As the Brother strode over, you had to pity whoever was outside the room. But that drama wasn’t what Boone was interested in.
Left alone with Helania, he focused on her. “I’m sorry you had to listen to that recording.”
He wanted to take her into his arms. Protect her from anything and everything. But they were strangers.
Butch ducked back into the parlor. “Boone? Could you come over here?”
With a nod, he got to his feet and went across. “What’s up?”
The Brother dropped his voice. “Havers wants me to go to the clinic. A family has come forward with a missing persons on a female fitting the description of our victim. He wants me to handle the possible ID of the remains. We’re going to have to reschedule with Helania—”
“I can talk to her.” He hurried on before the Brother could hell-no him. “I’ll even record the session on my phone. Listen, she’s been through enough. She doesn’t need to come back here just because you don’t trust me to remain professional.”
Butch glanced around Boone’s shoulder. “Okay. But stick to the facts.”
“I promise. I won’t let you down.”
Butch nodded and went across to Helania to take his leave. And then Boone was closing the door behind the other male.
Taking a deep breath, he sat on the sofa where the Brother had been. “Are you okay talking to me about this?”
It was a while before she answered, and in the silence, he turned things into a multiple choice situation: A) Fuck no, I don’t want to be alone with you; B) Are you insane, I have to go; C) Do you have any idea what you’re doing, or are you just winging this?; and D)—
“Actually, I’d rather do this with you.”
Okay. Wow. His D) had been more along the lines of I’m not a celebrity, get me outta here.
“With your permission, I’ll start recording on my phone?” See, he could be professional. “It’s just so Butch can listen, and this way, maybe you can be all done with this.”
“I thought the room was recording it?”
Boone looked around and saw security stuff everywhere. Duh. “Well, this is just an extra belt and suspenders thing, then.”
“All right.”
Boone put his phone on the coffee table, and when he was sure it was working, he sat back. “Can you tell me what happened? And take your time. I have all night.”
* * *
Helania stared at the phone because it was easier. She could tell the thing was recording because a little counter at the top of the screen was marking passing seconds that would turn into minutes.
This may well be a waste of time, she thought, given that her voice seemed to have left her. She really did not want to talk about the nightmare that had unfolded eight months ago and was still very much with her. But she had called the Brotherhood for help. What had she thought was going to happen?
More to the point, if she wanted to stop whoever was killing females . . .
“My sister, Isobel . . .”
As that name left her lips, she was suffused in sadness, and found herself falling silent again as memories came to her.
She cleared her throat. “Isobel was not like me. She was outgoing—she liked to be with people, and people liked being with her. She had a boyfriend, and she went to Pyre with him a lot.”
Boone frowned. “Tell me about the male.”
“She was happier with him than I had ever seen her before. She had had boyfriends from time to time, but he was different. Her eyes sparkled whenever she talked about him.”
“What was his name?”
“I don’t know.” Helania shrugged. “I never met him.”
As Boone’s face settled into a mask, she shook her head. “It wasn’t him who killed her. I know Isobel, and she never would have been with someone who was abusive. Besides, she was giddy whenever she spoke about him. She couldn’t wait to see him.”
“Was he of the species?”
“Yes, he was.”
“How long were they together?”
“She first told me about him a couple of months prior to her death, but I had the sense she had been seeing him for a little while before then.”
“How long is ‘a little while’?”
Helania took her parka off her lap and put it on the floor beside the chair. “Let me think . . . she mentioned him sometime in February last year. But her mood picked up around the human holidays before then? So I think they first started seeing each