Sleepwalkers sanctuary, p.14
Sleepwalker's Sanctuary, page 14
Davyn didn’t say anything, appearing to be focused on the road.
Reg watched out the window a few minutes and then turned to look at him.
“Davyn?”
“That was no accident,” Davyn said, answering the question she hadn’t even gotten around to asking. “You need to be careful. Watchful and alert at all times, even in a public place like that. I didn’t think he would be so bold as to ensorcel you in public, but it’s clear he is just as obsessed with obtaining your powers as ever, if not more.”
“But why would he be? He’s the leader of the coven now. He is gaining control over the Witch Doctor’s powers. He can take power from other magical practitioners or objects. Why would he care so much about mine?”
“I don’t know. Without being a power drinker, I can’t put myself in his shoes. I can’t understand what he is thinking or feeling, and I don’t want to be able to. But you need to be more careful. More aware that… he may have other people helping him now.”
Reg took in a deep breath of the fresh air the AC unit was blowing into her face. “Why would anyone help him? They know what he is. No one who knew that would help him to… to hunt.”
“Don’t forget about his son. He has a clear ally in John, someone who would not shrink from helping him to feed his powers.”
“Except that John wants my powers for himself.”
Davyn shook his head. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. But the coven is also at Corvin’s disposal. He might not be able to tell them directly to help him with his hunt, but he can influence them without them realizing it. And he can lie to them, give them a logical reason to do his bidding.”
“Did you see who knocked me into the salsa tower?”
“No. I was there, but I didn’t have eyes on you at the time. I’m sorry.”
“What were you there for? Were you watching me?”
“I was restless. I felt like I needed to get out. I was drawn to the store and its festivities and thought it would take my mind off things. And then… there you were, and I decided I might as well keep an eye on you and ensure you were okay.”
So did that mean that he had gone there to watch over her or not? Reg couldn’t decide.
“I thought you had work.”
“I did. But I can take a break, run some errands, visit a client, whatever is necessary.”
And he had felt it necessary to go to the Salsa Day festivities at the grocery store. Or had felt drawn toward Reg.
“You think other warlocks in the coven would help him as long as they didn’t know why?”
“Somebody did. I don’t think they could be easily talked into doing anything that might be considered harmful or would encourage him to steal the powers of another. But it wouldn’t be impossible. Many of the lower-level members of the coven are… too naive or easily influenced.”
Reg thought about it the rest of the way back to her house.
“Are you going to go back there?” she asked Davyn when they arrived at the front of Sarah’s property.
“Back to the grocery store? Probably not. Why? Do you need something?”
“No. I just wondered… if you had unfinished business.”
He glanced at her and didn’t confirm or deny the possibility.
When he had been the leader of the coven, it had been his responsibility to keep an eye on Corvin and make sure he didn’t try to do anything that went against the rules laid down for power drinkers. Now that Davyn was no longer the leader, he didn’t have to. But he also didn’t have to toe the party line and say that the soul-suckers had the right to follow their nature as long as they operated within those guidelines.
It would be interesting to know what his real thoughts were. How his opinions were developing now that he was no longer constrained by the role of the coven leadership.
“Just be careful,” Davyn warned. “Stay alert. Don’t… be the victim of any more accidents. Use your powers wisely.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Reg didn’t have any time to worry about Corvin or the other members of his coven causing more trouble with her, since she had clients coming and needed to focus on her commitments. It wasn’t easy to do psychic readings or other work when she was already exhausted by everything that had happened. It had been a long day. She had to rely more on her ability to cold-read clients than on getting into their heads. It was less effort to look at the surface and do all the tricks professional psychics employed. Asking leading questions, making educated guesses, making the occasional wild leap of logic to anticipate what a client needed to hear.
They wouldn’t know the difference, and she would make it up to them in the next session.
The following morning, Reg was surprised when she looked at her phone that she didn’t have any messages from Marta. Marta tended to text or call Reg in the early morning when she was bound to be in bed, rather than in the afternoon, when she would be clear-headed and ready to work. But for once, there was nothing from her, even in the middle of an active investigation that Reg had been asked to consult on.
Reg had left her a message, and Marta still hadn’t called her back.
She had her morning coffee and fed Starlight. After eating, he sat staring at her as if waiting for her to do something. Reg cocked her head at the cat. “What? I don’t have anything to do until this evening.”
He gazed at her steadily. Reg ignored him and sat down with her phone to browse through her social networks and video feeds to see if anything significant had happened while she had been asleep. Apparently, the world was still running without her intervention.
But she saw from a local feed that there had been another attack at the harbor. She watched the newsreel, frowning and trying to get as much as possible from the sparse information they shared. According to the reporter, “the police could not be reached for comment.” While it wasn’t likely they would give much information to a reporter while they were still trying to figure out what was going on and how to catch the culprit, Reg thought it was off that there had been no contact with the police. Not just “No comment” or “This is under active investigation” but “Police could not be reached.”
