The District (15 page)

“Maybe she’s in her apartment in the back.”

Christina dove into her purse for her little flashlight and flicked it on. She aimed it in front of her and crept toward the counter.

“Careful. Don’t trip.” Eric put his hand on her hip.

She lifted the barrier that extended from the counter to the wall. “Her place is behind the counter. Libby? We’re here.”

Eric stumbled against her. “Where are the damned lights?”

“I have no idea. Maybe they’re in the back.” She reached out and swept aside the beaded curtain that separated the store from the back area. The beads clacked and swayed.

Christina swept the mini flashlight across the cluttered room, its tiny beam picking out boxes of books and overstuffed chairs with items stacked on top of them.

Eric whistled. “I hope she doesn’t live in this room.”

The beam of the flashlight wavered at an oblong opening across the room. “Looks like there’s another area back there.”

“Maybe she went to bed, Christina. You responded too late and she didn’t think we were coming.”

“Oh, no. She sounded way too agitated to call it a night before she told us what was on her mind. Besides, she wouldn’t have left her shop unlocked.”

“I just hope she doesn’t have a gun she’s going to turn on us when we crash into her bedroom.”

“You can stay here if you’re scared.” Christina picked her way across the room, the flashlight leading the way. She reached the opening into the other room and tripped.

She flung out one hand to grab the doorjamb and dropped her flashlight. “Shoot.”

“Are you okay?”

“I tripped over something and dropped the flashlight.” She crouched down and splayed her fingers in front of her to feel for the penlight, since its light had gone out.

Instead her fingers got tangled in hair—sticky, wet hair.

Christina’s throat tightened and her scream ended in a choked gasp.

Eric’s voice boomed behind her. “Found the light switch. Now I just hope Libby doesn’t kill us for disturbing her sleep.”

Soft light flooded the room and Christina blinked. Then she looked down into Libby’s lifeless eyes.

This time she managed the scream.

Chapter Fifteen

Eric almost fell on top of her, his knees knocking into the back of her head. “Christ, the blood.”

Christina held her hand, smudged with blood, to her face and glanced down at the slash across Libby’s throat.

Eric had drawn his weapon, and the click of the safety resounded in the small room. He stepped over the body, avoiding the spreading pool of blood, and searched the rest of the room and disappeared in the back.

Christina remained stationary next to the body, her knees locked, her eyes dry.

Eric strode back into the room. “Are you okay? Nothing back there but Libby’s living quarters and no sign of a break-in.”

“I-I’m...” She closed her lips against the sob welling in her throat.

Eric took a giant step back over the body and hovered over Christina. “Someone slashed her throat. There’s so much more blood this time, more of what you’d expect unlike the other crime scenes.”

She skimmed her nails across the wood floor. “Nothing to soak it up like at the other crime scenes, or maybe he was more careful this time not to get any on himself.”

“Did you touch anything?”

“Just, just her hair. I must’ve tripped over her shoe or something. When I reached out for my flashlight, I felt her hair instead.”

“I’ll call the cops. Can you get up? Feeling any shock?”

At the mention of shock, Christina’s teeth chattered but she clenched her jaw. They continued to chatter anyway.

She braced her hand—the unbloodied one—against the doorjamb and started to straighten up. She stopped.

One of Libby’s hands was extended from her body, blood smudged the tips of her fingers and the wood floor, not a pool here but a pattern. Christina leaned in closer.

Letters.

“Eric!”

He finished his call to 911 and stepped behind her. “What’s wrong? Can’t stand up?”

He took her arm, but she shook him off and pointed to Libby’s bloody fingers. “Look. She wrote something on the floor in her blood.”

“I’ll be damned.” He cranked his head around. “Where’s your penlight?”

She scanned the floor and saw the flashlight peeking from beneath the bottom edge of the door. She pinched it with her fingers and pulled it free. “I have it.”

Eric crouched beside her as she aimed the light on the letters Libby had scrawled before she died.

Eric read them aloud. “
L-E-G-A-O?
Is that someone’s name? Legao?”

“That’s not an
O,
it’s a
C,
and there’s another letter following it.”

“
L-E-G-A-C,
and what’s the last letter?”

“It’s a
Y.
Legacy. She wrote legacy.”

“Is that supposed to be someone’s name because it would be a lot more useful if she’d written the name of her killer with her dying breath than the word
legacy.
”

“Legacy.” The tinny smell of Libby’s blood overwhelmed her. She felt steeped in it even though she had just a little of it on her fingers.

She lurched forward, and Eric caught her under the arms and pulled her up and into his arms.

