Shifting Shadows

“Right,” I told George. “He’s got another victim.” I gave him the name of Nyelund’s receptionist. “These files you don’t have,” I told him, giving him copies I’d made in the office. “Confidential lawyer/client/doctor stuff. They’ll show you what to look for—but I promised the victim they would be for your eyes only.”

I waited while he paged through Nyelund’s first wife’s medical files and transcripts of her therapy sessions. She’d given them to Kyle and then told him he couldn’t use them. I’d called her and told her about Nyelund’s little receptionist. It had taken me most of that hour I’d waited for Ben to talk her into it. She’d told me I could show George, but no one else.

He whistled through his teeth. “Poor kid,” he said. But he wasn’t surprised. He’d known what the case was about, but Nyelund’s ex-wife’s refusal to bring charges against him had tied his hands. It was the details that were new to him.

“He’s got a bunker, a secret room,” he said, sounding like a kid in a candy store. Secret rooms were pretty easily sniffed out if the one looking happened to have a wolf’s sense of smell. “And he likes to film things. Illegal things. How helpful of him.”

“Is it useful?”

“I need a reason for the search warrant.”

I gave him a thumb drive. Nyelund thought his guard dogs would keep people from taking photos through his window. Guard dogs don’t bark at me if I don’t want them to, and Nyelund had been too occupied to notice me. His lights had been on, so I hadn’t even had to use a flash. My camera had helpfully recorded the time and date.

I tapped the drive. “You’ll find the photos on that good for probable cause. You can even give my name as the photographer. I’m a private detective and I was sent out to take photos of this guy’s wife, only I got the address wrong. When I realized what I was taking photos of, I gave you a call.”

A snake doesn’t change his spots. It had been only a matter of time before Nyelund tried his tricks on a new victim. Kyle and I’d been keeping an eye on him, but we’d missed the receptionist. Ben said she’d been working for him for about two months—right after she moved to the Tri-Cities.

“She’s seventeen,” I told him.

George grinned at me, his eyes enraged. “Is she, now? And look at him with that camera. Wrapped up like a great big birthday present. Thanks, Warren.”

“Don’t mention it.” I tipped my imaginary hat to him. If Nyelund hadn’t been so obliging, I’d have resorted to being a credible witness, but this was better.

•   •   •

It was very late when I made it to my next stop. The back door wasn’t locked and let me into the kitchen. I waited a minute and listened. Only one person in the house, and that person was asleep.

I walked into the living room, toward the stairs that led to the bedrooms. I’d been thinking about this all night, and I still hadn’t made up my mind what I was going to do.

Instinct was one thing; proving what I knew was an entirely different proposition.

I’d planned on a little sleuthing and then interrogation—but then the lights of a car driving past illuminated the top of a curio cabinet where there were a bunch of photos. One of them caught my eye and I went over and picked it up.

I didn’t need the light to see it; one of the benefits of my condition is superb night vision. I stared at the photo of a pair of happy people for a moment, then replaced it.

I went into the bedroom and did what I had to do. Nadia didn’t even wake up when I snapped her neck. It was easier than snapping the neck of the zombie she’d made of the woman she’d killed.

I searched the room and found a few things. From the bedroom, I called Nadia’s great-aunt.

“You call me late, my little sticky bun. Did you find out something I can use?”

“No,” I told Elizaveta. “It was Nadia.”

“You are wrong,” she pronounced. “Nadia does not have the skill to animate the dead.” She’d always underestimated Nadia. Everyone had. Everyone but me.

“Nine thousand dollars was transferred into one of her bank accounts two weeks ago and another last week.” Ten thousand or over, and the feds start to pay attention. “Last year she made a hundred and ten thousand dollars; she listed her profession as artist. From her bank records, she made four or five times that much this year.”

Elizaveta would not consider Nadia’s profession as an assassin an issue.

“She worked exclusively for humans,” I told her. “She keeps copies of her contracts. Her employers all knew she was a witch. It was her edge.” That would be an issue. Mundane folks tend to get all frightened when they figure out they have monsters in their midst, and it results in things like the Inquisition and the witch hunts that wiped out the majority of the witch bloodlines in Europe a few centuries back.

“You are at her house.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Wait there for me. Do not do anything rash.”

I looked at Nadia’s face. “No, ma’am. I don’t do rash.”

•   •   •

I waited in the dark, sitting in the little rocker in Nadia’s room, until Elizaveta came in.

She stared at her great-niece for a moment and then said in a very chilly voice, “I told you not to do anything rash.”

“It was already done,” I informed her.

“It was my business to take care of,” she said.

“Folks think that your grandson is dead,” I told her.

I figured he wasn’t. Like I said, witches draw their power from suffering, from sacrifice, like Nadia using my blood to mend the window at Dr. Sullivan’s. I wasn’t providing Elizaveta anyone else to torture.

Elizaveta stared at me, gray eyes sharp as a harpy’s. Witches don’t have much trouble seeing in the dark, either.

“She moved against what was mine,” I told her. “That made stopping her my business. I’m a wolf, ma’am. Not a cat. I don’t play around with my prey.” I had liked Nadia, the Nadia I thought she was anyway. It was better that I killed her quickly.

I reached out and handed her the ring I’d found in Nadia’s jewelry box. “This is Toni McFetters’s wedding ring. When you put out the body for the police to find, it will cause fewer questions if she’s wearing that ring. The clothes she was wearing are in a paper bag in the closet—a pink running suit. Maybe she should die of natural causes. I’m sure you can figure something out.”