She switched to her phone app and touched the entry in her favorites for Detective Marta Jessup.
It rang a number of times before going to voicemail. Reg tapped the back of the phone, thinking about it. Of course if Marta were busy investigating the latest attack, she might be unable to take Reg’s call. But Reg would have expected Marta to at least return her call from the day before in the hopes that she had found out something more about the withered paw.
Reg shuddered at the thought of it. It was still lying on her coffee table, and Reg wanted someone to come and take it away. She was glad it was in a bag, but she didn’t want to look at it at all or for it to be there in her house. She didn’t want such an evil thing in her home.
Starlight jumped up on the couch behind Reg, startling her.
“Oh! You scared a year’s growth out of me, you silly cat! What do you want?” Reg scratched his ears and chin, murmuring to him. Starlight rubbed against her hand and face and made a few murp noises, encouraging the attention.
“What should I do about Marta?” Reg asked him. “It seems strange that she hasn’t called me at all, doesn’t it? She didn’t return my call or ask if I’d figured out anything else. She didn’t call me before I was awake this morning, expecting me to fill her in on the latest gossip. Just… nothing.”
Starlight purred and made agreeable noises. Reg sighed. “I am just worried something might have happened to her. You don’t think anything happened to her, do you?”
She wanted him to tell her no, to send her soothing thoughts and feelings. But he didn’t. Reg couldn’t fight the growing sense of unease. Her stomach hurt and felt sick at the same time.
Reg wasn’t responsible for keeping track of a law enforcement officer. Of a grown woman. Yes, she and Marta had eventually become friends, but that didn’t mean that Reg was responsible for her friend’s movements and well-being.
No matter how much Reg tried to convince herself it was true, she couldn’t. She searched the web for the main number to the Black Sands police department, deciding to start from there.
She bounced around a little to start with. The phone operator put her through to Marta’s line, which Reg already knew she wasn’t answering. The operator said she couldn’t give out any other numbers or information about an officer’s location or well-being. That Reg would just have to wait for a call back from Detective Jessup.
“I think something is wrong,” Reg pressed. “She’s not answering or returning calls. I’ve been leaving her messages for twenty-four hours. She hasn’t been in touch at all, which is really unusual.”
“I’m sure she’s just busy with the cases that are under investigation,” the operator assured her. “She will get back to you eventually.”
“Can you look at her on the computer and tell whether she has checked in at all over the last twenty-four hours? If she’s investigating someone and doesn’t ever check in, isn’t that kind of suspicious? Don’t you want to make sure that everything is okay?”
There was a sigh and hesitation from the operator. She tapped away at her keyboard, maybe looking to see when the detective had last checked in, as Reg had asked. Maybe doing something else like looking Reg up in the system to see how much of a pain she had been in the past and whether she had a criminal record. Reg tried to send positive feelings over the airwaves to Marta and the operator, hoping she would find out that everything was a mistake and Marta had just been out of the calling area while she investigated someone who lived outside the jurisdiction. There were a lot of dead spots in the woods.
Eventually, the operator changed her tune. “I’ll put you through to Detective Jessup’s sergeant,” she said. “He’ll be able to give you a better idea of when she might be available to talk to you.”
“Thank you!”
She listened to the phone ring again and hoped she would not end up in the sergeant’s voicemail. Then what was she going to do? Leave him a message? Or look for a way to make a bigger stink so that they would pay attention to her?
“Sergeant Pitts.”
“Oh, hi.” Reg scrambled, trying to think of the quickest way to get to the point and make Pitts understand that something might have happened to Marta and she was really getting concerned. “I, umm… my name is Reg Rawlins, and I’m…”
“You’re one of those crazies,” Pitts said flatly. “A psychic.”
“Well… yes, that’s me.”
“Detective Jessup may see some benefit in retaining outside consultants like you to see what shakes loose, but that is not my preferred modus operandi.”
“Uh…”
“I’m not interested in any predictions or offers of what cases you could help me solve. That’s Detective Jessup’s purview.”
“Umm, well, that’s the thing. I don’t know where she is. I’ve called and left messages for her, but she doesn’t get back to me. She hasn’t, I mean. Usually, she does, which is why I am getting worried…”
“She has a lot to do with this investigation. I would suggest you wait until her time constraints ease up again.”
“It’s about that case, though, and she hasn’t called me back.”
“Maybe she’s come to her senses.”
“Is she there? Does she work in a bullpen where you can actually see her?” Reg went with the way she had seen homicide departments portrayed on TV, since the police stations she had attended over the years never actually looked like that.
There was silence for a moment, and then the sergeant made another dismissive noise. “Look, Ms. Rawlins—”
“I’m not crazy, and I’m not making psychic predictions. When was the last time she checked in with you? Or reported to you? Whatever it is that they do. Has she given you an update since early yesterday morning?”
“You sound like you’re fishing for information on the case.”
