Freaky Reapers (A Mystic Caravan Mystery Book 8) Read online

  “First, we have no proof he’s involved in this,” I reminded him. “We have a hazy memory from a guy who used to smoke so much pot Willie Nelson would’ve bowed down. I don’t know what the truth is.”

  “Then why are you so wound up?”

  “It doesn’t make sense. Shadow used to warn us away from Tawny. He said she was a bad influence. Why would he do that if he was partnering with her?”

  “You’re back to calling him Shadow?” Kade was exasperated. “Have you considered that Agent Stone didn’t want you hanging around her because he knew how dangerous she was? Maybe he was aware of something you weren’t back then and he was desperate to keep you safe because he felt as if he owed you.”

  “If she’s recruiting young women, why not us?”

  “You said it yourself. You saved him, Poet. He might not be a good man, but he obviously respects you. He would’ve died without your intervention. I think, no matter what, he’s obviously fond of you ... and not in the way I worried when I first saw you together.”

  “Oh, geez.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I can’t deal with this conversation now.”

  “Well, we’re going to have it.” He was firm. “I was jealous when I saw you with him that day. I remembered what you told me, and I couldn’t help feeling a twinge at the way your face lit up when you talked to him. I thought I only wanted your face to light up that way for me. It turns out I was wrong.”

  “You were wrong?”

  “Oh, you’re loving this.” He gave me a sloppy grin. “I was wrong. I want you happy no matter what. Even if, for some reason, your happiness isn’t tied to me one day, I want you to always be laughing and smiling. That’s what happens when you love someone. You want the best for them no matter what.”

  The emotion was naked on his face and I couldn’t help being touched. “That’s sweet.” I patted his hand. “But I can’t be happy without you. I’ve already come to that conclusion.”

  “Thank God.” He pulled me into his arms, causing me to chuckle.

  “You played that really smooth.” I tipped my head back to stare into his eyes. “I don’t love Logan the way I love you. I will always remember the things he did for us. If those memories are tainted now ... well ... I won’t be happy, but I will get through it.”

  “I know you will.” He kissed the tip of my nose. “I’ll stand by you no matter what. How are you going to lure him to the fairgrounds?”

  I had no doubt I could get him here. And I knew exactly how to do it.

  THE SAME POLICE OFFICER WAS sitting in the same unmarked car around the corner when I snuck up behind him. I was already weaving my magic when he caught sight of me in the rear-view mirror. Before he even opened his mouth, he was under my spell.

  I instructed him to call Logan with a tip that I was acting strange and had disappeared into the cemetery. Then, I waited near the mausoleums for Logan. I knew it was only a matter of time ... and I wasn’t disappointed.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked when he caught me sitting on the bench in front of the Grimlock mausoleum.

  “Thinking about the meaning to life,” I answered without hesitation.

  “Have you come up with any answers?” He slid into the open spot next to me. He didn’t seem agitated as much as curious.

  “Maybe.” I rolled my neck. “This is Lily Grimlock’s final resting place.”

  “I see that. Did you know her?”

  I shook my head. “No. But I’ve met her children. Well, I still haven’t met Aidan, but apparently he’s preparing for his wedding. I’ve met her other four children.”

  “I’m assuming the guy who was with you the other night was one of them. I remember the name.”

  “Yup.”

  “He’s not your buddy Raven’s boyfriend.”

  “Nope.”

  He shifted on the bench and studied my profile. “You seem agitated. Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

  That was a loaded question if ever I heard one. “What was your relationship with Tawny?”

  Whatever question he was expecting, that wasn’t it. Logan’s mouth dropped open as he incredulously stared. “What? Why would you ask that?”

  “Because I know that before she supposedly left the area — and I know for a fact she didn’t really leave — that she was meeting with you.” Technically I only knew of the one meeting, but he didn’t need to know that. “You warned us against hanging around with her, but you were having secret meetings.”

  His gaze hardened. “It sounds like you’re accusing me.”

  “I am.”

  “I see.” His tone was cold. “I thought you and I trusted each other. Granted, I knew there were still secrets — you’re the only circus I’ve ever seen that carries around empty animal cages — but I figured we were good on the big stuff.”

  Now it was my turn to be flabbergasted. “You ... we ... what?”

  We glared at one another, the atmosphere practically sparking.

  “Perhaps we should start over,” he hedged, backing down first. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I just meant ... well ... I know you’re not a normal circus.”

  This so wasn’t what I was expecting. “I don’t want to talk about the circus. I want to talk about Tawny.”

  “And I don’t want to talk about Tawny. I guess we’re at a standstill.”

  “We have to talk about Tawny.”

  “Why? She’s been gone for years.”

  “No, she hasn’t.” The fury that had been slowly slipping away returned with a vengeance. “She’s here. I saw her the night we arrived. She was directly outside this cemetery watching us. She has something to do with the banshees. I haven’t figured it all out yet, but she’s definitely involved.”

  “I don’t ... banshees?” Logan’s forehead wrinkled. “I don’t even know what I’m supposed to say to that. I feel as if I’m on one of those hidden video programs and Ashton Kutcher is going to hop out at any second and tell me I’ve been punked.”

