Chapter 12
The harsh morning light filtered in through the shuttered blinds of the agents’ motel room. I sat on one of their beds, posture straight, hands clasped over my knees, feigning innocence, as we debriefed. Though, if I was honest, it felt less like a debrief and more like an interrogation.
Maybe an intervention.
I should have been grateful the agents provided me the grace to sleep first and ask questions later, but then again, I hadn’t given them much of a choice. I fell asleep the moment I collapsed on the beige and brown bedspread—still wearing my borrowed clothes.
When I woke up, I felt better than I had all week.
That is until I caught sight of the god-awful hickey.
It was the same size and color as a plum with two small pin-pricks at the center.
With everything that ensued after I was permitted entry to the inner sanctum, I’d almost forgotten about it. Almost.
My neck tied with a satin scarf, one I kept on hand to cover my shoulders when entering holy places during hot summer months, I’d been prepared for the agents to make cartoon character resemblance comments.
Even I could admit my ascot was much more Fred than Daphne—and yes, that was a Scooby Doo reference.
But no comments came.
There was a lot on everyone’s minds, and the debrief was overdue.
Jack paced the floor, Todd sat on the bed across from me, elbows on his knees as we explained the nights events from top to bottom and back again.
Going over details. Where we separated. What we saw, heard, felt.
What we said to who, and whether or not we believed the people we interacted with were telling the truth.
Though no one but the technology was to blame, Jack was displeased his role for the evening had been relegated to chauffeur, which meant he hadn’t been able to support us as he would have liked.
And neither of the agents had been very happy about how forthcoming I had, or rather had not, been about my ties to Jezebel.
From the interaction at the waterfront amphitheater, Todd had gathered we had been friends, but I’d kept the extent of Jezebel’s ties to cult extraction to myself.
Lenore further exposing our history while on the job didn’t help matters.
“Anything else we should know about Jezebel? Or are there more surprises planned?”
Well, there were definitely surprises in both Jack and Todd’s futures, but not about this, so I shrugged. “Wasn’t my story to tell.”
“I feel like we should have been given the full picture.” Rubbing a palm over his face, Jack didn’t look like he’d gotten much sleep. “We need the whole truth. It’s hard to help when there are pieces missing.”
“Where’s the excitement in that?” I shifted my shoulders, but kept up my innocent charade. “Jezebel and I worked together. Before she became a familiar.” When my comment didn’t satiate the agents’ questioning, I added, “As part of Leslie’s Pies.”
That was until Jezebel became yet another woman to leave the cult extraction business.
I didn’t blame her, of course. I didn’t know the whole story, but I knew enough about what happened on one of her previous cases to notice her slipping away.
Something that ate away at her. And when Lenore made the offer for Jezebel to stay, to be her familiar and keep an eye on things at vamp headquarters after the Daemonica case, it had seemed like a no-brainer.
Jezebel agreed to contact with Leslie’s Pies if any cult-related activity came to light, and was paid a handsome sum for her work as a familiar.
The drunk elfish lady from last night was right, being a familiar really did pay well. I said as much to the agents.
What I didn’t tell them, was that since Jezebel was out of Leslie’s Pies, she had no idea I had been in jail.
She wouldn’t have gotten the message to cease any and all communications with me and change her number like the others had.
It was nice to have one person from my past and not see guilt, shame, or pity when they looked at me.
Botan and Salma tried to hide it, they knew I didn’t like anyone feeling sorry for me, but it was still there.
Behind Salma’s smile, and Botan’s reluctance, there was pain. They knew what had been taken from me. How deep being excommunicated cut when I needed support the most.
“We didn’t work together a lot,” I continued my explanation to the agents before my thoughts had a chance to run away with me.
“Just a case or two, here and there. But we were friends. I hung around after the Daemonica case settled down. She let me stay with her a few weeks when she got her place in Huntington—right after she adopted Dog.”
Todd gave a grunt of agreement. It added up to what he’d seen, and explained why Dog had been so happy to see me. Just thinking about the shaggy beast brought a smile to my face.
“Daemonica. Daemonica,” Jack murmured to himself. “Why do I know that name?”
