“Not your fault,” I said with a shrug I didn’t feel. “Someone had to be the first to find him.” I glanced at my watch. It had been only ten minutes since I’d found him. It felt like an eternity. “I don’t think he’s going to make that meeting with the witness.”

“Fucker,” Crawford said, a ghost of a smile on his face. He knew I was trying to break the awful tension. “I’m gonna have to write him up after all.” We both gave stupid little giggles, then in the next breath Crawford had me enveloped in a big man-hug. I returned the embrace, knowing he needed the comfort as much as I did. A heartbeat later we stepped back, neither one of us the slightest bit embarrassed about the display of emotion.

“I need to make some phone calls,” he said with a sigh. “Crime lab’s already on the way.”

“And we need to find his wife. Does anyone know where she worked? Does she have family around here?”

“We’ll find all of that out,” he said, the growl in his voice a promise. Then he stepped away to make his calls.

I was saved from slipping back into agonized ponderings about Brian’s missing essence by the sight of the crime-scene van pulling into the driveway. It parked behind Crawford’s car, and Crime Scene Technician Jill Faciane hopped out—a petite woman with short red hair and an elfin face, dressed in blue fatigue pants and a Beaulac PD T-shirt. She headed toward me, pausing only to scrawl her name on the crime-scene log before ducking under the tape that had been hastily strung.

“I hate to say it,” I said when Jill reached me, “but I’m really glad you’re the tech on call.” We’d worked together extensively during the Symbol Man case and had become friends in the process. I’d grown up fairly lonely and isolated due to my penchant for summoning demons, so having a female friend was something new and rewarding.

She gave a sharp nod of understanding. “You okay?”

“I’ll be fine.”

She shook her head, blue eyes dark and angry. “I hate it when one of our own dies. Even when it’s some sort of stupid accident at home.”

I knew what she meant. Police were a family, a brotherhood—no matter what the gender.

Her scowl deepened. “But a suicide. God damn it.”

“The note says that he killed his wife,” I said, voice grim.

She jammed her fingers through her hair. “It’s just so hard to believe. I’d heard they were having some problems, but shit. Everyone goes through rough patches.”

I shook my head. “The way it’s worded makes it sound like it was an accident, but I did a quick sweep and couldn’t find her.”

“And so he killed himself? How the fuck could he do this to us?” I could hear the anger in her voice, and I understood it.

I sighed. “It’s been a long time since we’ve lost anyone.” Then I winced. “I mean—”

“Other than you,” Jill said quietly. “But at least you came back.” She shivered and rubbed her arms. “Those two weeks were awful.”

I didn’t know how to respond. After the showdown with the Symbol Man, it had been assumed that I was dead. There’d been plenty of evidence to support that assumption, including eyewitness accounts of me being eviscerated and a few gallons of my blood on the scene—though no body. A cover story had later been spun to explain my disappearance and surprising reappearance, but there were only two people in this world who knew what had actually happened, who knew that I really had died. For two weeks, at least.

“But your funeral,” she said, forcing a grin, “man, that was some shit! The procession was five miles long!”

I made myself return the grin. “Everyone just wanted to get out of work.”

Jill snorted and thwapped me on the arm. “You are so stupid.” Then she gave a sigh. “Well, lemme get my shit so I can start processing this scene.”

Crawford walked back over to me as Jill trotted to her van. “The rank will be making their way out here in due course, and the search is on for Carol.” He gave me a penetrating look. “How’re you doing?”

“I’m doing fine.” I lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “I’ll let myself feel it all later.”

His lips twisted. “I know what you mean, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I mean, how are you doing? I know you’ve only been back at work for a week.”

I wiped a trickle of sweat away from my temple. The heat was beginning to ramp up as the morning progressed. “I’m all right. There’re a couple of people who are being weird about my, um, disappearance, but they’ll get over it.”

Crawford turned and stepped off the porch, motioning with his head to follow. He walked past the crime-scene tape to the meager shade offered by a scraggly oak tree, then took a pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of his jacket pocket. “I’ve been a cop a long time, Kara. I thought I’d seen it all.” He pulled a cigarette out and lit it, took a heavy drag. He’d stopped using chewing tobacco and taken up smoking instead, which made no sense to me. He’d also shaved his mustache, which had really thrown me. On the other hand, he still dyed his hair brown and wore dull brown suits with wild and garish ties. So I guessed some things never changed.

“Anyway, I’ve seen enough weird shit to be willing to accept that there’s a lot of weird shit out there,” he continued. “I don’t believe that story about you having to go so deep undercover that everyone had to believe you were dead, but I figure if there really is another story, it’s probably best that no one knows it.” He shrugged and blew out smoke. I resisted the urge to move so that I was more upwind of him. He was surprising me with this apparent willingness to accept the inexplicable. I still wasn’t about to tell him what had actually happened during those two weeks, but I had the oddly comforting feeling that if I was to ever tell him, he’d be fairly accepting.

Crawford shrugged. “I guess I’m saying that if you need anything, let me know.” He looked over at me. “Any change with your aunt?”

I shook my head stiffly. My aunt Tessa was in an extended-care facility—a place that catered specifically to neurological disorders. I knew that Tessa hadn’t suffered any sort of brain injury, but I still needed to have her body cared for. She was missing her essence as well, though hers had not been consumed the way Brian’s had. It was just … missing. Temporarily mislaid, I hoped. I’d hated to put her in a home, but at least I could console myself with the knowledge that she had no awareness of where she was.

“No,” I answered. “No change. I’ve been trying to go through some of the stuff at her house, get it cleaned up a bit, just in case …” My voice broke, and I couldn’t continue.

“In case she doesn’t wake up,” he said, more gently than I ever would have expected from him.

I nodded, even though that was only part of the reason I was trying to go through Tessa’s things. It was her library that I was most interested in. Tessa’s essence had been used to provide added potency for a massive arcane ritual, and I still clung to the hope that it could be reversed and she could come back to her body. Tessa’s library contained hundreds of texts, scrolls, and documents related to the arcane, and I remained optimistic that one of them held some answers on how to help restore her essence.

Unfortunately, my research had come to a screeching halt before it even began when I discovered that my aunt had warded her library with layers upon layers of arcane protections—and that they had not been set to allow me passage. That fact bothered me on a number of levels—not the least of which was that, without access to the materials in that library, I might never see her alive and well again.

My gaze slid back to the open door of the house. I could see Jill moving around inside, taking pictures and measurements. I could also see the motionless lump that was Brian’s body, but I was thankfully far enough away that I couldn’t feel the gaping lack of essence. This was different from my aunt’s situation. His essence had been consumed, not just pulled away whole. Even if his body weren’t dead, there’d be no way to return his essence to him. There was no essence left to return.