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  She closed her eyes and imagined how he felt, envisioned her own body sailing effortlessly through the trees.

  The officer hooked his radio back on his hip and turned to face her.

  “Just head on back out to the road there and wait. I’ll have somebody along to talk to ya pretty soon.”

  Dismissed, Abby made her way out of the forest. Sebastian sat on the ground. A small group of onlookers had gathered. One or two cars were pulled off the road, and an older woman asked Sebastian questions through her car window.

  “I really don’t know anything, ma’am, I’m just waiting for my friend,” he lied to her, relief flushing his face as Abby walked out.

  “What’s goin' on in there, Missy?” The nosy woman directed the question at Abby, her eyes narrowing.

  “I can’t really say…” Abby told her, watching uncomfortably as more cars slowed behind the woman.

  “What happened?” Abby whispered, settling onto a patch of grass to Sebastian’s left.

  He rubbed his jaw and stared at the spot in the forest where he had run in.

  “He was in there,” he whispered.

  Abby looked at him, confused.

  “Who? The killer?”

  “Yes,” Sebastian insisted. “Yes, the killer.”

  Abby wanted to ask more, but two more police cruisers pulled up, parking behind the first. An ambulance quickly followed.

  Soon the area crawled with cops and onlookers, and Abby lost her chance to question Sebastian. The cops strung yellow tape around the forest perimeter, and a younger female officer dodged questions as she forced people back towards the road. Abby felt tired, but was told to stay put, so she and Sebastian watched the scene unfold.

  “Pretty crazy,” he sighed, nodding at a family of five walking past and peering into the woods.

  “Yeah.” She rubbed her temples where a throbbing ache had begun.

  The female officer broke from the chaos and jogged over to Abby and Sebastian.

  “Hi,” she told them, her face flushed beneath her halo of golden hair. Her eyes were giant blue saucers, and she was petite, as short as Abby. “I’m Officer Tina Hamilton.”

  “Abby,” Abby told her politely, thrusting a trembling hand forward. “And this is Sebastian.”

  “Hi,” he said curtly, scanning the woods behind her. “Listen, is anyone planning on searching those woods?” He pointed to the woods that he had earlier vanished into.

  “Should they?”

  “Well, yeah. I’m pretty sure there was someone in there.”

  Tina glanced toward the woods.

  “Sure, we’ll have someone look into it,” she said dismissively.

  Sebastian looked like he wanted to say more, but Tina had walked away, shooing two cyclists back toward the road.

  “Cops are the worst,” Sebastian muttered.

  “Well, maybe it wasn’t anything,” Abby offered, preferring nothing to a killer watching them from the leafy cover.

  “Yeah, but maybe it was…”

  Tina returned, looking distracted and anxious.

  “I’m going to need to take the two of you to the station. The Chief will have some questions.”

  * * * *

  Chief Caplan scratched his chin, razor-burned and red, and stared in horror at the report before him. Less than four months to retirement and a damned murder in his town, a murder! In his thirty-four years on the force, fifteen in Trager City, he’d only worked two murders, and both were domestic disputes with a clear killer, the husband. This, this catastrophe, had “cold case” written all over it. How could he end his career with an unsolved murder?

  He stood and paced to the pane of glass that looked into the precinct. Every desk was occupied, and police and secretaries stood in huddled groups talking heatedly. They all wanted details, but no one knew what to do with them. Soon they would turn to him for answers and what could he give them, but the same blank look that had been plastered on his face since the call came in?

  The outer door swung in, and he watched Tina hustle in two kids, no more than twenty-five. The girl looked scared and shocked, the one that found the body, apparently. The other looked like a hippy with long, black, curly hair and a clear disdain for authority etched into the set of his jaw. Caplan did not want to talk to them. He wanted to assign the task to some young officer hoping to climb the ranks. He would consider Tina, but she had such a chip on her shoulder, she might smack the hippy and end up getting Trager’s police department sued. He scanned the other faces, looking for a suitable option, but knew he could not give it away. What would his superiors say? Especially if they couldn’t find the perp?