“Monica Fuller.” That was the name that made headlines.
A woman found handcuffed in a basement in New York City, with a belly full of her latest victim’s blood, and enough evidence to send her away for life.
Years later, the thought of her exsanguination setup still gave me chills, and an unnatural discomfort around dental chairs.
“You—”
“I thought you would have known all about it with your FBI-sanctioned stalking and all.” I re-crossed my legs in the other direction, the springs in the cheap mattress wheezing.
“Investigating,” Jack corrected.
“Tracking.”
“Surveilling.”
“Ha!” I pointed at Jack before crossing my arms across my chest. “You said it, not me.”
“Surveilling and stalking are very different things.”
“Suurree.” I smiled. “Care to explain how they are soooo different?”
We both looked to Todd, hoping he’d choose one of us to back up, but he shrugged, “Go on.” Which at least meant Jack was on his own.
“Stalking is unsanctioned.” Jack ran another hand through his hair.
I wasn’t used to seeing him this flustered over something so trivial.
It must have been from lack of sleep. Part of me wanted to run a thumb over the knot between his eyebrows to smooth out the tension, another part of me enjoyed seeing him out of his element.
“We had approvals to surveil, and our time was paid.”
My body rejected the idea of sitting still any longer, it itched to move, so I uncrossed my legs and started bouncing on the bed, like I was testing the springs. “Sounds the same to me.”
My intent to lighten the mood was working.
Todd followed my bouncing, then averted his gaze. “Point goes to Delilah.” With an abrupt shove, he got off the bed and started fiddling with the coffee maker in the corner.
“See?” I beamed, still bouncing.
Finally, a smile cracked through Jack’s on-the-job demeanor, even though his words were all business, “We are getting way off track here.” The corners of his mouth twitched as he tried to regain control over his face.
It wasn’t working very well. “If there is something pertinent to a case, including your past connections, we need to know about it.”
Moving on from our discussion, Todd lifted empty mugs in a silent ask on whether or not either of us wanted coffee. While Jack accepted, I gestured my decline. “And I need to know if there are any more ‘no punching Todd while the ear pieces are on rules’.”
To be fair, Jack hadn’t been upset at the thought of me punching Todd per se.
It was having evidence I punched an FBI agent on record.
Which could be considered assault of a federal officer if it ever got pulled out of context and into the wrong hands.
So, we’d been careful to also catch on the record that, of course, I, Delilah James, had only been kidding about hitting Special Agent Galt, and would never consider harming a federal officer.
“I thought that was pretty self-explanatory.”
“And I thought it was self-explanatory that I had a life before the FBI was involved.”
Both amused and confused, Jack’s eyes tracked me as I bounced. “Having fun?”
“I’m being pro-active.” The agents exchanged a look. They had no idea what I was talking about. “I was feeling restless. Figured it was better to get it out before were left for Cincinnati.”
Jack took hold of the coffee Todd nudged in his direction, and watched me over the lip. “Eavesdropping? Or are you now planning to tell us that you read minds?”
It only made sense that we would be on the move after we gathered what we could from the vamps.
Lenore’s willingness to share whatever we needed, including video footage, meant Huntington was tapped out.
For now. This freed us up to unpack what was found with the other agents, while continuing to collect evidence where the murders took place.
“Neither.” I hopped off the bed and padded across the floor to my motel room. “You two are just predictable.”
But what I couldn’t predict was how the agents were going to react to my other secrets—or surprises, as Todd had called them.
To reveal the matter involving Mads and the clues left by my brother, I’d need to pick my moment. It was no secret that both Jack and Todd had overprotective tendencies. And I wanted a controlled reaction.
Not an explosion.
?
Cincinnati was just like I remembered. Unremarkable.
It could have been anywhere in the continental United States—at least when talking about the skyline or navigating the streets.
Nothing stood out. But it still held a soft spot in my heart because of its food.
Chilli. Everywhere. Served on spaghetti? Yes, please.
“But there aren’t any beans in it.” Fawzy was looking at a takeout menu she picked up from the ‘local eats and activities’ display in the hotel lobby. And where we were staying was a hotel, with elevators and everything.