The Fix Is In (Torus Intercession 4)

He muttered something in protest, but I didn’t catch it. What I did hear was his heavy breathing. I suspected that being stuffed up caused the light snoring, and I covered him with another blanket before I stood and left the room.

Once I walked around the small house, checking all the doors and windows again to make sure everything was locked, I called Owen. I needed to secure the house, and he needed to send me motion and vibration sensors.

“A portable home security system will do it,” he assured me. “I’ll figure out a way to get it to you by tomorrow.”

“Thank you.”

“So the paranormal investigator really is in danger?”

“Yeah,” I almost growled, because what the hell? Who in the world would ever want to hurt Benji?

“That’s good,” he replied.

“What?”

“No, I mean, not good that he’s in danger, but good that Jared didn’t make a mistake by sending you out there. You know how annoyed he gets when he’s wrong.”

“When was the last time he was wrong?”

“That’s what I mean,” he said, chuckling. “It’s so rare, but he still hates it.”

Between Owen’s hero worship and Benji being all flirty with me, I had somehow wandered into a horrible rom-com, and I had no idea how it happened.

7

Dix came by around six with a few of his people. It stopped raining long enough for them to look around the property, but the issue was all the prints were smudged, the ground was a soaked, soggy mess, and as he’d warned me it would be, the search was a bust. Even the exterior parts of the house where it was only damp, not soaked, had not a print to be found.

“I’m sorry,” Dix apologized, “but the problem is, this time of year the rain never lets up, which makes our job a crapshoot at best.”

I thanked him for trying, called Owen to find out if there was some kind of infrared something that could do anything in the rain, and he reminded me, in the patronizing tone from hell, that we had a lot of great tech, but this wasn’t Star Trek or an Avengers movie. There were limits, and rain was even worse than fire. At least in fire, depending on the heat, some things could still survive. With rain, everything got washed clean, and it wasn’t like the ground here would be dry again anytime soon. And then snow would come after the rain, so I was looking at summer of next year before the ground would be anything but slush.

“You’re not filling me with hope here,” I groused at Owen.

“Yeah, I know, and I’m sorry about that, but you gotta figure that your stalker knows all this. I mean, he’s not worried about walking right up to the house and peeking in windows. He knows he’s not going to leave prints.”

“Sure.”

“Which means he’s a local. I know you hate Deputy Gage, but maybe see if he’s got a shortlist of people he’s been looking at.”

As Gage had not, according to Sian and Delly, taken any of their concerns for Benji seriously, I doubted he had any list at all.

“It’s a good point,” I advised Owen, “but you also gotta think, maybe whoever this is, isn’t a local. Maybe they just don’t know shit about forensics.”

“And catching a glimpse of Mr. Grace, was the most important thing,” he concluded.

“Exactly.”

“That’s a horrifying thought.”

It was. There was a lot to consider.

Around seven thirty, I heard the toilet flush, and then the shower turned on, so I knew Benji was awake. I went back to flipping pancakes, having finished my conversation with Locryn—who I normally talked to every other day—fifteen minutes earlier. Weird that we talked more now than we did when we worked together. Somewhere between when he left, and when he invited me to his wedding, he’d told me to call, and I did. Now it was understood that the next person who had news, big or small, would pick up the phone. I counted on it now, using him as a sounding board, and I knew he felt the same.

It was probably going to be odd for Benji, breakfast for dinner after having pizza earlier, but I wasn’t a great cook, my repertoire was quite limited, but like most people, I could fry eggs and bacon, and my one specialty was banana pancakes. My mother always said if you could cook at least one thing well, people would think you were culinarily gifted as long as they didn’t see you every day. My mother was full of questionable words of wisdom.

“What are you doing out here?” Benji asked, walking into the room fifteen minutes later wearing a long-sleeve T-shirt and sweats, heavy socks, his hair still damp.

With his mane slicked back, all I saw were his bewitching turquoise eyes. I was rendered mute.