Keeper of the Shadows - By Alexandra Sokoloff Page 0,23
handled in the LAPD,” Brodie said.
“Do you think you could get the original case files?” Barrie asked.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he promised her.
“Has the coroner come up with a ruling on Mayo’s death yet?” Barrie had checked her phone. No messages from Brandt, coded or otherwise.
“The ruling is ‘Pending,’” Brodie told her. “Which means the case requires additional investigation. Robbery Homicide has it.” Barrie knew that already. Brodie continued. “I didn’t ask for Mayo’s case—I didn’t know it was going to turn out to be Other-related. But I’ve told Captain Riley that it has to be handled with kid gloves.” Brodie’s captain, Edwin Riley, was one of the few humans trusted by L.A.’s Other community, being the son of a practicing Wiccan high priestess. The community depended on him to steer investigations away from sensitive issues as long as secrecy would not compromise a case.
“It’s a good thing no one has seen the connection,” Barrie said. “Can you imagine the heat the community would be taking if Mayo hadn’t kept his predilection for Others under wraps?”
They all knew a sudden drawing back of the curtain on the Others’ existence would create havoc in both the mortal and Other worlds; Barrie often had nightmarish visions of a mass psychotic break. There was even a word for it in the Otherworld community: the Shattering.
“It’s bad enough that Mayo was so powerful that some Others broke the Code and let him in. And fraternized with him,” Rhiannon said.
“‘Fraternize’ is putting it mildly,” Barrie muttered.
“And it’s a textbook example of why we shouldn’t,” Sailor said vehemently.
Barrie could have talked shop all night, but she could see Brodie and Rhiannon eyeing each other in That Way, so she thanked her cousins for keeping her company, waved good-night to everyone with the rolled-up poster and headed across the patio for her own house.
In her room, just before she got into bed, she tacked the poster up above her bureau and stood looking at the trio of stars.
“Well, boys...talk to me,” she said, and turned out the light.
Chapter 7
She is in the movie, in Otherworld, wearing some sparkling gold fantasy of a dress, walking through the arches of the balcony of the round oceanfront ballroom, with the shimmering waves crashing below.
Someone is following her, stepping in and out of the arches just behind her, staying tantalizingly out of sight, but she can feel his presence as an aching longing in her entire body....
She wakes suddenly, with flickering candlelight all around her, to find herself in a huge canopy bed. She gasps as someone steps from the shadows...a gorgeous, haunted figure...
Robbie Anderson, as preternaturally stunning as he appeared in the film. He moves to her and bends to kiss her, running his fingers down her arms with a touch like fire, then suddenly lifting her hands to pin her wrists above her head, and stares down into her eyes. He is no longer a teenager, but older, more demanding, though every bit as beautiful. He moves on top of her, opening her mouth under his, opening her legs with his hips to rock against her, rubbing the ramrod bulge of him against her, slow and teasing, as his right hand caresses her breasts until moans are coming out of her throat as the feel of him excites her into madness, and she arches her back, urging him inside her.... “Please...”
She opens her eyes to look up into his golden gaze...
And then suddenly the face above hers is not Robbie’s but the Elven face of Johnny Love.
* * *
Barrie gasped awake, for real this time. Her heart was pounding, and she felt...well, disturbed. Her phone was vibrating on her night table.
She had every intention of ignoring it, but then she remembered Brodie had promised to check into the case files on Johnny Love’s death.
She grabbed for the phone.
“Brodie?” she mumbled.
There was a slight pause. “Brodie?” a man asked roughly on the other end.
A familiar voice. She couldn’t place it at first yet, oddly, found herself blushing. And then she realized who it was.
“Townsend?” she said, and sat up, pulling the covers around her as if he could see her. “What are you... What do you want?”
There was nothing but silence on the other end. Mick—or whoever the caller was—had hung up.
She set her phone down and leaned back on her pillows, looking across the room at the poster of the three Otherworld actors on her wall. And she shivered, hugging herself, remembering her dream.