Fury of the Demon

Chapter 15

Tears of fury stung my eyes as I mercilessly whisked the surviving eggs. A photo of a smiling Amber in her wedding dress confirmed her as the murder victim. Poor Idris. No wonder he was cooperating. Sister tortured and killed, and no telling what they threatened to do with his mom, if she was even still alive. And Idris was the kind of guy who’d do everything he could to protect anyone—even a perfect stranger. This surely ripped his heart out.

Ryan came upstairs but didn’t wisecrack about the ferocity of my egg-murder, which told me his news wasn’t particularly good. I dumped the eggs into a pan on the stove. “Anything?”

“Not really. They were abducted from a mall parking lot in broad daylight,” he told me, voice flat. He pulled two mugs down from the cabinet, filled both with coffee. “They had lunch with some ladies from their church, left the restaurant, but never made it to their car.” Impotent fury swept over his face. “Security cameras malfunctioned, so no vid, and no witnesses have come forward.”

I jabbed at the congealing eggs and let out a number of curses.

“You asked about the last call made on the phone Idris used,” Ryan said as he dumped cream and sugar into one of the mugs, left the other black, then brought them both to the table and sat. “It was from the Austin area about two hours earlier.”

I scraped eggs as I did my best to cling to the sliver of hope that offered. “They stole a cell phone in Austin and headed northwest. Called, then turned off the phone and probably ditched it for good measure.” I sighed. “Not much help. Thanks for checking though.” But then I frowned. “I keep coming back to Tsuneo being in this area. That means something. Maybe Idris was here with him, and they’re moving him somewhere else?”

Ryan grimaced. “‘Northwest of Austin’ covers a lot of ground. We need another lead.”

He was right, damn it. The location clue had felt like a big victory but was virtually useless by itself.

I removed the eggs from the heat, clicked the burner off and mentally shifted gears. “Give me your opinion on something.” I pulled two plates from the cabinet and divided the eggs onto them. “If you were holding Idris against his will and wanted his cooperation—having already killed his sister—would you also kill the mother?”

He remained silent for a moment then shook his head. “Makes more sense to keep her as insurance. A hostage.”

Thin relief went through me. I placed the pan in the sink, nodded. “My thought as well. So, the good news is that she’s probably not dead.” I set one of the plates and a fork in front of Ryan. “The bad news is they almost certainly have Idris’s cooperation.” I grabbed my plate and a fork and thunked down into the chair across from him, mood suddenly bleak over our lack of progress. “Now I know why Idris told me to stop looking for him.”

“You like him a lot,” he observed.

I squirted ketchup onto my eggs, ignored Ryan’s wince as I did so. “He’s like a kid brother. A seriously talented and really great kid brother.”

“I’m sorry. This must suck for you.” He forked some eggs into his mouth, gave me an approving nod.

“It does.” I offered him a slight smile. “You’d like him too.” I paused to eat. “Mzatal loves him,” I said after a few minutes. “Like a son.”

Ryan leveled a deeply skeptical look at me. “Mzatal? Like a son?”

“Yeah.” I started to dump sugar into my coffee, then remembered Ryan had already fixed it the way I liked it. “Crazy, I know, but he really does. Mzatal hasn’t stopped looking for Idris since he was taken.” I took a long sip of coffee, then lowered the mug and gave an evil smile. “And Mzatal slammed Jesral after he and Asshole sent Idris to Earth. It was fucking beautiful.”

Ryan let out a bark of laughter. “I bet.” He scooped up the last of the eggs. “Thanks for breakfast.”

“Anytime.” I finished my own then stood and cleared the plates. “Should I call Pellini and let him know we have an ID?”

“Yes, and tell him we’ll send over details shortly.”

Ryan returned to the basement to finish his report. I retrieved my phone, thumbed through the address book to Pellini’s name, and pressed call. It rang half a dozen times before he picked up.

“Pellini,” he rasped in a sleep-clouded voice.

“Hey, it’s Gillian. Wake up.”

I heard some mumbling and scuffling, then, “Yeah. I’m here. You got something?”

“An ID on our vic,” I told him. “Garner and Kristoff will be shooting the details your way shortly.”

“This just come down? Who is she?”

“Found out in the last half hour. Her name’s Amber Palatino Gavin from Seattle.”

