Lida managed to give me a brave smile. “Thanks. I appreciate everything you’re doing.”
I nodded. “Be careful,” I said. Maybe with enough warnings and precautions I wouldn’t be back here to investigate another murder.
I turned and left without another word, haunted by the mental image of the singer lying twisted at the bottom of those stairs.
I walked down the driveway feeling wrung out and exhausted.
“Can you tell when people are lying?” I asked Knight as I reached my car.
He paused with his hand on the door of his vehicle and shook his head. “Not really. Sometimes I can get a feel for what questions to ask, that’s all.”
Well, that explained why he’d asked about Michael.
“I do think that Lida was genuinely shocked,” he continued, then he frowned. “But ...”
“But?” I prompted after a few seconds of silence.
He shook his head. “Dunno. She’s real worried about something or someone besides herself.”
“Probably her brother,” I offered.
He paused, still frowning. “Nah ... it was there when she was talking ’bout her uncle.” He shrugged. “I dunno,” he repeated. “It’s more of a feeling than something specific. Sorry.”
“It’s cool,” I assured him. “Thanks for coming with me today.”
The smile he gave me was warm and genuine. “It was my pleasure.” He paused and looked away over the lake. The sun shimmered across the water and I could hear the faraway buzz of a motorboat. “Sometimes it’s tough to tell who the bad guys are,” he said, voice oddly rich. “Evil is often a matter of perception.”
Gooseflesh crawled over my skin as I watched him. I’d used those exact words before to describe the demonkind. He continued to gaze out over the water, but his eyes were completely unfocused. “Even the most powerful get screwed,” he continued. “The world was at stake, and he had to make a terrible choice.” Knight was only a few feet away from me but there was something about his voice that made me feel that I’d be able to hear him speaking to me even if I was on the other side of the lake.
“Sometimes the punishment fits the crime far too well,” he said, then closed his eyes. An instant later he staggered, eyes flying open as he put a hand out to steady himself against his car.
His gaze snapped up to me, horror and shame warring in his features. “Kara ... I ...” He swallowed harshly. “I’m sorry if I said anything to—”
“What punishment?” I asked, blood pounding in my ears. “What did you mean? What was the crime?”
Agony rippled across his face. “I don’t know. Kara, I don’t even know what I said, I swear. I’m sorry. Please, believe me.”
I wanted to grab him and shake the answers out of him. He had to have been talking about Ryan. What the fuck had all that meant? His words were seared into my mind. Even the most powerful get screwed. Ryan?
But Knight looked like he was a hairbreadth away from a complete freak-out. It was such a divergence from his usual calm that it pulled me out of my own shock. “It’s all right,” I made myself say. “It didn’t really mean anything. It’s all right.”
Doubt shadowed his eyes, but the horror faded from his expression. He gave an uncertain nod. “I’m sorry. That hasn’t happened in a long time.”
“You okay now?”
He took a deep breath. “Yeah. I’m cool.” He opened his car door and I could see him pulling his mask on, the lazy smile slipping into place, though not fitting quite as perfectly as before. “Y’all be sure to keep me posted on the case, all right?”
I gave him the relaxed smile he needed to see. “You got it. Be careful driving back to New Orleans.”
He winked, then climbed into his car and drove off.
I waited a few seconds, then followed suit, his strange pronouncements still echoing in my head.
What the hell had all of that meant?
Chapter 25
Rain began to fall as I drove back to the other side of the lake, but to my relief this was a normal southern rainstorm—not an unnerving thunderstorm like the other day.