Chapter Fourteen
Salem, MA
Lurking
Another One
For the two Marines, it had been a long night, but then again, Maura and Jagger were accustomed to long nights where they wandered around in the dark to play all kinds of games. This was just one more adventure for them.
With different locations given to them by Oracle, all they had to do was scope them out, see if there was anything wonky, and go from there.
If the psychic was homing in on those places, one would think she had a reason why. Mostly, the static had given her them with good reason.
Only, nothing was panning out.
As of that moment, they were six places down, and there was nothing odd at any of them.
Not.
One.
Thing.
Each place had inhabitants, but the women in the locations were all fine, alive, and doing well.
So far.
Tonight, if she didn’t have more addresses, they’d be revisiting each one of them to see if that had changed.
What they’d hoped was that this would be a ‘caught in the act’ kind of a deal, and they’d put a bullet in this person, but that hadn’t happened.
Unfortunately for Avalon, and the rest of the team, they weren’t going to have any good news for them.
And that sucked.
All night, Salem had been quiet. They’d been the only people creeping.
Now, as for the place in general…
Well, it was a weird-ass place, that was for sure, but there wasn’t a killer on the prowl. They’d seen witches walking around, some guy dressed as Baphomet, and even a Dracula.
For this time of the year, it was bizarre seeing people play dress-up when Halloween was not even close.
Now, with one address left, there was no doubt this was going to be a bust. Maybe Oracle had missed the mark, or the voices were off.
“I kind of like the vibe here,” Maura said, as they sat in one of Lucian’s vehicles. “It’s bizarre, but it looks like fun.”
Jagger actually glanced over at his wife and stared at her like she’d said something so weird that his brain was struggling to process it.
“Pardon?”
She laughed.
“I said I think I like it here. Imagine being able to go to school dressed like a witch, and no one questions it.”
Oh, sane people definitely questioned it. That his wife wasn’t, told him that she was bone-ass tired.
That had to be it.
As someone who grew up in this area, running around in Boston, Salem was a very familiar place to him. He was accustomed to the crazy, but that didn’t mean he wanted to live smack dab in the middle of it.
Their lives were bizarre enough.
He was compelled, so Jagger shared a little about his past.
“My mom brought Jaxon and I here growing up. We’d come here every Halloween, and we’d have a good time. It’s definitely an acquired taste. If you don’t like witches, woo-woo shit, and spookiness, this is NOT the place to come.”
Well, she loved Halloween.
To be honest, it was her favorite holiday. She was a big proponent of getting candy for dressing like a zombie. That was just fun.
Maura watched a woman, who was dressed like a witch, walk down a sidewalk not far from the house they were sitting in front of to watch.
“Yeah, I could live here.”
Jagger laughed.
And laughed.
And laughed.
“Well, I have bad news for you, Doll. Mikey O’ can’t be this close to Boston without it going to Hell in a handbasket.
Greyson and Emma Croft have this area. Plus, it would put all the other mob minions in a panic if they knew I was even within a hundred miles of Boston.
We don’t need a mob uprising where chaos ensues. ”
Yeah, she was aware.
Still, she could do Salem.
There was nothing more she’d love than to dress Dianna and Michael in Halloween costumes and take them trick-or-treating in a place where they would be safe.
Instead of going there, she focused on the house.
“It’s not like Avalon to be off,” she said. “I remember her nailing it every single time when we worked with her. She has to be tired.”
He shrugged.
“I mean, maybe one of the houses we watched were supposed to be targets. We aren’t exactly blending in here, Mar. We’re sitting our Marine asses in a luxury sports car, on a street where people can see us. This isn’t exactly laying low. If we have to go out tonight, we’re ‘borrowing’ a car.”
Yeah, he had a point.
It was daylight, and they were sitting on the side of a street where people were coming and going.
It was wild that her Hummer, even if it was all tricked out, might just blend a little better than this sports car.
Jagger glanced at his watch.
“We need to move. What’s the plan, Major?”
Scanning the street, she came up with a way to get up close and personal with the address.
“Let’s give it a walk around. The house next door is for sale, and we can pretend we’re checking that out with the intent of buying it.”
Jagger could do that.
It was a weekend morning, and while there were people out, there weren’t many people around. Since this was the last place, they’d get it done and get back to Lucian’s to sleep for a few hours.