  Wow. His television references were dating him. It was unpleasant.

  “You’re so old,” I complained, rubbing my forehead. “I need to know what your relationship was with Tawny. I need to know why you’re working with her. Most importantly, I need to know what she’s doing to those girls to turn them into banshees. She’s got another new one, Groove’s sister. There’s still a chance to save her.”

  Logan stared at me for a long time, his eyes cloudy and unreadable. Finally, he shook his head. “I think we need to start at the beginning because you’re not making any sense. Tell me why you think I have anything to do with Tawny.”

  There was no way I would turn on Gary. He’d built a wonderful life for himself. I wouldn’t risk that. “Suffice it to say that someone saw you with her years after I left but before she fled. You were arguing and she said you betrayed her.”

  Logan’s face turned a mottled shade of red. “Somebody heard that discussion?”

  I felt sick to my stomach. “You’ve been protecting her all this time. Why? She’s been dangerous for years. I mean ... she attacked Creek, for crying out loud. I know you didn’t know the others enough to care about them, but there was a time you cared about Creek.”

  “Hey! I cared about both of you.” His eyes flashed with annoyance. “As for Tawny, I don’t know what it is you want to hear. I wasn’t having an affair with her, if that’s what has you so worked up.”

  “Oh, yes, that’s it. I’m jealous. I had a crush on you when I was eighteen and I’m still harboring it today. I’m a silly female. All I can do is pine for you.” My tone was withering.

  “That’s not what I’m saying.”

  “Then what are you saying?”

  “I ... .” He trailed off and shook his head. “I can’t tell you what was happening with Tawny. I literally cannot tell you. I’ll be betraying my badge if I do.”

  He said it with such certainty it gave me pause ... and an opening. “Fine.” I wedged myself in his head with little
preamble, freezing him in place so I could look around without having to worry about him freaking out. It didn’t take long to find what I was looking for, and when I was finished, I felt like an idiot.

  “Oh, geez.” I slid out of his mind and rubbed my forehead, watching as he returned to reality. He seemed dazed. That was normal, given the invasive mind probe I’d put on him. “Tawny was your confidential informant. She was passing you information on the street because you were going to take down Groove.”

  Logan’s eyes went wide. “How can you possibly know that?”

  “I’m a world-famous mind reader. Don’t you know?”

  “But ... that’s not real.”

  “Oh, it’s real.” I felt shaky and queasy as I stretched my legs and stared at my feet. “Tawny was sharing information with you about Groove. In exchange, you were going to get her into a program and off the street. She was pregnant.”

  “She was,” Logan confirmed. “I don’t know how you know all of this, but ... whatever. She was pregnant and wanted a way to save her child. This … arrangement … was all I could come up with.”

  “You didn’t, though, did you? Save her child, I mean.”

  “No.” He looked sad as he shook his head. “Groove was the baby’s father. He found out that she was funneling information to me. I still don’t know how it happened. I only told one person and that’s because I needed help protecting her.

  “She was angry when she realized she would be removed from the street right away,” he continued. “She thought she had a few more weeks. I told her it was over, that she was going into the program, but she slipped out of the hotel I put her up in and went back to the street one last time.”

  “Did you ever find her?”

  “No. I figured Groove killed her and hid her body so well that we’ll never find it.”

  I thought about my trip through Groove’s head. “Are you sure he was the father?”

  “Why would she lie?”

  “Why does anybody lie? The thing is, Groove never showed any interest in her. I’m not saying he’s a good guy — not by a long shot — but I don’t think he killed Tawny.”

  Logan looked interested. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because he has protective instincts and I think he would’ve taken care of his own kid. That makes me think he wasn’t sleeping with Tawny. If he caught her and decided to off her, she would’ve used the kid as a bargaining chip to save her life ... and he would’ve at least waited. He might’ve killed her after the fact, but he would’ve saved the child.”

  “So ... what are you saying?”

  “I saw Tawny,” I reminded him. “She was standing outside this cemetery, staring.”

  “She’s dead, Poet. I would’ve seen her between now and then if she was still alive. She wasn’t the sharpest tool in the kit. She couldn’t keep hidden for years.”

  “She could if she was no longer human.” I was grim. “I’m about to tell you something you may not like, but it’s important. It’s also the truth.”

  “Is this about why you don’t have animals in your cages? I already know about shifters.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah. We know about paranormal creatures. I’m guessing you’re one. I always had a feeling it was possible.”

  “I am,” I agreed. “Before you ask, I don’t know what I am ... other than psychic and capable of controlling people’s minds. I did it to Groove earlier. That’s how I saw what goes through his mind. He’s already living in a prison of his own making. There was no hint of Tawny in there.”

  “So ... you don’t think he killed her?” Logan rubbed his chin as he stared into the distance. “If he didn’t, then she was lying to me. You mentioned a banshee. I don’t know what that is.”

  I gave him a brief rundown, leaving nothing out but not going into great detail either. When I finished he didn’t look happy, but he seemed to understand what I was saying.

