I cleared my throat. “Melanie. Is there anything at all that you can tell me about this other visitor? Can you describe him?”

She chewed her lower lip. “Hmm … he was tall, thin, super quiet. Didn’t smile. Just sat by her bed for a while, then got up and left.” She heaved another dramatic sigh. “I guess he was pining for her. The poor thing.”

I could feel a headache forming between my eyes. “Hair? Eyes? Anything?”

She gave a firm nod. “Yes, he definitely had hair. And his eyes were kinda light. I think maybe they were green. Or blue. Or they mighta been like a light hazel.” She beamed at me, clearly thrilled to have been such help.

I couldn’t make my mouth form words at first. “Your powers of recall are … amazing,” I finally managed.

She actually gave a small squeal of delight. “Oh! I’m so glad I could help!” She hung the chart back on the end of Tessa’s bed. “Well, let me get back to my rounds. Nice to meet you!” And with that she bustled right on out the door.

I stared after her for several seconds, then turned to look at Mr. Roommate, who had tears of laughter running down his face.

“Oh, God,” he gasped. “I’m sorry I laughed. But isn’t she a complete goofball?”

I grinned despite myself. “Hard to believe she’s for real. So, have you seen this mystery visitor?”

He shook his head as he wiped his eyes. “I’m sorry. I can’t stay too late, so whoever it is, he must come in after I’ve gone. But maybe you can look for a name on the sign-in log at the front desk?”

“Good idea,” I said. “You’d make a good detective.”

“I’m a wimp,” he said with a smile. “I’ll stick to watching the fictional ones on TV.”

“Don’t tell anyone,” I said as I collected my things, “but I’m a total wimp too.”

Unfortunately, Mr. Roommate’s good idea was a bust. There was no record of anyone signing in to visit Tessa.

I got into my searing-hot car and jammed the AC on, then pulled out of the parking lot. Was someone else visiting Tessa? Melanie seemed like a dingbat, so perhaps she had Tessa mixed up with another patient. Or maybe it was just someone Tessa had known from her store or her neighborhood. But if that was the case, then why wouldn’t there be a record of it on the sign-in log?

I pulled into my driveway and did my best to push the worry about Tessa’s visitor out of my head. I needed my focus for the first stage of the ritual that Rhyzkahl had described to me. At least I was able to pry that information out of him before wasting my questions on my stupid concerns about the dreams, I thought with a mental scowl.

I headed down to the basement, then swept and cleaned the floor to prepare it for the new diagram. I’d forced myself into the habit of erasing my diagram and putting all my implements away after each summoning, but I didn’t want to take a chance on any stray marks messing up what I was about to do. Especially since I didn’t really know what I was doing.

Sketching with tedious precision, I laid out the diagram for the call to Tessa’s essence according to the parameters that Rhyzkahl had detailed for me, quite glad that I’d taken notes. Because this shit was confusing. It didn’t look at all like the sort of summoning diagram I normally used. But then again, I wasn’t doing a summoning; I was doing something else entirely. According to Rhyzkahl, this diagram, once completed and with the right amount of potency channeled into it, would send out a call to Tessa’s essence and hopefully draw it back to this plane.

I finished chalking the diagram, then opened my backpack and pulled out the stuff I’d taken from Tessa at the neuro center. I mixed it all together in a silver bowl—blood, hair, swabs, fingernails—to form a disgusting gloppy soup, then painted it around the edge of the diagram. Once I finished, I set the bowl aside and sat back on my heels to examine my work. It looked as if I’d done everything right, but this was so new to me that I had no idea if I’d even be able to see if I’d screwed something obvious up. I sighed and rubbed my eyes. Nothing to do now but keep going and hope for the best.

I stood and pulled potency. It came into my control sluggishly and unevenly, but since I wasn’t going to try to create a portal, it didn’t matter that it pulsed erratically. Or at least I hoped it didn’t. Rhyzkahl had said that the phase of the moon wouldn’t matter—which was a good thing, since there were a number of stages to this ritual that would need to be completed over the next several days.