  He lifted his coffee mug, a gift from his wife that said, “If you think I’m neurotic, look at my dog” in green block letters, and drained the last of his sooty coffee. It didn’t matter if he got the first cup of the pot, he still ended up with a trail of grounds that he choked down with disgust. He set it back on his desk, and the light on his phone beeped mechanically. He picked it up, happy for another distraction.

  * * * *

  After an older man, wearing a white lab coat, carefully swabbed her hand and took the baggie away for evidence, Abby sat in a stiff plastic chair. Her hands were shoved between her knees, which shook violently when not clamped tightly together. The station stank of sweat and coffee and something sugary like yeast. Men and women, mostly men, shuffled about the room, their faces pressed in worry.

  Murder did not happen in Trager City. Abby could see the disintegration of that belief in their worried faces, their stressed scowls. They were responsible, accountable, and they didn't have a clue what to do about it.

  Sebastian paced back and forth in front of her chair, his expression a changing mask of anxiety, fury and indifference. She wanted to talk to him, to pat the chair next to her, to apologize for getting him involved, but her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, and her lips were like a sealed envelope.

  Given time to think, Abby had grown increasingly scared and upset. The image of the dead body kept popping into her mind like a terrible dream that she couldn’t shake.

  How quickly a living body could be stolen of its self, turned from living flesh into a flaccid shell. Abby had never been particularly interested in death. She had not obsessed over it as some people did, locking themselves away to create some false sense of security. Though she was also not overly adventurous and rarely sought out the adrenaline rush that so many young people coveted - no skydiving on her calendar of achievements. However, she suddenly wished for those thrills, for a long, rolling list of daring expeditions. Why had she not lived more, lived every second of every day?

  "Chief Caplan, please. I just called."

  The voice, magnetic, startled Abby, and she looked up, eyes connecting with a rail-thin man in an expensive silver suit. He was tall and reminded her of a praying mantis, with arms too short for his body. His handsome face scanned the room, deep-set brown eyes underneath pencil thin black eyebrows. His bald head shone with a recent shave.

  He crossed the precinct in five steps, his legs like stilts, his suit barely shifting with his swagger. The office din died with his arrival, and several heads turned to watch as he strode through the room.

  Sebastian’s eyes locked on the man and did not leave him.

  Abby shifted in her seat, clearing her throat to get Sebastian's attention, but he only ignored her, continuing to stare at the well-dressed stranger as he disappeared into a large, rectangular office.

  It was the Police Chief's office. Abby knew by the small, faux gold doorplate, scuff marks visible under the hot lights. Navy blue blinds dropped over the single window in the office, and Abby could see no more.

  For several long minutes, they waited. A heavy secretary with a frizzy red perm brought them each a tar-like cup of coffee in small Styrofoam cups. Abby drank hers greedily, parched and thankful for any liquid to coat her sticky gums. Sebastian barely noticed his, pausing for several minutes with the cup partially raised t
o his lips. Abby watched him, the firm set of his jaw and a nervous habit of licking his lips. They looked red, and Abby absently started to search for her chapstick, realizing that she was wearing Sydney’s jacket, not her own.

  All thoughts of her life at home had diminished beneath the weight of the day's events. Death trumped all. Only Sebastian still commanded a shard of her attention because his nervous energy banged off of her like a ping-pong ball ricocheting around the room.

  The Police Chief's door squeaked open, and the Chief stepped out. He looked tired, the lines of his face especially stark against what looked like a recent sunburn. His silvery hair was cropped close to his head, and his uniform fit loosely on his sagging shoulders and tightly around his waist, where his belly protruded. He seemed disoriented, and Abby thought of the burden of the dead girl. To Abby, the Chief looked like somebody’s grandfather, a man who wore knitted sweaters and putted in his living room. She felt bad for him.

  He walked to Abby and Sebastian, waving Abby back down when she started to stand.

  "No need, dear," he told her with forced calm. "The two of you are free to go."

