Kelley Armstrong - Waking the Witch

But they aren’t me, and imagining the crime helps me see the victim as a person, not just a problem to be solved. For Paige and Lucas, empathy is never a problem—they’re bursting with it. Me? Not so much.

The articles hadn’t speculated whether the women had died here, but having seen the blood pools under them I was going to take the leap and say yes.

I tried to imagine what might draw me here. For Ginny and Brandi, the possibilities were endless—anything from a drug deal to a party to a hookup. If they were willing to trade a blow job for a hit, this would be a good place to do it.

The problem was Claire Kennedy. A college student on summer break, according to the paper. Honors student. Arts major. Wrote for the college paper. Quiet and straitlaced was the impression I got from the account. Looking around, I couldn’t imagine anything that would bring me to this place—and straitlaced has never been an adjective applied to me. So what brought Claire?

That led to the bigger question. What brought a girl like Claire to Columbus at all? According to the article, she’d been here two weeks, coming right after her finals. Short of two broken legs, nothing would keep me here that long. Hell, with two broken legs I’d drag myself the twenty miles to the highway and hitch a ride.

I took out the crime-scene photos. Unlike the other two, Claire wasn’t lying in her own blood. So shot and moved seemed a reasonable assumption for her. If she’d been killed elsewhere in the building, there would be blood trace—I couldn’t imagine the owner had sprung for much in the way of cleaning afterward. I could search, but the cops would have already done that. I’d get the details from them.

When I finally located the basement door, I cast the sensing spell again. There was no sign the cops were still securing the scene. Jesse said they’d been here only yesterday, though.

My spell did detect small presences, but that was to be expected in a rat hotel like this. I searched for the big “ping” that said human and ignored the rest.

At the bottom of the stairs, I realized that finding the basement didn’t mean finding the crime scene. I should have stopped at the police station first to let them know I was in town, so I could have sweet-talked some cop into telling me exactly where in this basement the bodies had been found.

I took out the photos. Concrete floor. Concrete wall. Yeah, that narrowed it down.

I started walking, the light ball illuminating the photos as I compared them to my surroundings, as if I were a TV detective, able to identify a speck of Flora whateveris on the photo and match it to one on the floor. I scanned the floor, searching for ... oh, I don’t know, matching dirt patterns? Then I caught sight of a torn piece of yellow plastic taped to a pillar.

“Or you could just look for crime-scene tape, stupid.”

As I spoke, something scuttled to my left. I wheeled, hands poised to launch an energy bolt. I peered into the darkness, but couldn’t see very far. I listened for the chattering of rats. Instead, I heard breathing.

I took a step. The breathing stopped. A long pause, then a gasp, like he couldn’t hold his breath anymore. I murmured the sensing spell under my breath. It agreed something was there, but not a human-sized something.

I took another sliding step. The breathing came faster, as if in fear. I cast again, to be sure, and this time when I got the same result, I realized it was sensing a human, just a smaller one than I expected. I extinguished my light ball and walked toward the breathing sounds.

“Okay, kid,” I said. “I know you’re there, so—”

A flash blinded me.

“Don’t move,” said a girl’s voice, squeaky with fear. A pale arm reached from the darkness, clutching a cell phone, finger over a button. “Take another step and I’ll send your picture to the cops.”

Smart kid. Bluffing, I was sure, but smart nonetheless.

“You’ve got a cell phone?” I rolled my eyes. “Kids these days. I wasn’t allowed one until I was sixteen, and then I had to pay for my own plan.”

The girl turned on a plastic flashlight, stepped out, and gave me a look that said she wasn’t lowering her guard, no matter how friendly I seemed. Yep, smart kid.

Tiny kid, too, which explained the spell feedback. I’d put her around eight, maybe nine, probably the smallest in her class. She was skinny, with a thin face and twiglike arms, but not undernourished—her eyes were bright and her freckled face glowed. Her hair was her best feature, gleaming blond and tied back with a strip of pink lace that hung over one shoulder. She wore faded jeans and a sweatshirt with a worn decal. Hand-me-downs, but clean, the jeans patched with a rainbow on one knee and a skull and crossbones on the other. Interesting ...

“So did you do it?” she asked, her gaze holding mine.

“Do what?”

She waved at the crime-scene photos clearly displayed in my hand.

“Shit! I mean ...” A better choice of language escaped me and I flipped the photos over fast and tried to shove them back in the envelope.

“I read somewhere that killers sometimes come back to the scene,” the girl said, matter-of-factly, like she was telling me that elephants are the largest land mammal.

I kept fumbling to get the pictures in the envelope.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I’ve seen them. Tim Bruyn from school showed me. His grandpa is the police chief. He’s investigating the murders. Or he’s supposed to be, but he’s doing a lousy job.”

“Is he?”

She nodded solemnly. “Everybody says so. Even Grandma. Not in front of me, of course, but I heard her say it on the phone, and she never says bad stuff about anyone.”

“A good policy.” I smiled, but she only stared at me, as if she could tell I didn’t mean it.

“So that’s your cell phone?” I said, pointing to it. “Pretty cool. Mine doesn’t have a flash.”

“It’s my mom’s.”

“And she lets you use it? Very cool.”

Again, she just stared at me with those appraising eyes. Come on, kid. Help me out here.

“Well, I’m not going to ask how you got in here,” I said. “But it isn’t the kind of place for kids to hang out, so I’ll walk you upstairs—”

“I’m not hanging out. I’m investigating.”

She tugged a backpack off her shoulder, reached in, and pulled out a pad of paper. She flipped to a page, then, pen poised, looked up at me. “Your name, please.”

“Savannah Levine. Private investigator.”

“License?”

I started pulling out my ID. She gave me a look that called me a moron.

“ Private investigator’s license?”

Damn, she was good. What did they teach kids in this town? Fortunately, I had one—two, actually, for both Oregon and Washington. I gave her both. She wasn’t impressed; just jotted details down and handed them back.

“So you’re an investigator, too,” I said.

“No, I’m a kid.”

“So how come you’re here?”

“Because the police aren’t.”

“Ah. So you’re investigating because you want to grow up to be a detective?”

“No.” Her gaze lifted to mine. “I’m investigating because I want to know who killed my mother.”

It wasn’t that I didn’t know what to say—it was that I knew from experience that almost anything I did say would be wrong. After my mom died, I wanted to plug my ears every time someone found out ... or zap them with an energy bolt before they could speak.

It was always the same empty words. I’m sorry for your loss, from people who didn’t give a shit about me or my loss. Deep down, your mom was a good person, from people who, deep down, thought she was an evil bitch. She’s gone to a better place. That one killed me. Like any twelve-year-old gives a damn where her dead mother went—all that matters is that she’s not with you.