Chapter One
The smell hit me first. Not decay, like I’d expected
after being called to the site of a homicide, but cremains
and trash.
Spotlights and flashlights lit the darkened alley,
casting eerie shadows onto the asphalt and against the brick
of the surrounding buildings. It was enough to make a person
imagine threats that didn’t exist, monsters hiding in the
shadows. Surreal.
The alleyway behind La Maison wasn’t exactly as nice as
the lobby of the chic Chicago hotel, and the night air was
cooling quickly. I glanced longingly toward the back door of
the building and clutched my blazer a little tighter around
me, wishing I’d worn pants instead of a skirt for once.
Inside the hotel door lay the kitchen, and past that was one
of the nicest lounge bars in the city, as well as a first-
rate restaurant. Putting on my cop face—a slightly knowing
smile that my friend Mac called “smug with a touch of
haughty”—I followed Astrid into the Dumpster-filled alley
where a metal trash can seemed to be the source of the ashy
scent wafting down the street.
“I’m Astrid Holmes, and this is Marisol Whitman.” Astrid
flashed her badge at a police officer and a man in a crime
scene investigator’s jacket. I did the same. This was her
case, so I’d follow her lead. “What do we got?” she asked,
her voice almost too official.
The CSI spoke first. “Freak squad, huh? Looks like a
body, burned.”
Neither Astrid nor I so much as blinked at his rude
greeting. It wasn’t the first time we’d been called freaks,
and it almost certainly wouldn’t be the last.
At our lack of reactions, the CSI continued. “We won’t
know for sure until we get the cremated remains back to the
lab, but we’ve got bits of teeth, some melted fillings, and
small pieces of bone.” Again the middle-aged man in the CSI
jacket paused as if waiting for a dramatic response. The
Chicago wind kicked up, and the ash smell grew even more
pungent. Something living had definitely burned here.
“We’ve got guys going through this Dumpster again, and a
couple of teams checking out the Dumpsters nearby,” the
uniform said, giving the other man a bored glance. “Just in
case some evidence was stuffed into one of them.”
“Who found the victim?” Astrid asked.
“Kitchen manager of the bakery.” He nodded to a building
on the opposite side of the alley from the hotel. “Says he
saw someone heading outta here fast, around four thirty this
morning, but he didn’t get a good look at him. Big guy, he
said.”
“No wonder he didn’t see much out here,” I muttered.
Sure, there was a lot of light with our equipment in the
area, but otherwise the whole shadowy space would only have
been lit by a single standing streetlamp. I squinted at the
light.
“Yeah, especially since it happened in the middle of the
night—well, technically early this morning. The man who
chased the guy called us, but since he couldn’t say for sure
what the guy was doing, a unit didn’t get out here until ten
this morning. It took us a while to figure out the ashes
were human, then we didn’t know whether it was one of yours
or not. Lieutenant said to call in your sensitive, though.
That she’d be able to tell.”
Astrid’s attention had slipped away from our
conversation, and her gaze was affixed on the metal trash
barrel less than twenty feet away. As a sensitive—a human
naturally gifted with the ability to feel magic and energy—
she was probably itching to check out the remains.
“Why don’t you go have a look-see,” I suggested. “I’ll
finish up here.”
Astrid’s eyes widened and she nodded, then hurried away.
The girl really needed to work on her cop face.