21. Twenty-One
TWENTY-ONE
Iwas still agitated when I got back to the table.
“What was that?” Knox demanded.
I’d gotten my head together enough to play the game. “What was what?” I projected innocence even though I was still roiling inside.
“You and Jack.” Knox pointed to the door. “That was weird.”
“We just had a discussion about people pushing buttons,” Jack, oddly calm, replied. “I explained that it was probably smarter not to allow those buttons to be pushed.”
Knox’s forehead creased. “You think I’m pushing buttons?”
“That’s exactly what I think,” Jack confirmed.
“I am not pushing her buttons.” Now Knox was the innocent one. “Why would I want to?”
Charlie’s hand shot into the air. “I know.”
Fear pummeled my heart. “No, you don’t.” I shook my head and shot her a warning look. “You don’t think you know anything.”
“There’s no ‘thinking’ about it. I know.”
I glared at her, but she didn’t stop smiling.
“Does anyone care to explain what’s going on?” Knox asked.
“No,” I replied quickly.
Charlie’s hand shot into the air again.
“Stop that,” I hissed, jerking back her hand. “You’re making things weird.”
“I’m pretty sure you’re the one making things weird,” Jack replied.
“No, that was you,” I fired back.
Jack held my gaze for a long time, then stood again. I knew what he was going to do, and my heart plummeted.
“Wait!” I reached out a hand to stop him, but it was already too late.
Jack crooked his finger. “Outside, please,” he said to Knox.
I slumped in my chair.
Knox glanced at me, then at Jack. Jack was a big guy, but Knox dwarfed him. Still, the shifter got to his feet and followed Jack outside.
I refused to turn in my chair to watch the scene on the sidewalk. Of course, it helped that there was a mirror on the wall in which I could watch everything play out behind me.
“What do you think they’re talking about?” Charlie asked.
I slid my eyes to her. She looked innocent enough, but I didn’t believe her. “You know exactly what they’re talking about, just like you know what Jack said to me.”
Her lips curved. “Do you think he’s reacting the same way?”
“Why are you so happy about that possibility?”
She shrugged. “Maybe I just like scenting romance in the air.”
I was going to lose it. “There is no romance. You’re imagining that.”
“Uh-huh.” She wriggled in her chair. “How many kids do you think you’ll have?”
She was so sweet I was going to feel guilty when I choked the life out of her. “Listen —”
Charlie hopped up and down on her chair. “Look! It’s getting animated.”
I tried to stop from looking over my shoulder, but it was too late. I saw Knox using big hand gestures as Jack stared back at him dispassionately.
“I’m fairly certain he feels the same way I do about this entire thing,” I said, relief coursing through me. No matter what Jack said, Knox wasn’t jealous of Lex. Jack was reading too much into it.
That was relief I was feeling, right? Suddenly, I couldn’t tell.
Knox gestured again, and Jack calmly stared him down. When the big shifter darted his eyes to our table, I turned away quickly. I could feel his eyes on my back through the window.
Two minutes later, Jack and Knox were back in their chairs.
“I have a plan for the research,” Jack started.
“What’s that?” I asked, refusing to look at Knox. I couldn’t be certain, but something told me he was doing the same thing with me.
“As I mentioned before, Chris and Hannah aren’t doing much field work with their little one.” He was acting as if he hadn’t chastised Knox and me like children in front of the restaurant. No, not children, worse. He’d chastised us like lovesick tweens.
What was going on with my life?
“They’re doing research,” Jack continued. “They’re really good at it. I’m going to forward a photo of the symbol to them to see what they come up with.”
“I was going to hit the paranormal library,” I announced. “The one at Tulane University.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Knox nodding. “Good idea. They know a little bit about everything there.”
“I want to visit a paranormal library,” Charlie said, turning her pleading eyes to Jack. “Can we go?”
He looked caught. Then, to my surprise, he shook his head. “You and I are going to the office to put together a whiteboard comparing all the victims. On the surface, there doesn’t seem to be anything connecting them, but we need to be sure.”
Charlie stared at him a little longer, and I was certain she was going to argue with him. Ultimately, however, she nodded. “Okay. We can do that.”
Jack’s smile was soft. “I’ll reward you later for your sacrifice.” He flicked his eyes to me. “And I’m sure Freya will take you to the paranormal library another day.”