“You’re trembling. Come away from the body. The first responders are on the way.”

He walked her back into the shop where a colorful array of tarot cards was spread out in a mocking display. The killer didn’t have to put a tarot card between Libby’s fingers—she’d had them ready for him. Did she read her own death before it happened?

Sirens wailed outside, their din drawing closer and closer.

Afraid to sit down and disturb any evidence, but unable to stand on her own with her knees knocking together, she clung to Eric.

She’d seen death before, had seen dead bodies in all shapes and forms, had even joked with the rest of the cops to keep the darkness at bay, but she’d never discovered a dead body before, the dead body of someone she’d come to meet.

The sirens stopped in front of the shop, and Christina grabbed Eric’s shirt with one hand. “Someone didn’t want her talking to us. She did know something, Eric.”

“Yeah, legacy, whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean.”

He left her side to meet the paramedics and cops at the door.

Closing her eyes, Christina dragged in a breath of fresh air blowing in from the open door. Then she squared her shoulders and joined Eric talking to the uniforms.

Two hours later she stood at the sink in her hotel room scrubbing the dried blood from her hand—Libby’s blood. She’d tried to help them and paid the ultimate price.

Eric wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed his lips against her hair. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“I’ve seen my share of dead bodies—some in a lot worse shape than Libby’s.” She scrubbed harder, like Lady Macbeth.

“This is different. If not a friend, Libby was an acquaintance, someone trying to help us, someone we were supposed to meet.”

“You don’t remember legacy, do you?”

His puzzled eyes met hers in the mirror. “Am I supposed to?”

“No, I suppose in all my babbling about seeing the vision of my father, the actual context of the communication got lost.”

Eric snapped his fingers. “He said something about a legacy, but it didn’t make sense to me then and it doesn’t make sense to me now.”

She let the hot water run over her pink-stained hand. “It has something to do with the bloodline of witches, our inheritance or something. We have legacy in our family because my father is a brujo and passed his gift to me and my sister.”

Eric grabbed a hand towel from the rack and shoved it into her midsection. “I think that’s as clean as your hands are going to get right now.”

She cranked off the water and buried her hands in the towel.

“I wonder,” he mused as he made a half circle around her and leaned against the vanity, “if this legacy thing has anything to do with the fact that all the victims were only children.”

“It might. I don’t know enough about it. Maybe Libby was going to explain it to us.”

“Someone must’ve thought she was going to do more than that if they killed her to stop her from talking to us.”

“Now we have to find another source, and I just don’t think Nigel is our guy.”

“I don’t think anyone’s going to be our guy or gal once news of Libby’s murder gets around. This killer has put out the word.”

“That’s only if he knows who we’re talking to and if he can get to her.” She bunched up the towel and tossed it on the floor.

“Her? Do you have someone in mind already?”

“Vivi.”

“You can’t reach her on her phone because she doesn’t get service down there.”

“But your brother can find her. He did it before. He can get word to her.”

He raised one eyebrow. “Do you suggest we take a trip to Mexico to track her down? I think we’ll have a hard time explaining that one to Rich.”

“Maybe someone will be willing to meet with us secretly? The sooner we get this madman off the streets, the safer all witches are going to feel.”

“I’d be a lot happier if the police can just lift a fingerprint from the crime scene.” Eric squeezed past her on his way out of the bathroom. “Sure, it would be great to know what Libby was trying to tell us by writing legacy in her blood, but that’s a roundabout way of catching our guy. Knowing his motive helps, but I think we know enough of his motive to know he’s involved in the occult community. I want some hard facts leading to his identity.”

“You’re right.” She wedged a shoulder against the window and tipped her head against the glass. “I think I’m too personally involved in this case. It’s skewing my focus.”

“Yeah, well, you and me both. Given all the connections of this coven to my kidnapping, I’m getting personally involved, too.” He dropped on her bed and punched a pillow with his fist. “What are we going to do? Go to Rich and tell him to take us both off this case because of our personal involvement? That’s less professional than sticking it out to the bitter end.”

“We have to take a few steps back and take a few deep breaths.” She traced Libby’s name on the window with her fingertip. “It’s obvious Libby didn’t know her killer or she would’ve written his name instead.”

“Yep.” He sat up on the bed and turned the alarm clock to face him. “It’s almost two in the morning. Now is not the time to take a fresh look at this case.”

“You’re right. We have a busy day tomorrow, and the SFPD has another murder on its hands.”

Eric slid from the bed and crossed the room. Cupping her face in his hands, he said, “I’m sorry about tonight.”

He drew the pad of his thumb across her lips and followed it with a soft kiss. Then he escaped to his own domain, leaving her alone to ponder his statement.

