Nightwalker (24 page)

Bear looked amused. She beckoned me to follow her back down the short hall and around a corner to the small bathroom. A customer looking at the books stared when both of us walked into the one-toilet bathroom together and shut the door behind us.

An air conditioner rested in a space cut in the wall above the toilet. The sagging wall around the opening had cracked long ago, letting in light from the summer morning.

Someone had fixed a thin, flexible hose into the air conditioner’s grill. Bear showed me how it snaked outside through one of the cracks around the air conditioner, then bade me follow her back to the séance room where she opened the back window.

I leaned out. The bathroom and this room shared a wall, and I could see the AC unit sticking out. The tube wound down the wall and had been fixed under the window with more duct tape.

“Paige was the first to arrive, that night,” Bear said. “I would guess she asked to go to the bathroom to prepare herself. She turns on the unit, setting the thermostat as low as she can, closes the door, goes to the private room, tapes the digital machine under the table, and is sitting quietly when the rest of us enter.”

“And she probably had put the motor and the pipe in place, maybe in the dark before she came in, or the night before,” I concluded. “If Heather heard any noises, she’d assume it was the ghost of the little girl she thinks haunts here.”

“The window opens, the cold air streams in, and we hear Laura’s voice.”

“Crude props,” I said.

“But we weren’t expecting them. You and I both thought we’d see, hear, and feel nothing. Small illusions can be deceptive.”

That was true. I’d watched magicians in Las Vegas lounge acts perform simple tricks without stages, lights, costumes, and special effects. They’d used their quick hands, distraction, and patter to disguise what they did. These people had no real magic, only their wits, and I loved watching them, trying to catch how they deceived me. I never could.

“That is the true reason humans hold séances in the dark,” Bear went on. “Easier to fool us when we are all holding hands and have our eyes closed.”

“Julie knew it was a trick,” I said.

“Julie is a perceptive little girl.”

“What about the lights in the desert? Did she fake that?”

“No.” Bear looked out the window at the bright sunlight, the huge sky, and the wide land beyond the town. “I think that was true magic. From a vortex maybe. Or a mage working magics at the same time.”

Another thing I’d have to discover. I turned away from the window and the bright heat of the day. “The question is—do we tell Heather?”

“She seems very excited by her success.”

We looked at each other, both debating whether it would be kinder to tell Heather the truth or to let her believe she’d conjured the voices of the dead.

We left the séance room without a word, but we’d both drawn the same conclusion. Let Heather have her moment.

I took advantage of Heather having no customers at the cash register to ask her if she’d tell me where Paige lived. I could have obtained the same information from someone like Emilio Salas, who knew everything about everyone in town, but I didn’t want to alert the police to the fact that I wanted to talk to Paige. In light of Laura’s disappearance, Salas would feel obligated to report to his chief.

Heather willingly gave me the address, telling me that Paige had rented a small house in Magellan.

When she told me
which
house, a chill went through me. The house Paige had rented was one belonging to the Magellan’s Chief of Police, where his daughter Amy had once lived. I’d investigated a supernatural crime there, trying to find clues to Amy disappearance. I realized that, in a small town, with few places available for short-term rent, Paige couldn’t have had much choice, but the fact still unnerved me.

Bear and I left the store as Heather turned to new customers, then both of us sneaked around the store to the tall desert grasses in the back, and dismantled Paige’s setup. That a woman of Bear’s bulk could move without sound or drawing any attention at all fascinated me. She was much better at stealth than I was.

We quietly returned to the parking lot and stashed Paige’s accoutrements in my saddlebags. Bear declined my offer to let her ride behind me before I even said it, saying she’d meet me at the house.

I turned down the road to the McGuire’s rental, passing Maya Medina’s small house with its neat garden full of summer flowers on the way. The last house on the road that dead-ended into desert was as pretty and charming as I remembered. I’d avoided this place since I’d finished the investigation, though there was no real reason I should. There was nothing wrong with the house itself.

Bear waited for me under a large cedar that split the yard between Paige’s house and the one next door. I didn’t waste time wondering how she’d arrived before me.

