The Burning City (12 page)

The page had a picture of her and Sam outside Tribune Tower. Sam looked self-satisfied and was waving to the crowd. She was clinging to his arm, wide-eyed like a cornered animal.

Beneath the picture the headline said: SAM HAAIN EXONERATED: AND IN LOVE?

June picked up the paper. “Seriously?”

He chuckled. “They’re very interested in our closeness. They feel we were hanging all over each other during the press conference.”

“I was hanging on to you in sheer terror.”

“Well, they’re not wrong.” He snatched up a piece of cucumber and munched on it while she read.

She only skimmed the article, cringing. “Sam Haain and June Coffin seem an unlikely pair,” the article said. “Though if anyone can tempt the fiery leader of the Paranormal Alliance, it would be a Siren.”

June rolled her eyes. “Did you read this?”

“Yep.” He grinned.

“Ms. Coffin was seen clinging to Mr. Haain’s arm both entering and leaving the conference, the two locked together in a bolstering embrace. During the conference, Mr. Haain was continuously distracted by the quiet, reticent woman at his side. His affection and support of her was clear—at one point reaching over to grip her hand. Mr. Haain, who has announced he will be running for mayor in next year’s election, may have formed a bond with the dark and mysterious Siren. Will she be our city’s new First Lady come February?”

June tossed the paper on the counter and glared at Sam.

“What?” He laughed. “I didn’t write it.”

“They called me ‘reticent.’”

“Aren’t you?” He patted her hip. “They just need something to jabber about. Kind of nice it’s something good for a change, don’t you think?”

She resumed chopping. “I’m tired of the limelight, to be perfectly honest.”

“Then you’d better break up with me, because I live in it. I love it.”

She grabbed the bottle of dressing, silent.

“I did a background check on Anthony.” Sam leaned on the counter. “Had a friend downtown pull his public records. He’s never so much as had a parking ticket. He was homeschooled, took classes online for college. He joined the Paranormal Alliance two years ago online. He’s only logged as having gone to one public event, a rally shortly after he joined. Robbie was there too. Maybe Robbie was dogging him to come.”

“So he bows to his brother’s pressure.” She drizzled dressing on the vegetables. “Not a good sign. Anything else?”

“I’ve got folks digging deeper, but it’ll take a few days. I got a text from him. He said he made contact with his brother’s spies. He’s coming over this evening to talk to me. He’s afraid someone might listen in if he talks on the phone.” He smirked. “He asked that we speak alone, because you make him nervous.”

She jammed a forkful of salad into her mouth.

“He’s a delicate flower, June. And while I don’t find that appealing, he’s the only hope I have of finding Robbie and you finding Occam. We have to give him a little benefit of the doubt, but we won’t trust him fully. I agree that’s foolish.”

She chewed and swallowed. “I still feel like he’s doing this for himself, if he’s not going to double cross us. This isn’t about you or the Paranormal Alliance.”

“Hating Robbie is a universal language. I don’t mind.”

“If he’s just using you to punish his brother, that could be dangerous. He might be doing this without thinking it through.”

“I know.” Sam stood up straight and squeezed her shoulder. “I’ll be careful. By the way, it’s good to see you with an appetite. The vitamins are working?”

She shrugged. “I’m hungry. So yeah, maybe.”

Sam returned to the dining room. She borrowed one of his laptops, as he had several. He’d gotten the Internet turned on. She sat on the patio and visited her favorite bloggers, the ones who had entertained her through her long months in hiding.

To her vast amusement and slight disappointment, the CIA conspiracy guy had taken down his past posts. He’d made a short post in which he explained he was abandoning the blog and wished her, Micha, Sam, and everyone else involved a safe and peaceful life and told them to “keep fighting the good fight.”

She laughed heartily.

Checking more blogs, she discovered her romance with Sam was a hot topic online too. Like a celebrity’s, her personal life was on everyone’s lips. How was she going to stay with Sam if he was always in the limelight? How was she going to be Chicago’s First Lady? Did she even want to be?

Blessedly, her food stayed down. She was even still hungry and had an apple. It stayed down too. She was so relieved she texted Trina to let her know.