Was he shaming me? “Of course I will,” I replied. As annoyed as I was with Jack — and I was — it wasn’t Charlie’s fault. “You’ll love it.”
“Great.” Jack’s smile looked friendly enough, but there was an edge to his stare. “How long do you think it will take you at the library?”
I shrugged. “Shouldn’t be too long, hopefully.”
“And you’re going with her?” Jack pressed Knox.
Immediately, I started shaking my head. “That’s not necessary.”
“It really is,” Jack replied. There was no give to his tone. “Whatever that thing was on the riverwalk last night — whether it was our killer or something else — it focused on you, Freya. You’re a target.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“I’d feel better if you had backup,” Jack replied calmly. “I think we both would.”
“Definitely,” Charlie agreed. She was trying to look solemn, but her eyes sparkled. “You need backup.”
I was officially at the end of my rope. “Listen —”
“I’ll go with her,” Knox interjected before I could lose my temper. “It will be fine. There’s no reason to get worked up about it.” That last part was for me, and it only served to annoy me further.
“Great.” Jack leaned back in his chair, smug as a cat in sunshine. “Since you have your vehicle and we’re not going to the same place, that works out well. Freya can ride with you.”
“That’s not necessary,” I growled.
Jack grinned. “Oh, I think it is.”
AN HOUR LATER, ONE MAGNIFICENT meal fueling me, I found myself in Knox’s passenger seat sulking as he pulled into the library parking lot. It was all the way out in Uptown, so it was a hike to get there. We hadn’t spoken a single word about what Jack had said to either of us during the drive.
“We’re here,” Knox said hollowly as he put his truck into park.
“You don’t say,” I drawled, giving him a “Well, duh!” dose of side eye.
“Don’t blame me for this,” he complained. “They’re your friends.”
“You’re the one who insisted on joining the investigation,” I reminded him.
“What a terrible man I am to want to keep people in the city safe,” he said. “I should be flogged.”
“I don’t appreciate the sarcasm.”
“Suck it up.” He gripped the steering wheel tightly. “We’re in this together, until the end. We’re both adults. There’s no reason we can’t work with one another.”
It made it worse when he became the reasonable one. If I persisted in being mean I would be termed the “emotional female.” There was nothing I hated more than that.
“Fine.” I flashed him a flat smile. “We’re in this together.” Until this is over with, and then I will never see you again. I didn’t say it out loud, but I thought it. All I could hope was that he was thinking the same. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Great.” He shoved open his door, allowing the stifling heat into the cool air-conditioned interior. “That’s exactly what I was going to say.”
Despite the heat, I scurried in front of him to be first through the door.
The library was on the Tulane campus because students were more open to possibilities than adults when it came to the paranormal front.
The librarians, all in their 70s, were friendly, always helpful, but their poker faces were nonexistent.
When Knox and I entered, the librarian on duty, Winifred, went slack-jawed.
“Hey,” she said dumbly after what felt like three years.
“Hey,” I replied, taking control. “We need some help.”
Winifred’s eyebrows moved up her forehead like twin caterpillars running from a lizard. “The two of you? Together?”
Unbelievable. Was this going to turn into a thing wherever we went? “We are working on the Axeman copycat.”
“Is it a copycat?” Winifred kept looking between Knox and me, as if trying to ascertain if we were real, but she kept her voice friendly enough. “Are you sure it’s not the real Axeman come back to take his vengeance?”
That was the second time someone had phrased it that way. “What vengeance?” I demanded. “He was a killer. What vengeance was he exerting against that many people?”
Winifred shrugged. If she was bothered by my tone, she didn’t show it. “I’m not saying that his vengeance is justified, just that maybe he thinks it is. You know how it is when mental illness is involved.”
I wanted to argue with her — a great deal, in fact — but instead I considered it. Knox fell silent, convincing me he was thinking about it, too. I found the courage to look at him.
His response was a noncommittal shrug. “I didn’t really think about it,” he conceded. I was glad he admitted it first.
“Me either.” Ruefully, I held out my hands. “It sort of makes sense.”
“What happened, both then and now, was a show of expressed rage. That’s not normally the case in a stranger killing.”
“Lex and I did a lot of research on serial killers when we were teens.”
Knox scowled but said nothing, which reminded me of what Jack had said. I didn’t need to explain myself, and yet suddenly I was doing just that.
“I was obsessed with finding out what happened to Holly, and I convinced myself for a time that she’d been taken by a serial killer.
