Earth Witches Aren't Easy Read online

  My hands slid back into my pockets and I walked a short circuit of the room. Special Agent Billy Jamison conferred with Jack, allowing me a few minutes to gauge both men. Jack’s mouth pinched at the corners and his shoulders stiffened. He didn’t care for whatever Billy told him. Jack tossed a look toward me then gave the other FBI agent a curt nod and strode out. Well, so much for my white knight protector. I was on my own. I knew that walking in.

  I wish Jack had.

  “I’m sorry about that, Chance. I just wanted to clear a few things up for Agent Harker. Can I get you some coffee?” He closed the door to the conference room. I tried to ignore the faint clink the door made when it came into contact with the frame. It carried that same ominous sound of a jail door swinging shut.

  “No, thank you.” I shook my head and shifted my stance a little. The brief moments of comfort I dug up while waiting seemed to be fleeting. “Do you mind if I ask exactly why I’m here, Billy?”

  “Please, take a seat. I’ll be happy to explain.” He waited until I chose a chair a few down from his, putting a comfortable distance between us, before taking a seat himself. With my ramrod straight back, my ankles crossed under the table and, where my hands gripped each other, my knuckles were white with tension.

  He shifted a stack of papers next to the computer so they rested in front of him and reached up to loosen the knot of his tie, which was faintly reassuring. At least he wasn’t completely at home in that restrictive outfit. “I apologize for asking Agent Harker to bring you in first thing this morning but, in light of some new evidence, we felt it prudent to revisit your case.”

  “I understand. Jack told me Randall Oakes killed another woman.” I was proud of myself for making the statement without a quiver in my voice. “I made several statements, both to the police and the FBI, after he attacked me. I really don’t understand what use I could be to you in this now.”

  His face broke into another smile, and he rested his large hands on the stack of papers. “It’s really just standard procedure when we reopen an old case file, especially in light of the information that led us to close the case file to begin with.”

  “You mean the fact he’s supposed to be dead.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Now I really don’t want to alarm you, but as this is an ongoing investigation and you are the only surviving witness, we’d like to place you back into protective custody. I understand it…”

  “No.” I knew the drill. Don’t give them an inch. The minute I started to cave, they’d lock me down in some remote safe house. It had been uncomfortable the first time despite their assurances of excellent security in an undisclosed location where all my needs would be provided for…all of my needs, except the ability to handle my work and to have my freedom.

  “Chance.” His voice was all sugar and honey. He probably won over many a woman with that sexy tone. “Randall Oakes is not notorious for leaving his victims alive. The only profile we have on him does not suggest how he chooses his targets except most are college-aged and on campus when he strikes. We do not know what he is capable of or why he’s restarted after all this time.”

  “One…” I held up a single finger. “I’m nearly thirty now, not twenty-one. Two, I no longer attend a college. Three, the profile developed on Randall Oakes remained inconclusive based on the evidence.” Control required a level of calm directness. No way in hell was I going into protective custody, so just put the damn idea out of your head, Billy-boy. But I couldn’t rant like a loon, no matter how much I wanted to. “He looked for power over women, but the reports never indicated any sexual component. He didn't rape or torture his victims, yet he mutilated them. The mutilations themselves are often fatal because of the bleeding. He obviously possessed knowledge of human physiology. Did he resent women? Was he impotent and seeking sexual fulfillment elsewhere? Was he just bat-crap crazy? We don't know. Inconclusive became a research project for grad students after reports of his death.”

  Billy leaned back in the chair, his expression speculative. “You studied forensic psychology at the time of your attack.”

  “I never completed my degree.” I could have worked for the FBI in another life.

  “But you just quoted the most relevant portions we have in the existing profile for Randall Oakes. That doesn’t sound like you’ve abandoned it fully.” He twisted a pen in his fingers. Probably an unconscious reaction on his part, the pen danced left and then right, then back again. The casual way he handled it didn't suggest awareness of his actions.

