Freak Show (Episode One: The Nightshade Cases) Read online

  “Then what are you doing in my office?” The captain waved them both off, turning to his computer monitor, giant fingers surely too big to maneuver the keys of his keyboard. “As long as your pet civilian doesn’t bring us bad press, I won’t pull the plug.” Gerri wanted to smile at Jackson, just to rub it in, but knew it was childish. Not that it would have mattered if they’d been alone. She’d take childish. “Go catch the killer and stop pestering me.”

  Jackson stood first, turning to go, while Gerri rose more slowly. She heard the door open behind her, the clomp of his feet, just as the captain turned back to her again.

  “Meyers.” His tone was soft, so strange. He gestured to her to sit again and she did, mostly out of shock at the change in his expression. “You’re good at what you do. That’s why we recruited you.” She didn’t miss Boston. And, she did. But this job had been too good to turn down, the offer of a lead detective role in a new city luring her to the coast. And now, here the captain was proving to her she’d chosen well. “I’ve had enough time to see you at work to know we made the right choice.” Gerri held her breath. Wait, what? He never gave her a single indication of any of this before. A thrill of delight raced through her, one she kept tightly capped. As she repeated to herself she didn’t need approval. All the while she softened toward him, filed him carefully under respected men she could count on, right next to Joe and her father. The captain sighed, broad shoulders slumping just a little, sunlight turning the dark skin of his cheek to chocolate. “Joe agreed with me, and I trusted his judgment. He thought you were special.” Gerri was shocked to discover she choked up at the praise, cleared her throat, looked away from her captain’s watching eyes.

  “Thank you, Sir,” she said, heart swelling with pride. “I do my best.”

  “You do more than that.” The captain hesitated before going on. “You have the highest arrest rate of any detective I’ve ever met. Only one unsolved case in a ten year career in homicide.” Gerri flinched from the words, deflating slightly though her record was both a source of personal achievement and discomfort. She didn’t want to think about her one lost case. Ever. Or about the reason she had such a great record. Not when her gut churned with tingling, making her afraid she was a freak every time it told her exactly what she needed to know. That couldn’t be normal, could it? “I’m going to give you leeway on this Dr. DanAllart. And anything else you need. Until you prove to me I can’t trust you.”

  Gerri’s head snapped up, eyes meeting his as she answered that challenge with one of her own, as she would to her father. “Never, Sir.”

  He nodded, actually smiled. She was surprised again, to realize how handsome he was when he wasn’t scowling like a demon. “Better not.” He sat back in his chair. “How’s Pierce working out?”

  She laughed. Out loud. A bark of a sound that hurt her chest, though companionable enough. “Peachy,” she said.

  “Not my first choice, either.” Nice to know the captain was on her side. What an enlightening conversation this turned out to be. Gerri’s mix of relief and belonging made her slightly giddy. “But, you’re stuck with his ass.”

  She knew better than to protest, though she wanted to. “Yes, sir.”

  The captain grinned openly this time. “You don’t even want to know why?”

  “Does it matter?” Gerri stood. “I’m assuming you have your reasons.”

  The captain just stared at her a long moment. “Someone does,” he said, so softly she almost missed it. “Get back to work and catch me a killer.”

  Gerri turned and left his office, closing the door behind her. The glass rattled under the pressure. She knew how it felt. Now she was out of the captain’s sight, she felt rather shaken herself. What was that? Two months of barking, snapping, rumbling monster and suddenly she’s good to go?

  She was happy for the chance to prove herself. That was all she ever asked for.

  As she turned to head to her desk, she spotted an opportunity she couldn’t pass up. Jackson sat at his desk, hunched over a file in front of him. Her photos. The fact he had her work in his grubby hands made the next few seconds all the more righteous. Gerri stepped in, one hand on the back of his chair, the other landing in the middle of the photographs of the crowd from the murder scene as she grinned down at him. Jackson’s anger burned in his eyes as she spoke.

  “You try that again,” she said, softly, sweetly, lifting one hand to adjust his tie with a little more force than necessary, “and I’ll make sure you don’t. Ever again.”

