Rule wasn’t too happy with the sheriff himself.
The sifted light of dawn had already strengthened as summer blew on the coals of yesterday’s heat, ready to throw a new day onto the forge. Halo’s streets remained quiet, but were no longer empty. Rule passed a shiny Ford pickup headed the other way, its driver sipping Coke from a cup the size of a bucket of popcorn. A gray Suburban was backing out of the cracked driveway leading to a small frame house surrounded by mounds of hydrangeas, their bright blue blooms floating in clouds of green like flakes from a dandruff sky.
The Suburban’s movement startled an orange tabby, who streaked in front of Rule’s car. He braked gently. “Looks like Harry.”
“Hmm?” Lily had obviously been a thousand miles away, but she returned in time to see the cat attain the safety of the shrubbery on the other side of the street. “In coloring, maybe, but Harry wouldn’t panic and run in front of a car that way.”
“No, he’d park his ass in the street and dare me to keep coming.” Dirty Harry was Lily’s cat—or she was Harry’s person, to phrase things from Harry’s perspective. He was staying with Lily’s grandmother while they were away. Not that Harry and Grandmother got along, but Grandmother’s companion had a way with cats.
All sorts of cats. Rule smiled as he turned onto Sherwood Lane.
“I guess you were right about renting two cars,” Lily said, “though at the moment mine’s in front of the sheriff’s office. Are you going to need this one?”
“I suppose you need it.”
“Yes.” She ran a hand through her hair, looked down at herself, and frowned. “How do I look?”
“Lickable.”
Her eyes flicked to his, amusement swimming in their depths. No heat, but he heard the way her heartbeat kicked up. Her voice was dry. “Not the look I’m going for. I’ve got a meet with the DA—the one who’s been planning to make a name with this case.”
Rule understood the value of controlling the surface, creating a certain effect, so he gave her another once-over with that in mind. She was less correctly dressed than she liked, he supposed, having thrown on clothes for hiking through the woods: jeans, white T-shirt, black linen jacket, athletic shoes. No makeup.
Honey-and-cream skin. Black hair, shiny and smooth as if she’d just brushed it. Firm lips, unsmiling. Dark eyes that had pinned the sheriff in his chair when she stormed into his office.
What did she need with makeup? “Tidy,” he said. “Casual, but professional. And gorgeous. Is this district attorney male?”
She snorted. “No. Not that it matters, since I’m not vamping my way into anyone’s good graces. Even if I could, I wouldn’t.”
“Oh, you could. Why the DA first?”
“The arraignment’s today. I need to see her before that. Plus she’s arranging for me to see—uh, the suspect. The one they’ve locked up. I need an interview room, one where we aren’t separated by glass.”
“So you can touch him and tell if he’s tainted by death magic.”
“Yeah. Since it clung to the bodies this long, there must still be traces of it on him, too, but I have to check. Also . . .” She grimaced. “I’m going to have to talk to the veterinarian. The one who thinks I’m hiding an alien spaceship in the woods.”
“Why?”
“People don’t start working death magic out of the blue on humans. They practice on animals first, work their way up. I’ve got the office checking for reports of animal killings, but I’m not expecting much to come of it. Our practitioner would have to have been pretty obvious to tip his hand that way. But the vet’s the head of the local SPCA. He might have heard about pets going missing, that sort of thing.”
When Lily spoke of “the office,” she meant FBI Headquarters. “You’ll be busy, then,” Rule said, slowing. “Take this car and leave me your keys. If I need a vehicle before you get back, I’ll pick up yours.”
The house ahead on the right was a two-story frame structure, the siding freshly painted white, the trim dark green to match the shingles on the roof. An enormous oak in the front yard discouraged grass, but made a nice home for an old-fashioned tire swing. The long, shaded front porch held a pair of wicker chairs, a porch swing, and a red bicycle.
The look of the place had often been a comfort to him. Halo might not have been Rule’s choice for his son, but Toby’s grandmother had done her best to make a home for him. Rule pulled into the drive.
“What’s the plan?” Lily asked. “Are we going to stay here?”
“I don’t know.” Rule yanked the key out of the ignition, frustrated. He wasn’t accustomed to indecision. “I don’t know if it will do any good to move to the hotel. I need to talk to Toby and Mrs. Asteglio.”
“Hmm. Well, you’ve been playing footsie with the media a long time now. You’ll know how to handle them. Just let me know once you make a decision. Rule, when you nearly lost it with the sheriff back there—”
“I did not nearly lose it.”
“All right, when you persuaded Deacon you might lose it. Was the new mantle . . . ah, active?”
He looked at her, startled. “I don’t think so. I didn’t notice it, at least. Why?”
“You were different.”
“Different how?”
“If you’d told Deacon to go sit in the corner, he would have. He might not have stayed long, but he’d have gone.”
He didn’t enjoy having his mistakes pointed out. “I scared him, you mean. Until then he didn’t fear me.”
Lily huffed out a breath, impatient, as if he were being deliberately obtuse. “Rule, he’s an empath. His Gift’s blocked by a spell, but I suspect some stuff still leaks through. He didn’t fear you at first because you weren’t a danger. And I’m not sure it was fear that had him buckling under.”
Dryly he said, “It was fear I had in mind when I suggested he be quiet.”
“He’s former military, you know. Military police.”
“He told you that?”
“No, one of the pictures on his wall shows him in an MP uniform. Marine. What I’m saying is that I doubt he’d let fear freeze him that way.”
Rule had been in that office much longer than she had, and he hadn’t noticed the photo. But he was less visual than she was, and Lily had a cop’s habits. She noticed everything. “I worried you.”
“More like you turned me on, actually. But if the—”
Whatever else she’d meant to say was lost in his mouth. She tasted warm and welcoming, with hints of bad coffee and minty toothpaste. And what stirred in his belly and below had nothing to do with the mantles.
All too soon, she pulled away. Her well-kissed mouth curved in a smile. “Men are so opportunistic about sex.”
He sighed. “Not in Mrs. Asteglio’s driveway, I’m not.”
“Good point. About the mantle—”
“I know better than to call up the new one, Lily.”
“Okay. I have to go.”
“Yes. I love you.”
“Oh.” Her eyes softened. She touched his lips with her fingertips. “Love you. Now I’ve got to go.”
Moments later, Rule let himself into the silent house. Neither Toby nor his grandmother was awake yet, which wasn’t surprising on a summer morning just brushing up on seven a.m. Rule had an urge to go upstairs where he could hear his son breathing, watch him sleep in the twin-size bed that had held Toby’s dreaming self since he left his crib.
Watch him and worry, his wolf pointed out, about all manner of things he had no control over.
Well, wasn’t worry a parent’s prerogative? Still, he heeded the wolf this time, heading for the kitchen instead of the stairs. He’d brought some of his own coffee with him—already ground, which wasn’t as savory, but Mrs. Asteglio didn’t own a grinder, and Lily had rolled her eyes when he proposed bringing his.