Elaine Cunningham - Changeling Detective Agency 2 - Shadows in the Starlight

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SHADOWS IN THE STARLIGHT
By
Elaine Cunningham
Contents
PRELUDE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
EPILOGUE
Tor Books by Elaine Cunningham
Shadows in the Darkness
Shadows in the Starlight
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are
used fictitiously.
SHADOWS IN THE STARLIGHT
Copyright © 2006 by Elaine Cunningham and The Literary Agency East
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cunningham, Elaine, 1957-
Shadows in the starlight / Elaine Cunningham.—1st ed.
p. cm.
"A Tom Doherty Associates book."
ISBN 0-765-30971-8
EAN 978-0-765-30971-6
1. Women private investigators—Rhode Island—Providence—Fiction.
2. Providence (R.I.)—Fiction. 3. Missing persons—Fiction.
4. Changelings—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3553.U472S48 2006
813'.54-dc22
H2005044639
First Edition: February 2006
Printed in the United States of America
For Susan, with thanks for the long walks and moral support
PRELUDE
At this hour of the night, the East Side of Providence was about as quiet as city neighborhoods get. The
people who could afford sedate charm and architectural interest were dozing in front of their
high-definition televisions, while local newscasts alternated between self-promotion and breathless
promises of news and weather reports to come.
An unexpected downpour, the last April shower of the year, had just swept through on its way
northward. Sound traveled with uncanny clarity in the rain-washed air, and the quick, light slap of feet
against wet pavement rippled through the silence like pebbles thrown into still water.
Two women ran full out along the deserted road, soaked to the skin by the sudden shower. Both were
dark-haired and both ran with single-minded determination, but there the similarity ended. Kate Myers,
the older of the two, was a tall, rangy woman with a long-legged, mile-eating stride. A serious runner
since high school, she was built for speed and trained to win. She still ran every day, and she played
soccer on the weekends with women half her age. Tonight she was running hard, yet her much shorter
companion matched her pace with ease. Kate wasn't sure whether to be impressed or annoyed.
They rounded a corner at the edge of Swan Point Cemetery and began to run beside a stone wall, a
staple of the New England landscape. This one, however, was built of improbably large rocks. Huge
boulders perched here and there atop these walls, giving silent testament to the precarious nature of
existence.
Kate glanced into the graveyard, a nervous habit she'd been trying without much success to break. Fog
was starting to rise from the rain-soaked ground, only to be swept off by a quickening wind. This part of
the cemetery was more horticultural park than resting place, but Kate could envision the swirl of
earthbound clouds curling around nineteenth-century mausoleums and lending an illusion of flight to angel
wings of immovable stone or bronze. It was that sort of night—one that H.P. Lovecraft, one of the more
famous inhabitants of the cemetery, would no doubt find inspiring.
Kate had scant appreciation for the macabre, which, given her line of work, never failed to amuse
people.
A soft, slightly husky alto chuckle snapped her attention back to the run, and she realized she'd picked up
the pace considerably. Cheeks flaming, she dialed back her speed and glanced at her new running
partner.
Gwen Gellman was at least a head shorter than Kate, and waif thin. Her slim legs were bared to the butt
by skimpy purple running shorts, and a tiny black tank top contrasted with skin so pale it brought to mind
fine porcelain. Kate guessed Gwen to be about a hundred pounds soaking wet, which she currently was,
and though she wasn't more than a year or two younger than Kate, she didn't look a day over seventeen.
Despite all this, words like "delicate" and "fragile" just didn't apply. Five kilometers of hard running, and
the girl hadn't broken a sweat. If there were any justice in the world, all that let's-go-clubbing makeup
rimming her eyes would be running down her face in dark rivulets. Her hair was as wet as Kate's, but
instead of hanging limp and lank, the girl's short, thick locks reshaped themselves into glistening curls.
Kate could have forgiven Gwen for all that, had she not also been a former cop with all the annoying
traits of that breed. She was relentless and cat-curious, with the usual arrogant disregard for her own
safety. That last, Kate would never understand. She dealt with death every day, but she was in no hurry
to experience it herself. But Gwen? Kate had yet to decide whether the girl was too stupid to recognize
the danger she was putting herself in, or too driven to care.
