Lake Silence (The Others #6)(125)

“I’ll check it out.”

“Wayne . . . Haven’t you done enough today?”

He had done enough, and if he had any brains, he would go back to the boardinghouse and get some food and sleep. But . . . “Still my turf. I’ll check it out.”

He walked away before Hargreaves could object. In another hour, they would lose the light, and they were in a part of The Jumble that was a fair distance from any of the buildings. That meant Hargreaves would have to call off the search in the next few minutes and either pack up his men and head back to Bristol or make arrangements to bring in supplies for the night and have the men camp out in the main house. Staying in The Jumble tonight wasn’t an assignment he’d want to give fellow officers.

The pile of branches that were stuffed with grass and leaves made him think of a land-based beaver lodge. It might be primitive, but it was a structure. A dwelling.

“Hello?” Grimshaw called quietly. “Anyone home?”

No answer.

An opening on the farthest side, big enough for a dog to enter. Big enough for a man to enter on hands and knees. Something had churned up the ground in front of the opening. Either something being dragged into the dwelling or someone fighting not to be dragged into the dark interior.

Swearing to himself—and at himself—Grimshaw turned on his flashlight and crouched in front of the opening, focusing the light on what lay in the center of the structure before sweeping the light all around to make sure there was nothing else inside.

From the look of the wounds, Vaughn had been bitten by something extremely venomous. Maybe an adult could survive one bite—if he received treatment in a hurry—but Vaughn’s arms and lower legs were covered in bites.

Could the terra indigene who visited Julian’s bookstore have a venomous form? Or was this something else that humans hadn’t seen yet?

“Crap.” Telling himself he was every kind of fool, Grimshaw crawled into the dwelling far enough to touch Vaughn’s wrist and confirm there was no pulse. Then he held a hand close to Vaughn’s nose and mouth. No feel of breath. Nothing more he could do.

As he started to back out of the dwelling, the light revealed three objects half hidden under the body. He stared, chilled by the implications.

He should not disturb a crime scene. He should not remove evidence. He weighed procedure against the promise to serve and protect. If people found out about this, it might cause a panic that would sweep through the village and that would stir up a shitstorm of trouble all around this lake. He would, of course, tell Hargreaves what he suspected . . . but later. He would tell Julian—and Ilya Sanguinati, on the odd chance that the vampire didn’t already know. And he would tell Vicki DeVine.

Taking the three objects, Grimshaw backed out of the dwelling and breathed a sigh of relief when he was able to stand.

“Found him!” he shouted.

“Alive?” Hargreaves shouted back.

“No.”

As he waited for Hargreaves, Samuel Kipp, and the CIU team to reach him, Grimshaw slipped the three chunks of carrot into his pocket.





CHAPTER 82





Grimshaw


Moonsday, Sumor 10

The courtroom was in the government building next to the police station. A village of fewer than three hundred people didn’t need its own judge, so judges from Bristol and woo-woo Crystalton alternated holding court once a week in Sproing, and most of the time those men sat around chatting with government officials or reading a book.

Not today.

The only thing in the humans’ favor was the Bristol judge wasn’t wearing a particular tie clip, unlike the attorney who came in from Hubb NE to represent Dane and the widows of his business partners, and Yorick Dane didn’t look happy when he noticed that little detail. But as Yorick and Constance, Trina, Pamella, and Heidi stood before the judge, Grimshaw looked at Captain Hargreaves and knew how it would go. That’s why he didn’t look at the other two men—males—in the room.

Had Ilya Sanguinati ever argued a case against a human attorney in a human court of law? In the case of Dane & Company v. DeVine, Yorick Dane’s attorney had pulled out all the theatrical stops, playing to a nonexistent jury, and making Ilya Sanguinati’s calm responses sound lackluster at best, as if he was simply going through the motions and didn’t care about the outcome and the judge’s decision.

But if the Sanguinati, if the rest of the terra indigene, didn’t care about the outcome, why had the guy with the blue-and-yellow-tipped hair come to this hearing?

“To clarify,” Ilya said mildly after Dane’s attorney finished his dramatic summing up of all the trauma that had been done to his clients. “Despite the harm and injuries that Victoria DeVine suffered because of the actions of Yorick Dane and the other members of the organization known as the Tie Clip Club, there is nothing human law can, or will, do to punish the surviving adversaries?”

The judge was quiet and still for a full minute. Finally he spoke, slowly and deliberately. “Mr. Sanguinati, neither you nor the arresting officers can prove that Yorick Dane or the other people standing before the court today knew that Marmaduke Swinn would abduct Victoria DeVine. You can’t prove these people knew that Tony Amorella would attempt to kill Ms. DeVine. Did Mr. Dane and his business partners disregard agreements that had been made with the terra indigene with regard to the property known as The Jumble? Yes, they did. But I think sufficient justice has been done in that regard. However, you did provide a convincing argument that the document Mr. Dane presented in order to repossess the property in question was, in fact, a forged document. Therefore, it is my ruling that the original settlement agreement between Yorick Dane and Victoria DeVine stands, and she is now and hereafter the lawful proprietor of the designated property.”