Vengeance of the Demon (Kara Gillian 7)

Pellini lowered his head and shifted his weight. “We wanted to check out a few things. Didn’t know you’d be home.”

Boudreaux stepped closer, jaw so tight the muscles on the sides of his neck stood out. “What things? Nothing for either of you here.”

I lifted my hands. “Look, maybe we shouldn’t have come here, but we did. We’ll go now.”

“No!” Outrage mottled his face with red and white patches. “You can’t just invade my home and la dee da waltz out again. You owe me.”

I met his eyes steadily. “I know what you want, but I can’t give it to you.”

He bared his teeth. “We’ll see what you have to say when—”

A horse neighed in the big barn, and he jerked his gaze that way. Catherine stood by the entrance, one hand shading her eyes as she watched us. “My mom. Goddammit. You talked to her.” Worry covered his anger. He tore off his helmet to reveal hair plastered to his head from sweat. “What did you say?” His voice shook. “Did you upset her? She doesn’t need any more shit.” Without waiting for a response, he took off toward Catherine at a jog then turned, eyes on me. “Get the fuck out of here.” He shot me the finger for emphasis before running toward his mom.

“Well.” Pellini grimaced. “I’d say that’s our cue to depart.”

“Boo ain’t happy, and I can’t say I blame him.” I struck out toward the parking lot with Pellini. “At least we didn’t say anything upsetting to his mom.”

“You hope.”

I sighed. “Yeah, I hope.” And I hoped the lead on the phone call would be worth antagonizing Boudreaux even more.

• • •

“Who do you know over at the Sheriff’s Office?” I asked after we were on the road again. I was on a first name basis with quite a few of the detectives there, but at the moment that meant absolute zilch. Even if I wasn’t currently a person of interest in a very high-profile active investigation, I was no longer a cop and therefore had no pull.

“I know a few guys over there,” Pellini said. “I think I can get a copy of the recording without too many questions asked. I’ll say it might pertain to the Amber Gavin case.” He scowled. “Not that it matters, right? If I try to build a case against the shitholes who raped and murdered her, it’d draw too much attention to the arcane side of things.”

I sighed. “Yeah, it would be risky. I’m sorry,”

He echoed my sigh. “It fucking sucks shit.”

Led Zeppelin came on the radio, and I waited for them to finish singing about the land of ice and snow before I spoke again. “Probably doesn’t help much, but Amber was murdered outside of Beaulac. Wouldn’t be your jurisdiction anyway.”

“Where?”

“Austin, Texas.”

He made a disgruntled noise. “Yeah. I hate working with out-of-state cops.”

We both knew it would never come to that, but I didn’t press the point.

“What do you know about Rob O’Connor?” I asked after another few minutes. “He’s the detective investigating me.”

Pellini considered carefully. “He’s a real straight arrow,” he finally said. “The Farouche case is a huge deal to him for obvious reasons.”

I understood that. This area didn’t get many murders, especially not one this meaty—prominent local businessman gets murdered execution-style and turns out to be involved in who-the-hell knows what. Any detective worth a shit would love to sink their teeth into an investigation like that.

“He’s a good detective,” Pellini continued, frowning.

“But?”

Pellini shook his head. “There isn’t a ‘but.’ Sorry.” He offered me a sympathetic look. “O’Connor really wants to close this case and find the shooter.”

In other words, the dude wasn’t going to give up simply because I refused to talk to him. Wonderful.

“Guess I should put his number in my contacts.”

Pellini snorted. “Not a bad idea.”