  “You don’t think there’s any chance of saving Tawny even if she’s still alive,” he surmised.

  “She’s long gone,” I acknowledged. “She was probably turned not long after you last saw her. She was taken and tortured ... battered and beaten … and who knows what else over the next few days, maybe even weeks. But not by Groove. We need to figure out who took her because that’s the person we’re looking for. That’s the person creating the banshees and unleashing them on the street.”

  “Look at it from a law enforcement perspective,” he prodded. “What are these banshees trying to do?”

  “They’re collecting souls. As far as I can tell, that’s all they’re doing.”

  “What can you do with a soul?”

  “You can ingest it and prolong life. Wraiths do it.”

  “Can you do anything else?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Then ... maybe it’s not the souls. Maybe that’s just a byproduct. Maybe it’s something else.”

  “Like what?”

  “The souls that are being taken, are they mostly street people?”

  I thought back to what Redmond had told me. “As a matter of fact, yeah. Why do you think that matters?”

  “Because, from the start, I’ve always assumed we had a cleaner working. People are dying, girls are going missing. All the while, the street is getting cleaner. It will never be completely clean, but that doesn’t matter to a mission-oriented killer like this.”

  He seemed to know his stuff. Something occurred to me. “You said there was one person you told about Tawny’s status to help you keep her safe. Who was that?”

  “Beacon. He agreed to give her a place to stay occasionally.”

  My heart plummeted to my stomach. “Beacon?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “Right before you became my prime suspect, I was focusing on him.”

  “But ... why?”

  “There’s something wrong with him. There always has been.”

  “He helps kids,” Logan argued. “He’s a good guy who helps kids.”

  “No, he’s a guy who wears a mask,” I corrected, my mind busy. “He doesn’t help anyone but himself ... and that’s what he’s been doing all along. He’s been helping himself.”

  “If he’s so bad, why haven’t you crawled into his head to look around?”

  “Because he shutters.” It wasn’t hard to come up with an answer. “He shutters, and I never really wanted to see inside his head as a kid because I assumed there was nothing good there. When I returned as an adult, I kept my distance out of instinct. It’s him.”

  “You can’t take him down on an instinct,” Logan warned. “That’s what you’re planning to do, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. I’m going to take him down ... and maybe save at least one girl in the process. The odds of saving the other banshees aren’t great, but I’m going to try. Either way, they’re all going down tonight.”

  “And how do you plan to do that? You can’t simply control people and force them to do what you want them to do.”

  “Watch me.”

  29

  Twenty-Nine

  By the time the Grimlocks arrived, I had a plan. Redmond stayed the entire day, lending a hand wherever he could manage. By the time we cleared everyone out, jobs had been assigned and everyone knew what was expected of them.

  “We’re going to need you with us,” I told Izzy. “The extra magic you can funnel into the spell will help.”

  “No problem.” Izzy bobbed her head. “I guess I’m just confused. You said that you used magic to keep the banshees out but it didn’t really work. How do you know this spell will?”

  I’d given this a great deal of thought. “The dreamcatcher failed because they’re not really banshees. I mean ... they are in the truest sense of the word. They were tortured to death, amassed more human suffering than should be imaginable, but they didn’t turn themselves into banshees. Beacon did that.”

  “I’m still behind the curve here,” Logan volunteered from the back. He and
Griffin had been eyeing each other with suspicion since being introduced. I was somewhat worried the police detective would find himself the subject of an investigation at some point, but I couldn’t dwell on that now. Besides, Cormack seemed the sort of man who had a lot of pull. He would protect Griffin. “How is Beacon behind this?”

  “He was never what he pretended to be. I’m pretty sure he’s a warlock.”

  “Why do you think that?” Max asked, his face twisted with concentration. “I mean ... wouldn’t you have picked up on that when you were a teenager?”

  “I think I did. I was the only one who never trusted him. Everyone else thought he was a great guy. Even Logan thought he was trustworthy.”

  “You haven’t told me anything that suggests he isn’t trustworthy,” Logan countered. “He helped me when Tawny was undercover. He helped protect her.”

  “Unless he didn’t. She told you she was sleeping with Groove for information. I don’t believe that. Groove wouldn’t touch her. He’s all about the street cred. There’s no street cred in banging Tawny ... and he would’ve taken care of his kid if he’d knocked her up. That’s simply who he is.”

  “He’s a thug,” Logan countered. “He’s always been a thug.”

  “I’m not arguing with that assessment. He’s simply not a thug who would’ve slept with Tawny. I bet, once you really go back over her statements, she didn’t give you anything she got from Groove. She gave you information that Beacon filtered through her.”

  “Why would Beacon have sex with her?” Logan asked. “I mean ... what’s his motivation?”

  “He’s a man,” Luke answered for me. “If there’s sex to be had, most men will have it. They’re not picky.”

  “Poet just said Groove was picky.”

  “Groove didn’t need to swim in Tawny’s pond. He had his own pond. All gangs have groupies. He didn’t need to seek anyone out. They came to him.”