Nerina scurried around her small apartment. “Sorry it’s such a mess. Give me a minute. Let me take a quick shower. Make yourself coffee, or whatever.” She ran into the bedroom.
The apartment wasn’t that untidy. No underwear or clothes on the furniture, just some dirty dishes in the sink and two empty pizza boxes on the floor.
Georgeanne sat down in a chair next to a flimsy card table. She wore camouflage pants and boots now, and a denim jacket over a T-shirt, concealing the big handgun under her arm. It must have been uncomfortable. “Now what?”
Mika was down on the street, in the black van. Presumably armed with her big rifle and whatever other weapons the Rossini had stockpiled in the vehicle. Maybe Russo had sent other sentries to watch the neighborhood. I didn’t want to ask. Firearms make me nervous.
“Okay.” Rachel sat down. “Issue one: Why are you kissing my boyfriend?”
Not exactly the most pressing issue. But I didn’t dare interfere.
Georgeanne smiled. “He’s cute.”
Rachel rolled her eyes. “Okay, I get that, but—”
Nerina burst out of her bedroom, full of energy, in jeans and a gray DePaul sweatshirt. “I think I can make my afternoon class if we leave right now.” She flung Rachel’s shirt on the table. “Here’s your blouse. Thanks. Can we go now?” She looked at me. “Can you drive me?”
I shook my head. “We should talk.”
Her shoulders sagged. “Shit. You’re going to be just like Andrew, aren’t you? Asshole.” She turned and yanked open the refrigerator door.
I looked at Rachel. She glanced at Georgeanne.
Georgeanne shrugged. “I’m just the bodyguard.”
“Fine.” Rachel stood up. “Look, kid. You’re scared right now. I can feel it. Don’t ask me—I’ll tell you later. But right now, Tom is your best friend. He doesn’t care about the Rossini or the Raen or anybody else. He doesn’t have any high-powered weapons like this chick. . .” She winked at Georgeanne. “But you can trust him to take care of you. Just give him a chance.”
Wow. I wanted to marry Rachel right now. Even though she’d slug me for asking.
“Okay.” Nerina popped open a Coke. “What?”
“How long have you been able to shape-shift?” I asked.
She sat down again. “I don’t know. It was the first time. Last night was the first time I ever made a monster. I don’t know how I did it, I just—I was scared.” She nodded at Rachel. “You’re right. I’m scared. What if I do it again? What if I can’t control it?”
Unfortunately, the people most likely to help her control her power was the Raen—and they’d want to use it for themselves. I didn’t trust the Rossini, but at least they weren’t trying to bring about the end of the world.
“This must be what Russo was talking about.” I looked at Georgeanne. “Can the Raen shape-shift?”
She frowned. “I don’t think so. The monsters thing—they’ve been doing that for years—I don’t know how long. But it takes energy—will power and stamina. That means they can’t hold it for very long.”
“I was dead tired last night.” Nerina gulped her Coke. “And actually, I could take a nap right now.” She yawned. “Screw class.”
Spoken like a true college student. “Maybe that’s a good idea.” I finished my coffee. “I have to do some research.”
Nerina tossed her can into a recycling bin. “Are you going to stay here?”
Georgeanne nodded. “For a while, at least. Mika and I will switch off.”
“Okay, I guess.” She yawned again. “Help yourself to anything to eat. If there is anything to eat. Go ahead and watch TV if you want.” She looked at me. “Thanks again. Sorry.”
“No problem.” Rachel squeezed her hand. “Get some rest.”
“Andy was lying about that necklace,” Rachel said in the car on our way back to the apartment.
“What is it?” I stopped for a light.
She shook her head. “I don’t know. The photo was probably real. Everything else? I don’t know.” Rachel punched my arm. “What are you going to research?”
The light changed to green. “I just wanted an excuse to get out of there. I’ll think of something. Do yo have that stuff you pulled up on the Raen last year?”
Back at our apartment she sent it to me. In the meantime, I spent some time doing a deep dive into Elliot Barsch. He was a real estate developer, not on a Donald Trump scale, but relatively successful around the city. Born in Indiana, where most of the Raen were based. Aside from the house in Evanston where Nerina’s late boyfriend had taken her, he owned a condo downtown and a house in South Bend, Indiana.