  "You don't have any questions?" Sebastian asked, dumbfounded. He had seemed irritated at the idea of being questioned, but now appeared equally irritated that no questioning would occur.

  "No, young man, though I greatly appreciate your cooperation. Now, just head on home, and if we need to follow up, we'll be in contact with you."

  “Wait.” Sebastian put a hand on the Chief’s arm, but he barely noticed it.

  “Hmmm…yes?” he asked, his eyes vacantly scanning the room.

  “Who is the guy in your office?”

  The Chief returned his gaze to Sebastian, frowning slightly.

  “He’s a detective. He’ll be working the case and may need to call you kids, but…”

  “But, what?” Abby shrilled, unnerved by the Chief’s flaky behavior.

  “Oh, but nothing. Sorry about your luck, Miss. We’ll be in touch.”

  Sebastian started to say more, but already the Chief had turned and hurried back to his office, closing the door firmly behind him.

  * * * *

  Tina dropped them off at Sydney’s mailbox. They walked up the long driveway, their feet crunching on gravel.

  “What are you thinking?” Abby asked Sebastian, who looked jived up. He kept bobbing his head to his thoughts.

  “Destiny, I’m thinking destiny.”

  “I’m sorry, what does that mean, Aristotle?” she asked.

  “Do you believe in fate, Abby? In things aligning themselves to guide you?”

  Hmmm, did she? No, not really. She believed in choices and action and socialized expectations that sometimes seemed like destiny, but actually felt like doom.

  “Not especially,” she said, matting her brown hair back into her ponytail holder.

  “I see,” he said dismissively.

  “That’s it? I see?”

  He stopped walking and faced her.

  “How can I speak to you in a language that you don’t understand?”

  “Fine, never mind,” she quipped, too tired to decipher his code. She hurried ahead of him to the house, not bothering to hang her coat or remove her shoes. She went straight to Sydney’s bedroom, sliding her clothes off once she was beneath the covers. She feared that her disturbed mind, full to capacity, would prevent sleep, but she quickly slipped out of her living nightmare and into the safety of her dreams.

  * * * *

  Sebastian pushed into the guest bedroom and closed and locked the door behind him. Half a dozen boxes lined the wall next to the bed. Boxes filled with photos, journals, books and so many scraps of paper that Sebastian had stopped looking in them several months earlier.

  Had he given up? No, not exactly, but he had begun to doubt himself, to doubt the man that he hunted, even to doubt his sister and her abilities.

  When he had stood at the airport in Panama, finally ready to give up his crusade, dealing with the reality of a million dead leads, Sydney’s house had popped into his mind like a beacon in the fog. Had he known then where it would lead him? No, no, his intuition always felt a little bit like guessing. But he had come, and now there was a dead body, a dead girl in the woods. A dead girl that did not look like Claire, but felt like her.

  When Abby had led him to the body, he was not expecting the jolt of familiarity that assailed him. The position of her body, the energy that lingered in the space where she lay. Claire’s death had rushed back with such force that he lost his place for a moment and stood suspended in space and time. He stood looking down at Claire’s body, at her long, black hair caught in the weeds. In death, Claire was the fragile sister of his childhood. She was no longer the powerful witch of her transformation. She was merely a body, an empty space where flesh and blood could no longer live.

  Still, he could not be sure that his feelings were more than his mind’s invention. Sebastian pictured again the detective with the weirdly short arms. Something about him seemed all too familiar.

  Sebastian dug through three boxes before he found the photo. In the image, he saw the woods where Claire’s body was discovered, the same weedy trail that led into the nature preserve that no one ever used. The nature preserve where they had taken Claire and murdered her. A dozen people stood in the photo; law enforcement, a few spectators and one man near the back. A man with a stick figure’s body, a ball cap pulled over his head, partially obscuring his eyes. The man was looking toward the woods, a half smile on his face, his arms hanging at his sides. They barely reached his waist; they were strange enough that Sebastian had noticed them years ago when he first developed the photos. Peculiar enough that he remembered them today when the man strode into the Trager City precinct and poured whatever poison into the Chief’s ear that stopped him questioning Abby.