I channeled the power down into the diagram as Rhyzkahl had explained, watching carefully as it settled into the runes. I released my hold on the potency, relieved as the diagram began to emit a soft resonance, yet at the same time feeling that the whole thing was pretty damn anticlimactic. But it’s not finished, I reminded myself. There was still a lot more work to be done. My problem was that I was too used to summonings—where complicated rituals and diagrams had the impressive result of wind and light and, of course, a demon. This was little more than a buzz.

Seriously unimpressive.

I could only hope that Rhyzkahl knew what the fuck he was talking about.

Chapter 12

As soon as I made it in to the station the next morning, I went to my sergeant’s office to give him a rundown of what Doc had found during the autopsies of Brian and Carol Roth.

Crawford nodded slowly after I finished. “Okay,” he said, turning his pen end over end. “So, Carol Roth might have been killed by someone other than Brian, which then casts a great deal of doubt on his death being a suicide.”

“Right. And if we wait for test results, any trail could be too cold to follow.”

“God, it would feel good to clear him of this shit.” Crawford tapped the pen on his blotter, a flicker of a grimace passing over his face. “I hate to do this, but … I’m going to give these two cases to Pellini.”

I stared at him, certain that I had misheard him. “Sarge,” I said, trying not to stutter in outrage. “Pellini has a backlog of cases. He can’t write a coherent report to save his life. He’s marking time until he can retire. The only other case I have is Davis Sharp. I can do this!”

Crawford shook his head. “I know you can, Kara, but … I was told to reassign these cases.” He looked pissed, which made me feel slightly better. At least this wasn’t because he thought I couldn’t handle the caseload.

“I guess the theory is that there’ll be too many ill feelings if you start getting all the juicy cases,” he continued. “We don’t have that many murders around here, and the other detectives want their share.” He pulled a sour face, and I knew that he didn’t really give a shit about hurt feelings.

I still didn’t bother to hide my scowl. Unfortunately, there was a measure of truth to what he’d said. There was already some resentment and ill will toward me over the resolution of the Symbol Man case and my strange disappearance, and Sarge was only doing what he’d been told to do.

But Pellini? I’d counted myself lucky that I’d never had to work directly with the dour, overweight detective. He’d been with Beaulac PD for only four years, after fifteen with NOPD, and so far the best impression I had of him was that he was lazy, sloppy, and generally unpleasant to be around. He seemed miserable, and I had the feeling that the only joy he had in life was when he was making other people miserable as well. But would cases be reassigned just because of his whining? He whined about everything. Usually everyone simply ignored it.

“Go get him up to speed on what you have so far, Kara.” Then Crawford paused. “Give him a chance. He does have a lot of experience.” But I could see the doubt in his eyes.

I nodded and muttered something about typing my notes up, then left Crawford’s office to return to my own. It took me only about twenty minutes to type what I had so far on the two deaths, but I was as detailed and thorough as possible so that no one could point any fingers at the quality of the work I turned over to Pellini. I wanted to dither and put off handing the cases over to him, but unfortunately I had too much else I needed to do. As soon as I finished typing, I printed the reports out, then made my way to Pellini’s office.

His door stood open and I could see him leaning back in his chair, looking at something on his computer. The screen was faced away from me, so I couldn’t tell what it was. But when he saw me in the doorway, he clicked on something else, making me suspect that it hadn’t exactly been work-related—not that I had any room to judge, since I did my own share of Internet surfing on taxpayer dollars. Pellini’s office was about half again the size of mine, which meant that it was the size of a large closet. Pellini was as well, or darn near. He was big and blustery, with greasy black hair and a thick mustache that looked like it belonged on a seventies-era porn star. The rest of him was far from porn-star quality, though. He’d given up on maintaining any sort of physical standard well over a decade ago, and his belly hung so far over his belt that I had a hard time imagining how he put his pants on. Not that I tended toward mental exercises related to Pellini and his pants …

I extended the small sheaf of printed pages. He looked at them, then reluctantly straightened in his chair and leaned forward to take them in something just short of a snatch, blowing his breath out as if that small effort had winded him. Which it probably had. I made a mental note to get my own out-of-shape ass to the gym. I was nowhere near as bad as Pellini; I could still run two miles without puking, though it sure wasn’t pretty. But I knew I owed it to the cops I worked with to stay in something resembling good condition. I couldn’t even imagine how Pellini would handle backing someone up in a fight or a foot pursuit.