Was he sorry about tonight because they found Libby murdered, or was he sorry that he was leaving her to her cold bed?

The former he had no control over and no reason to be sorry. But the latter? If he wanted her, why didn’t he just take her, damn it?

* * *

T
HE
NEXT
MORNING
,
Eric had a hard time keeping his eyes off the tall, beautiful FBI agent in the blue pantsuit standing in the corner of the briefing room. He’d seen Christina’s casual side all weekend, but he’d always liked this look on her. She was the woman he’d fallen for—professional, sassy, and hard-as-nails. That made the woman she turned into between the sheets all the more exciting.

Looking at her operate on the job with other law enforcement professionals, anyone would think she’d be a tigress in bed—taking charge and calling the shots. Not. At. All.

That’s what had thrilled him the first time they were together. He liked to be in control in the bedroom, and luckily for both of them, Christina liked relinquishing control once she kicked off those stiletto heels. Or sometimes he made her leave them on. Or sometimes he made her...

“Agent Brody can speak to that.”

Eric blinked at the roomful of detectives staring at him, and then glanced at the whiteboard. Where were they?

Christina cleared her throat. “That was more my line than Agent Brody’s, so I’ll pick up that point.”

He nodded briskly as if that was his plan all along.

When the meeting ended, Eric remained at the front of the room nursing his coffee and watching the detectives file out. A few of them stopped by to introduce themselves as friends of his brother Sean.

When the last one exited, leaving him alone with Christina, he exhaled. “That went better than I expected.”

“Did you think they’d laugh in our faces? We have proof of the connections between three of the victims—Juarez’s tattoo, Liz’s necklace with the same symbol, and Nora’s employment at Kindred Spirits and her self-identification as a witch in this coven.”

“And now Libby’s death just before she planned to reveal something to us.”

“Legacy.” Christina circled the word on the white board.

“I emailed the report to Rich.”

“Any input?”

“Not before the meeting, but my phone buzzed a few times while I was up here.”

“Is that why you spaced out? You were getting a text or call?”

His nostrils flared.
No, that was when I was thinking about laying you out naked on my bed.
“Just tired.”

Her dark eyes widened, and a pink flush stained her cheeks. Had she just used some witchcraft to read his mind?

He dug his phone out of his pocket and swiped his thumb across the display. “Rich did call, but more important, the Dearings called me back.”

“Did they leave you a voice mail?”

He tapped his phone to play back the voice mail and put it on speaker. “Agent Brody, this is Mr. Dearing. I’m returning your call. Please call me back on my cell phone.”

He left the number and Eric scribbled it on a slip of paper. “Let’s go back to that office and return the call.”

They staggered through the squad room with their files and bags. Nobody offered to help them, and Rita’s eager face was nowhere to be found this morning.

Christina dropped her bag on the floor outside the office and pushed open the door. They moved their baggage into the office, and Eric dropped behind the desk and tossed his cell phone on top of the blotter.

Christina took the seat across from him and propped her high heels up on the corner of the desk. “Make the call.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He punched in the cell number Mr. Dearing left and put the phone on speaker.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Dearing, this is Agent Brody with the Federal Bureau of Investigations, and I have Agent Sandoval with me. You’re on speakerphone.”

“What is it you want to know, Agent Brody? I told the police what I could about my daughter. Are you any closer to finding her killer?”

“I think so, but you can help by telling us about Olivia’s association with
Los Brujos de Invierno.
”

Mr. Dearing choked on the other end of the line. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Are you denying she was connected with that coven?”

“I—I don’t understand.”

“Mr. Dearing, we have strong evidence that the three other victims of your daughter’s killer were members of
Los Brujos de Invierno.
”

Mr. Dearing groaned. “I thought we’d put all that behind us.”

“Us? What do you mean?”

“Legacy.”

Eric dropped the pencil he’d been toying with, and his eyes met Christina’s, visible above the hand clamped over her mouth.

“Legacy? What does that mean?”

“It means it’s in the blood. More than any other coven,
Los Brujos de Invierno
passes power down from one generation to the next. My wife’s father was a brujo. My wife was an only child, and Olivia was our only child. Were these other victims only children in their families?”

“They were.”

Mr. Dearing stifled a sob.

Eric squeezed his eyes shut. “Do you know why someone would be killing people like your daughter, Mr. Dearing?”

“For the power. For their blood.”

Christina hunched across the table, her voice sharp. “Why this coven, Mr. Dearing? Why
Los Brujos de Invierno?
We heard a rumor it was because they were a force for evil.”