They reached the end of the course and slowed to an easy trot. This was their third shared run in as many
days, and they'd fallen into a pattern: meet at Brown Stadium, run a five-K loop through the quiet charm
of Blackstone Boulevard, cool down on the way to Kate's house. Her neighborhood was a tangle of
narrow side streets, with tall wooden houses painted in muted pastels and cars parked on both sides of
the road. The only place to run was down the middle of the streets, but at this hour there was little
competition from traffic.
Gwen waited until they'd slowed to a walk to bring up her personal crusade. "I hate to nag—"
"But in my case, you'll make an exception?"
Kate's sarcasm was answered by a quick, fleeting grin. "Hey, you asked for three days. Time's up. Did
you find anything new?"
"Gwen, there isn't anything to find," she said patiently. "I reviewed all my notes and test results, and found
nothing to indicate that Frank Cross's death was anything other than an accidental drowning. His
blood-alcohol level was nearly four times the legal limit. I'm not surprised he fell off his boat. It's a
wonder he managed to get as far as he did."
"Don't think that hasn't occurred to me," Gwen said darkly. "Any sign that the alcohol was forced into
him? An IV track, maybe?"
"Nothing."
They walked several paces before Gwen spoke again. "What do you know about foie gras?"
Kate shot her a puzzled look. "Foie gras? It's a pate made from duck or goose liver, usually served on
crackers. I've never tried it, though I was tempted to after watching this old James Bond movie. Sean
Connery sneaks some foie gras into a spa and feeds it to his physical therapist. Judging from her reaction,
it qualifies as fore-play. Before I get too distracted by that line of thought, maybe you should tell me
where this is going."
"Do you know how it's made?"
She ran an impatient hand through her wet hair. "With some sort of food processor, I'd imagine. Cooking
doesn't interest me."
"Me either. But I dated a chef once, and he went on and on. Apparently the geese used for foie gras
have to be fattened until their livers balloon up to seven or eight times the normal size. Since no animals
except humans and lapdogs willingly fuck themselves up to that extent, people shove tubes down the
birds' throats and force-feed them."
Kate grimaced. "That sounds like torture."
"You think? I'm guessing anything that extreme would leave forensic evidence, even after just one time."
"It would, yes. I wasn't specifically looking for… intrusion of that sort, but nothing I saw suggested that
consuming half a bottle of Scotch was anything but voluntary."
"That's not what happened," Gwen said stubbornly. "There's got to be another explanation."
"And I'm sure you have several."
"I'm only interested in the one that's true, and so far we haven't found it," she said curtly. "Alcohol can be
absorbed through the colon. Did you check…"
"For evidence of an eighty-proof enema? C'mon, Gwen."
"Did you?" she persisted.
Kate suppressed a sigh. "Not specifically, no. But the contents of his stomach helped establish time of
death. There was enough alcohol present to explain his state. You were at his house—did you see
anything to indicate a struggle?"
"No, but people have been known to clean up a crime scene. And maybe there wasn't much of a
struggle. You said Frank had a cut on his head. They could have knocked him out."
"More likely he hit it when he fell. What about motive? Was anything taken from his house?"
Gwen took a moment to think that over. "The investigating officer didn't see any evidence of theft," she
said carefully, "but that doesn't indicate absence of motive. Frank was a cop for over thirty years. If you
do the job right, you can piss off a lot of people in three decades."
"Yes, I know."
Kate's voice was sharper than she'd intended. She softened her words with a faint smile before turning
away to prop one foot on the third step of her front stairs. She took her time leaning into a hamstring
stretch. When she could trust herself to speak without emotion, she said, "Give me a minute, and I'll drive
you home. You shouldn't be running by yourself at this hour."
The girl flashed an angelic smile. "Like the man said, 'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow
of death, I shall fear no evil, because I'm the meanest motherfucker in the valley.'"
"Why do cops think you're invincible?" she snapped, hearing the bitterness in her voice but not
particularly caring. "No job too sordid, no street too dangerous, no risk too stupid."
Gwen's smile broadened. "Don't hold back on my account. If that's how you feel about the job, I can see
why you dumped Quaid." She cocked her head to one side and considered. "Well, plus the fact that he's
about as interesting as white bread with mayo."
"Actually, I didn't mind that Gary Quaid was cautious and conservative."
"But…"
This wasn't a subject Kate liked to discuss, but she could see how it might work to her benefit tonight.
She straightened up, put her other foot on the third step, and leaned back into the stretch, holding it while
she gathered the composure needed to recite the grim facts of her girlhood.