I kept the professional smile glued into place as he glanced over what I had so far—even when he gave a snort that sounded suspiciously derisive. “I’ll have to teach you how to do a follow-up,” he said, his tone pompous. He looked up at me, a slight sneer curving his mouth. “You got fucking lucky with the serial killer. Now it’s time for you to learn how to do a proper investigation.”

I clenched my jaw tightly enough to feel my teeth squeak to keep from saying something that would no doubt be career-destroying. “I don’t think I got lucky,” I said stiffly. “I put in a lot of time—”

“You got lucky,” he said, cutting me off. “But don’t take offense,” he continued, as I tried to control my seething. “Most cops make great careers out of being lucky.” Then he gave me an arrogant smirk. “I’ll teach you how to solve a case by actually working it, though.”

I forced myself to nod. “Sure thing, Pellini. Maybe we can go out for a beer and you can tell me about some of the big murder cases you worked in the city.”

His face reddened, and I knew I’d struck at least a glancing blow. Pellini had worked in patrol and then courtroom security. He’d worked in Investigations in NOPD for only a year before coming over here, and that had been in Property Crimes. Not that there was anything shameful about Property Crimes—I’d worked them for two years before taking on the Symbol Man case—but by that measure I had more experience than he did. And I had a feeling that, if we were to compare stats, I’d still have him beat—even with the fact that he’d been in a metro area and I’d been in sleepy rural Beaulac. I still wasn’t sure how he’d managed to talk his way into being a homicide detective over here, but I also knew that wondering about that sort of thing was a waste of energy.

He huffed and stood, tugging at his pants to get them positioned properly beneath the great shelf of his belly. “I’m gonna go talk to Brian’s dad. I’d ask you to come with me, but me and the judge go back a ways from our NOPD days. I’m sure he’s going through a rough spot right now, and he’ll feel better knowing that a senior detective is handling the case. Plus, it’s gonna be a lot of guy talk, and it’d probably be over your head.”

I resisted the urge to be offended by any of the myriad of insults implied in that statement and instead forced myself to be relieved that I didn’t need to spend any more time with Pellini. “No problem,” I said brightly. “Let me know when you need any help.” As long as it’s not with finding your dick under that roll of fat, I thought silently as I left and returned to my own office.

I closed my door, allowing myself to fume for a few minutes, followed by some wallowing in self-pity. Is Pellini’s connection to Judge Roth how he got the cases reassigned to him? He pulled strings? And if so, did the judge know what he was letting himself in for? I briefly debated throwing something heavy and breakable, but about the only thing that fell into that category in my office was my computer, and I wasn’t quite brave enough to go there.

I finally had to settle for wadding up the contents of my printer tray and chucking the paper balls across the room. Nowhere near as satisfying, but by the time I cleaned up the resulting mess, I had pretty much burned through the majority of my ire.

My cell phone rang, yanking me out of my funk. “Kara Gillian,” I answered.

“Hey, Kara, it’s Doc. Got some bad news for you about your councilman.”

“Now what?”

“Well, it wasn’t an accident.”

My stomach tightened. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, unless he fell down and hit his head twice. The impact and positioning’s all wrong for it to be just from falling in the shower. There’s not enough trauma to be life-threatening, but I’m pretty sure he got whacked a couple of times with something heavy—enough to knock him out or stun him—and then he was stuffed into the corner of the shower so that he’d asphyxiate.”