Page 18 of The Vampire and the Case of the Baleful Banshee

For the next hour I read through Sidnee’s notes of her interviews with the other protestors, but nothing jumped out at me. I checked the phone log but it was blank. I frowned; Sidnee had said she’d had loads of calls, but if that were true she hadn’t noted a single one. That wasn’t like her: she was meticulous. My worry about her deepened.

Gunnar burst out of his office looking triumphant. ‘We’ve got it! Let’s roll!’

‘The warrant came through?’

‘Bingo!’ Gunnar looked like the weight of the world had been taken off his shoulders; like me, he was expecting to have the fire gem in its box and safely returned to its pillar by the end of our working day. Things were cooking!

I had two known barrier protestors, hairs at the scene and a supernatural race with the ability to teleport. It was the perfect trifecta: means, motive and opportunity. I’d have the thief in jail and the barrier back up and running in no time!

I was almost giddy. Easiest case yet, I thought smugly.

Chapter 10

Gunnar suggested I take Sidnee with me to search the Sullivan residence. She’d already finished her shift, but we all knew there were no such things as set hours in this job; besides, she might need the distraction. I called her on the off chance that she wanted to keep busy and she readily agreed to ride shotgun.

With our schedules overlapping more and more lately, we’d advertised for someone to take over the paperwork and filing. So far there’d been no qualified takers; it was a poorly paid job, so it either attracted very young job seekers or desperate ones with no skills. Gunnar wanted to take on the latter and give someone a much-needed chance, but no one had struck the right chord with him.

When Fluffy and I picked up Sidnee, my brand-new Alaskan driver’s licence was burning a hole in my pocket. It had been surprisingly easy to get one: I’d had to show my passport and visa, my British licence – and pass the test, of course. After one read through of the driver’s manual, I had passed with flying colours.

I carefully pulled onto the road. I still had to think about staying on the wrong side, but I was getting the hang of it.

‘Do you think we’ll find the gem at the house?’ Sidnee asked. She seemed brighter, almost bouncing on her seat with excitement. Maybe she’d just needed some downtime to recharge.

‘Yeah.’ I flashed her a grin. ‘I really think we will.’

‘This is going to be epic!’

I laughed and Fluffy barked loudly. We were all thinking the same thing: this would be a slam dunk! I was trying to play it cool but I was really excited to find the gem, especially before it set any more empty houses on fire.

We pulled into the driveway where a battered old dark-grey Subaru was parked by the house. I stopped behind it so nobody could make a quick getaway. Sidnee frowned. ‘Would you have a car if you could teleport?’

‘No way! I’d be so annoying, zipping everywhere.’ I frowned at the car, too. ‘Maybe the teleportation range is short.’

‘Or they can’t teleport at all,’ she muttered darkly.

‘It’s a reported ability, not a guaranteed one, although the signs point to at least one of them being able to do it. I’m sure we’ll soon find out. Arresting someone that can zip away might be tricky.’ Maybe Gunnar had sent us because he didn’t feel like doing a chase that should be linked to the Benny Hill theme tune.

‘So how do we arrest someone who can teleport?’ Sidnee asked.

I did have an answer for that one. ‘The magic-cancelling cuffs. Slap ’em on quick.’

‘Let’s hope we can hold them still long enough to get them on.’

We pulled on plastic gloves, grabbed the scene-of-the-crime bag and opened the car doors. The outside of the house was neat and well kept, so it was noticeable that a bin had been pulled over and rubbish had spilled out of it. I set it upright then knocked on the carefully painted front door.

Nora answered it and gave me a polite but quizzical smile, which made me feel like a twat for what was coming next. ‘Nora Sullivan, we have a search warrant for your house and grounds,’ I stated.

Her brows drew together. ‘Why?’ She looked completely perplexed.

‘We suspect that an item has been stolen and is being hidden here.’ The council was trying to keep a lid on the fact that the barrier fire gem had been taken, so I didn’t want to clarify what had been stolen.

She looked at my documentation then grudgingly let us in. She was shaking but I wasn’t sure if it was from fear, guilt or rage.

‘We’ll try to be careful so we don’t disturb you more than we need to,’ I promised gently. She shot me an unfriendly look; I guessed a search warrant wiped out welcoming smiles. ‘I picked up your rubbish bin,’ I said in an effort to curry favour. ‘It had been knocked over.’

She paled. ‘The keelut.’

I blinked. ‘It could have been something else,’ I suggested. The keelut was a magical creature, a harbinger of death, though it seemed a bit incongruous for it to be a harbinger of death and a scrounger of bins.

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