Storm Front

I didn’t say anything. I could smell the soap and shampoo from Linda Randall’s bath.

"Don’t make me choose, Harry." Her voice softened, if not her eyes or her face. "Please."

I thought about it. I could bring everything to her. That’s what she was asking – not half the story, not part of the information. She wanted it all. She wanted all the pieces in front of her so she could puzzle them together and bring the bad guys in. She didn’t want to work the puzzle knowing that I was keeping some of the pieces in my pocket.

What could it hurt? Linda Randall had called me earlier that evening. She had planned on coming to me, to talk to me. She was going to give me some information and someone had shut her up before she could.

I saw two problems with telling Murphy that. One, she would start thinking like a cop. It would not be hard to find out that Linda wasn’t exactly a high-fidelity piece of equipment. That she had numerous lovers on both sides of the fence. What if she and I were closer than I was admitting? What if I’d used magic to kill her lovers in a fit of jealous rage and then waited for another storm to kill her, too? It sounded plausible, workable, a crime of passion – Murphy had to know that the DA would have a hell of a time proving magic as a murder weapon, but if it had been a gun instead, it would have flown.

The second problem, and the one that worried me a lot more, was that there were already three people dead. And if I hadn’t gotten lucky and creative, there would have been two more dead people, back at my apartment. I still didn’t know who the bad guy was. Telling Murphy what little more I knew wouldn’t give her any helpful information. It would only make her ask more questions, and she wanted answers.

If the voice in the shadows knew that Murphy was heading the investigation to find him, and was on the right track, he would have no qualms about killing her, too. And there was nothing she could do to protect herself against it. She might have been formidable to your average criminal, but all the aikido in the world wouldn’t do her any good against a demon.

Then, too, there was the White Council. Men like Morgan and his superiors, secure in their own power, arrogant and considering themselves above the authority of any laws but their own, wouldn’t hesitate to remove one police lieutenant who had discovered the secret world of the White Council.

I looked at the bloodstained sheets and thought of Linda’s corpse. I thought of Murphy’s office, and what it would look like with her sprawled on the floor, her heart torn from her chest, or her throat torn out by some creeping thing from beyond.

"Sorry, Murph," I said. My voice came out in a rasping whisper. "I wish I could help you. I don’t know anything useful." I didn’t try to look up at her, and I didn’t try to hide that I was lying.

I sensed, more than saw, the hardening around her eyes, the little lines of hurt and anger. I’m not sure if a tear fell, or if she really just raised a hand to brush back some of her hair. Then she turned to the front door, and shouted, "Carmichael! Get your ass in here!"

Carmichael looked equally as slobbish as he had a few days ago, as though the passage of time hadn’t changed him – it certainly hadn’t changed his jacket, only the food stains on his tie and the particular pattern of rumplement to his hair. There had to be something comforting, I reflected, in that kind of stability. No matter how bad things got, no matter how horrible or sickening the scene, you could count on Carmichael to look like the same quality of crap. He glared at me as he came in. "Yeah?"

She tossed the plastic bag to him, and he caught it. "Mark that and log it," she said. "Hang around for a minute. I want a witness."

Carmichael looked down at the bag and saw my card. His beady eyes widened. He looked back up at me, and I saw the shift in gears in his head, reclassifying me from annoying ally to suspect.

"Mr. Dresden," Murphy said. She kept her tone frosty, polite. "There are some questions we’d like to ask you. Do you think you could come down to the station and make a statement?"

Questions to be asked. The White Council would convene and execute me in a little more than thirty hours. I didn’t have time for questions. "I’m sorry, Lieutenant. I’ve got to comb my hair tonight."

"Tomorrow morning, then," she said.

"We’ll see," I said.

"If you aren’t there in the morning," Murphy said, "I’m going to ask for a warrant. We’ll come and find you and by God, Harry, I’ll get some answers to this."

"Suit yourself," I told her, and I started for the door. Carmichael took a step forward and stood in my way. I stopped and looked at him, and he kept his eyes focused on the center of my chest. "If I’m not under arrest," I told her, "then I presume I’m free to go."

"Let him go, Ron," Murphy said. Her tone of voice was disgusted, but I could hear the hurt underneath it. "I’ll talk to you again soon, Mr. Dresden." She stepped closer and said, in a perfectly even tone, "And if it turns out that you’re the one behind all this, rest assured. Whatever you can do and whatever you can pull, I will find you and I will bring you down. Do you understand me?"

I did understand, really. I understood the pressure she was under, her frustration, her anger, and her determination to stop the killing from happening again. If I was some kind of hero from a romance novel, I’d have said something brief and eloquent and heartrending. But I’m just me, so I said, "I do understand, Karrin."

Carmichael stepped out of my way.

And I walked away from Murphy, who I couldn’t talk to, and from Linda, who I couldn’t protect, my head aching, weary to my bones, and feeling like a total piece of shit.

Chapter Sixteen

I walked down the block from Linda Randall’s apartment building, my thoughts and emotions a far more furious thunderstorm than the one now rolling away from the city, out over the vastness of the lake. I called a cab from the pay phone outside a gas station and stood about with my back resting against the wall of the building in the misting rain, scowling and waiting.

I had lost Murphy’s trust. It didn’t matter that I had done what I had to protect both her and myself. Noble intentions meant nothing. It was the results that counted. And the results of my actions had been telling a bald-faced lie to one of the only people I could come close to calling a friend. And I wasn’t sure that, even if I found the person or persons responsible, even if I worked out how to bring them down, even if I did Murphy’s job for her, that what had happened between us could ever be smoothed over.

My thoughts were on that topic and similar issues of doom and gloom when a man with a hat pulled low over his face began to walk past me, stopped halfway, then turned and drove his fist into my belly.