Then, rinse and repeat.
To get ready, they pulled off their guns and put them in the armrest between them.
Then, they headed out, walking down the wrong sidewalk to make it look like they were after one of the sales brochures in the box by the front of the house.
Then, they began moving down the side of the house, Jagger looking at the foundation, and Maura checking out the other house on the DL.
“Anything?” Jagger asked.
She played the role.
“Nothing, Honey,” she said. “The flower bed is so pretty, and I could definitely live here. I can see myself baking bread in the kitchen and hanging laundry on the line.”
It made him laugh.
How could it not?
That was the furthest from their lives, and honestly, that shit would bore his wife to death. She liked guns, knives, and action.
Hell!
She drove an armored Hummer and killed people for a living. Bread baking would keep her interest for about three point two seconds.
As they got to the back of the house, there was a fence running down the middle between the two properties, and the whole back yard of both houses was covered by trees.
They needed to get a look into the back yard, so Jagger jerked his head and held out his hands. When his wife put her boot into his interlocked fingers, he boosted her up.
The second he did, she saw it.
“Uh-oh,” she said.
Yeah, he didn’t like that. Uh-oh from the Major was ALWAYS a problem.
Without.
A.
Doubt.
It normally meant something was about to go sideways and right to Clusterfuck-ville.
Population them.
In NOLA, she said it a lot.
“What do you see?” Jagger asked, holding his wife up so she could be his eyes.
She told him.
“We have a dead woman hanging from one of the trees back here. She’s swinging in the breeze, and it looks like her neck is broken.”
Well, shit.
He took it back about Oracle being off.
The voices in the static nailed it again. It appeared they found the next victim. So much for a quick trip back for a nap.
Lowering her down, Jagger normally would have gone over to check, but that wasn’t feasible. It was daylight out, and if they got caught…
Yeah, the last thing he needed was his face on the news in this part of the country.
Again, there would be chaos from Boston and the mob families who lived there. He’d not announced his arrival, and that was bad practice when heading into someone’s mob territory.
UNLESS you were planning on causing trouble.
“We gotta get out of here,” he said, and Maura agreed with him.
“I know.”
Casually, they strolled back around the house and made it look like the plants around the front porch were vital to look at before they headed out.
The whole time, Maura fussed with the greenery, and Jagger talked about the grass.
Just in case any of the people walking by paid attention to them.
When they finally got back into the car, he turned it on and pulled away from the curb. Neither spoke until Jagger pulled down the street, getting them away from the place.
“What do you want to do?” Jagger asked. “Because it looks like Oracle was right again.”
Yeah, why did they even doubt her?
That was crazy work.
“Get us out of here, and I’ll make a call to Bishop. She’s a cop, and it looks like they’re about to be busy with a crime scene. This is their circus, and their rodeo. We’re off duty until tonight. We did the first part of our job. We found a body.”
Yeah, that seemed to be the norm for them. Dead bodies tended to turn up wherever they were.
As for being off duty…
Later, who the hell knew what tonight was going to bring?
Certainly not them.
Luckily.
* * * L I T T L E M O O N * * *
Meeting
Doctor Leon Kenyon’s Office
Saturday Morning
When they arrived, both Bishop and Honor were waiting for company because they were NOT doing this interview alone.
Normally, they’d skip the psychic intervention in lieu of good, old-fashioned police work, but in this case, with so much on the line, Honor was willing to make an exception this one time.
Yeah, it was bad if that was happening.
In situations like these, when in doubt, call in someone who specialized in bullshittery.
EVERHART ROSE.
What they definitely needed was their walking lie detector, since there was the distinct impression that the bullshit would be flowing with this interview.
How did they know?
Oh, call it a hunch.
If the man was having sex with one of his patients, they were pretty sure he wouldn’t mind stooping to lying to the cops during an investigation.
That would be the least shocking thing that happened in this case. There was no doubt the man was going to lie his ass off to not lose his license.
Only, someone was about to be out of luck.
When a familiar Lexus pulled up, and Hart got out of it, they knew he was ready to work.
He was in a blazer and had sunglasses on. The man looked every inch a cop, since he’d been one.
As he vacated his ride, the ladies did the same.
Immediately upon reaching them, he hugged them both in greeting.
“If it’s not my two favorite detectives in the whole city,” he said, grinning.