“It’s a solid ID?”

“Unfortunately, yeah.”

“Unfortunately?” he asked, puzzled.

“Turns out she’s the sister of a friend of mine. A guy I’m trying to find.”

He blew out his breath. “Coincidence?”

I hesitated, unsure how much to tell him or how to frame it in a way that didn’t sound weird.

“Kara? You don’t think it’s a coincidence, do you?” He sounded tense, but his tone held none of its usual belligerence or mocking. “Look, anything you can tell me is more than I got now. Maybe we can meet to talk about it? I’ll buy you a beer. Or lunch.” His words tumbled over themselves. “There’s this Italian place that’s pretty good and not expensive. I mean, like a business lunch. Work.” He spoke the last in a rush as if to be absolutely certain I knew it wasn’t a date-type thing.

Good god, an offer of a date from Pellini would put me right over the edge.

“Um, my schedule’s pretty packed right now,” I demurred. “Here’s the info I have.” I gave him a rundown of the basics with Idris, that he was missing, family name, vitals, told him we’d stumbled across the ID on Amber while researching Idris’s family. Everything I told him was true, but guilt nagged. I knew a lot more that I wasn’t telling him, but I couldn’t do so without delving into demons and lords and general weirdness.

He listened, asked a few questions. When it was time to hang up, he didn’t. “Maybe when your schedule clears up we can get a beer?”

“Uh,” I said in a brilliant delaying tactic. “Sure. We’ll talk about it then.” I disengaged quickly and hung up, more than a little weirded out by his persistence. Was it because I was in better shape now, or was the reason more sinister? Then again, his desire to be friendly could just as easily be completely benign. Last year, after a particularly ugly incident, Ryan had influenced both Pellini and Boudreaux to lighten up and not be such assholes to me, and since then the two had been far less hostile. Perhaps Ryan’s little tweak had started a chain reaction of don’t-be-a-dick.

I was drying the last of the breakfast dishes when Ryan emerged from the basement, dressed for work, empty coffee cup in hand. “We’ve sent the info on to Pellini and Boudreaux.”

“Thanks. Pellini will be glad to get it,” I said then scrunched my face. “He wanted me to meet him for lunch.”

Ryan let out a snort of laughter. “Lunch with Pellini? That’s a first.”

“He wanted to talk about the case, but I gave him the non-demon facts over the phone. There’s not all that much.” I shrugged, frowned. “He’s acting a little weird, though he’s not being a total asstard the way he used to.”

“Maybe he’s a pod person,” he suggested as he poured more coffee into his cup. “Anyway, I’ll be downstairs for a while if you need me. We’re working on the safe house and the Farouche info, then have a meeting at nine.”

I nodded. “I’m going to listen to Idris’s call a few more times. He may have used that emphasis technique somewhere else. Right now it’s our only source of clues.”

“I’ll let you know if we come up with anything else,” he said and then departed down the basement stairs.

I grabbed the recorder and a set of headphones then settled on the sofa, this time listening for nuances in emphasis and timing. On the third time through, I stopped it at the end, ran it back about ten seconds. Listened to it again. And again.

Tell Mzatal I still have his ring, and I haven’t forgotten gheztak ru eehn. So leave me be. You don’t want to start a fire you can’t put out.

Start a fire.

Except he hesitated for the barest instant before and after “start,” mumbled the “a” and hesitated again after “fire.”

There were two options. Either my imagination was working overtime, or Idris had told me who had him: StarFire.

Ryan dashed up from the basement, laptop in hand, when I hollered. “You have something new?”

“I think so.” I played the end of the recording, but to my disappointment he simply responded with a puzzled look. “Listen to it,” I urged and played it again. “Start a fire. StarFire.” I scowled at his dubious expression. “I know it’s a little crazy but I hear it now. I can’t not hear it.”

To his credit, Ryan didn’t shoot me down in flames. “Play it one more time.” I did so, and this time he rewarded me with a slow nod. “It’s possible,” he admitted. “If that’s for real, Idris is one clever guy. That’s a hard thing to pull off.”

“He’s super smart,” I said. “And that’s why I believe it’s a real clue.”

“StarFire, huh?” He opened his laptop on the kitchen table and sat. “I was actually on my way to show you what I came up with on Farouche. Basically, he’s a fucking saint. Gives tons to charity, bought new computers for every public school in St. Long Parish, even arranged for bulletproof vests for the Sheriff’s department K-9 units.”

