Page 64 of Midnight Auto Parts

“I should have let you do this, but you can watch this time since we have several more in case this effort doesn’t pan out.” He selected a few herbs, ones I used in summonings, and sprinkled them over the bone. “Follow my lead.”

“I…” A prickle lifted the hairs down my arms. “Nothing.” I rolled my shoulders. “Please, continue.”

The words were low and sweet and coaxing. Beautiful. Kierce had honed his voice to suit each hymn with precision, but there was a flatness in his tone that left me curious if he had grown numb to wonder from the repetition of these rites. I let him cycle through the chorus twice before joining in. Only then did he come to life, our voices twining, and a peacefulness swept over him that made my heart ache.

A clicking noise alerted me the hymn had been successful. The bone was spinning like a compass needle.

“We just follow it?” I gawked as it fell still. “It’ll adjust as we approach?”

“Yes.” He lifted the shell with care. “This will guide us, like to like.”

The cool factor was too high for me to resist a tiny squee that erupted into full-on plotting.

I wonder if Josie and Matty would donate a toe bone each?

I could string them on a necklace and use them to find my siblings no matter where they had gone.

Yeah. No. That was a creepy intrusive thought even for me. And yet…

No.

Definitely not.

I was certainly not lopping off their pinky toes in their sleep.

Probably.

Though it would givejust the tipa whole new meaning.

“You drive,” Kierce, oblivious to my scheming, said, “and I will course correct for us.”

“Works for me.” I paused at an alert from a text message. “Let me check this first.”

We got in the wagon, but I waited to crank it until I finished skimming Carter’s update.

>>We have a development.

>Oh?

>>Over the past six months, officers have responded to 911 calls made by Tate’s neighbors at the apartment complex where she resides. Complaints about screaming, objects shattering against the shared walls, threats of bodily harm yelled down the halls for anyone to hear. There’s also a record of a violent altercation between Kim and her boyfriend in the front yard of their rental house.

>How have the men not been arrested?

>>Domestic abuse is complicated no matter who the victim is, but a cop getting beaten at home?

>They must have worried that information would tarnish their reputations within the department.

>>They’re damn strong women, both decorated officers, and it pisses me the hell off this was happening to them. I could tell when I interviewed the other officers on their shift that the news wasn’t surprising, but they would never rat on one another.

>What do we know about the woman who went missing with them?

>>Not enough.

>>I’m sending some of our people—from the 514—to interview family members of all the victims. See if we can’tpin down other similarities. There’s got to be another common thread we can tug on.

>The first victim married into a warg pack, so the alpha would have handled issues from within, and the vampire clan would have dealt with any incidents the second victim reported. What are the odds of your people determining whether the wife and donor had any pending complaints?

>>They’ll do their best, but we can only press so hard without just cause.

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