The coroner’s van trundled behind my vehicle, so I got out, made sure my weapon was securely seated in its Kydex shoulder holster, put on a casual jacket, and smoothed the driving wrinkles from my work pants. Opening the trunk, I retrieved my handheld psy-meter 1.0 and did a quick scan of the grounds and the house. Psy-meters picked up paranormal energies known as psions, but there was nothing much beyond normal ambient energies present outside. I put the psy-meter away and lifted out the milk crate that held my faded pink blanket and the potted tree before closing the trunk. “Sorry about the dark on the ride over,” I told the tree. “I’ll try to get something rigged so you can sit in the sunlight while I drive.”
The potted vampire tree was a new addition to my evidence arsenal. I had no idea what English it understood, but I’d taken to talking to it anyway. Plants that were talked to in a kind tone of voice were happy plants. And since the vampire tree species had recently (probably, most certainly) eaten one of my enemies, I tried to be polite. I didn’t want it to get mad. I placed the small crate on the passenger seat and locked up.
Scanning the grounds, I walked to the side door, where the body had come from, taking in the scenery behind the house and down the low slope of the hill. There were covered training rings, trails, outbuildings, several pastures, a mechanical horse walker, horse gear, and a barn that was bigger than my house. The horses that were hanging over the fences were muscular and sassy, with slightly dished faces, as if they had some Arabian in the genetic mix. The yearlings and mares with this year’s foals appeared to be in one pasture, with geldings pastured separately.
Close to the barn, a bright red bay horse, bigger than the others, stood posed in a paddock, the breeze flinging his black mane and tail. He had black stockings and hooves, and a peculiar lightning-shaped white blaze on his face. He pawed the dirt and circled, prancing, posturing, tail held high. He reared and kicked, showing off. This was a stallion, the only intact male horse I had seen on the property so far. He snorted and burst into a tight, circling run, his mane and tail flying, neck arched, as if he was showing off. He blew a breath of delight and alpha-male satisfaction and tossed his head, the odd facial blaze seeming to flicker like flames. I didn’t have to know anything about fancy horses to know this one was expensive.
Farther away from the house were a huge white metal shed with three fifteen-foot-tall garage-type doors and a big circular drive. Parked in front of the one open garage door was a forty-foot-long, solid black recreational vehicle with multiple dual wheels, a matching black transport trailer hitched to it. Through the windows in the closed shed doors I could see two more trailers. Big ones. To the side of the RV storage building was a long, very fancy horse trailer. Just looking at the vehicles made me think seven figures several times over.
Dang. Being a country-singing megastar made good money.
An older, pudgy cop standing inside the door stopped me and I had to go through the entire show-and-tell of my ID again. “Not that I mind,” I said mildly, “but why all the security?”
“Sheeee-ut. A purdy little media photographer in a doctor’s coat made it through the kitchen earlier, following the coroner.” Lips pursed between his chubby cheeks, he compared my face with my official ID and my driver’s license. He shook his head and returned my IDs. “She looked even younger than you do. He-yell, she even had an official-looking ID pinned to her doctor’s coat. Switching her ass at me and smiling like she belonged here. The broad was inventive, I’ll give her that. But I got my ass chewed, so full ID protocol it is.” He lowered his voice, checking my name off a paper on a clipboard. “The sheriff’s my cousin or I’d be in real trouble. You’re on the list,” he finished. “They’re down the hall.” He handed me a handful of plastic-wrapped candy. “Here. You’ll need these. Extra-strong mints.”
“Oh. Thanks.” That was ominous. Mints were used in crime scenes where the bodies had been dead a while, to combat the stench and control the nausea that came from dealing with them. I shoved the mints into my pocket. I was pretty sure the sheriff’s cousin was checking out my backside as I moved through the high-end kitchen toward the hallway. And yep, when I looked back, I caught him eyeing me. I’d been ogled by churchmen since I was ten, and had little patience with it. I really wanted to smack him with my badge, but that might make waves. I had to be on more professional behavior than I sometimes wanted to be, or knew how to be. I hadn’t been a special agent for long and acting like one wasn’t second nature to me. I frowned at him, but he just grinned, unrepentant and probably thinking he was cute, or that giving me mints gave him the right to leer.
Before I went down the hall, I took a moment for a good look at the kitchen and the huge room beyond it. There were white marble countertops and an island covered with bags of commercially made bread and buns, wilted lettuce, and tomatoes. There was a huge copper farmer’s sink, a heavy-duty breadmaker’s mixer, a copper-clad baker’s oven, and a six-burner gas stove. The glass-fronted upper cabinets went to the tall ceiling, displaying white dishes; copper lights descended in strategic locations; and the floor was pristine interlocking white vinyl tile.
Through a cracked-open door I spotted private stairs up to the second story. I figured they gave direct access to the bedrooms for midnight snacks.
The gathering room had comfy, squishy green furniture, lots of pillows, and a fireplace big enough to roast a small hog. Stella Mae’s home was beautiful, like one in a house design magazine, but everything looked utilized, not just for show, the sink with lizard-skin patina, the copper on the oven showing indications of heat.
The kitchen and gathering room struck a chord of lust in my heart, the sin of covetousness the churchmen always talked about. Thinking about my own home and the discord waiting for me there, I turned down the spacious hallway with natural plank flooring and wide doorways. At the end, near the staircase, the stench of death hit me and I slowed. The smell circulated on the air, ripe, foul, sickly sweet. As if they didn’t smell it, there were clumps of chatting LEOs—law enforcement officers—uniformed, plainclothes, and one member of my team. Occam looked up, wearing his cop-face expression, and my heart gave a little jolt of joy.
“Ingram,” he said, the smile in his voice telling me he really meant, Nell, sugar. The scarred skin pulled around his lips and his amber-hazel eyes crinkled with happiness as he excused himself from the officers and strode toward me, meeting me midway down the hall.
His hair had grown back blonder and he wore it longer than before he’d been burned, to cover up the patchy, hairless scars above his ear. “You made good time from Knoxville,” he said softly, his tone saying so much more. “You run lights and siren in your new official vehicle?”
I wrinkled my nose at his teasing. “I did not. But I did discover the joys of cruise control and audiobooks. What we got?”
Occam’s eyes went warmer and tender and my middle melted. “You mean between us?” he murmured.