Dead Heat (20 page)

Marsden frowned. “We
are
the proper authorities, Mr. Smith. Cantrip is in charge of anything that looks as though magic is involved. Are you saying that there was no magic?”

“There was no magic,” said one of the cops, deadpan. To be fair, she whispered it to the cop next to her. Anna was pretty sure that anyone who wasn’t a werewolf wouldn’t have heard her.

In a land where the police didn’t believe in the supernatural, at least not in their jurisdiction, a pair of Cantrip agents must be bored stiff.

The attitude of the police department also told her that Hosteen Sani was a very good Alpha. That none of his wolves—and this was a fair-sized pack of twenty-seven plus Chelsea—had had a run-in with the law was unusually good discipline. Even Bran could not claim that, though his pack … her pack, too … tended to have a lot of the more dangerous wolves, the ones he could not trust in the care of another werewolf.

Marsden’s little speech didn’t have any effect on Charles, but Miss Baird finally hit the end of her tether.

“Idiots,” she snapped. “No wonder he’s not talking to you. You’re supposed to be experts in the supernatural and you don’t even recognize the signs of a fairy kidnapping when it slaps you in the face. It’s a fetch. A mannequin spelled to look like a child and act enough like a child that people who do not know what to look for believe it is a child.” She scowled at the Cantrip agents. “A fetch is the word for a changeling left in the place of the real child.”

Gradually all the rest of the conversations in the room stopped as Miss Baird’s voice grew a little shrill. She was tired; they were all tired.

Leeds, Anna was almost certain he was Leeds, wasn’t paying any attention to Miss Baird or anyone else. He’d been wandering around the room for a while, letting Marsden take point. Anna had seen him check out the artwork (as done by five-year-olds) on the walls and peer into the shelves of games and toys. He’d gotten to the part of the room where the sticks and ribbons had dropped to the floor. In the middle of Miss Baird’s definition of a fetch, he dropped to the floor, too, right next to the bundle that had once looked like a little girl. He stared at the mess and then tilted his head.

No one but Anna was watching him, she thought, though one could never tell with Charles.

Miss Baird was still ranting. She swept her hand toward the silent couple who were seated incongruously on the small chairs usually occupied by children. They were huddled together and silent. “Ms. Edison, two other teachers, and half the day care children can tell you about the nasty fight these two had a week ago right in the hall. With the changeling gone, just look at them. It’s like they’re comatose or something. They haven’t even processed that the Amethyst who came to school today is gone, let alone that she wasn’t really their daughter at all. A family with a changeling in it suffers and dies, gentlemen.”

“And how do you know so much about the fae?” asked Marsden in a nasty voice.

“I
read
,” she snapped. “Which is something I recommend you learn to do.” She looked at Charles. “I hope whoever you are waiting for is not a complete moron.”

Leeds, still on the floor, laughed.

Marsden looked at his partner, who said, “He’s in Cantrip, Miss Baird; ‘moron’ comes with the territory. No offense, Jim. I think we’ve both been morons about this.”

“Have we?” Marsden asked in an altered voice. He sucked in a breath and then looked at the small contingent of police officers in the room. “Tell you kids what. Shift change is coming in half an hour. We’ve got this. Looks like they’re going to stick by their claim that it’s magic, so we’ll give your department our report. If one of your superiors is upset, you know our names and numbers. We’ll take it from here, and you folks can all go home.”

“You got it,” said the officer who apparently was in charge. “Let’s pack it up, boys and girls. Hey, Marsden, you and Leeds on for softball on Saturday?”

“Yessir,” Marsden said. “Ten a.m. sharp.”

They waited until the police filed out.

“Okay, they’re gone,” said Marsden. “This is real?”

His partner, still on the floor, said, “There hasn’t been a case of a fetch since we first found out that the fae were real. Standard changelings, where a fae disguises itself as a human child, those we’ve had a few of. But a fetch, an inanimate object spelled to mimic real life, that’s a new one.”

Marsden sucked air. “Leeds. Pay attention. Is it a real case?”

“We’ve been looking at a series of oddities in this neighborhood, right?” Leeds focused on Miss Blair. “I overheard you are new. Did you get this job because the previous teacher—I’m sorry, her name escapes me just now—hanged herself? I remember reading about a teacher here who died recently.”

She nodded.