  Hmm…does the educated witch make you uncomfortable Special Agent Jamison? “I lived with the specter of Randall Oakes for fourteen months, three days and six hours before that plane crash, Billy.” I tacked his name on as an afterthought. “I was very aware of the profiles being built about Oakes. The profiler interviewed me half a dozen times during the course of that year. I heard a lot of theories, and I paid attention to the news. Somehow I even managed to put it behind me—until last night. So, I’m going to ask again. Why do you need me here?” Frustration drove my voice into a higher note. “To the best of my knowledge, Oakes never tried for me again, and he rarely struck in the same place twice. He only struck one campus twice as far as I know.”

  “You make a lot of good points, Chance. I like the way you think. As a matter of fact, the way you think is precisely why you are here now.” He tapped the table for emphasis. “The previous profiler listed you as an excellent source and noted you grasped the concepts of our profiling with ease. You possessed a more elemental understanding of Oakes. You understand the stakes more than any other person on our task force. You are, in essence, our most intimate connection to Oakes.”

  My stomach roiled at the image he painted. Yes, I’d worked with the previous profiler during and after my recovery. I’d grasped at every opportunity, but only because it allowed me to feel some modicum of control over the nightmarish situation.

  I ran my fingers through my hair, revealing my own nervous twitch. My foot tapped out a cadence beneath the table, and I looked away from the soft, rounded features that gave Special Agent Billy Jamison his kind expression to the window beyond. I needed to settle my jangled nerves.

  Intimate connection. Ugh. After the episode from the night before, his face loomed out of the past with the same ferocity that haunted me for weeks after the initial attack. My psyche cracked like a raw, open wound, and Billy poured salt onto it.

  They needed—and wanted—my participation in the investigation. Dreaded necessity rarely turned out to be pleasant. Sadly, unpleasant tasks defined our world. My Gran often said life wasn’t fair, it just was. You did what you could with what you had. The FBI did what they could, with what they had. What they had? Me. My choices were simple. Cooperate and maintain a certain level of control, or don’t cooperate and find myself at their mercy when things spun out of control. Because they always spin out of control.

  My gaze returned to Billy’s and I sighed, running a hand over my face to hide the indecision in my eyes. “I’ll do what I can but I’m not going to be cooped up in some safe house. I told Jack the same thing last night. I have a life and, while I appreciate your desire to protect that life, locking me away is not going to allow me to live it. I honestly do not believe Oakes is going to come anywhere near me.” Yes, I know a lie when I hear one, too. I have no idea what Oakes is going to do. That was about as much as I was willing to admit or concede.

  “All right,” Billy agreed slowly. “Agent Harker is going to stay with you for the interim?” The question seemed loaded, but I ignored it. Exhaustion wore at me. My nerves screamed. Every muscle in my body seemed cramped or too tight. I wanted out of here and back to work. I could lose myself in my work. I could sink into the Earth and She would smother the fears determined to consume me.

  “Yes, Jack is staying at the house where I keep some rooms. He’s an old friend of mine and of the owner, Betty Tanner. I really think that’s enough, don’t you?”

  “I’m going to have a pair of
escorts on hand for you, to keep an eye on the house as well as to give Agent Harker backup if he requires it. I’m afraid…” He held up a hand and silenced me with a stern expression when I would have protested. “As I was saying, I’m afraid you might be wrong in your assertion that Oakes won’t make a try for you again. We have no real method of predicting what he will do. It’s unusual enough for a killer to go dormant for years, despite the fact he was presumed dead.”

  I sighed again. I couldn't fault his logic. For Oakes’ pathology to go dormant for so long, then be reactivated, indicated too many unknown factors. We possessed no real barometer of what Oakes would do next. He might resume former patterns or form brand new ones. The only clear way to tell, was to let the body count multiply—a sickening notion. “Fine, two escorts. But you might want to warn them what I do for a living. I don’t need them interfering with my work.”