I parked my bike, took the accoutrements out of my saddle bags, and walked with Bear to the house.

When Paige answered the door, I shoved the stuff at her and said, “Nice try. Where’s your pet Nightwalker?”

Paige could have wasted time pretending she didn’t know what we were talking about. Instead she hugged the evidence of her crime to her chest and settled for a glare.

“He’s not here,” she said. “Where’s yours?”

“Why do you want Ansel dead so much?” I countered.

“Why do you think? He killed my sister.”

“He didn’t,” I said. “I told you—I left you a voice mail. She was still alive when he lost sight of her.”

Bear stepped past us and into the house, but Paige’s outrage was all for me. “I heard your message. If your Nightwalker told you that, he’s lying. Laura is dead, and that filthy Nightwalker killed her. He sucked her dry and dumped her body somewhere.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bear wander slowly around the small living room, stopping in front of every table and shelf, looking over the ornaments, photos, and curios—some belonging to the McGuires, some belonging to Paige.

I didn’t need to concentrate on auras to scent Nightwalker. He’d be in his day sleep now, but he was near, probably in a back bedroom with windows shielded against the sun.

“Why did you think Ansel killed her in the first place?” I asked. “Did you have evidence, or did someone just tell you that?”

“If she’s not dead, then where is she?” Paige ignored Bear, facing me as though she considered me the bigger threat. “All I know is that my sister met a Nightwalker for dinner in Gallup. The Nightwalker came back, and Laura didn’t.”

“That’s all true, but Ansel didn’t kill her,” I said. “He’s been searching for Laura too, trying to help her.”

“Of course he’d tell you that. Who is gullible enough to believe a Nightwalker?”

“You are, apparently,” I said. “Why are you letting him stay with you?”

Paige made a noise of exasperation. “All right, since you know everything. He’s a friend. No, a boyfriend. Before he was turned. He’s the one who told me you had a Nightwalker living in your hotel, and that he’d become friendly with Laura. He told me he found Laura and Ansel in Chaco Canyon. My boyfriend—Bobby—was trying to rescue Laura and bring her back to me, but Ansel was too strong and ran him off. Ansel is much older than Bobby. Apparently they get stronger with age.”

Rescue Laura, my ass. “You don’t seem very stunned that your old boyfriend is a Nightwalker. You’re amazingly calm, in fact.”

“He’s been staying with me for a year. Trying to fight the blood frenzy and live normally. Like you claim yours is.”

Bear turned around. “You’re lying.”

Paige blinked. “No, I’m not. He really is trying.”

“I meant about everything,” Bear said. “How about some truth? Or would you like me to tell it for you?”

Paige studied Bear with new worry. “What are you talking about?”

Bear waved a large hand at a table of framed photographs. “You care enough about these photos to have brought them with you. Friends, your parents, your boyfriend—before he became Nightwalker, perhaps? None of your sister.”

“I packed in a hurry. I grabbed what I could.”

“A person in a hurry would have left all these home,” Bear said. “You came here intending to stay a while, and you brought what you treasured in case you didn’t go back. Why don’t you like your sister?”

“I like her fine. I mean, she’s dead, isn’t she? I didn’t want her picture—I didn’t want to be reminded.”

I wasn’t much for keeping photographs myself, but I knew that people found comfort in the photos of loved ones, living or dead, so they could remember them every day. I, for instance, kept a photo of my dad on my desk and a copy in my wallet so I could look upon his face whenever I wanted to.

“Not getting along with your sister is nothing to be ashamed of,” I said. “I don’t get along with most of my family, except my dad. Not many people have pictures of me among their most treasured things.”

“All right, so we weren’t best friends,” Paige said in a hard voice. “That doesn’t mean her death doesn’t bother me. And that the Nightwalker shouldn’t die for it.”

“You faked the séance to convince me she was dead so I’d hand Ansel to you. But Ansel’s a nice guy, and he’s as worried about Laura as you are.” My eyes narrowed. “Or maybe you’re not as worried about
her
as much as about what she’d found?”