  Vepars, they were called, the witch killers who took Claire. They had taken another, and the man, the detective, was involved. Sebastian did not know how, but he would find out. Finally, the chapters of this saga, this obsession, were filing into place.

  He shoved the photo into his pocket and glanced at the door. Abby slept a single wall away, and he considered. He should not drag her into his mess, but he felt drawn to Sydney’s house and Abby, for whatever reason, had discovered the body. She played a part, somehow. He had learned to read the signs, to take nothing for granted and so he must keep her close, he must ensure that she continued to provide him with answers even if she had not yet found them herself.

  Chapter 5

  Abby woke with a single moan of terror. Her eyes flipped open to the empty room. She was alive, safe, in Sydney’s bed. Her breath slowed, and she took in the golden dusk of the bedroom. The shades, only partially drawn, revealed the swiftly setting sun and its final glow before succumbing to the night. She sat up, tilted her head back and to each side, feeling the tiny creaks that had wedged from the morning’s anxiety. Sydney’s captain bed was tall, but a little wooden ladder butted to the side. She rolled over and crawled woozily down the steps.

  She sniffed at the air, noticing the first traces of something delectable. Her stomach snarled with yearning, and she realized that it had been nearly twenty-four hours since she had eaten.

  Her longing to look decent slightly outweighed her hunger and she hurried to the bathroom to survey the damage. Her hair, matted to the left side of her face, needed a brushing, and she scraped a toothbrush across her furry teeth, happy to remove a layer of film. She applied lip-gloss and tried to liven her red-rimmed brown eyes with a spot of mascara. She lingered for a moment before the mirror and stared.

  She felt foolish for caring. Nothing like a dead body to make everything else trivial, but Sebastian hovered in her mind. He was very attractive after all, albeit a bit strange, and though she didn’t feel ready to even consider a new boyfriend, she didn’t want to look like a swamp rat around him. With Nick, appearance had been easy. He liked plain, he liked when she wore long gray skirts and sweaters that
her mother knitted, and it was not the kind of ‘like’ that came with accepting people as they were and loving them in sweats and all that nonsense. It was the ‘like’ derived from the security of having a conformist girlfriend who fit into the happy wife Jell-O mold of his life.

  In Sydney’s closet, she found a pair of worn blue jeans, a gaping hole in the right kneecap, and struggled into them, grunting with the effort of dressing while only half awake.

  She dug through a pile of shirts, and her hand flicked over a pointed corner. She wrestled it free and found herself looking at the smiling faces of her mother and Sydney. The sisters must have been only sixteen or seventeen, but even then their distinct personalities were evident in their clothing choices. Abby’s mother, Becky, wore tapered khakis that hung on her narrow waist and a crisp white blouse. Sydney was dressed in a purple velvet mini dress, the plunging neckline revealing her bronzed and perky cleavage. They stood, arms linked, in front of Sydney’s car, a shiny, black Stingray Corvette that Sydney had gushed to Abby about on more than one occasion. Becky’s smile was pinched and uncomfortable, her thin lips and horsey teeth almost homely next to Sydney’s wide, red-lipped grin. In the background, Abby spotted her grandmother Arlene.

  Abby slipped the photo back into the clothes and pulled out a loose fitting gray cashmere sweater. Quickly yanking the sweater over her head, her stomach won the battle over beauty, and she lurched out of the room in search of dinner.

  The smell of spaghetti, a childhood favorite, pervaded the hallway as she hurried down the stairs.

  Sebastian whisked through the kitchen, humming along to an internal tune, a pink apron with pig ears tied snugly around his waist.

  She unsuccessfully muffled a laugh and he turned towards her.

  “Ah, she wakes.” He grinned, holding a tomato-covered spatula in the air. “Sit, sit.”

  He hurried around the counter and pulled out a stool.