Evidently Gibson agreed with me, and it made me think better of him.
“Does Alex know about your condition?” I asked him.
“No. I haven’t told anyone here at work. They’ll find out soon enough. In the meantime, I don’t want their pity.” He gave me a dark look. “And I do not want to leave a big case open.”
“And you think I can help?” I deliberately kept my voice neutral, my expression pleasant but noncommittal. “What sort of case is it?”
He didn’t answer. “What do you remember from last night?”
“Not a damned thing. I’ve lost all of yesterday.” I sighed. “It was bats, so I’m assuming the attack took place after dark. And I’m still alive, so I figure it took place just a few minutes before my rescuers showed up. But those are just guesses based on logic. I’m a complete blank from yesterday morning until I woke up strapped to the zombie table in the university lab.”
He gave me a sharp look and I sighed. “I’m not lying. If only. I’ve been trying, struggling to find anything, but nope. Pisses me off, too.” Because those few missing hours were some of the most important of my life.
The stare he gave me seemed to drill into my brain. Finally he nodded. “All right.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a little black microcassette recorder. I wasn’t surprised he was using one. Recent rulings had caused evidence to be thrown out because digital recording devices were too easy to manipulate magically. So the cops were back to using old-fashioned tape. Flipping the switch, he set the recorder on the table between us before reaching for the remote and turning on the camera.
“All right, we’ll start at the beginning. With your permission, I’ll use a spell to prompt you on things that happened earlier in the day. We’ll stop at sunset, so as not to risk triggering any traumatic memories. But sometimes going through the mundane stuff first helps people remember more of the details of what happened.”
I nodded my agreement.
“This is Detective Karl Gibson, Badge Number 45236, Santa Maria de Luna Police Department. It is eleven A.M. on October 14.” I only half-listened as he droned on, giving all the details necessary to make the statement official. I’d done this before. I knew the drill. In just a few seconds he’d ask me to state my name, address, and whether I was giving this statement of my own free will and volition and giving him permission to use a spell to elicit memories.
I gave the appropriate answers. Slowly, patiently, he led me back through the previous day. I remembered a lot of it with crystal clarity. It was Vicki’s birthday and I had worked really hard to find her a superspecial present.
Good afternoon, Ms. Graves. If you’ll pull over to the guardhouse we’ll complete the inspection there.”
I recognized the voice coming through the speaker. It was Gerry, the supervisor of day shift security at Birchwoods. It was an executive position, and I imagined the pay was impressive. It should be. The people who checked into the facility were willing and able to pay exorbitant sums to make damned sure that no one knew they were here or why. In all the years the place had been in business, not once had word leaked about a celebrity patient—much to the frustration of the press, who hovered at the required legal distance from a psychiatric facility.
I slid my visitor’s card into my wallet and tucked the whole thing back into my bag. I heard the click of lock tumblers, followed by the buzzing of electronic equipment. A moment later the heavy outer gate rolled smoothly aside.
I stomped on the gas. The Miata positively leapt forward. I’d had it tuned up a couple of days earlier, and I still wasn’t quite used to the upswing in power. Still, it was better to move fast. I had forty-five seconds to get across the outer grid before the gate slammed shut. It took a manual override with a supervisor’s key to get the gate back open. I knew this because I’d been caught once behind a ditz who’d decided to rummage in her purse for something rather than drive on in.
I pulled the car into one of four spots in front of a small white brick building with a red tile roof. As I turned off the engine, Gerry stepped out the front door. I was surprised to see him on gate duty. Since his promotion to management, it was way below his new pay grade to be checking IDs. Still, there he was, big as life and twice as ugly. He was wearing an electronic device clipped to the waistband of his suit trousers, with a cord connecting it to the wand he carried in his left hand. Behind him was a woman in the standard navy and white security uniform. She wasn’t one of the regular crew. After all this time I know pretty much everyone who works at Birchwood, whatever the shift. And “Lydia” (according to her little brass name badge) wasn’t familiar.
She was a mage of some sort. I’d have bet on it. Their talents may not be as versatile or as dangerous as some of the other “gifts” but are by far the most marketable and easy to control.
I took a good look at her. Probably in her mid-thirties, she had dark hair pulled tightly back from her face to reveal strong bone structure made even more harsh by the lack of makeup or jewelry. It was the kind of face that would look better in photographs than in person.
