Under Witch Curse (Moon Shadow Series) (17 page)

“I might have been feeling a little pushed to live here.”

“You’re not Tara. You don’t need babysitting. But you find more trouble than anyone I’ve ever known.”

“You should have stopped with me not needing babysitting.”

“I’m new at this,” he protested.

I nodded against his arm. “I didn’t even have a business partner before. Now I have this thing where I don’t know if I’m supposed to be checking in with you all the time or what. I’m pretty sure I don’t want to, and yet when you wander off to investigate dead bodies, damn right I intend to be there because what if something happens?”

He grunted. “I’ll probably ask before moving furniture the next time.”

“I’ll definitely go with you to the next dead body.”

He groaned, but it was theatrics. I slid sideways away from his arm so he could rest. “It’s not any easier for me,” I told him. “But tonight I’m bodyguard. Tomorrow, we’ll worry about who is in charge.” I held his hand and listened while his breathing evened out.

The dream catcher spun in the window, reflecting moonbeams. I hoped it was strong enough to keep a dragon out.

Chapter 23

Morning dawned cold and not so clear. I phoned Lynx first thing and left him a message that was upfront about what we needed, but didn’t divulge all the nitty-gritty. His phone was never turned on when he was working. He’d show up when he got around to it if he didn’t leave town entirely and refuse to ever do business with me again.

Tracy had returned to build more walls, and the roofers arrived to start the lab roof.

While I scrambled eggs for breakfast, I asked Tracy if he knew the homeless guy we had discovered at the nail salon. Describing the guy was difficult and came out as a rambling list of his clothing. I had never seen the color of his eyes and his hair had been so dirty it was impossible to know if it was gray covered with dirt or a brown combination.

Tracy listened until I stuttered to a stop. “There’s a lot of us. Some hobos, lots of winos, some families. There’s this one guy. He rides trains all the time. Tried it with the bus system, but he ended up locked in the luggage compartment for three days. Almost died.”

“The guy I’m talking about liked beer and was hoping for a warm place to sleep,” I remembered.

Tracy nodded. “Maybe Nick. He’s a wino. He’d go anywhere for a beer. Warm place for the night, maybe not, but a beer or wine, yeah.”

“Did he have any tattoos?”

Tracy nodded again, never once looking up as he shoveled in a final bite of food. Before he finished chewing, his plate was in the sink.

Since Tracy didn’t offer anything more, I pressed. “What did they look like?”

He stepped outside and hummed an almost inaudible tune, a greeting to Mother Earth. My bracelet vibrated once as if hit by a silver tuning fork. This house would be an artistic monument when he was done.

I followed him to where the house met the outside. “Do you remember what the tats looked like?”

He paused, but then resumed removing the plastic sheeting that protected the kitchen. “I don’t remember.” He scratched his nearly bald crown and then added, “I need to light the brick oven.”

“Any idea at all?” I grabbed a jacket and trailed in his wake.

He wasted no motions, but every now and then, he’d hum his little greeting. Finally he said to me, “He wore his coat mostly. But he had some on his arms. Blue, faded. A lot of lines.”

“Dragons?”

He shook his head.

“Did he have one in the shape of a dog?” I could name shapes all day and get nowhere. “Any idea what the shape was?”

“Was more like a cross, but not exactly because there was a sun in the center or something like that. He said he had them done in the army.”

Ah. Maybe we could trace him through there. “Do you know his last name?”

Another head shake. Something told me that homeless guys didn’t offer up too much personal information. “Are you a wino?” Martin had been.

His eyebrows lifted, but he still avoided eye contact. “Me? No. Used to smoke, but it’s hard to find enough butts lying around and isn’t worth the trouble.”

Yeah. Finding butts. “Thanks.”

He hummed again as I retreated.

I scrambled more eggs in time to greet White Feather easing into the kitchen. Moving around was taking him a lot longer than normal. “With all the noise here, we should go to my house,” I suggested. “You can relax there while I pack the rest of my things.”

“I’m not able to lift much.”

“Nope.”

