Page 21 of Soul Sucker

He shrugged. “She’s dead, Ms. Walsh.”

Ella shivered and there was an uncomfortable silence until Feehan took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I’m afraid there isn’t any more new information to share with you all. I suggest we wait to hear back from the forensic guys and the medical examiner. Their reports are due tomorrow. Hopefully by then we’ll have something to work with.”

Vadim nodded. “I’d like to talk to Ms. Walsh about her impressions of the killer if I may.”

She was already getting up and grabbing her backpack. “Ms. Walsh has a lunch date and then she’s off home. She will see if she has time for you tomorrow.” He met her gaze and tried to look approachable and contrite. “I’d really appreciate it if you could give me ten minutes before you go.”

She sat down again. He waited until everyone else filed out of the conference room and then got up to close the door.

When he returned to his seat she was quick to lock gazes with him.

“Why the privacy?”

“Why are you so defensive, Ms. Walsh?”

“Because you, Mr. Morosov, are behaving like a prick.”

“I apologized.”

“And did you mean it?”

“No, of course I didn’t. You don’t need to be an empath to work that out, but that doesn’t mean I don’t intend to try and get along with you.”

She sat back and folded her arms under her breasts, making her pink flowery shirt gape open to reveal a green camisole. “So you said. I’m still not buying it.”

“Look, I admit that I overstepped the mark, but…”

“Overstepped it? You sunk yourself up to the neck in shit. You don’t waltz into someone’s office and start casting doubts over everyone’s competence!”

Vadim let out a long slow breath. She had a point, but he wasn’t willing to concede even that to her. “Tell me how it felt when you went into the victim’s head.”

She stared at him for a long moment, her brown eyes haunted. “Okay, there was nothing left. No stray fragments, no memories, nonothing. It was as if something had come in with a laser and stripped everything away.”

“How hard did you probe?”

“Until my own signal bounced back at me. It was really weird.”

“Did you catch anything at all?”

“As I said in my notes, just a sense of relief, but I can kind of understand that.”

“Why?”

“Because empaths deal with a lot of extra stuff in their heads, and I can imagine that for a second, losing all of that might be…freeing, before you died of it, that is.”

“We don’t know what she died of yet, do we?”

“That’s true, but if there is nothing left of you, of your soul, of your essence, or whatever you want to call it, how can you continue to exist?”

She looked into his eyes and he felt an unexpected connection that he quickly suppressed. Beneath her arrogance was a female who thought deeply about her place in the world and the effect of her gift on others. She was either an exceptional empath or a superb liar. Of course, being an empath she could be both. In his all-too-recent experience they tended to be incredibly selfish, much like the Fae. Maybe that was why he disliked them so much.

He nodded. “Well, thanks for that. It was very illuminating.”

She actually blushed. “It was a load of bullshit. I don’t know what I was thinking about and saying it to you of all people.”

“I’d like to tell you that I’ll keep it to myself, but we both know I’d be lying. It’s going to end up in the Fae-Web.” He stopped to hold the door open for her. She gave him an odd look as if she wasn’t used to men being courteous. “I want to catch this creature as much as you do, Ms. Walsh.”

“I get that.” She paused to look back at him. “The question is, why?”

---