“So,” said Marsden slowly. “It is a real case.”

“And that odd car wreck, Jim,” Leeds continued as if he were talking to himself—even though he addressed Marsden. “This is the right area of town and there were some kids in the car that were the right age for day care.” He caught Miss Baird’s eye again. “Someone in your classroom recently die in a nasty car wreck with their family?”

“No,” said Miss Baird.

“Yes,” said Ms. Edison. “About three days before Mrs. Glover’s unfortunate death. Henry Islington. His mother crossed the median and she and her three boys all died. Henry was the only one who was a student here.” She paused. “There was an incident the day before he died between him and one of the girls in the classroom. I don’t know if it was Amethyst.”

“It was,” said Amethyst’s mother in a dull tone. “Mrs. Glover gave us his written apology after he died.”

“If Henry was in this classroom, he was five years old,” Anna said. “He
wrote
an apology?”

“Mrs. Glover wrote it, of course,” Mrs. Miller said. “He signed it—his
r
was backward. Then he died and it was horrible. And now Amethyst…”

Ms. Edison walked over to her and patted her on the shoulder. “I know, Sara,” she murmured.

Amethyst’s mother wiped her eyes, but not because she was crying. Maybe they were too dry. “Amethyst and Henry were best friends from day one. She talked about him all the time. And then, out of the blue one day, he punched her.”

“Henry said she said something bad,” Ms. Edison told them. “He wouldn’t tell us what it was, and she just smiled.” She paused. “In retrospect, it was very odd behavior for Amethyst. It didn’t strike me that way at the time, but she is usually a gregarious, cheerful child.”

“Amethyst?”
said Miss Baird. “Cheerful?” She shook her head. “But we weren’t dealing with Amethyst, were we?”

“It’s real, Jim,” said Leeds.

Marsden stared at him a moment, then took a good long look at the bundle of sticks on the floor. “Do you know how many fake calls come in? We’ve been stationed here for a year, and the most excitement we’ve had was when some kids swore a demon was eating their dog’s food every night. Twelve hours of stakeout turned up a half-grown coyote. Then there was the lady who saw a unicorn, which turned out to be her neighbor’s kid running around in last year’s Halloween costume. My brain’s a funny thing—it tends to atrophy if I don’t use it. Real, huh?”

Leeds nodded. “Real.”

Marsden waited a beat. “Okay, then.” He pulled out an electronic notebook and said, in a cool professional tone, “Can I get everyone’s name and what their relationship to the missing girl is?”

Anna leaned on her husband and raised her eyebrows. He narrowed his eyes at her, but she thought he was smiling a little. It was hard to tell.

Marsden started with Miss Baird.

“I’ve been teaching here for two weeks,” she told him, her feathers still ruffled. “Probationary period. I was informed this morning that they would be terminating my contract because there had been too many incidents in my room and parents were complaining.”

“Fourteen in two weeks,” Ms. Edison said. “Our average is about once a month for the whole school.” She gave Miss Baird a half smile. “We need to revisit that decision, I think. All of those complaints revolved around Amethyst and for some reason none of us, myself and our board members, even thought twice about that. And I assure you that is something we normally do. If one student causes more than three incidents in a month, he is on probation and the next time he is gone. Under normal circumstances Amethyst would have been served notice and then asked to leave.”

“Your name is?” Marsden asked. His partner, evidently satisfied that he’d gotten Marsden on the right track, was back to examining the bundle of sticks.

“Farrah Edison,” Ms. Edison said. “I run this lunatic asylum. I stayed because what I know might help. Cathy, Miss Baird, has only been here for a short time.” She took a deep breath. “I’ve been sitting in this room for going on four hours, and every hour it feels like my head clears a little more. Amethyst used to be a cheerful, gregarious girl, and she came back from Christmas break totally different. I intended to call her home, but Sara, her mom, came in to talk to me before I managed it. She told me that she and her husband were thinking of divorce. Then they—I’m sorry, Sara—they started to have some loud altercations when they would come to pick up or drop off Amethyst. I decided that was an adequate cause for Amethyst’s sudden change in personality.”

Marsden nodded. “Okay. Thanks. And you are Amethyst’s parents, right? Names, please?”

Amethyst’s parents were Sara and Brent Miller. She was a bank administrator, he was a doctor. No, they hadn’t noticed anything different about their daughter. Not when she’d had the fight with Henry. Not any time.

