He shrugged and put the car in gear. Just another twenty-dollar fare to him.
* * *
Unlike the first crime scene, this time there was no uniformed police presence, no warning tape. Just Prieto’s big brown car, a shining dark blue one beside it, and an empty parking lot with a thin line of trees at the back of it.
There was one lonely crime scene technician photographing the scene: Greg. I waved at him, and he looked over and nodded. He waved back before continuing to snap pictures.
Prieto looked me over as the cab that had brought me drove away. “Here I thought you and Toland were joined at the hip. That’s two times you’ve shown up without him.”
I avoided the whole topic of Andy Toland because it hurt too deeply. “Where are the other crime scene guys?”
“I didn’t call them in. Legally, the w
orst we got here is illegal disposal of a body, and nobody wants to waste crime scene dollars on this thing, not in a budget-cutting economy. Hey, Greg, hang back for a minute. I want her to get the full impact of what her damn witch friends did.”
Greg stepped back and waited, watching me curiously as I walked forward. I immediately identified her: the second victim. Her dark eyes were open, staring up at the clouds as they passed overhead; they had filmed over but hadn’t dried out completely. Her full lips were parted. She had a look on her face I couldn’t quite define—surprise, and something horribly close to relief.
She’d been happy to die, at the end. Happy the suffering was over.
I thought about the cash sitting in the bureau drawer at home, waiting for a trip to the bank, and shivered; that was blood money—no, worse than that. I could never bring myself to touch it again.
“This dump site wasn’t on the original case files. It’s new. He’s changed it up to reduce his risk, which means we’re screwed halfway to hell on stopping him unless you and the undead boyfriend run down that resurrection witch.”
“Andy has a name for you. He may have information about the killer, too.” I said. Standing there, staring at the torn evidence of another girl’s horrible, violating death made me angry at Andy, really and painfully furious. He could have confessed. Should have confessed. If he’d made the shells, he could have told me and Prieto about it, and immediately handed over the courier who’d paid him; that would have made it at least partly right again. I knew why he’d tried to go it alone … it was in Andy’s Old West nature. But it was wrong this time.
No. This … this was beyond wrong. There was no mending it.
“Holly?”
Prieto’s voice was quiet, and unlike his usual dismissive tone. It honestly seemed … compassionate. I looked up to see him standing on the other side of the body, watching me. Behind him, the tech was staring, too. After a few seconds, he went back to work, but Prieto’s focus remained.
“Something you want to talk about?” he asked. “I can tell by the look on your face that you’re hurting.”
I shook my head. I did want to tell him, I wanted to blurt it out and be free of the dreadful pressure of this secret, but I couldn’t. Instead, I dialed Andy’s phone again. Got voice mail.
In the background, as distant as another world, the click of Greg’s strobe sounded like the dry scrape of claws on cement.
“All right, but there’s something you’re torn up with guilt about. Something to do with Toland. What is it?”
Prieto was maneuvering me into talking, and he was frighteningly good at it. I could see now why he was such an excellent detective; he had a calm, gentle manner toward suspects, one that made me want to confide in him. Unburden myself and relieve the boiling internal pressure.
I sucked in a deep breath, turned, and walked away toward the street. I’d dismissed the cab, and now I was sorry I had; I’d expected that Prieto would offer a ride back home, or have one of the uniformed officers do it, but the last thing I wanted was to be stuck in a car with him now. I was frighteningly fragile, and he’d know just where to push to collapse my thin, wavering wall of resistance.
“Holly Anne,” he said from behind—closer than I thought he should be. “Is he off looking for the killer? Because that’s not his job. That’s mine. You have to tell me what you know. He could be in a lot of danger if he goes off and tangles with this cold bastard.”
Good. That came bubbling up from the black, angry depths of my soul, and I tried to push that down, tried to excuse it as temper. “He’ll be fine,” I said. “He’s strong.” God, I was so disappointed in him now. And angry. And frustrated.
And then I felt it.
My stride faltered a little, as if I’d hit an unexpectedly soft patch of ground, but it wasn’t a physical blow, it was a feeling that swept over me, like a stinging black rain.
Weakness. Disconnection. Loss.
I knew that feeling, I’d been dreading it all this time, every day, every hour. It was the other shoe dropping.
It was Andy Toland losing his iron-hard grip on life and sliding back into the darkness from which he’d come.
I stopped and wrapped my arms around my stomach, shocked by the depth of the desperation ripping through me. No, no, no … I wasn’t sure if it was me feeling that, or Andy, or both of us, a tangled knot of despair and pain and anguish. Oh, mercy, please …