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It was typical suburbia for this time of day: quiet, no traffic, no activity Ryder’s car had a lot of cat tracks up and down the hood and the frontA children’s tricycle was by the front tire, on its side, and a doll lay on the ay to the door, looking as if it had been outside for a while The s was very wrong at the Ryder hoot bodies inside"

He stopped too, not asking how I knew, but his bearing went frorip pointed at the ground in front of him "Details"

"Old blood A lot of it Sickly sweet It’s been there a while"

"Let’s go" Hemyself in as he drove away All I could see was the doll and the tricycle "A family is dead for weeks and somehow no one’s noticed yet?"

"You smelled the ti for the river

"Part of it Another part was cat tracks on a new car, the mail in the box, and toys left out in the weather" As ere crossing the river, I thought about calling Misha and telling her that her contact was dead, but I just burgled his office, so the less I told the press, the better, old friend or not

Below us on the water, a barge loaded with train cars and two tugs were pushing slowly upstreae was sitting low in the water, and it had to take a lot of power to fight a current so heavily laden "Does it bother you that I can s: does it bother you that I’m a skinwalker? But not said

Eli looked at me from the corner of his eye "No I’ll make sure a report is called in to the police about Ryder and then I’ll have Alex monitor the police bands and obtain copies of the reports We’ll knohat the cops do without getting involved"

"The Kid can do that?"

"My brother can do al," he muttered He didn’t sound very happy about it

CHAPTER 4

Have Stakes, Will Travel A all over the Ryder place, and the Kid kept us updated on what the cops found Four bodies, two adults and two children, all in advanced stages of decomp COD was officially undetermined, but from police chatter, it sounded like a va H had decided to handle things hih on the threatened lawsuit, or Ryder made so was really hinky here and I wasn’t a big believer in coincidence No ive a heads-up call to PsyLED Whichthrough the stolen electronic files on the va to the Vidalia police channels Ja to opera, and theaway,and feeling antsy, so I took rounds The backyard was enclosed by an eight-foot-tall brick wall and boasted a ardens that my friend Molly would have adored I didn’t see any of it as I walked, holding the cell phone in ht screen

PsyLED had issued new rulings that went into effect in the New Year Nohen humans were injured or killed by possibly paranormal means, law enforcement and private citizens were required to call PsyLED so one of their investigators could take psychoent in seven states in the Southeast, including Louisiana and Mississippi The cops would call Eventually But jurisdictional conflicts meant it would be later rather than sooner, and valuable evidence ht be lost I had almost asked Eli to make the call, but that had sarden, surrounded on all sides by dor and a thuarden bench and spun around so that I was sitting on the bench’s back, feet on the seat, the garden spread out around nolias near me whispered to one another, birds twittered and squawked, and two gray squirrels raced around a tree trunk, chittering, tails snapping I could smell rain on the breeze I really didn’t want to do this I hit SEND

I had aat the screen, knowing it wasthe last ti to kill me Stupid, stupid, stupid I was so stupid With my idiotic accusation, I had caused irreparable harone sos, I heard Rick say, "Jane"