Mortal Sins by Eileen Wilks Read Free Book Online Page B

that had pinned the sheriff in his chair when she stormed into his office.
    What did she need with makeup? “Tidy,” he said. “Casual, but professional. And gorgeous. Is this district attorney male?”
    She snorted. “No. Not that it matters, since I’m not vamping my way into anyone’s good graces. Even if I could, I wouldn’t.”
    “Oh, you could. Why the DA first?”
    “The arraignment’s today. I need to see her before that. Plus she’s arranging for me to see—uh, the suspect. The one they’ve locked up. I need an interview room, one where we aren’t separated by glass.”
    “So you can touch him and tell if he’s tainted by death magic.”
    “Yeah. Since it clung to the bodies this long, there must still be traces of it on him, too, but I have to check. Also . . .” She grimaced. “I’m going to have to talk to the veterinarian. The one who thinks I’m hiding an alien spaceship in the woods.”
    “Why?”
    “People don’t start working death magic out of the blue on humans. They practice on animals first, work their way up. I’ve got the office checking for reports of animal killings, but I’m not expecting much to come of it. Our practitioner would have to have been pretty obvious to tip his hand that way. But the vet’s the head of the local SPCA. He might have heard about pets going missing, that sort of thing.”
    When Lily spoke of “the office,” she meant FBI Headquarters. “You’ll be busy, then,” Rule said, slowing. “Take this car and leave me your keys. If I need a vehicle before you get back, I’ll pick up yours.”
    The house ahead on the right was a two-story frame structure, the siding freshly painted white, the trim dark green to match the shingles on the roof. An enormous oak in the front yard discouraged grass, but made a nice home for an old-fashioned tire swing. The long, shaded front porch held a pair of wicker chairs, a porch swing, and a red bicycle.
    The look of the place had often been a comfort to him. Halo might not have been Rule’s choice for his son, but Toby’s grandmother had done her best to make a home for him. Rule pulled into the drive.
    “What’s the plan?” Lily asked. “Are we going to stay here?”
    “I don’t know.” Rule yanked the key out of the ignition, frustrated. He wasn’t accustomed to indecision. “I don’t know if it will do any good to move to the hotel. I need to talk to Toby and Mrs. Asteglio.”
    “Hmm. Well, you’ve been playing footsie with the media a long time now. You’ll know how to handle them. Just let me know once you make a decision. Rule, when you nearly lost it with the sheriff back there—”
    “I did not nearly lose it.”
    “All right, when you persuaded Deacon you might lose it. Was the new mantle . . . ah, active?”
    He looked at her, startled. “I don’t think so. I didn’t notice it, at least. Why?”
    “You were different.”
    “Different how?”
    “If you’d told Deacon to go sit in the corner, he would have. He might not have stayed long, but he’d have gone.”
    He didn’t enjoy having his mistakes pointed out. “I scared him, you mean. Until then he didn’t fear me.”
    Lily huffed out a breath, impatient, as if he were being deliberately obtuse. “Rule, he’s an empath. His Gift’s blocked by a spell, but I suspect some stuff still leaks through. He didn’t fear you at first because you weren’t a danger. And I’m not sure it was fear that had him buckling under.”
    Dryly he said, “It was fear I had in mind when I suggested he be quiet.”
    “He’s former military, you know. Military police.”
    “He told you that?”
    “No, one of the pictures on his wall shows him in an MP uniform. Marine. What I’m saying is that I doubt he’d let fear freeze him that way.”
    Rule had been in that office much longer than she had, and he hadn’t noticed the photo. But he was less visual than she was, and Lily had a cop’s habits. She noticed everything. “I worried