Page 43 of Dropping Like Flies
“He got caught in the end, though, right?”
“Yeah, but he was a suspect for a long time before they finally had enough evidence to convict him. Of course, it was America, so the murders taking place over several states complicated it. That’s how they caught him in the end. They ran payroll records and out of thousands of people, only fourteen, including him, came up on the lists. Every list they ran, his name would pop up. He was a suspect, though. We don’t even have that.”
“We will.”
Ben leaned back on the bench and took a deep breath in. “They think Bundy had been killing for many years before they caught him. It was well before the days of DNA profiling, and he was clever.”
“What happened to him?”
“He finally went to the electric chair in 1989 after a few stays of execution.” Ben smiled. “Shame we can’t do that to this guy.”
“You don’t mean that.” Ben had never been a supporter of the death penalty. He’d always claimed there were too many miscarriages of justice.
“I’d make an exception for Satanic Romeo.” He grimaced. “God, I hate that name. You’d think someone would have been able to come up with something better.”
“Maybe. It fits, though.” I cast another glance at the open door, checking no one had come outside while we’d been talking, before leaning across and dropping a soft kiss on Ben’s lips. I’d prepared myself for any reaction to the kiss from him wrenching his head away to turning it into something more. As it was, he didn’t seem to know how to react, several emotions crossing his face as I pulled back. This was still new, this being able to touch him again. So yeah, maybe I should be able to exercise more restraint, but now I’d stopped fighting it, I was remembering how the two of us felt together, how right fate had been to bring us into each other’s stratosphere. “Not here, I know,” I said, before he could say it himself. “It’s just that you looked sad.”
He rolled his eyes, but it was half-hearted at best. “And you’re what, Prince Charming? Able to solve all the world’s problems with a single kiss? Tell me who you need to kiss to work out this bastard’s identity, and I’ll push you in his direction.”
I widened my eyes in mock outrage. “Wow! We’ve been back together for two minutes and you’re already pimping me out to someone else.”
A reluctant smile tugged at the corner of Ben’s lips. “Shows you how desperate I am.” He turned sideways on the bench to face me, one arm hooked over the back of it. “I thought you agreed to keeping your hands off me when we’re at work.”
“I did. But I didn’t count on how difficult that would be. Don’t worry, though…” I jerked my head toward the back door. “I checked that no one’s interested in us.”
Ben’s gaze strayed that way. “Hardly the most romantic setting, is it?”
No, it wasn’t. But then I was a necromancer and Ben was a homicide detective, so our ideas about what was normal were already pretty skewed. Ben seemed to come to the same conclusion, giving a little laugh before closing the gap to bring our lips together once more. Despite the brevity of the kiss, this one was far better, far less one-sided. We might have risked discovery and continued for longer if my phone hadn’t rung, Ben drawing back and looking at me enquiringly while I fumbled it out of my pocket.
Ben’s eyebrow arched as I turned the phone so he could see the name on the screen: Professor Rafferty Hart.
“You added his number to your phone,” he said tartly.
“For work purposes.” Which was the truth. I had zero interest in the professor beyond what insight he might bring to the case. In a weird way, Ben and I probably had him to thank for our reconciliation. After all, it was his flirting that had riled Ben up enough to confront me and refuse to take no for an answer. Without the professor, we’d probably still be existing in that same space between enemies and lovers.
“Then you should probably answer it for work purposes.”
Biting down on the urge to meet fire with fire—old habits die hard—I brought the phone to my ear. “Hello.”
“Griffin Caldwell?”
“Speaking.” Ben had wandered over to examine a rose bush, his pretense of not listening less than convincing.
“I hope you don’t mind. I got your number from the station.” My number. Not Ben’s. When I neither confirmed nor denied whether I minded, he carried on regardless. “Only, I took it upon myself to do more research on which demon your murderer might be trying to raise. I’m almost certain now that it’s Gezgomar. You see, if all the ancient tomes are correct, Bizith is just too bloodthirsty to accept something as inconsequential as fingers. Whereas for Gezgomar, it’s simply about death. He is, after all, the demon of death.”
“Which means what? Hang on, Ben should hear this, too.” I put my phone on speaker, Ben giving up on his pretense of not listening and coming to stand next to me.
“They say Gezgomar patrols the space beyond the veil. I’m guessing as a necromancer you know a bit about that?”
“A bit.” I wasn’t downplaying my role. There were necromancers who wanted to understand as much as they could about their gift, and then there were the ones like me, who were far happier just getting it done without wasting brainpower on the how and why. People spoke to me from beyond the veil, and they did what I asked. End of story.
“What do you mean, patrol?” Ben asked. “Like a guard.”
“Exactly.” The professor’s voice had an edge of excitement to it. “He has control of the dead that exist in that space. Possibly all dead.”
“Like Hell?” Ben asked.
Rafe made a noise in his throat. “Not really. It’s more complicated than that. And it’s not like anyone has been there, so it’s all theoretical. I’ve spoken to a few people this week on your behalf. Experts in different fields of demonology, and they all came to the same conclusion. Whatever your murderer wants… Obviously, I didn’t reveal why I was asking to maintain confidentiality.”