"My father was a cop. He was killed on the job when I was still in high school, by a man he'd arrested
years before. Knowing this, do you really think I'd skim over Frank Cross's autopsy? Take the easy
explanation without a good, hard look at other possibilities?"
Gwen nodded slowly. "Point taken. Did they get the guy?"
That wasn't the response Kate would have expected from most people, but it seemed typical of Gwen.
She'd met the former cop about a week ago, just after Gwen had fished the body of her mentor and best
friend out of the Narragansett Bay. From day one, Gwen had wanted answers, not sympathy. No doubt
she thought everyone processed grief in the same fashion.
"They got him," Kate said shortly. "But in Frank Cross's case, there's no one to 'get.' You've got to let it
go, Gwen."
"Gee, Kate, you don't seem to be very big on closure. Didn't you give the same advice to Quaid when he
was following up on the raid at Winston's?"
The memory was like an icy hand around Kate's throat. "You know about that? And about the…
warning?"
"Yeah. So?"
Kate huffed in exasperation. "So? Someone broke into the morgue and mutilated the bodies of the two
policemen killed in the raid. In my lab. Using my equipment."
"Seems to me you'd want to find whoever did that, if for no other reason than to keep your equipment
clean."
Her gaze slid away. "The police are looking into it."
"Since when? Last I heard they were covering it up. Bad for morale, or some similar pile of bullshit."
"You'll have to take that up with the department." She straightened up. "It's getting late. If you're sure you
don't want a ride…"
Gwen took the hint and trotted off. After a few paces she stopped and turned back. "One more
thing—did you ask about the fingerprints found in Frank's house?"
"His prints were the only ones found on the glass of Scotch, but you knew that."
"What about the bottle?"
"Same thing."
Gwen's eyes narrowed. "Only Frank's prints," she repeated.
"On a bottle that's probably been handled by at least a dozen people between the distillery and the
package store. That didn't set off any alarms?"
"What I meant was that his fingerprints were found on the bottle. I don't know how many other prints
were found," Kate said hastily, "but I'll see what I can find out."
"Thanks. I wouldn't ask, but…"
She didn't elaborate, and didn't need to. Kate knew the story: Gwen had left the force nearly two years
ago under a cloud and set up a small PI business. A few people on the inside were still willing to deal
with her when no one else was looking, but the investigating officer assigned to Frank Cross's case was
personally offended by any hint of tarnish on the badge, and he'd spitefully—and effectively—blocked
Gwen's attempts to follow up on her mentor's death. That, apparently, was where Kate came in. A
medical examiner known for her obsessive habits on and off the job, she could ask the occasional odd
question without raising too many eyebrows.
She waved Gwen on her way and headed up the stairs. The screened porch on the front of her house
was deeply shadowed. That was strange, considering how much attention Kate lavished on safety
precautions these days.
Strange, too, that she hadn't noticed the darkness until now. But the nearest streetlamp was just across
the narrow road, and the light outside the house was bright enough to distract the eye from the darkness
within. Kate tested the porch door and found it securely locked. Most likely the lightbulbs had burned
out, or perhaps she'd simply forgotten to turn on the light when she'd left. God knows she had enough on
her mind to justify a lapse or two.
She let herself in and flipped the light switch. Faint, yellow light filled the small porch. She's just forgotten
to turn on the porch light, something people did every day. Most people, that is. For Kate, it was the
equivalent of a red-flag offense. When this was over, she was definitely going to take some of that
vacation time she had piled up.
After securing the dead bolt on the porch entrance, she unlocked the front door. The heavy wooden
door swung shut behind her as she stepped into the hall. Here, too, the lights were off, and she palmed
the wall for the switch.
It felt slightly sticky. Kate regarded her hand, and her eyes widened.
Blood, so thick and dark it was nearly black, smeared her hand. Her eyes focused on the floor beneath
her feet, and she noted that the sisal mat was sodden with blood.
The familiar smells of death hit her in a sudden rush. Panic struck, and she whirled toward the door—
And fell back, stumbling a little because she couldn't tear her horrified gaze from the door. Her throat
worked as she fought back waves of bile. She desperately wanted to scream and run, but the nightmare
quality of the ugly little tableau stole her ability to do either.
A neighbor's dog—a squat, ugly little mixed breed that looked like a cross between a Chihuahua and a
footstool—had been duct-taped to the door. The little dog had been gutted, and above the killing slash
was an elaborate design, carved into its broad, nearly hairless belly. Though somewhat obscured by
blood, the design was plain enough: a circular, mazelike pattern that looked like a spiral and its mirror
image.
