Page 38 of Speak of the Devil

Or maybe X-rays.

“They’re all lined up in the middle,” he said after a minute. “I guess our killer was a tidy kind of guy. So that makes it a little easier.”

“What’s the plan?”

His lips parted, and for a second — probably because of the glint she glimpsed in his dark eyes — she wondered if he was going to tell her there wasn’t a plan at all.

But then he said, “One of my gifts is the ability to transport myself wherever I want.”

“Must cut down on airfare,” she remarked, and he flashed her a grin that really made her wish he wasn’t part demon.

“It does help,” he replied. “But what I was hoping to do now was use that same gift, except to have it raise the bodies of the women from under the floor rather than just sending myself down to Bali, or whatever.” He paused there, and the glint was back in those cola-colored eyes. “Unless you’re in the mood for some daiquiris on the beach.”

That sounded heavenly. However, Delia sort of doubted she’d ever take Caleb up on that sort of offer. Getting involved with a quarter demon was a level of complication she didn’t think she could handle.

“You can take another person along with you?” she asked, and he nodded.

“I’ve only done it once or twice, but yeah, I can manage it. Which makes me hope I can use that same sort of power to get those poor women out from under the floor.”

Exactly what they’d do then, she had no idea. But with Caleb’s ability to send people — and inanimate objects, she hoped — to wherever he wanted, she supposed he could send the remains to the medical examiner’s office or a local funeral home. Someplace where those women’s bodies would be treated with respect and given the final rest they deserved.

“Fingers crossed,” she said lightly.

He walked the floor one more time, probably so he could get the positions of the skeletons firmly fixed in his mind. Then he stopped in the center of the room, eyes shut and arms held out with his palms flat toward the floor.

Flames rippled up and down his arms, and Delia sucked in a breath. Yes, he’d conjured that one small flame earlier to prove there was a little more to him than met the eye, but this display was much more spectacular…especially as she realized the fire didn’t seem to harm either him or the black leather jacket he wore.

Was that what it looked like when his power manifested itself?

For just the briefest moment, she could have sworn she saw a pile of skeletons resting on the hideous bright blue indoor/outdoor carpet. But then they vanished, and Caleb’s eyes opened.

“All taken care of,” he said cheerfully.

“What did you do?”

He sent her a glance that was almost indulgent. “Shipped them off to the coroner’s office. Whoever goes in that exam room next is in for quite a surprise.”

That was what Delia had hoped he would do, but she was still startled to hear the task had been accomplished so easily. “Just like that.”

“Yes,” Caleb replied. He was smiling now, obviously proud of himself for coming up with such an elegant solution to the problem. “I assume they’ll be able to I.D. them by dental records, that kind of thing.”

Maybe. How long did those sorts of records even hang around, though? They were dealing with women who’d been murdered six decades ago, not victims who’d only disappeared a few years earlier.

Well, that was for the police and the medical examiner to figure out. Honestly, they wouldn’t have had that much more to work with even if Caleb had called them here to tell them the bodies had been hidden in the lower level of his latest real estate acquisition.

Except for the part where they could have at least pinned the killings on the man who’d once lived here.

It seemed Caleb wasn’t too worried about that, though.

“Maybe it’ll always be a mystery,” he said. “The important thing is that the killer is in Hell where he belongs and that the families of the victims will eventually get the closure they need.”

“I suppose so,” Delia replied, even as she couldn’t ignore the nagging thought that it would be better if the murderer could be publicly identified and, if not brought to justice, at least connected to his terrible crimes.

Caleb came over and reached out, almost as if he intended to give her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. At the last minute, though, he seemed to realize that probably wasn’t the best idea and awkwardly lowered his arm to his side.

“Maybe the situation isn’t perfect,” he said. “But if the cops had done their jobs, they would have found the guy decades ago. At least we’re fixing things so the families of the victims will have a few answers.”

A practical way of looking at the situation, she supposed. Had there been a connection between the five victims, something the police back in the 1960s had overlooked? Or had the killings been completely random, making it very difficult for the authorities to put all the pieces together?

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