“He got vests for the dogs?” I blinked in disbelief. “Are you serious?”

“As a heart attack,” he said as he scrolled to another page. “Married twice. Two kids, boy and a girl, with the first wife. They divorced seventeen years ago,” he winced, “two years after their five-year-old daughter was abducted in broad daylight from in front of her school. Never found.”

“Shit,” I breathed. “I remember that. It was a couple of years after my dad died, and all the schools and parents were freaking out about security.” I gave a wry grimace. “A few days later I missed the bus home because I was out behind the gym trying pot for the first time. Tessa thought I’d been kidnapped too, and ripped me up one side and down the other. Grounded me for a month.”

Ryan snorted. “Once a troublemaker, always a troublemaker.”

I punched him lightly on his shoulder. “I’ve upgraded to a higher class of troublemaking. What else do you have on Farouche?”

He continued to skim the page. “He remarried about a year later, had two more kids.” He blew out a breath. “And the second wife, Claire, passed away from ovarian cancer about three years back.”

I fought down a shiver. My mother had died of that same cancer when I was eight. But to lose a child and a wife? This guy had been through hell twice.

“The feds have sniffed around a time or two with regards to some vaguely questionable dealings,” Ryan continued, “but it’s never reached the level of a full-blown investigation. And nothing’s ever turned up that was unusual for a businessman with multiple holdings. His employees love him. He’s generous with benefits, pays fairly. No one has ever filed a complaint against him.” He clicked on another screen. “Big supporter of the arts, too. Paid for a new roof for Beaulac Little Theater, and even invested in some zombie movie over in St. Edwards Parish.”

I peered at the image on the screen: A sharply dressed man with steely grey hair, a hard and steady gaze, and an air of confidence that remained palpable even in a still photo. “Mzatal insisted that this guy fucked with Paul’s head,” I said. “What’s the deal?”

Ryan lifted his shoulders in a helpless shrug. “No idea,” he confessed. “StarFire’s the company he’s most known for, but he’s CEO of a number of corporations. I checked them all: The Child Find League, Farouche Technologies, RiseHigh, Esoteric Enhancement Enterprises, Sapphire Star Resorts, and several others. By all accounts, clean as a whistle, with a polished halo as well.”

“Wait.” I held up my hand while I forced my brain into overdrive. “RiseHigh LLC.” My pulse quickened. “That’s who bought the Garden Street industrial park.”

He gave me a long look, then swung his attention back to his laptop, started clicking and typing away. “Huh. That’s damn interesting.”

“Spill it, fed-boy,” I ordered.

“Looks like RiseHigh LLC began inquiries about the purchase of the complex about a week after you were first summoned to the demon realm. The sale was finalized about three weeks later.”

“It’s all connected,” I murmured. “I’m betting he bought the whole place to keep that warehouse—and that node—safe and secure.”

Ryan’s brow creased as his eyes skimmed the info on his screen. “I agree it’s one hell of a coincidence, but it looks like he really does intend to build the Claire Farouche Cancer Center there once the permits and paperwork and plans are in order.”

“It’s a big place,” I said, considering. “Wouldn’t be hard at all to have a cancer center there and still keep the node protected.” I felt an almost physical jolt as a puzzle piece snapped into place. “Cancer. Claire,” I breathed. “Fucking shitballs. Not only is Thatcher’s name in one of Tracy’s journals, but there’s also a page in there with all sorts of sketches of tree-things and random stuff written in the margins—and ‘Claire’s cancer’ is one of them.”

Ryan pushed back from the table, peered at me. “You think Tracy was working with Farouche in some way?” he asked. “Or maybe stalking him? Farouche is a big enough public figure to attract a whack-job, and Tracy was definitely that.”

“I don’t know,” I said slowly, trying to see the whole picture. “On the one hand I have every indication that Farouche is a saint who’s been through some horrible shit.” Ryan nodded agreement, and I went on, “Then on the other hand I have Mzatal and Paul who tell me that Farouche is an evil dude who kidnaps people and uses fear to gain their compliance. And on another hand, I have whack-job Tracy with some sort of interest in him, and on yet another hand I have the intriguing fact that Farouche bought an industrial park that happens to contain a valve node.”

