Under a Spell (31 page)

Nina’s eyes cut to the house and then back to me. She shook her head and took a step back. I handed her my keys. As far as I knew, Nina had never broken UDA protocol. But adding a vampire—even an adherent one—to a crime scene, where there could be enormous amounts of blood and a plethora of warm cop bodies, was begging for a rule to break.

I stumbled aside and glanced over my shoulder long enough to see the anger flicker across Will’s face.

“Hang on, mate,” Will said, following us quickly.

“Soph.” Nina’s eyes were wide.

“Both of you, stop!” I shook my arms free and turned on my heel, going directly to the ambulance, where a paramedic was wrapping a heavy blanket around Fallon’s shoulders. I didn’t know if the guys were following me and I didn’t care.

“Fallon, what happened here?”

Fallon looked up at me, her eyeliner smeared, black rivulets of mascara laced with tears sliding down her cheeks. Her hair was still in pigtails, but they were lopsided now and somehow, she looked like a regular kid: vulnerable, sad—scared. She blinked up at me, her lower lip trembling.

“I—I’m not sure.”

“Miss?” The paramedic put an arm up between Fallon and me, his other hand pumping a blood pressure monitor. “Please don’t upset her. She’s had quite a scare.”

I was stunned to dead silence when Fallon looked from me to the paramedic and said, “That’s okay, she’s a friend.”

The paramedic finished his reading and backed away with a shrug. I sat down on the tailgate next to Fallon. We were silent for a full moment, the lights of the police cars washing over us, first responders rushing around, eventually getting in their cars or making notes.

“I went out to get something to eat. When I came back . . .” Fallon’s lip started to tremble again and her eyes filled with tears. I expected her to shake it off, to blink back the tears. The Fallon from school would have. This one just let the tears fall.

I put a hand on hers, squeezed gently. “What happened, hon?”

“Every light in the house was on. Blazing, like it is now.” She gestured absentmindedly toward the house. The doors were wide open. I went inside and—and—”

“There was a pentagram on the dining room floor.” It was Alex now, in front of Fallon and me, arms crossed in front of his chest, legs akimbo.

Fallon nodded and sniffed. “Someone had pushed aside all the furniture and drawn—drawn it in—in chalk or something. There were candles and—” Fallon closed her eyes and bit her bottom lip before whispering, “There was blood.”

I looked up at Alex and he nodded solemnly.

“I screamed and ran out. I guess I kicked over one of the candles because the curtains caught on fire.”

“Where are your parents?”

Fallon didn’t look at me. “Gone. My mom left for Portland tonight—that’s why I went out to get something to eat.”

“And your dad?”

“My dad is . . .” Her voice went thin again and I could almost see the wheels turning in her head, deciding what she should tell me. Exhaustion must have won over. “We don’t really know where he is. We haven’t for a while.”

My heart ached for her.

“Lawson?” I glanced up and Alex was right in front of me, eyes imploring. Will was twenty feet behind him suited up in his gear, soot streaked across his face, ax thrown over his shoulder. I felt my heart start to pound as Alex held out a hand. I saw Will shift behind him.

I swallowed hard, my stomach starting to roil. Finally, I stood. “I’m going to go in and check out what you saw, okay?” I was speaking to Fallon. She hugged the blanket tighter over her shoulders and frowned.

“What were you doing here, anyway?” She sniffed. “I mean, thanks, but you’re a substitute teacher. Why are you like, fighting crime?”

I sucked in a breath. “You have no idea what it takes to get teaching credentials in California. I’ll be right back, okay?”

Fallon nodded and rested her head on her knees.

The inside of Fallon’s house was opulent—more so than I expected—with a swirling staircase wide enough for my car and slick walnut carved everything. Pictures were spaced equidistantly apart, each one showing the same family of three in stiff familial poses, their surroundings and smiles imitating the perfect, happy family, while their eyes stared out vacantly. The kitchen had the same pristine, model-home feel, with glossy industrial ovens that looked like they had never been used and a bunch of fresh bananas that were the exact hue of the trim.

I wondered if Ms. Monroe would toss them once the color changed.