” Why I felt the need for Knox to understand was beyond me.
“It wasn’t a comforting thought, and Lex probably believed I was crazy, but he did the research with me.
Probably just so he could poke holes in my reasoning. ”
Knox’s expression softened. “I probably would have done the same thing.”
“I only brought it up because I learned things about serial killers. Most of them are controlled. There are a few, however, who go into rages.
“Controlled killers tend to be methodical about what they’re doing,” I continued, my mind whirring with possibilities. “In some respects, the Axeman comes across as a controlled killer despite the carnage he left behind. In other respects, the violence at the scenes suggests anger fueled him.”
“A lot of the ideas of the time point to a sexual sadist,” Winifred offered. “I’ve been researching the old case a lot the past few days.”
That made sense. “I’m sure a lot of people have,” I agreed. “What did you find?”
“There are hunches that he targeted the women and killed the men when they tried to get between the killer and his intended victim.”
“There wasn’t a lot of rhyme or reason attached to the victims back then,” I said. “The killings back then and now showed a lot of rage. That happened to Bundy when he was devolving, but it was always that way with the Axeman.”
“Where does that leave us?” Knox asked.
“With a symbol and nothing else to go on,” I replied, exhaling heavily. “We’re in the same place repeatedly. It’s driving me insane.”
“What symbol?” Winifred asked.
I pulled out my phone so she could see the screen. Her first reaction was horror. “Is that blood?” she demanded.
“What do you think?” I asked dryly.
She slapped her hand over her eyes. “I can’t believe you’re showing me that.”
“I’m not trying to be a jerk,” I argued. “I need to know if you recognize that symbol.”
“I’m not sure you’re telling the truth.” Winifred turned her back to us and stared at the wall. “I need a minute.” She made movements with her hands that reminded me of some yoga poses, and I risked a glance at Knox. His lips were pressed together in an attempt to keep from smiling.
Good. It wasn’t just me who found her reaction funny.
After several seconds, she turned back. She looked as if she was steeling herself as she looked at the photo again. “I don’t recognize it specifically, but it reminds me of a different symbol.”
She moved to the shelf of books behind her and selected one. She thumbed through the book for almost a full minute before finding what she wanted. “It looks pretty similar to that.”
I craned my neck to get a better look, then turned the book to study the symbol. She was right. There were a lot of similarities. The circles and squiggles weren’t exactly the same, but they weren’t that far off.
“What is that?” I pointed at the page.
“That’s the symbol of Baron Samedi’s worshippers.”
I frowned. “Worshippers? I didn’t know the loas had worshippers.”
“A long time ago they all did.” Winifred held out her hands. “Today, only the big two have them.”
“Baron and Papa Legba,” I said. They were the most well-known loas, though Erzulie and Maman Brigitte weren’t far behind.
“Correct,” Winifred confirmed. “I don’t know what that symbol specifically means, but given what’s happening and how, the loa of the dead is your best bet.”
I grimaced. The loas were regular fixtures around the city, especially in recent years. They’d put in sporadic appearances before, but were everywhere now, ever since they’d managed to kill one of the dark loas, Marinette, and see their magic reborn into a descendant of Baron and Brigitte.
“I don’t particularly want to track Baron down,” I admitted to Knox.
“I don’t either,” he said, “but do we have a choice?”
I shook my head. “Baron it is.”
“Good luck.” Winifred’s response was sunny. “Before you go, I have a question. Not because I’m gossiping, I’m just curious.”
Winifred was a world-class gossip, and I would never trust her with a secret. Before I could say that, however, Knox opened his big, fat mouth.
“What?” he asked.
“How long have you two been together?” Winifred grinned.
“And we’re done,” I said as I snapped a photo of the symbol from the book. “Let’s go,” I prodded Knox.
He didn’t look nearly as shaken as I felt. “You shouldn’t let her get to you,” he said once we were outside. “That’s what she wants.”
I glared at him. “Can you stop talking? Just for five minutes?”
He bobbed his head. “If you can.”
“I look forward to not talking, actually.”
“Great. We have that in common.”
I was lying, so I knew he was, too. This whole day was getting away from me. I was sick of it, and we were nowhere near done. “Where would Baron be this early in the day?” I asked to change the subject.
Knox grimaced. “I have an idea.”
“A bar?”
“Yup.”
“Great. Let’s find him. I want to get this over with.”