More people showed up as evening fell. June stayed outside unless Sam beckoned her in to be introduced to someone. The people were all pleasant and kind—some were even excited to meet her—but they were all vastly different from her, professional and smart and enthusiastic, and she didn’t fit in.

Before Cindy left, she joined June on the patio, and they entertained Dipity with a laser pointer.

“I don’t really fit in this world,” June said.

Dipity skittered in circles as Cindy swirled the red dot around.

“I mean this political world of Sam’s. I don’t know anything about politics.”

“Me neither.”

Dipity crashed into a chair, and Cindy lowered the pointer.

“But I know Sam. And I believe in Sam, if not as a politician, as a person. He wants good things for me and people like me, so I’ll support him in whatever he does.”

Dipity walked over to June, looking up at her eagerly, as if she were the commander of the red dot and could bring it back. June held her hand out for the laser pointer and Cindy handed it to her.

“You like Sam as a person, right?” Cindy said. “You must, if you’re climbing that.”

June turned on the laser and Dipity immediately sprang back into action. “Yes, but this is all so much bigger than me.”

“You don’t have to understand politics. You don’t have to know the issues he’s running on inside and out. You just have to trust him like you always have, support him emotionally. He chose you, and Sam doesn’t choose things lightly. He doesn’t fake things. If he picked you, he really cares about you. He doesn’t care that you don’t know anything about fiscal graphs and community outreach.”

June continued swirling the laser. Dipity scampered across the patio floor between them.

“Let Sam chase the red dot,” Cindy said. “That’s what he’s good at. You don’t have to be a cat to love a cat.”

June smiled. “Thanks, Cindy.”

Cindy left, and Dipity stopped playing and took a nap.

Sam stepped outside. “Anthony is here,” he said lowly.

She sighed. “I’ll behave myself and stay away, so he doesn’t get spooked.”

“I’ll be in the sunroom. There’s too many people here, and he doesn’t like crowds. I’ll try to get a better read on him. Pry into his life a little.”

“If you need me to hold him down and threaten to break his fingers, just holler.”

He kissed the top of her head. “My bodyguard.”

She was restless and bored. Freedom didn’t feel like freedom. It felt like the past six months, trapped in some house or another, forced to entertain herself, unable to go out into the world.

Like a bored, despondent child, she dragged around the house, on the verge of throwing a tantrum because there was nothing to do. She walked out on the front porch. Night had fallen, the stars out. She trudged down the long set of stairs from the porch to the driveway. Dipity plunked down the steps after her.

“Don’t run away,” June told her as they reached the bottom. “I’m not digging through the bushes to find you. You’ll be sleeping outside tonight.”

June sat down on the bottom step. Dipity walked around the yard, sniffing things. Lightning bugs flickered in the darkness, little yellow pulses of light. The driveway was packed with cars.

She picked at her fingernails, trying to shake the looming sense of awkwardness hanging over her, the loneliness of being an outsider, of being that left-out kid she once was. She’d vowed she would never be that girl again, yet here she was.

A nearby sound startled her. She jerked her head up.

What she’d heard was strange and alarming—the sound of leaves rustling and a weird, heavy thump.

Dipity shot back over to the stairs and stopped next to June, tail in the air, staring across the yard.

June got to her feet. She squinted into the shadows under the line of trees across the yard. The trees weren’t too far away, maybe fifty feet, but it was so dark now she couldn’t make out anything.

“Hello?” she called. Maybe one of the guards was patrolling the grounds.

Silence.

She was tired of being spooked, of hearing bizarre sounds and not knowing their source. She crossed the yard toward the trees, the grass prickling her bare feet. Dipity sprinted back up the stairs to the porch.

“Hello?” she called again. “Is someone there?”

As she drew closer to the trees, the shadows lessened in density, and she could make out something—a shape—lying on the ground. She slowed, holding her breath. She didn’t want to be attacked by a nervous possum or sprayed by a skunk.

However, the shape was much too big to be an animal. In fact, it looked like a person.

She stopped, about ten feet away, standing beneath the overhanging branches. She tried to convince herself she wasn’t seeing clearly.

“Hello?” She considered using her power. “Hey, can you hear me?”