  Whistling, she straightened and retrieved her jacket. She’d planned some desk time herself, but he could handle it. She was more interested in fresh air and a little road trip.

  ***

  INT. – SILVER CITY COLLEGE - EVENING

  Kinsey leaned over the Bible in her hands, leafing through the pages. The moment she got back to her office that afternoon, she settled in with a cup of coffee to have a look through and see if maybe there was something here after all, something she could uncover to help Gerri on the case. A long shot, but it was all Kinsey had. She still felt guilty about falling for Roxy’s show and was determined to follow Gerri’s lead from now on, and learn everything she could about being a good partner.

  Which meant following up on this rather fascinating book. Helped Kinsey was curious to begin with.

  The idea of being Gerri’s partner scared her and excited her in equal measure. Not that they were really partners. Kinsey shook off that hero worship as she waited for her java to perk. She’d had enough of following Gerri around like a puppy in college. It broke her heart when Gerri finally left to go to be a cop, like her dad.

  Kinsey was a grown woman, damn it. A doctor of anthropology with her own awards and accreditations. And yet, being with Gerri reminded her just how much cooler and more put together the detective was. And made Kinsey feel small and nerdy all over again.

  But, the moment she settled behind her desk and opened the Bible, all of her thoughts of the past went away. Her training kicked in, grasped her by her heart and her soul and the part of her that loved a mystery and pulled her down the gaping rabbit hole.

  Kinsey only surfaced twice. The first time for a needed bathroom trip thanks to all the coffee. She hoped her fellow professors and students who greeted her forgave her absent mutters in answer. Her other break came in the form of a brisk walk around the quad to clear her head so it wouldn’t explode. In the three hours she spent pouring over the Bible, Kinsey’s whole outlook slowly altered.

  Someone knocking on her office door finally brought her head up, eyes blurry and tired, with a churning in her stomach that wasn’t hunger and wasn’t nausea. She was actually disappointed to discover, when she called out it was open, the person at her door wasn’t Gerri, but the apologetically smiling Mitchell.

  “Sorry to disturb you, Dr. Dan,” he said, his nickname for her making her sigh. Mitchell’s feet shuffled under him. “Do you have a minute?”

  Did she? Kinsey looked down at the Bible on her desk, hands pressing flat the thin paper, whole body beginning to shake. But, she held herself together, mind spinning around what she’d read, as she managed to sound normal, at least to her own ears, when she spoke. “What is it?”

  “I just wanted to give you this.” He handed her a slim folder, his own fingers trembling. “You said you’d read it and give me your opinion.”

  Kinsey stared blankly at the cover for a moment before shaking her head, jerking herself out of her reverie. “Your master’s thesis proposal.” Of course. She managed a smile, wanting to leap up and hug him or tell him what she’d discovered. Thought she discovered. Might have. He’d understand, surely, the significance, as a student of human behavior. But she held rigid and still while he smiled in return.

  “Thanks,” he said. Stopped with a head-tilt. “Are you okay?” He rubbed at the side of his neck, an absent motion, where a pair of red marks showed briefly under his long hair.

  “Are you?” She stood, moved toward him, her
concern briefly overshadowing the stress pounding inside her head. “Did something bite you?”

  He dodged her seeking fingers with a grin and a shake of his head. “It’s nothing,” he said.

  “I’m fine, too.” Kinsey smiled in return, tension coming back full force. Her moment of compassion was gone. She had to do something and he needed to go. She ushered him out of her office, leaving him in the hall, feeling breathless herself as she beamed a smile at him. “Good night!”

  Did he try to say the same as she slammed the door in his face? Kinsey had no idea. She was too busy pressing her back against the wood, staring into the distance with her smile still intact, mind running over the three passages that had her the most excited:

  Six days of creation, six races born out, as it was intended. But on the rest day, the seventh crept from the remains of perfection and were spawned without the care of God.

  What did it mean? Six races? Why so specific? There were obscure names attached, words like dervish and danu and, to her intense curiosity, the bheast.