The woman strode up to the passenger side, ignoring me completely. Her eyes were only for the packages on the front seat. Yup. Definitely a mage. She’d sensed the power emanating from them.
“I’ve cleared those with the management. They’re birthday gifts for Vicki. Since they’re glass, the administrator required I have them put under at least a level-five charm to prevent breakage.” She gave a slight nod but didn’t take my word for it. Instead, she withdrew a palm-sized object from the pocket of her uniform trousers and began running it over the outside of the package as she murmured words I couldn’t quite catch. Gerry, meanwhile, had been busy running the plates of my car and cross-checking them against the VIN number posted on the dash just inside the windshield on the driver’s side. Next he’d run the wand over me to check for traditional weapons and have me sign the visitor’s form with a silver pen—probably charmed to make sure I couldn’t forge someone else’s signature. The computer would then cross-check it not only against all of my other signatures but also against the file and the signature on my driver’s license. Last, but not least, I’d be checked for illusion charms and sprinkled with holy water to make sure I wasn’t a vampire playing mind tricks. This even though it was broad daylight and any normal vamps were still safely asnooze in their coffins, dead to the world.
We went through it every time. Well, most of it. Inspecting the presents was unusual but not unexpected.
Since I visit three to four times a week I’ve gotten pretty used to the whole rigamarole. Usually I even joke around with the guards. I know most of them by name and a little bit about them—from those times when I’ve been forced to wait on admission until after a group therapy session ended, or for whatever other reason. Today, however, everybody was acting grim and businesslike.
“What’s up, Gerry?” I asked softly, while the female guard went over the outside of my trunk. I wasn’t sure he’d answer, even if she couldn’t hear, but he might.
“We’ve had an incident.”
My eyebrows shot up in surprise. I mean, there are prisons and government installations that don’t have the kind of personnel vetting programs they put people through to work here. And I’ve never, once, seen any hint of anyone bending the rules, which is pretty impressive all things considered.
“What kind of incident?”
Gerry’s baby face hardened into harsh lines, his eyes darkening almost to black. I could see the sinews strain in his neck as he thought about it. For a moment, I thought he’d refuse to say, but he shocked me again.
“One of our guards was found murdered. His right hand had been cut off at the wrist. The body had been frozen, so we don’t know how long he’s been dead.”
My stomach clenched in reaction. I hated to ask, but I had to. There was a good chance it was someone I knew. “Who?”
“Louis.”
Shit. Louis, who had four kids under the age of ten, whose pictures he pulled out of his wallet every chance you gave him, so that he could brag about their latest report card, dance recital, or sporting event. Damn it.
“Julie had taken the kids to visit their grand-parents in Idaho for a week. She says they talked on the phone every night until Thursday. That night she got an e-mail that he’d lost the cell phone, so he’d be sending e-mails instead.”
“But I saw him …” I let the sentence drag off unfinished. It could’ve been him. Or not. He was night crew. But there aren’t a lot of creatures that can use magic and illusion well enough to get by. The ones who can often do fingerprints. But they can’t manufacture the oil in a human hand. Or DNA. Oh, shit. This was bad. And it certainly explained the extra searches and personnel shifts.
“Any idea why?”
He shook his head. “It could be anything. We’re talking high-profile, high-money people here. There’s plenty of folks who’d stop at nothing to get inside information.”
“And now somebody has.”
“Open the trunk please.” The mage’s voice cut across our conversation like a sharp knife. “I need to see inside.”
I started to open the car door and Gerry stepped out of the way. Normally, I’d stay sitting, but something about her bugged me. I didn’t like having her literally looking down on me. “I’m a professional bodyguard. My weapons are in the trunk. I lock them in there when I come to visit.” Also locked in the car was the specially cut black suit jacket I wear on duty. There’s magically charged Kevlar hidden beneath the silk lining. That jacket cost more than some of my guns, and I take very good care of it. I’d bet it was setting off all sorts of radar with her.
I stepped out of the car, standing with deliberate ease, leaving just enough room for rapid movement in any direction.
She noticed that, and she didn’t like it. She turned to me, cold blue eyes the color of a December sky taking in every inch of me.