Drake Sisters 05 - Safe Harbor

thought maybe I was hallucinating." Jonas wiped his brow again and shook his head. "Makes me wonder what I'm getting myself into."
    Jackson's eyebrow went up slightly. "You got yourself into it a long time ago."
    "True. Nasty thing, watching a house swallow a man and spit him back out."
    "I've got to agree with you there." Jackson peered through the wisps of fog at the walls, where foot- and handprints were burned into the wood. "Do you suppose we can take that in as evidence? We could cut out the sections."
    Jonas snorted. "You can try taking a saw to that house, but personally, I'm not about to get anywhere near it with anything resembling a weapon."
    "You have any enemies in the crime lab?"
    Jonas grinned at him. "Jackson, you're such a mean son of a bitch."
    "Yeah, well. I try." He glanced at Jonas. "Hannah all right?"
    "She will be. She's scared and worried about her sisters. Jackson, you were there, in the hospital when the wife made her try at Hannah. Did you feel anything? Could you tell if she was under some kind of compulsion?"
    "You're asking me if Prakenskii could have been directing the attack."

    "I like him. I don't know why. He's a killer. I can see it in his eyes, but I like him and that doesn't make sense. I have problems when things don't make sense."
    Jackson sent him another look, one Jonas preferred not to interpret.
    Light was beginning to streak across the sky, turning the dark of night to a softer charcoal gray. Mist continued to creep in, long bony fingers of fog, stretching out over the ocean and land, moving inland. The men approached the side of the house cautiously, studying the surrounding ground before they took each step. There wasn't a single yawning crack anywhere near the house itself. The balconies appeared intact and completely stable. There was no blood spatter, in fact the entire area looked pristine, with the exception of the blackened hand and boot prints burned into the side of the house.
    "Do you have a camera?" Jackson asked. "We could get some pictures and maybe take a print or two if we're lucky."
    Jonas shook his head. "We'd probably get a bunch of ghosts and that would just freak me out."
    Jackson sent him a faint grin. "You're safe. They're fading already."
    The blackened marks grew fainter, beginning to diminish as the sky lightened, gradually losing color until finally they simply disappeared altogether.
    "There goes the last of our evidence. There aren't even any shells left behind. Guns, bodies, blood and prints, all absorbed. What does that, Jackson?"
    The deputy shrugged and reached inside his jacket to pull out a pack of cigarettes.
    "This is a hell of a mess, Jonas." He glanced up at the house, his gaze touching on each window before bending his head to the match cupped in his hands.
    There was a faint glow coming from inside the house and Jonas knew the Drake sisters were holding another healing session for Hannah. Between the plastic surgeon and Libby, Hannah's physical body was going to be fine. Jonas wasn't as certain about her emotional state.
    "It isn't Prakenskii. I'm certain of that, but what of Sergei Nikitin? Would Prakenskii know if his boss had the same abilities? We thought the Drakes were unique. Then Prakenskii came along. Why not another? Nikitin is cunning, street smart and violent, but smooth enough to cover his tracks so that he's accepted, and that's damned hard to do. Nikitin might have psychic ability."
    Jonas held out his hand for the cigarette. "Would Prakenskii tell us if Nikitin did?"
    When Jackson passed it to him, he took a slow, satisfying drag. He rarely smoked, but once in a while, like now, when his world had been shaken, his woman nearly killed in front of his eyes, and he'd watched a house consume a man and spit him out, he figured a drag or two were appropriate.

    "Who knows? Prakenskii tends to play everything close to his chest. He lives in the shadows and men like that don't trust anyone." Jackson took the cigarette back.
    Jonas refrained from pointing out Jackson tended to be the same way. Instead he walked to the edge of the bluff and looked down into the crashing waves. It didn't surprise him that there were no bodies. He hadn't expected to find any. But someone would be looking…
    He turned back to Jackson. "Someone lost four men tonight. There aren't any bodies and they aren't going to believe the one that got away. What's he going to say to his boss? The house came alive and ate his friends? They're going to be