Belle's voice was dry and Aiden grinned. “Given the current situation, you might want to look into that when it comes to insuring the next one.”
I stepped back to allow him inside the café. His fingers lightly squeezed mine and then he walked across to the table where Belle was sitting.
I relocked the door then headed over to make him a cup of coffee. Once I’d placed the steaming drink in front of him, I pulled out the chair beside him and sat down.
“What's been happening since we last saw each other?”
He snorted softly. “Too fucking much. We're going to need more rangers if this pace keeps up. We're stretching both ourselves and our capabilities to the limits. Especially Ciara. She's got an assistant now, but I really think the council will have to employ a third coroner—and urgently.”
“It would make sense,” I commented. “And given we're in this situation because of the committee's actions, it's als
o only fair.”
A smiled tugged his lips. “That's something they're now more than aware of, thanks to both Ashworth and Monty.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Monty has said something?”
Aiden's smile grew. “Let's just say he more than amplified what Ashworth had already said.”
That surprised me, as Monty had never been one to rock the boat. But I guessed it had been a long time since we'd been at school together—things could change in a few minutes let alone over twelve years. I certainly had.
“Was the murder you and Tala were called to this morning another skinning?”
“No, thankfully. It was a fencing dispute that escalated rather abruptly, and wasn't actually a murder. One neighbor hit the other over the head with a star picket, split his head open, and knocked him out. The victim is currently in hospital under observation, but he's certainly not dead.”
“At least that's one bit of good news,” Belle commented.
“This time,” Aiden said. “But the pair of them have been at each other for years, and one day it will end badly.”
“Have you identified either of the first two skinning victims?” I asked.
“The body in the dumpster was Mrs. Dale, but the skin we found in there wasn't a match for her DNA.”
“Have you got a time of death as yet?”
“Sunday night. The accelerated rate of decomposition thanks to the heat has made it hard to pin down an exact time, but Ciara thinks it happened around eight.”
So just after dusk, then. “And the body in the forest clearing?”
“Belonged to a Marilyn Jones, who went missing a few days before Mrs. Dale. We haven’t yet got the DNA of the skin that was with her, but if it’s not a match for either woman, it means we have another body somewhere within the reservation.”
I grunted and glanced at Belle. “All of which are just more pointers to the fact that we're dealing with two entities rather than one.”
Aiden frowned. “What makes you think there's two?”
Belle quickly filled him in on what we’d discovered about soucouyants and then added, “Nothing I've found suggests the soucouyant is, in any way, a skin walker, which means it could be behind the death of Kyle Jacobson but not the skinning victims.”
Aiden scrubbed a hand across his eyes. “Do I need to ask what a skin walker is?”
Belle once again filled him in. “But if that’s what we’re dealing with here, then we’re obviously dealing with a very obscure branch of walker—one that actually steals the skin of their victims.”
Aiden picked up his coffee and leaned back in his seat. “Monty didn’t mention that possibility when we were discussing the situation last night.”
“Monty hasn’t the advantage of spirit guides.” I took a sip of coffee. “And it’s not like skin walkers are a common variety of witch here in Australia.”
“For which I'm extremely grateful,” he muttered. “I take it your books haven't much on them?”
“No, but that's not really surprising.”