“When did you two begin to fight?” asked Anna, her eyes on their clasped hands.

Sara looked up and just blinked at Anna, but her husband’s eyes sharpened. “It was just before Christmas,” he said slowly. “We were going to go visit my parents, it was their turn. But the day before we were supposed to go, Amethyst said she didn’t want to go. Then Sara was adamant that she didn’t want to go, either. My parents aren’t always kind to her. But over the years she’s always just dealt with them. But not this time.” He cleared his throat. “I’m babbling.”

The slowest babbling Anna had ever heard, though maybe he was talking about coherence and not speed.

“They’re not so bad,” said Sara suddenly. “Your parents. I like your dad. He’s funny when your mom isn’t in the room.”

Marsden was watching Anna but typing on his notebook as fast as he could anyway.

Charles stepped in then. He didn’t ask a question so much as make a statement. “Dr. Miller, you’ve had a run of bad luck since Christmas.”

Miller opened his mouth, then nodded abruptly. “Two car wrecks—the second totaled my car. Our six-year-old cat died. It seems like we can’t keep an appliance up and running longer than a week.” He gave a half laugh and a shrug.

“I can’t bake bread,” said his wife. “Not since Christmas. The dough just won’t rise.”

“Most of it is centered in your home?” Charles asked. “It hasn’t followed you to the office, right?”

The Millers nodded.

“That’s right,” Sara Miller said. “Just at home.”

Marsden looked Charles in the eye and said, harshly, “Okay, buddy. Just who are you?”

Anna felt Charles stiffen against her at the challenge, but he kept his voice steady when he replied. “I am Charles and this is my wife, Anna.”

“Smith,” said Marsden.

“That will do,” Anna said. “We were asked to come and talk to the teachers here on a related matter, having some experience with the fae. We expected to find a renegade fae who had escaped from the Nevada reservation. If that had been so, we’d have been in and out with none the wiser. This”—she indicated the bundle on the ground—“was unexpected.”

“A related matter?” Marsden asked.

“A friend of ours gave us reason to believe that there was a fae problem here,” she said.

Ms. Edison smiled thinly. “Was that the friend of a friend of your sister-in law? No wonder you wished to speak to Miss Baird even though I told you she was only temporary.” She looked at Marsden, effectively dismissing Anna. “So you believe a fae stole the real Amethyst and replaced her with a … simulacrum?”

“Correct,” said Marsden grimly.

“So what happened to our daughter?” asked Dr. Miller. He didn’t sound like he thought it would be good. A doctor would know all about not good, Anna thought.

“That depends on what kind of fae we’re dealing with.” A lean, muscular black woman dressed sharply in a dove gray suit stepped into the room. “Special Agent Leslie Fisher, FBI. Sorry I’m late.”

So that was who Charles had been waiting for. Anna frowned at him. How had he known? He smiled at her, just a crinkle at the corner of his eye. He hadn’t known, just made a very good guess. She was almost sure.

“Leslie,” said Anna. “It’s very good to see you. Tell me you didn’t fly all the way over here from Boston.”

Leslie smiled. “Hey, Anna. Charles. Not from Boston, thank goodness. I’m stationed in Nevada now, in a town of two hundred that just happens to be the closest town to the James Earl Carter Jr. Fae Reservation. Apparently our little run-in made me one of the FBI’s experts in fae relations, so they moved me out there.”

“I’m sorry,” Anna apologized. That’s how Charles had known. He’d kept track of Leslie. Knowing that she was living nearby, he’d have figured she’d be brought in.

“Yeah, well.” Leslie shrugged without losing her smile. “That’s what it means to be FBI. We go where we’re needed.”

“How did Jude take that?” She had liked Leslie’s husband, a huge man with a sense of humor and a backbone of steel. He’d been a linebacker in college headed for the pros when an injury had changed the direction of his life. He taught elementary school.

“He was torn up about leaving his kids.” Leslie smiled, a private smile. “But he got a job right off. Apparently there aren’t a lot of teachers willing to live where it gets to be a hundred and twenty degrees in the shade and the nearest restaurant I would consider eating at is a four-hour drive. The kids out here need him a lot more than the kids in Boston did. Once he saw that, he was okay. Moving him out of there when the time comes is going to be harder than moving him in was.”