  Powerful are the bheast, for they wear the skins of the lowly creatures and carry their strengths upon their backs.

  Kinsey’s hand shook as she wiped it hastily over her mouth. Wore the skins of lowly creatures. Literally? Or was it metaphor for something else? So hard to know.

  And the Shades of Night are the hands of God and shall rule with their divine power over all for ever and ever.

  Divine power. Paranormal ability? She’d spent years studying the past, and had never heard of any order, religious or otherwise, referred to by that name. Ever. That very fact made her pulse quicken further.

  Paranormals existed. They existed. She shuddered as she finally accepted what she’d read. A warm and fuzzy glow burst inside her, washing her with excitement. Okay, so it wasn’t written in so many words in the oddly phrased Bible. Pretty ambiguous in spots, honestly. A lot of it sounded similar to the King James’s edition she’d studied. But there was enough, more like these three passages, hints and tantalizing descriptions, she knew she’d stumbled on something amazing.

  The idea she, Kinsey DanAllart, would be the anthropologist to expose paranormals to the world… the idea almost blew everything. Kinsey burst into giggles, hands over her mouth, as she stumbled to her desk and sank into her seat. They would fight her, of course, the mainstream. Kinsey stopped shaking, going cold, face paling. And did an abrupt about face, picturing Gerri’s expression of denial as the constant. They would never believe her, would they, anyone who hadn’t seen what she’d seen? She’d be a laughing stock. After all, the proof she saw as indelible was tenuous, vague. Maybe she was wrong, grasping at truths that didn’t exist because she wanted a discovery.

  Was that it? Did the events of the past skew her ability to be objective about this? There was only one person she could have talked to this about and he was dead.

  Dr. Gant. Who she now believed was a paranormal himself.

  But no, wait. There were two others she could confide in. Kinsey remembered in a jolt just why it was she had the book in the first place. The implications almost crippled her with cramping to her knotted stomach. She had to tell Gerri and Ray. The minister, this book. Roxy.

  Where had the minister gotten this Bible? Why was he sharing a version that spoke, even subtly, of those not human? Was Roxy a paranormal? Was Aisling? Why else give her this Bible?

  So many questions without answers. She was so wound up, Kinsey squealed like a little girl at a horror movie when her phone rang. She gasped a breath, half a laugh, pulling herself together. The number made her wince and force herself to draw a steadying sigh, calming her down with its mundane reminder of her normal life. She could ignore it.

  Maybe she should.

  But her hand was already reaching for the receiver, a fake smile lifting her lips as she answered in the quiet dark of her office. “Hello, Grandmother.”

  “Kinsey, dear,” Margot DanAllart’s rusty voice came across the line. Kinsey pictured her elderly grandparent sitting in her favorite chair, surrounded by dust and antiques, with her manservant, Moss, hovering over her. “Are you all right?”

  Damn it. Her grandmother could always tell. “Just working on something for a friend,” she said. “It’s exciting.”

  “I’m well aware that Geraldine has drawn you into her world of murder and mayhem.” Margot’s disapproving tone took Kinsey back to her childhood, being chastised for playing when she should be studying. Resentment as old as she was stirred in Kinsey’s heart, but she held her peace, like always.

  “What can I do for you, Grandmother?” Kinsey sat back, pulling the Bible into her lap. She cradled it, almost for comfort, as Margot spoke.

  “I’m in this city you’ve chosen over your home,” the old woman said. More disapproval. Kinsey sat up straighter, heart pounding.

  “You’re in Silver City?” What was Margot doing here? She never left her mansion in Boston.

  “I wanted to see my granddaughter. And her two friends who seem to have lured her into a life of depravity.” Kinsey sighed inaudibly and rolled her eyes. She hadn’t known Ray and Gerri were even living in Silver City when she took the job at the university. Just total good luck. Her fingers stroked the Bible as she answered.

  “I’ll let them know,” she said.

  “I’d like more than that.” Margot snorted on the other end of the line. “I insist on dinner. The four of us. Tomorrow night.”