Paige stared at me a moment, her pale eyes round. She looked a bit like Laura, but less tanned, less energetic. Maybe living in the shadow of Laura’s success as an athletic, pretty, and successful businesswoman had embittered her, or maybe it was more complicated than that. Family dynamics always were.

“Get out of my house,” Paige said.

It was Chief McGuire’s house, but I didn’t argue. Bear turned and walked out the door without another word. I had to have a parting shot.

“Your Nightwalker killed one of the slayers. If word gets out about that, Bobby will be on top of the slayers’ to-kill lists. They won’t care that he’s under your protection. Slayers hate Nightwalkers, period. They’re in it for more than just the bounty.”

Paige matched me stare for stare, my warning not striking fear into her heart. “One of the slayers I hired will get through, and Ansel will die. Even if my sister is still alive, it’s his fault she got messed up in everything she’s messed up with. I’m not calling off the slayers.”

I gave her a nod. “All right then. I know where you stand. Mind if I just say hello to your Nightwalker while I’m here?”

I spun away and was down the hall before Paige could stop me, to the door at the end, where the Nightwalker aura was strongest. The door wasn’t locked and gave way faster than I thought it would.

I half-fell into the room, but it was empty. The window blinds were down but the slats were open, letting in streaks of sunshine that landed across the bed. The sheets were rumpled, a man’s clothes lay on the floor, but nobody, human or Nightwalker, was in the room.

The Nightwalker’s aura was. He’d been here and, by the number of clothes on the floor, he’d staying here a while. If I hadn’t been avoiding this side of town I might have sensed him, but I hadn’t come down this street in a long time, at least not since Paige had moved in.

Paige watched me from the doorway, her arms folded, looking a bit smug. I pushed past her. “Tell Bobby to come see me when he shows up again,” I said, and I left the house.

*** *** ***

Bear was nowhere in sight by the time I got outside. I looked up and down the street and out into the desert, but I didn’t see her.

The land was heating up for the day, shimmers of warmth rising from the flat desert east of town. Nowhere did I see the bulk of Bear either striding along or waiting for me. She’d gone again.

I started my bike. Paige’s Nightwalker had gone to ground somewhere else today, and my chances of finding him weren’t great. Nightwalkers are excellent at hiding themselves during the sun hours. They know they’re the most vulnerable then and trust very few with their secret hideaways.

I didn’t have time to go running around all over Magellan and beyond hunting another Nightwalker. I had a young woman and an artifact to find, then I had to figure out a way to destroy the pot before Pericles got hold of it.

On the other hand, I didn’t need to hunt a Nightwalker myself when there were so many others out there eager to do it for me.

I rode to the diner, took a booth in the back, ordered lunch, and pulled out a now-creased business card. I remembered that my cell phone had been reduced to melted slag, and asked Jolene if I could use the kitchen’s phone. It was cordless, and she brought it to me with my milkshake.

I dialed the phone number on Rory’s card. He’d told me to text him, but he’d have to put up with hearing a human voice.

“So the bitch who hired me is harboring a Nightwalker too?” Rory asked. “What is wrong with people in your town?”

I started to explain that she wasn’t from my town, but let it go. “Can you find him?”

“Find him, stake him, behead him. If you want me to dispose of the remains, it’s an extra fee. What’s the bounty?”

Probably more than I could afford. “You wouldn’t do this for the satisfaction of ridding the world of another Nightwalker?”

“Nope. Slaying is dangerous work, and I want to get paid. Then there’s wear and tear on crossbows, clothes to replace the ones I ruin when I make the kill, crossbow bolts, wooden stakes . . . All that plus my risk of the Nightwalker biting, draining, or turning me.”

“Fair enough. How about five hundred?”

He snorted. “How about five thousand?”

I gripped the phone. “I don’t need you to kill him. I need to talk to him first.”

“Capturing a Nightwalker alive is even harder. That will cost you another grand.”

“Are you kidding me? I don’t have that kind of money.”

“Tell you what—you let me have
your
Nightwalker so I can collect the bounty on him from Paige, and I’ll give you a discount.”

“No,”
I said firmly. “Bring me that other Nightwalker, and we can talk.”

“If I capture him alive, and you don’t pay up, I’ll just let him kill you.”