Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 92996 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92996 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
I got off my bike and walked it between two homes, one a two-story Colonial Revival-style house, and the other a three-story Queen Anne. Using the kickstand, I left it behind a toolshed, and then Argos and I jogged from backyard to backyard until we got to Kathy’s, sticking to the shadows so no one would see us. Well, me. No one would care if a now Calico cat was wandering around. It was good he wasn’t black at the moment. With Kathy’s reputation as a witch, people might have talked if they saw him.
“Is that why you’re in disguise?” I asked him as I crouched down between a couple of arborvitaes and watched the firemen, happy that, even with the lights on above me, I was hidden in the darkness. “You don’t want people thinking you belonged to her?”
He didn’t meow or chirp or chuff, merely sat right beside me, tail swishing, looking around, clearly on guard.
“Are you scared of something?”
When he moved closer, rubbing his chin on my knee, I was almost sure I had my answer.
“What do you have to be frightened of?” It felt like I was questioning myself and not him. The shudder that ran through me was a surprise, as were the goose bumps that appeared on my skin. “And stop freaking me out. You’re not helping anything.”
I was seldom spooked, but I realized that my conversation with Thero earlier had left me on edge. It wasn’t easy to kill a nymph. Between their strength and their magic, they were considered quite lethal. That Nott had been bested and murdered was great cause for alarm. And now Kathy was dead. In a town where normally nothing happened to suddenly have two murders seemed wildly suspicious. Of course, I was the only one who knew there was more than one, and I needed to give Lorne that information as soon as possible.
Argos, a kitten now, leaped and perched on my shoulder, and that was the strangest part of all. He wasn’t afraid of anything, yet suddenly he wanted to be close, as if craving protection. That made no sense, so I crossed my arms in front of me, creating a cocoon against my chest to see if he wanted to be even closer. I wasn’t surprised when he crawled off my shoulder, retreating to the safest place on my body.
“You’re scaring me,” I informed him even as I saw Lorne striding from room to room, looking around, and saw the continual flash of the camera. Malcolm Schwartz, our fire chief, was there too, with six of his people. “Which isn’t helping even a little.”
When my phone buzzed—I had turned off the ringer when I left my bike—I nearly jumped out of my skin.
“Hey,” I croaked out, seeing Lorne’s photo on my screen. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I—where are you?”
“I’m outside. I know I can’t come in until Kathy’s gone.”
“Yeah. I just got off the phone with the new director of the Dunkirk Police Department’s crime lab. She transferred from Albany last month. Dr. Sophia Webb.”
Osprey’s influx of tourists had brought with it an increase in crime, so consequently, it had been determined that Westfield was simply too small to assist us. Instead, we were now paired with the much larger town of Dunkirk.
“When I explained to Webb that we’ve been transporting the dead to Westfield, she informed me that would no longer be standard operating procedure going forward.”
“Which means what?”
“It means that from now on, starting with Kathy, if someone dies committing a crime, or is the victim of a crime, she wants one of her two medical examiners to collect the body themselves.”
“I feel like that’s not terrible, and I’m thinking you’re okay with that.”
“I’m thrilled. That’s what I was used to when I was in Homicide. The ME was normally on site to give us their preliminary thoughts on the cause and time of death, and they made certain everything was gathered with the body before the evidence collection unit showed up.”
“And is she sending out a team for that as well?”
“Yeah. Whole group of criminalists are on their way.”
“You sound pleased.”
“I am. This is a great change for Osprey, and I told Webb how much my department, and the people in this town, appreciate her, her office, and her people.”
“What did she say?”
“I think she was expecting pushback because I guess she got some from Westfield, Mayville, and Portland, but here I am, over the moon to have backup.” I could hear the smile in his voice. “She asked me where I was from, and when I said Boston, I could tell she was happy to hear that.”
“Because you’re both from bigger cities, you get how things are supposed to work.”
“Exactly. We’re gonna get along fine.”
“Good. I’m glad.”
“It’s gonna make a night-and-day difference to figuring out who did this.”