back, ma’am.”

He vanished into the night and when he reappeared, he was wearing waders up to his knees. I vaguely remembered seeing waders with the fishing gear. Probie had borrowed the senator’s wading boots. He had a small evidence kit in one hand, and he dipped under the fence and jogged upstream, to the small deck and the stairs that led down.