Page 71 of The Devil Knows Her Name

“Who the fuck is in charge of this bullshit seizure?” I snarled.

Another couple of figures detached from the chaos of the barn, and finally Shim Paulk emerged into the glare of the lights, his long, thin face set in an apprehensive grimace.

Shim was the county DEC rep, which meant Broder had gone running to the biggest dog who would give him the time of day. I’d never liked Shim—always thought that farming whitetails should’ve precluded him from working at the DEC—and it had only taken a few phone conversations with him before I wrote his name on a slip of paper and burned it over a Beltane fire, whispering a spell of forgetting.

But that spell was long dissipated, and he was here now, taking my animals. He was a small man—I would’ve towered over him even if I didn’t intend to, but I did intend to, and he took a step back to lessen the angle of his neck.

“I tried to call you, Tess. Wish you would’ve picked up.”

“I don’t take calls from little pissants like you,” I spat back. “I don’t pick up for anybody less than your boss, and I’m sure she’ll be dying to hear about this.”

An uncomfortable little murmur went through the rest of the DEC officers. The fact was, I had no idea whether Kathy, the state DEC rep and Shim’s boss, had signed off on the raid, but they clearly didn’t either. No doubt they were looking at my clean barn and my well-cared-for animals and wondering what could’ve possibly warranted this seizure. They were wondering if the unease they felt in this place was because they shouldn’t be here at all.

“Kathy’s not the only person in the state office,” Shim said loudly, for his officers’ benefit as much as mine. “She just has a soft spot for you, and I went around her.”

“Oh, she’ll really love that. Sticking your neck out a little far, aren’t you, Shim? Somebody must be making it worth your while. My money’s on Broder.”

“That’s enough,” he said, even louder this time, and I knew I’d hit close to the truth. “I’m not here to argue agency politics with you. Your wildlife rehabilitation license has been revoked due to noncompliance of local regulations that are in place to protect public safety and health.”

“ ‘Local regulations’? What a fucking joke—”

“Where is the fawn?”

I paused. Some of the officers had started to wander away, but the ones who were still watching glanced at each other and shrugged.

“What fawn?”

Shim made a noise of frustration behind his tightly pursed lips. “Don’t play dumb, Tess. It’ll be better for you if you cooperate. We have multiples sources that reported a fawn here.”

I spread my arms wide and gave him a knife-edged smile. “Well, you’ve got the run of the place, Shim. Do you see a fawn?”

I knew what I must’ve looked like—hair wild, shirt half-open in the October wind, jeans soaked, feet bare and bleeding. Shim probably wanted to have me arrested, and he knew Broder would be only too happy to do it, but I was right when I said he was sticking his neck out. He knew this seizure would be under scrutiny, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to add wrongful arrest to the mix.

“Ken, Mike, and Jaime, you come with me and search the property. Everyone else, keep emptying the barn.”

One of the three he called on balked. “The whole property? That’ll take half the day.”

“Then as much as we can while the rest are being loaded,” Shim snapped. “If I have to come back and search the whole fucking property, I will. That fawn is coming with me.”

The officer who protested shut his mouth, and they split off in pairs—two heading down the driveway, and Shim and the remaining one going toward the meadow. I instinctively lurched to follow Shim, but I couldn’t; if I did, he’d know he was headed in the right direction. Instead, I watched him as he moved behind the halo of lights and murmured every curse I could think of under my breath.

A muted clang and an animal screech stole my attention. One of the officers had tripped over the barn doorway and dropped the crate they were carrying. Through the wire I saw the groundhog, the one David helped me bandage—I’d planned to release her any day, as soon as she told me she was ready. She was backed defensively into the corner of the crate, sides heaving and mouth gaping, panting in distress.

I lunged to the crate before the officer could recover and ripped the door open, the spring-loaded hinges creaking violently. The groundhog shot out without hesitation, winding her way through the forest of legs and disappearing into the dark.

“Hey!” the officer shouted, scrambling up. He was heavyset and baby-faced, blond curls stuck to his forehead.

I stepped in close, close enough to smell the fear-sweat under his body spray, close enough to see the pulse point beating in his neck. “You better watch your step,” I said. “Hospital’s a long way from here.”

“You can’t set them loose!”

It was so stupid of a protestation that it was nearly innocuous, as obvious as it was useless, a waste of the air it spent, and yet the words opened a depthless well of cold, black hatred inside me. It was as old and dark and malevolent as the pond, as if the water I swallowed the day Norman Abdee drowned me had been sitting in the bottom of my chest since then. Every slight from my friends and every move from the pastor had dug away the thin veneer of civility that covered it, and those words were what finally broke through. There was no searing flash of rage, no simmering anger—there was only frigid black, and it froze my heart solid.

I reached into the ether and seized the remaining threads of my magic. I wove them tight. I dragged them over his head like a suffocating bag and cinched it hard enough to choke.

“Then why don’t you go chase her?” I said.

His face registered only the barest glimpse of surprise as his will was stolen from him, and then he went slack. He jerked around like a poorly handled puppet and stumbled after the groundhog, nearly colliding with another officer.