The same design that had been cut into the bodies of detectives Tom Yoland and Carmine Moniz.
Kate lunged for the doorknob. The door opened only an inch or two before slamming shut. For a
moment or two she tugged at the knob with both hands, then fresh horror swept over her in an icy wave
when she realized what this meant:
Someone was in the porch, holding the door shut. Someone was in her porch. Toying with her.
Taunting her.
For a moment, anger was stronger than fear, strong enough to clear Kate's thoughts and prompt her to
action. She quickly flipped the lock and raced up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
Her bedroom was a minor fortress, with a solid wood door secured not only by dead bolts but with two
long metal bars that slid into braces secured to wall studs on either side of the door. There was no way
anyone could kick down that door, unless they planned to take most of the wall out with it.
She dashed into the room and slammed the door, sliding the various locks into place. A metal bat, a relic
of her softball days, was propped against a potted plant by the door. Kate hefted it as she moved
cautiously through the room, turning on lights, throwing open closet doors, checking under the bed. As
soon as she was certain she was alone in the room, she picked up the bedside phone to call for help.
There was no dial tone. She slammed the receiver back into the cradle, picked it up, and listened again.
A soft, faintly husky chuckle mocked her.
The receiver fell from her suddenly nerveless hands. The intruder was in the house. He'd left the line
open, waiting for her to pick up the receiver.
She ran to the nearest window and fumbled with the lock. Alarms on the window were connected
directly to the police station. Opening the window was as good as making a 911 call.
Her fingers felt thick and clumsy, frostbitten with fear. Finally she disengaged the locks and pushed at the
window. It raised a fraction of an inch before it stopped dead. Kate peered out the window, and her
heart sank as she noticed the heavy nails driven into the outer frames, holding the lower window sash
shut. She checked the other windows, just to make sure, but as she expected, she was thoroughly
trapped.
A sudden flare of light drew her eye to the lone tree in her narrow back garden. High in the branches, not
more than twenty feet from her window, sat a shadowy figure, holding something that appeared to be a
small torch.
An eternity passed as Kate stood frozen, staring into that grinning face. Then her tormenter dropped the
torch. It fell into the bed of shredded garden mulch she'd had delivered last week but had never found
time to spread.
The flame flickered and died. Thank God for tonight's rain shower, she thought fervently.
Even as the thought formed, a thin tendril of smoke began to rise from the pile of wood shavings, carrying
an acrid chemical smell. Small, bright flames licked across the pile and slithered toward the house.
Kate sank down onto her bed and considered her options. She had a rope ladder in her closet, and if she
had to, she could break one of the windows and climb out. But if she left the house by the bedroom
window, the intruder would see her. Going down through the house didn't seem any safer. Her best bet
was to stay where she was and hope the police response came in time.
If indeed the alarm had been triggered.
The jangle of the front doorbell brought her leaping to her feet. She was at the door, throwing aside the
first dead bolt, when it occurred to her that the bell might not be a harbinger of rescue. For all she knew,
it could be the intruder's ploy to get her out of her bedroom.
She peered out the side window, looking for any hint of the strobing light that might indicate a police
response. Unfortunately, no light at all found its way into the narrow side yard.
A loud thump came from the floor below. Startled, Kate jumped back from the window. As she did, she
realized the source of the noise—the back door had been forcibly opened. She heard the faint sound of
footsteps, and a familiar voice called her name.
Weak with relief, Kate threw back the locks and cracked open the door. "Be careful," she yelled. "There
was someone in the backyard. He was in the house, too."
"Stay where you are. I'll check it out."
Long minutes passed before she heard footsteps on the stairs. She peeked out again, then swung the
door open wide.
"Thank God it's you! Did you see him?"
"No. The sick bastard is long gone. There's no one here but you and me."
Maybe it was her strained nerves, but that observation struck Kate as more ominous than comforting.
Her eyes dropped to the gun in her rescuer's hand.
Of course there would be a gun. Who responded to an intruder alert unarmed?
On the other hand, who took time to add a silencer to their weapon?
Kate's gaze flashed up to that familiar face, and what she saw confirmed her fears. The first bullet tore
through her shoulder, spinning her around and sending her pitching facedown onto the carpet. Oddly
enough, she felt the impact of the floor before her mind registered the pain of the gunshot wound. Then
the pain came in a screaming, blinding rush.