I found one useful reference in Rachel’s files. She’d looked up the Raen on the internet during my frantic drive to Urbana last year, when they sent a dragon, a horde of bats, and a flying horse after me in attempt to prevent me from delivering a box to Carole Rossigna, one of the senior leaders of the Rossini.
Anyway, Barsch’s grandfather, Edwin Barsch Jr., had been a professor of paleontology at the University of Indiana in the 1960s. His wife Martha had murdered him in 1972. She’d killed herself right away, leaving their son, Edwin Barsch III. Elliot’s father?
Online newspaper archives going back that far were scarce. I got a little lucky and found a short newspaper article reporting on the murder. It included the detail that the murders had been discovered by the Barschs’ maid, who wasn’t named.
On a hunch—or a whim—I looked up the reporter’s name. John Kinsler had written for the Bloomington paper for his entire career, retiring 15 years ago. I found an email address and sent him a message.
Then my phone buzzed. Russo. “Barsch wants to meet.”
“What about?”
“He wants to negotiate about Nerina.”
This was starting to sound like a custody case between divorcing parents. I’d been involved in a few, and they’re never pretty. Even when monsters and shape-shifting aren’t involved. “What does Nerina say?”
“I haven’t talked to her yet.”
Of course not. “Let me talk to Barsch and then I’ll call her. What’s his number?”
Russo texted the number to me. I hit “call.”
“Wait—who are you?” Barsch sounded confused. “Tom Jurgen?”
“That’s right.” I’d used the name “Thomas Hale” yesterday. “It’s my real name. I was with Nerina last night. Why do you want to meet?”
“She deserves to be with her family. We deserve a chance to get to know her. The Rossini has lied to her for her whole life.”
“You tried to, uh, rape her.” I managed to keep my voice steady.
“That was a . . . misunderstanding. I made mistakes. Nerina doesn’t have to be personally involved with me. We just want her to know her people. That’s why Ben brought her to me.”
It sounded like classic rationalization, the kind abusers are great at deceiving themselves with. “It’s up to Nerina. I’ll get back to you.”
“What’s up?” Rachel turned from her computer.
“Barsch wants to have a sit-down with us and Nerina. Bring her back into the fold.”
She snorted. “For what? So he can finish what he started?”
“Maybe he’s just sentimental. Nah.” I called Nerina.
“Will you and Rachel be there?” She sounded nervous. Understandably.
“Of course.” Rachel was listening.
“Georgeanne and Mika too,” I added. Barsch would have to agree, or no meeting.
“That should be safe. I guess. Plus, I can turn into a monster.” She giggled.
Rachel smirked. “There is that.”
Then Nerina sighed. “Maybe they can . . . teach me to control it? So I’m not just the incredible Hulk?”
“I imagine that’s what they want.” That made me uncomfortable. “The point is to keep them from controlling you.”
“Yeah.” She sighed. “All right. Let me know.”
John Kinsler called me an hour later. “Yeah, I remember the case.” He coughed—a smoker’s cough, it sounded like. “Not that many murders in Bloomington in those days. I’m working on my memoir, so I had the notes right here. What do you need?”
“I’m just fishing, really. I’m working a case involving Edwin Barsch’s grandson, I believe. So there’s probably no connection. I’m just curious. I used to be a reporter too.”
KInsler laughed, then coughed again. “Well, what didn’t get into the papers was that Barsch had gotten his maid pregnant. That’s why the wife shot him.”
A tale old as time. “She was the one who found the bodies, right?”
“Right. Alice Pinkton.”
Pinkton. And Nerina’s mother was named Emma Pinkton. Coincidence? I scribbled some notes. “What happened to her?”
“I don’t know. I guess she moved away and had her baby.”
This was entering William Faulkner territory. Barsch had tried to rape his—what? Distant cousin? I didn’t know. But it meant that Nerina was probably more Raen than Rossini. In genealogical terms, anyway.
I thanked Kinsler for his time. He coughed and hung up. I was about to call Russo when my phone buzzed. Unknown number. “Tom Jurgen speaking.”
“It’s me.” Georgeanne. “They’ve got her. And Mika’s . . . dead.”
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