  And, since Margot always got what she wanted, Kinsey shrugged. “I’ll ask them,” she said. “I’m sorry, I really have to go.” She had to talk to Gerri and Ray, all right. But not about her nosy, bossy grandmother.

  “Kinsey.” Margot paused on the other end, catching her attention. “It’s important.”

  Sure it was. So her grandmother could spend an evening giving Gerri and Ray a hard time. “Bye.” Kinsey hung up, a little breathless at her own chutzpah. When the phone didn’t ring again, she let out a giggle she’d gotten away with being rude to the one woman in the world who would make her pay for it later.

  As Kinsey sat forward, the Bible slipped from her lap and landed on the floor with a thud. She bent under her desk, hands scrambling for it, finally catching the corner. A meep of pain erupted from her lips as she whacked the back of her head on the underside of the table.

  Missing, as she did, the thin strip of paper that slipped from the pages of the Bible to settle on the floor, lost in the dark.

  ***

  INT. – SILVER CITY MORGUE - MORNING

  Ray couldn’t stop pacing, her heart keeping time with the hurried steps of her circling. She heard Gerri’s voice approaching and stopped in her tracks, suddenly nervous to see the detective. After all, Gerri had been adamant against belief when Ray insisted something was wrong when they’d first encountered each other again, here in Silver City. Ray’s first and second case as city coroner both led her to believe there were more things she didn’t know about the world and what might be living in it than what she did.

  Not to mention the night Joe died. The thing Ray was sure she saw.

  She’d sat on her autopsy since yesterday, from filing it officially, if only to hold off on the response she knew she’d receive from Gerri. She hated having to hide it from Robert. He hadn’t pushed her when she’d made excuses, but that wouldn’t last long. Any second now, he would return to the morgue and ask her why she was so late sending the report in. Would ask her if she wanted him to call the insane asylum to come pick her up for writing what she’d written. And, what would she say?

  What could she say? Anger Gerri avoided her this long died when the door to the suite swung open and clear, green eyes met hers. Ray could tell Gerri knew she was hiding something. It didn’t help her slim hand shook a little as she wiped her mouth, nor that Gerri’s face hardened as she approached, as though expecting exactly what Ray was about to tell her.

  But there was no way around it. No matter her precise upbringing, or how she longed since she was a chi
ld to be a doctor, Ray was backed into a corner. Chastised from a young age for asking people about illnesses they claimed they didn’t have, only to discover a short time later she was right… Unnerving and uncomfortable for a young woman. She learned quickly to hide the knowledge she shouldn’t have, to hate being a physician when she understood working with the living only made things worse, rather than better. Going against Mummy’s desires for her to be a happy, kept socialite wife to pursue medicine had been one of the hardest things Ray had ever done. But, easy compared to eagerly embracing medicine in the hope of healing those she knew were ill. Hopes dashed when she finally understood, despite knowing what she knew, there was nothing she could do.

  Which led her here, to the dead. Who had no effect on her.

  Gerri stopped partway down the length of the slab, watching Ray with careful eyes. Ray adored her tall, gorgeous friend, had often dreamed maybe someday Gerri and her stunning, pale skin, her luscious red hair, her voluptuous, muscular body might decide men weren’t doing it for her anymore and see just how delightful a woman’s attention could be. But they were too close for Ray to allow such fantasies to take hold. Or to do anything about it. Besides, Gerri wasn’t really her type. She leaned toward smaller women, more dainty and delicate, women she could feel superior to. And yes, Ray was well aware where that need came from, to be stronger than.

  Thanks for that, Mummy.

  “I’m not going to like this, am I?” Gerri stood with her hands on her hips, her favorite stance from what Ray could tell. More masculine than Ray thought necessary.

  “You’re not.” Ray sighed out her tension, rubbing her arms through the sleeves of her lab coat. She’d already sent her assistant, Robert, and the morning shift examiner out so she could talk to Gerri alone. Just in case there was shouting. Not to mention she didn’t want them to overhear, to think she’d lost her mind completely, was a freak. But Gerri had to hear what she found in Aisling’s body. No matter what.