The second shot slammed into her, and the third. There might have been more, but Kate was beyond the
point where such things mattered. Her entire world began and ended with the white-hot agony radiating
from her chest into her useless, twitching limbs.
Dimly she was aware of a cool pressure at the base of her neck, and in some corner of her mind she
understood what was about to happen.
A lifetime of fear and resentment fell away, and Kate welcomed Death with a gratitude so vast it
bordered on affection.
CHAPTER ONE
A sudden gust of wind blew in from the ocean, carrying the tang of salt and the recent memory of winter's
chill. It ruffled through the late-spring garden and swept across the balcony of a white clapboard house
built by some prosperous, long-dead sea captain. The two men seated on the balcony broke off their
argument and reached to steady their wineglasses. A silence fell between them, heavy with the windswept
echoes of distant shores, distant times.
Ian Forest glanced at the sea, finding no pleasure in the spectacular view his perch afforded. The ocean
reminded him of a spiteful ex-wife, endlessly reciting his secrets but reserving the right to keep a thousand
of her own. He swept an impatient hand across his forehead to brush aside his windblown hair and
wondered, not for the first time, why Salvadore Anselm kept a house on Martha's Vineyard. Both men
had roots in island cultures, and to Ian, this scenic, tourist-infested hell was a reminder of the exile they
shared.
Perhaps that explained why Salvadore called him here so frequently. Perhaps he chose this place
because it gave their meetings an unspoken subtext: Of course you will serve me, for what other
choice remains to you?
Ian stifled a sigh and turned his attention to his host, a lean, fit man of indeterminate age. Salvadore's face
was unlined, but he projected an aura of experience and power that, along with his thick silver hair,
tricked the eye into seeing a man in his mid fifties. His ethnicity was equally elusive, though few people
moved past the Italianate name to ponder the slight tilt of his sapphire-blue eyes and the sharp, angular
lines of his face. Salvadore's origins might not be betrayed by his face, but his character, more often than
not, was written across it plainly enough. At the moment, his gem-colored eyes held a faint sheen of
malice, and his decidedly unpleasant smile celebrated the dark joys of privilege and position.
"Shall we move on to the item of business?" he suggested.
Salvadore's voice—a silky baritone that retained an indefinable Old World accent—was a perfect match
to his appearance. Their people aged slowly, but it had always struck Ian as odd that their speech
patterns were likewise unaffected by the passage of time. Constant, conscious effort was required to
keep from lapsing into their native tongue—or for that matter, into some older version of the languages
spoken in their adopted homelands.
It suddenly occurred to Ian that their conversation had lapsed into the old language as it grew more
heated. Salvadore's return to English decreed an end to their dispute. Ian acknowledged this with a slight
nod that signified, if not defeat, at least recognition of battle deferred.
"I've decided to put the clubs under new management," Salvadore announced. "Tonight will be your last
evening at Underhill, so enjoy it while you can."
Ian suppressed a wry smile. He'd spent years keeping the sleazy "gentlemen's clubs" profitable, but
insinuating that he enjoyed watching young girls undress to bad music was deliberately insulting. So, for
that matter, was the assumption that he might actually rise to snap at such tawdry bait.
Instead, he lifted his wineglass. "Here's to the new manager's success."
Salvadore's cool stare acknowledged the irony in Ian's toast, but he drank to it nonetheless. Among their
kind, even the most superficial ritual words held power.
"We'll need you to begin your new assignment right away." Anselm paused, lifting one silver eyebrow in
mocking inquiry. "Unless, of course, you intend to observe the ritual mourning for your liege lord?"
Long years of practice enabled Ian to keep his expression pleasantly neutral. In mourning? Not bloody
likely. His only regret concerning Wallace Earl Edmonson's passing was that he hadn't had the pleasure
of watching the bastard die.
摘要：

 Color---1--2--3--4--5--6--7--8--9-TextSize--10--11--12--13--14--15--16--17--18--19--20--21--22--23--24SHADOWSINTHESTARLIGHTByElaineCunninghamContentsPRELUDECHAPTERONECHAPTERTWOCHAPTERTHREECHAPTERFOURCHAPTERFIVECHAPTERSIXCHAPTERSEVENCHAPTEREIGHTCHAPTERNINECHAPTERTENCHAPTERELEVENCHAPTERTWELVECHAPTERT...

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