The shape didn’t move. It couldn’t be a person. What the hell would a person be doing lying underneath the trees in Sam’s yard?

Unless he wasn’t alive.

Then came the unmistakable soft swish of someone walking through the grass behind her. Before she could turn around, someone whispered close to her ear.

“For you, darling. Come home soon.”

She spun around, a scream catching in her throat.

No one was there.

“Occam!”

No reply. No movement. She turned in a circle, scanning the yard, heart pounding.

“Where are you?” she demanded. “Come out!”

Nothing.

She looked at the house. He was probably already gone, but she had to find out where he was going.

She ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time. She burst into the house, breathing hard, her side aching. Sam’s friends were still in the dining room. She ran to the sunroom.

Sam sat on the couch they’d had sex on yesterday. Anthony sat across from him in a chair, and he looked up at her, wide-eyed, blanched. He gripped the arms of his chair.

She bolted over to him and grabbed him by the shoulders, staring into his eyes.

“Where is he going?” she asked.

“June?” Sam got to his feet. “What are you doing?”

“Concentrate!” She shook Anthony. “Where is he going?”

Anthony shrank down in the chair, staring at her. His eyes flashed. He trembled.

“I don’t…I can’t…” he choked out.

“Can you see him?”

“Yes.” His eyes flashed again. “He’s… He’s in a car, a black car. He’s laughing.”

“June?” Sam said again. “What the hell is going on?”

“Where is he going?” June asked.

Anthony’s eyes flashed again, and then he closed them. “Someone’s in the front seat, driving. A black man with dreadlocks.”

June ground her teeth. “Zack. Where does the car go?”

“I don’t know…. It’s getting fuzzy. I see a house—a yellow house. I don’t know where it is.” He covered his face with his hands. “Let go of me. I can’t see any further.”

She released him and stood. Anthony curled up in the chair, hands still over his face.

“June.” Sam gaped at her. “What are you doing?”

Her heart hammered. She felt sick.

“There’s a dead body in your front yard. I hope it’s not anyone we know.”

“It’s not Jason or Diego.”

Those words nearly made June crumple. Her knees were literally weak, her vision going gray for a moment. One of Sam’s friends gripped her shoulder, bringing her back to reality. Everyone was outside.

Sam stood under the trees, a flashlight in hand. “I don’t know who the hell it is. He’s been worked over, though.”

June steeled herself and walked toward Sam.

“Should we go get the guards, Sam?” a man asked.

They hadn’t called the police or summoned the guards yet. They wouldn’t be able to get near the body once the authorities were involved, and she and Sam needed to get near the body. Occam was clearly sending a message.

“Go ahead,” Sam said. “Tell them to call the police.”

Several people ran down the driveway. June stopped a few feet from Sam.

“How the hell did Occam get on my property?” he asked.

“He’s Occam. And he’s a shapeshifter.”

“He can’t make himself look like a tree.”

“Can’t he? He could disguise an entire van.” She stepped closer. “You’re sure it’s not Jason or Diego?”

“I’m positive.” He moved the flashlight beam off the body. “It’s pretty grisly. I’m not sure you want to see this.”

“I need to see it. There’s a reason it’s here.” Never in her life had she been eager to get near a dead body, but right now, she had to know.

Sam shone the light on the figure.

A man, dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt, or at least it had once been white. His shirt was saturated with blood, dark red and thickly congealed. More was splattered up his neck, his head twisted to the side, his face turned away from her.

Sam circled him slowly, keeping the light on him. “What the hell did that monster do?”

She edged closer, tilting her head.

“Gah!” Sam lurched back, making her jump. “Holy shit. There’s a hole in his chest.” He directed the light away. “You shouldn’t look at this.”

“Put the light on his face.” She circled around the body.

Sam focused the light on the man’s head. The beam trembled.

As she stepped closer, she caught a coppery smell, the raw scent of his insides exposed to the air. Her revulsion and fear disappeared, replaced by curiosity.

“Holy shit,” she whispered.

His eyes were half-lidded, the irises peeking out, dilated and dark. His mouth hung slack. Blood coated his face but didn’t disguise him.

“What is it?” Sam asked.