Page 23 of Amber Gambler

The world wasn’t kind to girls. Not to women either. Definitely not to those it viewed as different.

“Profile.” I searched his face. “For a killer. Like aserialkiller? One targeting teenage girls?”

“Two of the cases are open with the 514, but given the girls’ descriptions, I’m inclined to believe we need to investigate the matter further and not dismiss the similarities out of hand.” He turned his attention to the dance floor. “Carter’s still here, right? I’ll draft her to help cross-reference the information we have.”

Not just a killer then. A killer targeting teenage girls with para heritage. Maybeaquaticpara heritage.

“She was with Josie last I saw.” I shoved away my plates. “How can I help?”

“Talk to your source. Find out if there are any other new ghosts who fit with what we know so far.”

“Water disrupts magic,” I mused, considering our next steps.

“I’m aware,” he said wryly. “I do know one or two things about magic theory.”

For someone who once had such an aversion to his witch heritage, he was rebounding quickly.

“No offense meant.” I held up my hands in surrender. “I’m thinking out loud.”

Arm thrust in the air, he flagged down a topless waitress before asking me, “Does water disrupt spirits?”

“Sometimes, yes.” I let my mouth curve. “Sometimes, no.”

“That’s a very scientific answer.”

“Each spirit rises with a certain amount of free will to exert over themselves and the world around them, the same as the living. The amount depends on the individual. Stubborn folks, like Farah, defy limitations that could bind another soul. She has no clue where she died, how she died, or where her body has gone but is more determined to find her friend than she is to solve her own mysteries.”

Before he could quiz me more, Carter broke from the sweaty bodies and made a beeline for our table. She must have noticed Harrow and couldn’t resist an opportunity to hash things out before they got on the clock tomorrow.

“Go find somewhere quiet to talk.” I shooed him from the booth. “I’ll put in your order with Bash.”

“You don’t know what I want,” he said, the words pelting my skin like raindrops.

“I bet I can guess.” I hadn’t meant it to come out flirty. “Pick up your order at the counter in ten.”

Abandoning my food, and my siblings, who wouldn’t be ready to leave until dawn, I tracked down Bash. I placed Harrow’s order, paid my tab, lamenting the wasted food, then texted the Marys my plans as I left Lure, ready to go home.

The tree was burning again.

That was the first thing I noticed when I arrived at The Body Shop. Sure enough, I checked the leaf in my pocket and found it engulfed in harmless flames. As I stood there, watching the fire, Badb lit on a limb in the center of the glow. For a second, my heart stopped, fear souring my mouth, but the crow was as unaffected as me.

“You must be Frankie Talbot.”

Whirling toward the voice, I watched as a woman whose head might reach my hip, dressed in a lavender suit with frothy white hair rising from her scalp like smoke, leapt down from the bench next to the office where she had been standing. “That’s me.”

“I’m Charity Moore.” She offered a delicate hand, which I made no move to take. “Tilda sent me?”

Tilda? Who the hell was…?Oh. She meant Carter.

“That was fast.” I would have expected an expert to take days or weeks to arrive. “Mind if I verify?”

“Mind if I get started while you check my credentials?”

“Help yourself.” I tracked her progress across the road as I dialed Carter. “Charity Moore.”

“She’s a dendrologist who moonlights as an arborist.” Her throaty laughter hinted she wasn’t surprised by the woman’s abrupt appearance. “She specializes in the study of trees with ectoplasmic resonance. Their physiology, growth patterns, and spiritual ecology. As well as the origin of their otherness, their likelihood of contagion, and the development of silvicultural systems for their preservation. Or destruction. Depending on her findings.”

“Alrighty then.” I blew out a breath. “I’ll let you get back to it.”

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