Shadows (Bayou Magic 1)

“Can you look for a different time?” I ask her. “Maybe when he took her?”

She shakes her head mournfully. “She’s not showing me. She keeps showing me how she fell into the water. He dragged her by her arm. It dislocated her shoulder, and then he threw her over a railing into the water below.”

“So he lives over water?” Asher says. “This is new information.”

“I don’t know if he lives there,” Daphne replies. “But he’s definitely holding the girls there. Because he just dragged her from the bed, outside, and hitched her over the rail, like I said. She’s fading now.”

“Fading?” Asher asks.

“Her spirit is weakening. She’s leaving,” Daphne says. “Everything loses its intensity over time, especially people, although I’ve never touched a corpse before. I usually get my information from things. Tables, chairs, a letter, a child’s ball. I’ve never done this before. It feels like the end of a song when it fades away to nothing.”

“So interesting,” I whisper. “Thank you.”

“I didn’t do anything,” she says as she backs away from the body and accepts a towel from the ME. “But I do know her name. Kathy Sikes. She was a mother. On vacation with a girlfriend just before her thirtieth birthday. She lived in Chicago.”

“I’ll find a way to reach her family,” Asher says quietly. “We may have a missing person report on her.”

“You did a lot,” I inform my sister. “You just helped Kathy rest peacefully. That will mean a lot to her and her family.”

“I want to find this bastard,” Daphne says, her voice strong with conviction. “I’m sick to death of his bullshit. Of him killing all these women. And why? Because they look like you? It’s not fair.”

“No, it’s not,” I agree and wrap my arm around her shoulders. “I wish I knew who the fuck this guy is, so we could find him and stop him.”

We walk out of the morgue and take the elevator up to the first floor before stopping at the exit.

“I’m going with Daphne,” I inform Cash and lean in to kiss his cheek. “We’ll go find Millie. Daphne’s shields are down now, and we need to get them restored, and I’m going to read through Grandma’s book again. There has to be something in there that can help us stop this.”

“I’ll let you know when I’m done here,” Cash says. “And, Brielle, don’t you dare go back to work until I’m with you.”

“I promise, I won’t.”

Daphne and I leave the police station and turn toward Witches Brew.

“You’re going back to work?” she asks casually.

“I have to. I have to lure this fucker out.”

“That’s probably dangerous.”

We walk a full city block in silence before she speaks again.

“He doesn’t hate you,” she says, surprising me.

“Who?”

“The killer. He’s not doing this because he hates you.”

I stop on the sidewalk and turn to her. “How do you know that?”

“Because he touched her and I could feel that. He doesn’t think he’s acting out of anger. In fact, he loves you. Or at least he believes he does.”

“That’s beyond fucked-up, even for a serial killer.”

“Hey, I’m no profiler, and it was a super brief impression, but when he took her, when he touched her, he felt happiness. Affection.”

“I don’t have many men in my life.” The frustration hangs heavily in my voice. “I have Cash. That’s pretty much it. On a regular basis, anyway.”

“Well, he knows you. And, no, I don’t know how or why. If I did, I would have said so back there. It’s so damn frustrating.”

We walk into Witches Brew and stop short.

“You’re kidding,” Daphne says as a smile spreads over her face.

“A little help?” Millie asks, trying to control a coffee machine that seems to be going crazy, all by itself.

“What in the world?”

We hurry behind the counter and start flipping knobs and switches, but it doesn’t help. Finally, I crawl under the bar and unplug the machine entirely, and everything goes quiet.

“Thank you,” Millie says. She’s wiping her brow when I shimmy out and sit on my ass, right there in a puddle.

“What did you do?” I ask.

“It was just a little spell I’ve been working on,” she says with a shrug. “I thought it would be nice if the machine worked a little faster, but I must have said something wrong because—”

“Because it went crazy like something out of Beauty and the Beast?” Daphne asks, her hands on her hips.

“Well, yeah.” Millie sighs. “Sorry, guys. I’ll clean this up.”

“We’ll help.” I stand, and the three of us mop up the milk and water as Daphne and I fill our sister in on the happenings of the past hour.

“You’ve been busy,” Millie says softly. “I’m sorry, Daph.”

“It could be worse,” Daphne says. “I could have dead people following me around the city.”

Both of them turn to me. “How many now?” Millie asks.