“It’s in here,” Alex said, ten feet in front of me. The dining room was the only room so far with its lights off, but there was enough light coming from the bouncing flames in the fireplace to give me a view of the whole room. I immediately started unbuttoning my jacket as the roaring fire ratcheted up the room temperature by fifteen degrees. An entire half-wall of the room was scorched, long fingers of soot crawling up to the ceiling. The remains of elegant drapery were gnarled rags on one side, Dupioni silk in a calming blue on the other. The window they were protecting was blown out and shards of glass littered both sides of the wall.

“What do you think?”

Alex was gesturing to the wood floor. Furniture hugged the walls, but the center of the room was bare. The pentagram that Fallon said was made of chalk had been ground into the lush wood, its luster covered by what looked like years of wear. A smear of red—blood, I supposed—was washed across the center circle. The candles set at the pentagram’s five points were out, and the one closest to the charred wall was still on its side, a little ripple of form in a pool of black melted wax.

“Anything significant?”

I snapped a picture and turned around, careful not to step on any of the dust. “I don’t see anything that screams out of the ordinary. Unless, of course, you count this giant pentagram on the floor.”

Alex let out a whoosh of air that let me know he was annoyed. “I mean, is this real?”

“It’s real.” I bent down and brushed across a white line with my index finger. “It’s here, isn’t it?” I tugged at my collar. “Did Fallon make this fire? Did she do it before she saw the pentagram?”

“There’s no way Fallon made that fire.” Will stepped through the broken window and shot the licking flames with an extinguisher.

“Hey, that’s evidence!”

“No,” Will corrected. “It’s a fire hazard.”

I coughed at the ash that kicked up and took a step back, realizing a second too late that I was standing in the center of the pentagram, my feet firmly planted on a smear of blood.

“Oh, God!” I jumped forward, feeling instantly nauseous.

I paused when Will turned on the overhead light and the whole room lit up like it was day.

“That blood looks awfully thin.” I grimaced. “I can’t believe I said that. I can’t believe I
know
that.”

Alex crouched down and pulled a Q-tip from the evidence pack he carried in his windbreaker. He rubbed the cotton tip over the stain and frowned. “It’s definitely not blood. Hey.” He glanced over his shoulder at Will. “Why do you think the girl didn’t make the fire?”

“You mean how do I know she didn’t make the fire?” He used the poker to push around the debris. “An accelerant was used. You can smell it. It wasn’t on Fallon’s hands or clothes, and there was no soot or residue. The container’s not here either.”

Alex stiffened. “She threw it away.”

“Not in any trash can in the house or the ones outside.”

I saw Alex press his lips together, still unconvinced.

“When this fire was started, it would have been a near fire ball.” Will pointed to spots on the fireplace façade with seeping black burn marks. “And I know the bird.” He fished something out of the fireplace. “If she was going to burn her clothes, she wouldn’t do it in her family fireplace.”

I felt my mouth drop open as Will laid out what remained in the ashes of the fire.

“It’s another Mercy uniform.”

Alex stepped forward. “Does it belong to the victim?”

“Fallon, her name is Fallon. And I’m going to find out.”

The second I walked out of the dining room, the cool night air broke over me and I realized I was sweating.

“Fallon.”

She was still sitting on the edge of the tailgate, still wearing the gray blanket. A few people—neighbors, I suspected—were huddled around her, looking on sympathetically. She looked up at me, her eyes red-rimmed and tired looking.

“Tell me the truth. Did you start the fire?”

She shrunk back into the blanket and the sympathetic eyes were turned on me—but they were angry now.

“Leave this girl alone,” someone said, shoving toward Fallon.

Fallon held the woman off. “It’s okay. Yeah, I told you I started the fire. I knocked over the candle. It was an accident—I was freaked out.”

“Imagine,” another woman said, “a Satanic cult breaking into this child’s house. Breaking into our neighborhood!”

“I mean the fire in the fireplace. Did you start that?”

Fallon frowned. “Of course not.” Her eyes were hardening, the old Fallon showing through now that she had her entourage—albeit a less stylish one. “I don’t even know how you make a fire in there. Isn’t there just some kind of switch? Maybe I did when I was running out, I don’t know.”

“So was the fire going when you went into the dining room?”

Fallon’s eyes rolled skyward. “Um, maybe. It was hot. Wait, yeah, yeah, I guess so.”

“You’re not sure?”