  Billy frowned and flipped open the folder to peruse the contents. I got a good look at the name on the label. I’d thought it was the Randall Oakes file, though I should have remembered the Oakes dossier was much larger than the half-inch thick single file folder. He held a victim file. Cold shivered over my spine, shame and fear thumping in tandem with my heart. A victim file with my name on it. My mouth tightened at the reminder of my vulnerability. I hated the legal-keep-you-safe leash about to be attached and the strangers tailing, chaperoning and generally manning the gates of my prison. “You’re a psychic?” Billy glanced up from beneath lowered eyelids, brow furrowed and mouth turned down fractionally at the corners. A familiar skeptical expression twisted his face.

  And here we go…

  “No, I’m a hedge witch. I do consultations and perform services for the farmers and other people of the Northern Virginia counties.” I chose my patient, calm and non-confrontational tone. “I am not a psychic in the classical sense of the word.”

  “But you do possess intuition and a few other gifts.”

  “Gifts—quaint phrasing, by the way—yes. I possess some minor abilities in the psychic arena. And before you ask, no, I cannot contact the dead, or raise the dead, or question ghosts, cast hexes, relieve hexes or sing some mumbo jumbo that will allow me to listen in on what is on the killer’s mind. I’m a hedge witch. I work with the Earth.” Okay, time to calm down. My voice grew stronger with each reiteration, and by the time I finished my little speech, I practically flung the words.

  Billy’s mouth pursed, a hard knot of lines forming between his eyes as he leaned as far away from me as he could in his chair, forced back by the sheer will in my voice. I chewed my lip and consciously began relaxing my muscles again. The echo of an invisible ruler snapping down on a table as my grandmother admonished me to pay attention and not to abuse my powers out of pure prissiness. Loss of control was unacceptable, not matter the circumstances Bad things happen when hedge witches snap. Get your shit together.

  “I’m sorry,” I offered. “I get uncomfortable trying to explain myself to others, especially men in well-cut silk suits who probably think me a lunatic.”

  The immediate warmth of his smile slapped me with shame. It went all the way to the kind brown eyes that regarded me with a mixture of respect and thoughtfulness. “You don’t need to worry about me, Chance. My grandmother was half Arapaho. She used to tell me stories about her mother and her grandmother. She always said Father Sky bestowed the gift of Earth upon them. They took their responsibilities very seriously. Sadly—she gave birth to sons, and not daughters. None inherited the gift.”

  Okay, three shocks in one day. Jack was back. Randall Oakes was alive. And someone who worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation didn’t immediately reach for a strait jacket the minute I started talking about myself.

  Admittedly, his story intrigued me. “It's not unusual for a gift of second sight to travel a female bloodline. As far as I know, my family's abilities traveled the maternal line for the last six generations. For some reason, it skipped my mother.”

  He nodded slowly. “That happens. I know I’m bad luck where plants are concerned. I can barely keep a plastic plant standing upright and looking alive. So, I’m pretty sure it skipped my generation. I do understand your frustration, though. I don’t talk about my grandmother much. People tend to get a glint in their eye.”

  “The ones with the glint don’t bother me. The ones who back away with their hands up to ward off the crazy lady—those get to me.” I grinned a little, happy not to have to force it. If Billy wanted to put me at ease, he couldn’t have picked a better angle. I didn’t get the sense that he lied, but I couldn't dismiss wishful thinking on my part.

  He nodded sympathetically. “On the other hand, we’ve employed psychic means before when it’s necessary on a case. It might have been more helpful if your talents leaned in other directions, but now that I understand, I’ll make sure I alert my men.”

  I didn’t envy him that conversation. After all, if my best friend of ten years didn’t believe me most of the time, he was going to have a hell of a time convincing an army of stuffed shirts. Billy filled out some notes in the folder, and then cast another glance across the table at me.

  “We’re still going to need to refresh this interview. Are you sure you don’t want a cup of coffee before we get started?”