He’d get no rest here, and he needed it. Dark circles topped with pain shaded his eyes. He accepted the eggs and balanced on the edge of a bar stool. “Gordon called a minute ago. He brought Tam and her husband, Richard, in for questioning. Said she was all fired up because she’s certain someone has gone in the salon at night before. But nothing was stolen so she didn’t report it.”

“How many times, did she say?”

White Feather nodded. “Two or three. Could have been more, but she didn’t notice right off. She said she started leaving little piles of hair on the floor and small ribbons trapped between the cabinet doors. Twice for certain, someone opened the cabinet doors and the ribbons dropped to the floor.”

“What did the hair tell her?”

“She said she usually uses a steam mop at the end of the day. One morning after she put off mopping something wasn’t right, but she wasn’t sure what. So she started leaving a small pile of hair here and there. One of the same nights the ribbons fell, the pile of hair was scattered all over.”

I thought about the tarp. It would scatter hair, especially if someone shook it out. It had been heavy cloth. Hair would stick to it. “Twice. That she noticed. And that doesn’t count last night when we were there. White Feather—”

“Yeah. Someone has been using her studio as a location to secretly create the tats.”

“What about the bakery?”

“Never been broken into that they know of. Her husband started leaving things he could track as well, but nothing ever indicated an overnight visitor. On the way to your place, we should stop back at the jewelry store. With the new information we have, maybe now we can figure out what they were doing and how.”

“You up for that?” I asked worriedly.

“Might as well keep moving.”

As soon as he finished eating, I washed up and we headed out.

“I almost forgot. Before we stop at Piercing Hoops, swing by Mat’s place. Gordon said he’d meet us there. He had one of the police sketch artists draw the tattoos from the wound. Since we saw the constructs, he figures we can tell him how closely the tats match.”

“Mat’s speaking to Gordon, then?”

“Sounds like it. He didn’t say much other than he planned to run the surveillance on Tam’s from Mat’s place. The bakery up the street makes it easy for daytime checks; her place will suffice for nighttime.”

Since the nail salon wasn’t within eyesight I guessed, “Cameras?”

He nodded. “And he’ll be right there if something goes down.”

“That’s good because if Lynx happens to follow Zandy back there, it’s better if Gordon is already nearby to watch his back.”

Mat’s shop wasn’t yet open, but she answered the alley door as soon as I knocked. She held a very large cup of black coffee in one hand. She was much less grumpy than she normally was at nine o’clock. “We haven’t been to the bakery yet,” she said in greeting.

“That’s okay. I’d better avoid eating there or I’ll get fat.” I gave her a hug.

Gordon sat at the kitchen table sipping from another of Mat’s giant mugs. Her mugs only came in two sizes, large and larger. Gordon had either just arrived himself or was classy enough to be fully dressed, including his sidearm, so it wasn’t completely obvious whether he had spent the night.

I slid my eyes to Mat. From her cool stare and quick nod, I guessed that while things weren’t perfect, she had decided to give him a second chance. She wasn’t cutting him a lot of slack, however. Instead of hovering close to him, she remained detached, leaving a business edge on things.

Gordon was nothing if not professional. He had the folder ready for us and spread the pictures across the table as soon as our greetings were out of the way.

“Once the police artist knew the wounds were tats, it was easy for her to add in detail.”

“Wow. These are impressive.” The artist had taken the time to draw a colored snake from the first robbery, a lizard from the jewelry store, the dragon and the dog-like creature we’d fought, and what appeared to be a lizard with wings from the house owned by Tam and her husband. The colors were all done in common tattoo inks, but she had added scales, claws, and nasty snouts with teeth.

The winged lizard reminded me of an Asian dragon, more snake than the typical fatter European ones. The fact that Tam and her husband were Asian may have been why the thought occurred to me, but between that and the drawings, I realized I’d been missing something important. “Tam’s son draws.”

“He’s an artist? As in a tattoo artist?” Gordon sat up straighter.

“Not saying he does tats or has anything to do with these. But he does the artwork for the front of the shops, and he’s offered Mat designs for her new purses.”

Mat’s eyes widened slightly. “He’s good. But why would he rob his own parents?”

