Kat Richardson: Downpour

The Olympic Park Institute wasn’t very far away at all. It was closer to the Storm King ranger station parking lot than to the lodge, and the sign was heavily overgrown with dead foliage that hadn’t yet been cleared off, but I spotted the road easily enough. I turned in and went a quarter mile or so up the muddy road—it was in need of a lot more gravel and upkeep than the rest of the roads in the park—and discovered a round driveway that circled a covered bench and passed a rustic entry gate made of whitewashed logs. The word “Rosemary” was spelled out in bits of tree branch under the peaked roof of the gateway that stood at the front of an open area bounded by quaint little cottages and a tiny schoolhouse with a bell on a spire. But there was no sign of Shea’s blue truck anywhere. I figured he’d taken off as soon as he reached it and was now on one of his other errands, feeling smug and thinking we had no way to know who or where he was.

I turned the Rover around and headed back out onto the highway.

“Where are we going to find him?” Quinton asked. “And how do you know it’s anything to do with this Shea guy?”

“He’s the invisible man,” I replied.

“Sorry—I’m not sure I’m following you on that one.”

“G. K. Chesterton wrote a short murder mystery where the victim is apparently killed by an invisible man, because no one noticed anyone coming or going. But it’s not an actual invisible man who did the murder, but a ‘mentally invisible man.’ A man so ubiquitous that no one notices his presence. Just like Darin Shea. He’s been here off and on for twenty years, but he’s not a real resident, he doesn’t own any property or rent any, and no one takes much notice of his comings and goings, but they all let him in and out of their property. They even give him their house keys!”

“You think he killed Leung and Strother?”

“I’m sure of it. If we can find his truck, I think I can prove it, and we can get the anchor stone back from Faith to fix the lake. But we have to do it before the gathering at the Newmans’. . . .”

“How did you come to the conclusion that Shea is the one?”

I scowled, trying to put my ideas in order. I thought it would be better if I didn’t try to drive at the same time, so I turned onto Lake Sutherland Road and took us to the Leung house where I parked the truck under some trees, looking into the clearing on the west side of the house.

I started speaking my thoughts aloud, trying to make them orderly. “The pattern Strother noticed was the thing that clinched it. I realized that the places he’d driven to for no apparent reason were the same places where I went looking for Shea originally, plus Costigan’s house and here, around Lake Sutherland, which Shea himself told me is where he’s been house-sitting this winter. I told Faith we were looking for an invisible man, which Shea is. We know that invisible man has to be the killer and he has to be an ambitious but ignorant mage. All the magic users are accounted for: the puppet master, the nexus keeper, the east, the rogue, and the ley weaver, but not the child. So Shea has to be Costigan’s so-called child. I know Shea’s been to Seattle several times—he’s a potential witness on the corporate case I’m working on for Nanette Grover that’s based in Seattle—and Costigan said he sent his child to the city on his business. It would have been no trouble at all for Shea to find someone either foolish or unscrupulous to create the banishing scrolls for him. Someone like Ben’s colleague who made the one you brought to me. Shea used it to encourage Ridenour’s animosity toward Willow by banishing May and then telling the ranger it was Willow who did it. He’s probably been Ridenour’s little snitch ever since.

“Once Shea had Willow on the run and could manipulate Ridenour out of his way, he had a free hand to try to control the lake. He wasn’t in any hurry about it since he had to learn how to grab the power and use it. Until Steven Leung got the idea to ‘fix’ the lake. I don’t know why Leung waited or what he meant to do that didn’t work, or how Shea knew what he was planning—”

Something rapped on the rear window. Quinton and I both twisted around to look. A tree branch swung down to tap the truck again; there was no wind to move it.

I got out so I could see into the Grey more easily. The green streaks and pools were brighter and thicker than I’d seen them in a while, and I was surprised after so much energy had been spent the night before. Quinton tried to get out of the truck and join me, but the trees shifted and moved their branches in the windless air, barricading the doors closed.

Willow stepped out from behind one of the trees. Wearing her black dress, she was barefoot as usual, even in the icy slush. “Who’s your friend?”

“Boyfriend, to tell the truth.” I could sense Quinton’s anxiety, but I wasn’t going to tangle with Willow until I knew what she wanted.

“And you let Elias doctor him? You can’t be too fond of him. . . .”

“Since it was Elias who hurt him, I figured he owed me a few repairs. Besides, he didn’t do much—his shadows did the real work.”

“The loa. I hope it was Loko, not Ghede, who cured him.”

“They didn’t give their names.”

“Was the shadow you saw black or green?”

“Green.”

“Loko. It will be all right, then.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve been watching and . . . borrowing from Cheval Elias for a long time. He’s not so much a houngan or even a bokor as he is a mount for the loa. He has the delusion of power, but he doesn’t control his actions so much as he thinks he does. He’s very dangerous to know.”

“His child is worse.”

“Shea? He’s a fool.”

“Apparently that’s your part.” Her face grew stormy and she started to raise one hand, but I put up both of mine and said, “Hear me out before you smite me—or whatever you’re thinking of doing. How well did he know your father? Would your father have, say, given him a gift?”

She watched me with a narrowed, angry expression, but she let the gathering power in her hands slide back to the ground as she answered. “They were friendly, but not like that. Daddy was lonely and Shea liked to sit and talk to him instead of working. It seemed harmless.”

“He’s a better actor than anyone would have credited. And good at masking his abilities—he fooled me, too. What did they talk about?”

“I don’t really know. I wasn’t around much—too busy staying out of Ridenour’s hands and trying to teach myself the Way.”

“I think your father must have told Shea how he meant to fix the lake. I don’t know how he got it, but he figured out that the anchor stone was the key to the problem. Unfortunately, he didn’t know how to use it properly. I think he was going to take the stone away from the lake. He didn’t know that would have just made things worse. Shea didn’t know, either, and he thought he had to stop it. So he killed your father and hid his body and his car in the lake. The anchor was in the car the whole time, ironically, but it never redirected the leyline as it should have done, because it wasn’t in the right place.”

Willow blinked at me and a tear rolled down her blank face, leaving a streak. “Shea can’t have done it. He’s not strong enough.”

“He was strong enough to steal your mother’s circle.”

“Why do you think it was him? It could have been—”

“Nobody else. No one else needed it except you and no one else who could use it is still here except Shea. It has to be Costigan’s child—who turned up as soon as I found the circle—Shea. He steals magic; that’s why he’s here. I can tell from the color of the energy he leaves behind. He uses Costigan’s hoodoo and he ‘borrows’ your family’s energy, too. I think he gave the ley weaver the hand-spiders and said they were from Costigan. Then he could get help from that creature, too. I think he’s used his access to people’s houses to set traps and drive other, weaker mages away now that he’s getting closer to his goals. He comes and goes wherever he pleases and no one pays him any mind—they even ask him in! He must be clever enough to get his master’s loa to help him hide the Subaru after he rigged the brakes and set it on fire when it crashed. I saw the memory of it in your mother’s circle.”