Fair Game (Alpha & Omega #3)(36)
Author: Patricia Briggs

She thinks the witches killed Sally Reilly.

Anna looked at Brother Wolf. Their mate bond was still as frozen as a Popsicle in Antarctica, but it was his voice in her head.

"You think differently," she said.

Shaman’s eyes looked at her, Charles’s eyes, then he closed them and shook himself, as if trying to shake off water after a dip in a lake. I think that she gave a spell to a killer who didn’t want her to talk. The witches wouldn’t have been the only ones to want her dead.

"Anna?" asked Leslie. "What’s he saying to you?"

"Nothing we can prove just yet," Anna told her. "Though it might be interesting to see if Sally Reilly disappeared in one of the years that all of the bodies weren’t found."

"We don’t know anything about Sally Reilly," Leslie reminded her. "Let alone that she disappeared."

"Witchcraft and fae in the same case," said Heuter, sounding fascinated and a little excited.

In the small examination room with a dead little boy on the table, Anna found his excitement distasteful.

Chapter 7

"I don’t think Fuller is going to let any more witches into his morgue in the near future," said Heuter as he bit into the piece of half-raw steak on his fork.

"That was the creepiest thing I ever saw," said Leslie, who was eating her salad and not looking at Heuter. Anna couldn’t decide if she was a vegetarian or just didn’t like watching someone eat raw meat. Maybe the visit to the morgue had something to do with it.

"The witch or Heuter’s bloody steak?" asked Anna, taking the first nibble of her cheeseburger and deciding she approved. She’d ordered six cheeseburgers on two plates – all medium well. Yes, she preferred rare, though before she’d been Changed she liked very well-done. But she didn’t eat raw meat in front of strangers.

"Heuter’s eating habits are pretty creepy," Leslie said. "But I was talking about the witch. At least she told us some things we didn’t know."

After they’d left the morgue, Leslie had called Goldstein with an update. From what Anna could tell, he’d been pretty excited because his voice had even sped up for a word or two. When she’d finished, Heuter recommended a restaurant with good food and outdoor tables where they could talk without having to fuss about Brother Wolf.

The waiter’s eyebrows had risen when Anna ordered so much food. He’d protested when she put the plate with four burgers down for Brother Wolf, but had shut up when Leslie produced her badge and said, with a nod, "Werewolf."

There had been a quick switch in waitstaff, and the new waitress had asked if she could get Brother Wolf a bowl of water (yes) – or if he’d like something else to drink (no). Anna figured that waitress had just earned a pretty big tip. From the smile on the waitress’s face, she figured so as well.

"That was wicked fun, how you yanked the witch’s chain," Leslie told her. "Until then I hadn’t realized she was just trying to freak us out."

"Umm," answered Anna, taking a bite to give herself time to think.

Brother Wolf looked up and focused on Anna. Okay, she was here to share information. Might as well do her job.

"She wasn’t trying to freak you out," Anna told them. "Isaac told us she wasn’t very powerful. She didn’t have the control to keep up appearances in the presence of the death magic on the boy’s body. I was trying to distract her, get her focused on me, so she’d tell us something instead of doing something dumb that was going to get her shot."

"Shot?" Heuter asked.

Anna smiled at him. "Guns are quite easy to smell. You should see about changing up the holster in the small of your back. You have to reach too far for it; it takes you too long. Try a shoulder holster or get some more practice." The bun had been toasted with real butter and the meat seared on charcoal. Anna ate a few fries to put off starting on the second burger.

"And you need to wait until you’re sure you are going to draw before you reach," agreed Leslie. She smiled at Anna. "Cantrip doesn’t require the same weapons training that we get at Quantico."

Something cold came and went in Heuter’s face before he resumed his bland appearance. "Right. There’s been some talk about changing that. I’m afraid most of the shooting I’ve done is with a rifle. My folks are from Texas and we have a place in upstate New York where we go hunting every year, too – hunting is a family ritual. But that witch…"

"Creepy," said Leslie with a nod. "I wish she had been faking it. Did either of you recognize the name she gave us? Sally Reilly?"

Anna shook her head. "No, but I think Charles did. I’ll talk to him when he changes back and let you know."

Leslie frowned and started to say something, then glanced at Heuter and stuffed her mouth with salad instead.

"According to Wiki," said Heuter, reading from his phone, "in 1967, Sally Reilly wrote a book called My Little Gray Story Book." He looked up and grinned. "It was a play on the My Little Red Story Book series of readers in use in elementary schools. My Little Gray Story Book was an underground sensation, and when the second book, A Witch’s Primer, hit the stands three years later, it hit the New York Times bestseller list. Sally Reilly was beautiful, shocking, and funny and became an instant, if small-time, celebrity. The books were less how-to books than here-is-my-life-as-a-witch books. She did a few talk shows, including The Mike Douglas Show, where she straightened some spoons bent by Uri Geller without touching them the day after the famous Israeli psychic appeared."

"Witches can’t straighten spoons," said Anna involuntarily. Witches did things with living and once-living tissue – blood and bodies and stuff like that.

Heuter tipped his phone at her. "It’s on Wiki."

"I’ve never heard of her," said Leslie. "I know about Uri and his spoon bending. Did something happen to her? The witch seemed pretty sure that she’s dead, and Charles, according to Anna, thinks that she was a victim of our serial killer. What does Wiki say?"

"Wiki doesn’t say," said Heuter. "Hold on."

"My dad talks about the sixties and seventies as a heyday of New Age thinking before the New Agers," Anna said. "Lots of free love and Wicca and magical thinking."

Heuter, still searching the Internet, nodded. "The Victorian era was the only thing that came close to it. Ouija boards, seances, games that tested whether people could read minds. Then, because everyone was doing it…it became less mysterious, less shadowy, and more…ridiculous. Interests changed."

"So maybe our Sally Reilly just disappeared from public view as the world gave a yawn," suggested Leslie. "Is this going to help our missing girl?"