“He must have a key to the place,” Gordon said.

“Both the home and the shops. And he’d also know the money was at the house the day it was robbed.”

“They didn’t leave any money at the salon,” Gordon said. “I assume White Feather told you the break-in there probably wasn’t the first time someone used the nail salon as a place to do the body art. We’re checking all the employees out. I’ll add the son to the list. What is his name?”

“Lynx can check him out too. His name is Kevin, young guy, still in high school or maybe just out. Definitely has talent.”

Mat sighed. “That he does.”

“You’ve seen his work?” Gordon turned to her. “Anything resembling any of these?”

Mat swallowed, sounding like she was forcing down more than coffee. “There were dragons in his notebook, I remember that. I didn’t pay close attention to them because I was after much cuter designs, ones that would match the nail designs or the spells I sell.”

“An employee or the son in on it would explain how someone happened to walk in and out of the salon through both the front and back doors. Whoever it was had a key,” Gordon said.

Mat’s place wasn’t large enough for White Feather to pace, but he made two attempts back and forth between the kitchenette and living area. “They didn’t have a key to either of the jewelry stores. Tam’s house matched those two robberies pretty closely—break in, leave body, get out.”

I frowned. There were other inconsistencies. Zandy had come after Mat in broad daylight. He’d approached a homeless guy and lured him to the nail salon at nightfall. Had Zandy intended to keep Mat quiet in her own shop and do a tat on her? They could rob her place and then use her later to feed a construct. “Moonlight madness. It’s almost as if they are testing techniques, trying to figure out the best way to create and control the constructs.”

“It has to require practice,” White Feather muttered.

“So do break-ins,” Gordon added. “The first jewelry store netted them almost nothing, but they took almost everything of value from the second one. The burglary at Tam’s house was obviously premeditated. They knew exactly when the money would be there.” Gordon made a note. “And if they perfect their methods, they could break in just about anywhere. Since the constructs disappear when the body fueling them dies, half our evidence is gone.”

Gordon handed White Feather copies of the recreated body art to take with us. I didn’t hold high hopes for finding any additional clues at the jewelry store, but it wouldn’t hurt to check.

Piercing Hoops was already open for the day. From outside the door, I studied the drawing Gordon had provided. “Those dragons that attacked us had more bulk than I would have guessed from the tats on the guy’s arm, but they weren’t huge.” I spaced my thumb and forefinger across the body of the lizard. “A small lizard could fit under this door, probably even before the weatherstripping was removed.”

“Easily,” White Feather agreed.

We went in. The proprietor had the golden tones of a Hispanic or Native American, and he wore his dark hair braided with a beaded headband. That would convince most tourists that this was an authentic place to shop for American Indian art.

The jewelry in the counters had been replaced. Small works of pottery and at least two copper sculptures were arranged across the top of the glass display cases. The paintings of the Rio Grande remained on the left wall, opposite the camera system. A red light on the camera indicated it was running.

The door to the closet office was partially open.

“What can I show you today?” The man behind the counter stroked his bushy thinking-about-graying beard.

“Just browsing,” I murmured, making sure to do so. There was nowhere in here that wasn’t accessible to a construct. I hadn’t paid attention to the bottom of the office door when we were here before because it hadn’t seemed important. But a lizard could have easily slid through the one-inch gap even if the door had been locked.

Once in the office, the lizard could shimmy up the desk and tap keys on a keyboard. It could probably climb the sheetrock walls, especially if it had claws that were anything like those of the dragons we’d seen. Whoever controlled it would have to be able to see through the lizard’s eyes. That kind of trick required a lot of power, the type that might easily drain a victim of every ounce of life.

White Feather asked the guy about the origin of the new inventory while I checked out the actual items. The guy had quality, but modern, jewelry. The sculptures were all abstract. If they were supposed to be recognizable, it was completely lost on me.

One of the pieces of jewelry, however, did catch my eye. White Feather must have heard my breath catch because he turned quick enough to elicit a gasp when he twisted his injury.

“Sorry,” I said to him. I asked the owner, “Who made this piece?”