Now she rolled her eyes. “I was kind of in the middle of a major trauma. Someone broke into my house and made one of those Satan things and there was blood. I wasn’t paying attention to whether or not my potential killer wanted to make the room warm and cozy with a fire. One of my best friends just disappeared, you know.”

“So you didn’t know that someone was burning a Mercy High School uniform in your fireplace?”

Her eyes went wide, her surprise seemingly genuine. “What?”

“One of the firemen found the remains of a school uniform in your fireplace.”

Fallon clutched at her throat. “Mine?”

“I don’t know. Is your uniform up in your room? Would you allow us to check?”

Fallon sucked in a long, dramatic breath. “I suppose so. I mean, if there was a killer pawing through my things—oh my gosh.” She clapped a hand over her mouth. “What if he’s still there? What if he’s in my closet, lying in wait? Maybe he didn’t even want Alyssa or Kayleigh—maybe he was after me the whole time!” She seemed to crumble as enormous tears rolled over her cheeks. The women closed in on her, soothing and clucking. I stepped away, grateful for a few moments alone.

I was on the front porch when Alex and Will caught up with me.

“What’d the girl say?” Alex wanted to know.

I glanced up. “She didn’t start the fire. She didn’t know anything about the uniform.”

I could see Will’s chest bolster a tiny bit.

“But I’m going to check her closet just to be sure.”

“I’ll go with you.” Both guys said it in unison and both immediately bristled.

“Grace!” one of the perimeter officers called out to Alex and I could see the annoyance in Alex’s eyes as they cut toward the officer, then to me, and finally narrowed and set on Will.

“Don’t let anything happen to her.” He turned on his heel and the cold air at his exit—and in his tone—highlighted the blaze of anger in my gut.

“Hey,” I yelled, pushing past Will. “I don’t need anyone to take care of me.”

I could hear Will snicker behind me. “
Any
one,” I said, turning on Will. “There are two girls missing right now and there could have been a third. I need you to stop beating your chests or measuring your balls or whatever it is you think you’re doing and start focusing on this case. Girls are missing. Girls are dead. Alex, go see what the officer wants and see what physical evidence your guys have come up with. Will, come with me.”

I could see Alex’s nostrils flare, the little muscle in his jaw that let me know he was angry, jumping. Will opened his mouth to say something—smart, I guessed—and I held up a finger. “And you shut your trap.”

I stomped up Fallon’s stairs, Will in tow, and was too angry to comment or stand in slack-jawed awe when I found Fallon’s bedroom. It was easily the size of my apartment, and likely as big as Will’s and mine combined, with an attached bathroom stuffed with more frilly scents and loofah sponges than an entire Bath and Body Works megastore.

“Damn.”

The walls were painted a pretty rose pink and glittery fairy wings hung from the four-poster bed. There were crowns trailing ribbons and silky ballet shoes and a heavy pile snow-white rug.

“It looks like My Little Pony exploded in here,” I said.

Will flicked a set of the fairy wings. “My Little Pony and her fairy friends.”

“Not exactly what I expected from Fallon.”

“What did you expect?”

“Something darker. More of a German dungeon type theme.”

“I hear that sells big at Pottery Barn Kids.”

I pulled open some dresser drawers and poked at the neat stacks of starched white blouses and a carefully folded navy-blue sweater. The drawers Will sifted through held little bits of neon and leopard-print skirts or tube tops or headbands—it was hard to tell.

“Well, it doesn’t look like she’s missing any shirts, and there wasn’t a sweater in the fireplace.” I bit my lip and went to the closet, pulling back double doors to expose the second-largest clothing collection (Nina’s being the first) that I had ever seen outside of a retail establishment. One whole section was a sea of blues—four navy jumpers, four regulation plaid skirts, every manner of high school booster wear, and the whole thing repeating in a sea of greys. I groaned.

“For all we know this could be every uniform she has and the one in the fireplace could be someone else’s, or this is all she has minus one.” I nodded in the general direction of the dining room.

“The one in the fireplace was a size two. At least the skirt part.”

“Yeah,” I said, glad my snarled lip was hidden amongst the plaid. “Just like mine.”

“Wait,” Will said, pausing. “Did you say she’s short a sweater?”

I shrugged. “There was only one in there. So, maybe yes, maybe no.”