“No, I’m not. I just want to know that she’s okay. That she’s safe and everything is fine.”
“She’s fine, Ms. Rawlins.”
“So you have talked to her. Is she there now?”
“No. She’s off. Getting some shuteye. She probably has her ringer turned off, so just leave your message for her, and she will get back to you when she is up.”
“I’ve left messages already. Is she at home, then? Sleeping? Not just in a room over there at the police station?”
“At home,” Pitts agreed.
“Did she investigate the attack last night? I saw it online. She must have been pretty upset that there was another attack. Was it similar? Was there anything left at the scene?”
“She was not available last night.”
“She wasn’t on? Then why is she sleeping now?”
“She was exhausted. Sometimes investigators try to put in too many hours and forget that they’re not superhuman. I sent her home and told her not to come back until she was fully rested and able to focus on the case.”
“When was that?”
“Ms. Rawlins, it’s really not any of your business. She will be back on shift when she is able. Until then, let her get the rest she needs. This case has been taking a lot out of her.”
Reg could imagine Marta spending too much time on the investigation, skipping sleep for a day or two, wolfing down a sandwich in her car now and then, trying to chase down all of the clues she could, to interview all of the witnesses, looking for the minutest details that might have been overlooked.
“Was she able to talk to any of the witnesses in that case?” Reg asked. “The victims? She had more questions for them, but they weren’t returning her calls. She couldn’t get them.”
“Unfortunately, that is the way of the world, as you are finding out. I’m sure everything will be sorted out soon. Detective Jessup will get back to you in time.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Reg felt restless and did not want to be stuck in the cottage all day. On the one hand, it felt unsafe going out anywhere after her experience at the grocery store but, on the other hand, she couldn’t stand being cooped up and not seeing anyone except Sarah or her clients. Starlight was good company and she could have called on Harrison to see if he would appear, but she wanted to be with human beings.
Or at least around them. She wasn’t sure she actually wanted to have to talk to any of them.
Eventually, she decided that she had to go out. A little jaunt over to The Crystal Bowl for coffee and lunch—though it would count as her breakfast—was just what the doctor ordered. She could get out of the house and be around others without actually having to engage.
All went well, until, sitting at the bar, she turned to look at something that caught her eye outside, and saw Wilf standing by her car.
And he wasn’t just standing by it. He was looking around it carefully, touching it, looking underneath the car and, while she watched, he opened the hood, which Reg thought could only be done by releasing the latch from inside the car. She waved at Bill, the bartender, to make sure he saw her put her payment down on the counter and then hurried outside to confront Wilf.
It wasn’t unusual for him to be around cars, of course. He was the used car salesman who had sold Reg her car. He had a gift for understanding what a client wanted or needed in a car and was able to put them into one that fit them like magic. And the magic didn’t wear off and turn the car into a pumpkin—or lemon—when the buyer got home. It seemed to just keep on working.
“Hey!” Reg shouted as she marched up to her car. “What are you doing?”
Wilf turned toward her, a smile on his face. He beamed at her from underneath his bushy white mustache, not seeming to notice her confrontational attitude.
“Ah, Reg,” he greeted, holding out his hand in greeting. Reg automatically raised her hand, even though she had no intention of shaking with him, and he took her hand and pumped it vigorously up and down. “Good to see you, good to see you. I just saw this little lady here,” Wilf patted the car affectionately, “and I had to see how she was doing. Still behaving for you? You haven’t run into any problems?”
“Yes… the car is still just fine. What are you doing here?”
He indicated the car. “Just checking in. Following up on your purchase.”
“You can’t just come over here and pop the hood and start… inspecting my car.”
“Oh.” Wilf sobered. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to cause any offense. Would you like to bring her into the shop, then, and we can have a quick look to make sure everything is in working order.”
“Uh… no. I told you, everything is fine. I don’t need you to look at anything.”
Reg tried to put herself between Wilf and the car, though she wasn’t sure why she bothered. He wasn’t going to do anything to sabotage the car right in front of her. And if he did, it wasn’t like Reg would be able to recognize what he had done.
But Wilf was in Corvin’s coven, and she couldn’t trust anyone in the coven. She had to assume that he would do something to harm her or the car if given the chance. Who knew what Corvin may have influenced him to do?
Wilf frowned, his bushy eyebrows almost meeting. “I just want to make sure that you’re happy with your purchase.”
“I’m happy with it. You don’t need to keep following up. Everything is good.”
Wilf reached up and shut the hood, pushing it down so it clicked snugly into place. He gestured toward the front passenger seat. “I noticed some scratches on the interior door panel. If you like, we can buff those out for you.”
Ember. There was no point in buffing them out until Ember was too big to fit into the car anymore, so he wouldn’t be making any more. Then they could fix the damage he had caused. It was like having a great big puppy.
“I’ll get back to you on that. There’s no point in doing it yet.”
“You don’t want to let things go,” he warned. “You take care of your car, and your car will take care of you.”