“You do know that’s four hands,” Ryan pointed out.

“Yeah, well, we can pretend I’m a faas for now.”

His mouth twitched. “Will you wear a furry blue suit?”

I smacked him lightly on the back of the head, though I couldn’t help but laugh. “Focus!”

He grinned and made a show of rubbing where I’d hit him. “Okay, okay. I doubt the industrial park—or any of it, for that matter—is a coincidence.” He sobered and shook his head. “Too many links. However, I can do some more digging to see if there were any dealings between Farouche’s holdings and the companies Tracy owned with Roman Hatch.”

“That would be great,” I said. “Thanks.”

“I bet Thatcher can shed some light on all this,” Ryan said, then winced. “If he survives, that is.”

“He’ll be fine,” I said with confidence. “Mzatal knows healing.” I had far too much experience on that end. “Speaking of, did y’all ever run info on Thatcher? I know it’s been crazy busy, but maybe we can get a hint of why Tracy had his name.”

Ryan stood and moved to the counter to pour more coffee for himself. “Sure did. The guy has a spotless record. Security expert, licensed to carry for the past fifteen years, all of which have been with StarFire.” He returned to the table, fiddled with the laptop’s touchpad. “Only one hitch in his past turned up,” he continued. “It’s a doozy, though. Shot and killed this guy about a year before he got his concealed-carry permit.” He took a sip of coffee, gestured to the pic on the screen with his other hand. “Pete Nelson. His friend and housemate, a graduate student. Thatcher was never charged, and the case was closed, ruled an accidental shooting.”

And, with no felony conviction on his record, he could still get the gun permit, I mused as I peered at the photo of a smiling man in his early twenties. He was kneeling in a grass lawn, one arm draped over the neck of a rottweiler with a head bigger than his. “You come up with anything that makes you think it wasn’t accidental?”

“No, but afterward things got odd,” he said. “The deceased’s family made a scene, and it looks like Thatcher was going to be charged with manslaughter or at least negligent homicide, but less than a month after the shooting the entire investigation was dropped.”

“It’s possible they didn’t find any evidence to suggest it was anything other than a tragic fuckup,” I said. “Still, it’s a data point. How long was this before Thatcher signed on with StarFire?”

“Gimme a sec.” He scrolled through a few pages. “About a week after the potential charges evaporated, he was on the StarFire payroll.”

“One more data point in the no-way-is-this-a-coincidence file,” I mused. “If Farouche really did have Paul kidnapped, I doubt he’d bat an eye at finagling the charges so he could take on Thatcher. Did Thatcher have any skills of note that might have interested Farouche?”

“Not unless he’s an animal lover,” Ryan replied. He pulled up a photo of a much younger Thatcher, grinning beside a baby elephant that had its trunk wrapped playfully around him. “Thatcher was in his third year of veterinary medicine at LSU, and though he owned a gun he wasn’t an enthusiast. He didn’t have any sort of martial arts training, and no combat or police experience either.”

“Let me make sure I have this right,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “He shot and killed his buddy, then went from vet school to security in the span of a few weeks? You’d think he’d want to stay the hell away from anything to do with possibly shooting people.”

“You’d think,” he agreed.

“This whole thing stinks,” I said. “Why would Farouche recruit him?” I frowned, picked up my mug to take a sip then made a face as I realized it was Ryan’s. “Yech. What the hell’s in this?”

“Coffee,” he replied mildly. “No milk, no sugar.”

“You’re so weird,” I said with a shudder, then found my own mug and took a long gulp to chase away the taste of coffee done wrong. “Anyway, I suspect the reason why Farouche recruited Thatcher is somehow tied to why his name is listed in Tracy’s journal.”

“Looks like we’ll have a lot of questions for the man when he returns.”

“And not until tomorrow,” I said with a sigh. “Thanks for the info. I’m going to head over to Tessa’s. We’ve been so busy that I haven’t seen her since I got back. Keep me posted.”

“Absolutely,” he said and closed the laptop. “Zack and I will be out and about. Work, ya know.”

“Don’t forget, you can check in with your special consultant any time,” I reminded him with a smile. “I need those billable hours.”

“You’re on salary.”

“Hot damn. In that case, don’t call me unless the world’s about to end.”