  “Actually, I think I’ll take you up on that.” I leaned back in the chair, stretching the too tight muscles in my arms and legs. I tried to project some contrition in my rueful smile. “I’m sorry if I’m being difficult.”

  “No worries at all, Chance. This is a lot to absorb in a relatively short time, and I’m sure it was a shock even to hear about it in the first place. We’ll take it nice and easy. Any time you want to take a break or pause, you just give me the word.” His gentle soul pacified my tension.

  I could do this, I told myself while he went to get the coffee. I could go over the whole nightmare and establish the clinical facts, one at a time.

  I could do this.

  Six

  Four hours later, I sat on the roof of the building with Jack and four other male agents—a coffee in one hand and cigarette in the other. I embraced my vice like a drowning woman hanging onto a life jacket. The muscles in my back and jaw ached. Even the soles of my feet hurt. My body protested all the knots of tension left behind by the questioning. Billy must have noticed me starting to droop as we went over every inch of the attack. Memory was a funny thing. You tell a story enough times, you can recite it from rote, but that’s not the same as remembering it.

  Remembering requires smelling it, tasting it and touching it all over again. It let the memory touch you. Was he tall? How tall? Did I have to angle my head? Did I angle my head? Did I look at him directly? Did I turn away? What did he sound like? Was there an accent?

  I had his skin under my fingernails. Where did I hit him? Did I hit him? How long between his approach and his attack? On and on the questions came, wringing every last possible detail from the dishrag of memory.

  “How you doing?” Jack asked softly, bumping my shoulder lightly with his. He angled his head toward me, giving the words an air of privacy.

  “I’m okay. Tired.” Yes, I am the master of understatement. “I wasn’t expecting it to be so hard. But it’s been a long time and he keeps asking me different kinds of questions. If I didn’t understand the methodology, I’d think he didn’t even believe I was attacked, or that it happened on campus as I came from a class.”

  “It’s just procedure. He’s probably trying to jog your memory…get the wheels turning and whatnot.” Jack comforted me, rubbing my shoulder with his. Anywhere else, he’d probably have flung the arm around me, but I recognized the need for a little distance. He wanted on the case, not off it for personal involvement.

  “I know. It’s fine, Jack, really.” It wasn’t the entire truth. My catalog of emotional possibilities lay mangled and bankrupt. I wanted very much just to flee, to escape the madness of it all and go home. Lie down, and to let Romeo comfort me with his purring, instead of my
memories plucked and plundered by someone adept at questioning every nuance.

  I closed my eyes and turned my face toward the sun. The heat pouring over my skin helped me to empty my mind and relax. I heard footsteps approaching and opened my eyes to slits big enough to see Billy motion for Jack to join him. Time for another whispered conference away from the little woman’s ears.

  Now what?

  Their quiet urgency in Billy’s manner caught my attention, and I opened my eyes fully to concentrate on them. Lip-reading would be a really useful skill right about now.

  Something was wrong.

  That fact radiated out of every pore Billy possessed. Deeply concerned about something, he gestured toward me, and then they both looked at me.

  “What?” I asked, pitching my voice so it carried.

  “I’m going to go ahead and take you home, Chance. Billy’s got two men downstairs who can watch the house.” Jack avoided answering my question directly.

  “What’s wrong?” Oh, hell no. You do not get to pat me on the head and distract me. I wasn’t going to break. I stood and closed the distance between us.

  “We found another body,” Billy explained quietly when Jack said nothing more.

  “Oakes?”

  “It sounds like his M.O. Locals are waiting for us to get to the scene. Why don’t you let Agent Harker take you home, Chance? It’s been a long morning. We appreciate all your help, but I’ll probably be busy at the scene for the rest of the day.” Billy cocked his head and gave me a half smile. “We can finish our conversation later, when you’re feeling more up to it.”

  His tone didn’t irritate me. Neither did the content of the little speech he just gave. Rather, it was more the way he looked at me. I didn’t even have to glance at Jack to know the exact same sympathetic expression mirrored on his features. So much for the bonding moment in the conference room.