Flame in the Dark (Soulwood #3)(86)
I didn’t answer. Cautiously I reached into the box, letting my fingertip—the unblistered one—brush across the surface of the soil. It felt like the earth at the Holloways’. At Justin Tolliver’s. At the senator’s.
The nanny had touched my plants.
I turned from the dead herbs and strapped my weapon on.
“Nell?” Rick said, warning in his tone.
“She killed my plants. I’m gonna shoot her.”
“You’re not shooting anyone,” Rick said, standing so that I’d have to shoot him to get out of my cubicle. “Tell me what happened,” he said, with that tone people use when they think they got a crazy person on their hands.
“I ain’t—I’m not insane,” I corrected. “The nanny’s what happened.” I gave Rick a fast debrief. “And she’s the only new person to touch my plants. She killed them.”
“I get that. But shooting people for killing plants isn’t nice,” Rick said, laughter hiding in his words. “And it’s a bit of overkill.”
“That isn’t funny,” I said precisely. “The nanny may have killed the people at the Holloways’ party, and Sonya Tolliver in the limo. The nanny may be our shooter. And she is at the senator’s house with all the remaining Tollivers.”
“I’ve seen the video of her in the office,” Rick said. “She doesn’t look like the shooter. Doesn’t move like the figure we’ve caught smudged images of on video. Body mechanics are all wrong, and most people can’t hide body kinetics.”
“I don’t know about that. Maybe she isn’t ‘most people.’ But she’s the same kind of creature who killed the plants everywhere we’ve been. If she’s the same kind of creature as Devin—”
“Then that clarifies this as a turf war or intraspecies war,” Rick said. “I have some calls to make. You”—he pointed at me—“are not to go after the nanny.” He turned and nearly bumped into Soul. “We need to dig into the nanny. Hell, we don’t even have a name. How did we miss her?”
“We’re near the full moon. Are you okay?” she asked Rick.
“I’m fine,” he snarled, clearly lying. “Come with me.”
Soul followed Rick toward the conference room, Soul saying, “We might have to interfere in a war that would out the senator’s family”—she hesitated—“or the senator’s extended family, as paras.” The two left me alone with my gear and my dead plants and my thoughts.
If more of the high-powered Tollivers were paras in hiding, that could mean a divorce, loss of the senator’s job in DC, and a lot of other bad things for them. People who hid parts of themselves from a spouse, from the public, often paid the consequences in the deaths of both marriage and career.
I had considered, for a moment that was as small as a hair split three ways, hiding what I was from Ben. I had considered going back into the church because it would have been easier—on the surface—than living in the real world. We would both have suffered something awful.
Occam, who knew what I was, or mostly so, still wanted me. And yet, he had called me churchwoman. I dialed his number and it went straight to voice mail, as I had expected. I said, “I’m a little bit ticked at you, cat-boy. I am not a churchwoman going backward in life instead of forward. You can apologize to me over that dinner.” I ended the call and a strange feeling swept through me, something almost joyful, to be speaking to a man in such a manner. In the church, I’d been punished for such forward speech. Here, in my new life, I was safe, and safety was making me bold.
“Nell,” Rick called. “If you’re finished reacting to whatever you’re reacting to, get in here. We need help.”
Laptop and tablet in hand, I followed LaFleur and Soul down the hall into the conference room.
? ? ?
By dawn, as the day shift—JoJo and Occam—were dragging back in, Soul and I had uncovered a small hill of new evidence on the Tollivers and the nanny. The others gathered in the conference room, placing a box of Christmas-tree-shaped pastries on the center of the table, the smell of fresh coffee in various flavors riding on the air. Travel-weary images of Tandy and T. Laine were up on the big screens. They had arrived safely in Texas and were present via Internet. I didn’t look at Occam when he came in, but I didn’t have to be an empath to know my message had snagged his attention. I could feel his eyes on me from the moment he entered, with full-moon werecat intensity. We were in the time frame of the three days before the three days of the full moon. Occam was cat-itchy.
“Clementine,” Rick said to the software, “record morning meeting.” He gave the date and time and listed everyone’s name. “Soul. Summarize the night’s intel. Please.” The please was added as an afterthought, as if he just remembered that Soul was the assistant director of PsyLED and not one of his crew.
Soul said, “You all thought the nanny looked a little strange. Now we know she is the same kind of creature who is stalking the Tollivers, though evaluation of body locomotion mechanics suggests she’s not the shooter. The nanny’s name is Connie Bulwer, and she was originally fully vetted through a service that plays matchmaker between certified nannies and potential clients. She was re-vetted through the government service when the senator first went to Washington, then she was re-re-vetted when Senator Tolliver became part of the Senate Intelligence Committee. She passed with flying colors with only a mention or two of her skin color, which was described variously as dusky or grayish. Now we have to consider the possibility that her skin color is indicative of species, not a human ethnic trait.”