Kicking It(6)

He shook his head, but didn’t pursue the point. “Apparently she wasn’t looking far enough ahead to put in a decent security camera system, either, so we have nothing showing who came in or out of the place during the day. Her last appointment on the calendar was at noon. After that, we’ve got no record of ins and outs until we broke into the shop after your little yard-related incident and found her dead on the floor. ME says she died sometime between two and four in the afternoon, most likely.”

“What about the knife?”

“Definitely administered the death stroke on the throat. As far as we can tell, the knife wasn’t hers, either. Looked old, probably some sort of antique bowie knife.”

Poor Portia. I tried not to think about her last moments, her confusion and horror, but it was all too real to me. As real as those people at my house screaming at my car. I’d been hated before, but as an individual. Those people out there hadn’t known me or cared to know me. To them I was a symbol and that was enough.

Had Portia been a symbol, too, to be beaten and slashed to death just for having the bad luck to exist? Or was it something else? Something worse?

It was also frustrating and frightening as hell to think that somewhere in that faceless, shouting crowd could lurk someone capable of doing this—to Portia, and maybe to me and Andy, too.

My skin tightened, but I knew I had to do it. I said, “I want to bring Portia back.”

Rosen must have suspected that was coming, because he wasn’t surprised. His eyes narrowed, and he was shaking his head before I’d even gotten the last of it out. “No,” he snapped. “Not happening. New department regs. No resurrections conducted with city participation or support. No payments to resurrection witches, either.”

“When did that happen?”

“After Prieto’s murder,” he said. “Guess you didn’t get the memo.”

As much as I resented it, I couldn’t blame them. Detective Prieto’s death had hit everyone hard, especially his fellow cops. “Fine,” I said. “All I need is a tissue sample from her body. You can do that much for me, Detective. I’m about to solve your murder for you, and you don’t have to tell anybody it ever happened or pay me a dime.”

I was afraid, really afraid, that he was going to blow me off completely. It was a risk, because he’d have to put himself and his job on the line for me to get that sample.

Prieto would have done this without hesitation. He’d have fussed about it and pretended to hate it, but he’d have considered solving Portia’s death way more important than his own career. That was part of why he’d been killed.

Rosen was very definitely not Prieto, and I read the very clear debate in his face before he finally, grudgingly nodded. “You’ll have the tissue sample tonight by courier to your house,” he said. “I don’t want to see your face again. Get the hell out and stay out. If you get a lead, you call me, but don’t come to this department again.”

As I walked away with what I’d wanted, the triumph was mostly wiped out by the steady, dispassionate looks of the other detectives in the office. Whether sitting at their desks, walking around, or getting coffee, they all looked at me with identically empty expressions and cold eyes.

Something told me that Rosen’s injunction barring me from this place might not be about his own moral objections to what I did; it might actually be for my own safety.

And that was genuinely disturbing.

—

I didn’t relish going home, but by the time I got there, the protests had diminished to only a handful of people wandering around with signs. They were keeping very strictly to the sidewalk, and not blocking my drive, so I opened the garage with the remote and parked as quickly as possible, then shut them out. I spotted my across-the-street neighbor standing on his porch, hands on hips, watching the scene with pinched-face annoyance.

There would be interesting dinner conversations all down the block tonight.

Andy met me at the door leading into the house and swept me with a comprehensive, full-body look. Not a sexy one. “You all right?” he asked, in that Texas drawl that let me know he’d been worrying. I nodded. “Guess you saw our new friends.”

“Saw them at the office first,” I said. “My boss said not to come in anymore. Andy, I think they’re going to fire me.” It was ridiculous to get teary-eyed over the loss of a midlevel office job, but it had been mine for a long time. My desk. My routines. And even if they hadn’t been friends per se, my coworkers. “Dammit. This is shit.”

He took me in his arms for a moment, and that felt better. A lot better. The tears were a brief little shower that passed in the warm glow of his body heat against mine.