“I know,” I said. “But I also know that sometimes the bodies you create go for … other purposes.”
“What other purposes?” She sounded scornful, but already, the lie-detector potion was tingling its warning message over my skin. “I do not know of these.”
“Oh, come on. It’s common knowledge in the trade that some of the less scrupulous witches create bodies for use by, uh, men with unusual appetites. Or for medical use. Right?”
“Rumors. Nothing more.”
“Well, this goes far beyond that,” I said. “This is a body being used to house a restored spirit. One who was murdered. One who was murdered again, made to feel the same horror and torture again. And this time, she would have known it was coming. Can you even imagine that?”
She was silent for a long, long moment. “That is a great sin. A great betrayal.”
“Yes. Yes, it is. I need your help, ma’am. I need to find out who hired this body to be made. He’s probably asking for others, too. They’ll face the same fate unless we can stop him.”
She hesitated, then said, “There are other kinds of justice. Older kinds.”
“Yes, ma’am. And we’re going to do that, but I need a lead. Something. Anything.”
She fell silent. I listened to her breathe, and waited, biting my tongue because I wanted to sell her harder but knowing that it was the wrong move. She’d do it, or she wouldn’t. I couldn’t force it.
“I will think on this,” she said. “Perhaps you will receive a call back, but it won’t be from me.” She hung up with a soft click, and I stared at the phone for a moment. I didn’t have any contact information for her, not even a place to start; the number she was using went through a privacy exchange, and that would take a lot more firepower to crack than I could bring to bear.
With nothing left to do, I carried my empty teacup downstairs and rinsed it out in the sink. Andy had left a half-full cup of coffee there on the counter, and most of a sandwich, but there was no sign of him. Even his notebook was gone. I called his name, but got no reply.
And then I saw the note on the table. Gone to check a lead, it said, in his careful, flowing script, the kind nobody really teaches kids anymore. Keep the doors locked tonight. Be back in the morning.
I would have expected him to actually tell me this since I was upstairs, but then again, I’d had the door shut, and he’d have known that getting distracted when using a lie-detecting potion is bad. Well, at least he’d left me a note.
I felt abandoned, nevertheless. I’d wanted to talk to him about all this, really talk … and I needed to be held, too. It bothered me how much I missed him; I’d always been self-sufficient before I’d met him.
Now, I thought of me as part of us. Was that a good thing? I really wasn’t sure, but the idea of voluntarily walking away from Andy and just being me, solitary, again … that wasn’t what I wanted, either.
I just wanted us to talk, and evidently I wasn’t going to get what I wanted tonight.
Tonight. Oh God, I’d forgotten to tell him about Prieto, and what we’d agreed about the stakeout on the next dump site. I checked my cell phone, which I’d left in my purse in the other room, and found two calls from the policeman, and one voice mail. The recording cussed me out and told me to call if I still intended to do this thing, dammit.
Andy had told me to stay in and lock the doors, but he’d gone off following a lead. There was no reason I couldn’t do the same. Besides, I’d have company—police company at that. It was like having my own personal bodyguard.
I dialed Prieto. He answered on the second ring, tired and surly as usual. “Sorry,” I said. “I was following up on potential leads.”
“Anything?”
“Not really. I have to wait for someone to get back to me.”
“Still want to do the stakeout tonight?”
“Yes,” I said. “It’s just me. Andy won’t be available.”
“Neither am I,” Prieto grunted. “Got other cases I gotta work. Greg said he’d take a shift with you overnight, he’s off tomorrow.”
“Greg…?”
“Crime scene geek, you met him. Greg Kincaid. You want him to swing by and pick you up?”
“Yes, I guess so. Anything I should bring?”
“You want anything to eat or drink, bring it. I don’t trust anything those CSI freaks bring out of their lab fridges; you don’t know what’s been sitting next to it. You got my number if anything happens.”
“Thanks,” I said, then hesitated before saying, “Do you think we’ll get him?”