He didn’t outweigh her by a hundred pounds. Seventy, maybe, and alas, not all of it was muscle. Abel Karonski looked like he’d been born middle-aged and rumpled. Rumpled hair, shirt, skin. The hair was brown and thinning on top, the skin was pale verging on pasty, and the shirt was white with a reddish stain not quite covered by his tie. Strawberry jam, probably. For breakfast Karonski liked to have a little toast with his strawberry jam.
She felt as much as heard his suitcase thump into the trunk. A moment later he slid into the passenger seat and slammed his door. “Any word on your mom?”
She shook her head and started the car.
“You want me not to talk about her?”
“I’m trying to keep all that stuffed away. Stay focused on the job. It helps if I can focus on the job.”
“Okay.” He patted her shoulder. Karonski wasn’t a toucher, so from him, that was a hug. “So tell me why you were thinking so hard you didn’t see me until I banged on the windshield.”
Lily put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb. This was made easier by the way Mike’s Toyota blocked oncoming traffic. “I finally noticed something. Maybe you already spotted it. All forty-six of our likely or confirmed victims are adults. Twenty have adult children. Twenty-two of them are fifty years and up. That’s almost half. In the general population, only one in nine people is over fifty.”
“Huh. That means something. I don’t know what, but something.” He chewed that over and nodded. “Schools. I didn’t see any mention of them in your report. Have you asked what grade school or middle school the vics went to?”
Excitement fluttered in her gut. “That’s good. That’s a good possibility. I’ve got some info on colleges, but they didn’t all go to college. We didn’t ask about lower grades.”
“You drive. I’ll call Ackleford.” He took out his phone. “We headed to the Bureau’s office?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I need to let you know that . . . Ackleford. This is Karonski. I’ll be there in fifteen or so. I know you can’t wait to see me again, but . . . heh-heh. Good to know you’re still the same shining wit I remember, though what you suggest is anatomically impossible. Listen, I’ve got something for you to do to fill the empty minutes till I get there.”
Lily listened to Karonski’s instructions with half an ear as she began winding through the concrete maze that led away from the airport. After a pause Karonski shook his head and said, “My, but you do get cranky when you’re short on sleep. Just how short are you?”
She’d tried to send Ackleford home earlier. He’d waved her off.
“That’s what I thought,” Karonski said. “After the press conference . . . hell, yeah, I’m holding a press conference. One thirty. Ida’s arranging it, so you don’t have to sully yourself by talking to any damn reporters. Once that’s done, I’ll try to struggle on without you while you catch some shut-eye.” A pause. “Because I want you on nights, that’s why.” Karonski glanced at Lily, his eyes crinkling with amusement. “Because I’ve got other shit for her to do. Yeah, yeah, but I’m the son of a bitch in charge, so you’ll have to live with it.” Another pause. A chuckle. “You do that.”
“He wouldn’t go home when I told him to,” Lily said.
Karonski put his phone back in his jacket’s inside pocket. “You’re genetically compromised in his eyes, being as how you lack that magic Y chromosome. In spite of that, he damn near complimented you. Wanted to know why I didn’t leave ‘that Yu chick’ in charge nights, seeing that you’re halfway competent.”
“You actually like him, don’t you?”
“Smartest asshole I know. He’s pissed because he didn’t think of the age slant or about checking where the victims went to school. Made it hard for him to argue that he was doing fine on almost no sleep.”
“So why are you holding a press conference? The piranhas of the press haven’t tumbled to the story yet.”
“Two reasons. First, they’re tumbling, even if they haven’t put anything on the air yet. Ida’s fielding calls about that bulletin to the hospitals. Won’t be long before someone opens his big, fat mouth to a reporter. Second . . .” His voice turned grim. “We’ve got to. Your mom lost her memory back to when she was twelve. That’s the most years any of the victims lost, with the possible exception of the one who’s in a coma. Maybe that’s what went wrong with her. Maybe she lost too many years. Even if that isn’t what happened, what if there are others like her? We need people to check on their friends, their relatives, their neighbors.”
“Hell.” Lily’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “People who live alone. I didn’t think of that. I didn’t think.”
“Yeah, so take a good thirty, forty seconds and beat yourself up about that. Or you can do like Ruben and save it for a later brood, when you’ve got more time for that sort of thing.”
So Ruben hadn’t thought of the possibility, either. That was some comfort. But Lily knew she’d missed that horrible possibility because she was distracted. Because it was her mother who was the first victim. Her mother who’d lost the most . . . so far. “I’m glad you’re here. What did you have in mind for me, since you want the Big A in charge at night?”
“You tell me.” Plastic crinkled as he opened a pack of peanuts. “You’ve got your own investigation to handle.”
“Right now, I don’t have anything. Nothing the Bureau can’t do better and faster. The only angle I can see is to keep looking for what connects the victims, and that takes manpower. That’s the Bureau’s thing.”
“Guess you need some thinking time, then.” He crunched down on a handful of peanuts. Chewed, swallowed. “Heard from the coven yet?”
“They didn’t learn anything at the restaurant, which isn’t surprising. Whatever spell or rite caused this wasn’t performed there, so there weren’t any traces from it for them to find. They’re going to work with one of the victims, though. She’s Wiccan, so she isn’t weirded out by having witches chant over her. They hope to find out something about what was done to her. What caused all this.”
“You don’t sound hopeful.”
“If Sam doesn’t have a clue, is the coven likely to figure it out?”
“If this had been a magical attack, I’d say no. If it’s spiritual, like the dragon and Seaborne say . . . Lily, you’ve got to stop thinking of this the way you would a magical attack.”
“I don’t have a way of thinking about spirit.”
“Spirit is . . .” He flopped his hand back and forth. “It can be good. Can be evil, too. I’m betting this shit lands on the evil side.”
“Do you believe in evil?”
“Yep. Do you?”
“I don’t know,” she said slowly. “Evil like the devil? Not so much. Evil like some—some vile, insentient force? Maybe.” She thought about it. “Death magic. The way that feels . . . I guess I do think evil is real.”
“If evil exists, then good does, too.”
“Do we have to talk about this?”
“Yes. Have you thought about the fact that your Gift doesn’t protect you from spiritual energy?”
Her mouth opened. Closed. Her stomach went hollow. “No. No, I hadn’t thought of that.”
“You’ll need to draw on what you know about good to protect yourself. Religion is no guarantee of protection, but it helps. You don’t have a faith, a spiritual practice, so you need to think about what you do believe in. What you know in your gut about goodness.” He crunched down on another handful of peanuts. “Do dragons have a spiritual practice?”
“I—I don’t know. The subject hasn’t come up.” She thought that over, frowning. “Sam said spirit was capricious and personal and universal. That it was often spoken of in terms of good and evil. He said he couldn’t define it and didn’t understand it.”