Maybe Bran had told Charles who he’d planned on calling in to help in one of his one-sided only-in-your-head conversations, though Anna doubted it. Bran tended to include her in most of those unless there was some urgent reason not to. Charles sounded cool and certain that someone else was coming, though.
Marsden frowned. “We are the proper authorities, Mr. Smith. Cantrip is in charge of anything that looks as though magic is involved. Are you saying that there was no magic?”
“There was no magic,” said one of the cops, deadpan. To be fair, she whispered it to the cop next to her. Anna was pretty sure that anyone who wasn’t a werewolf wouldn’t have heard her.
In a land where the police didn’t believe in the supernatural, at least not in their jurisdiction, a pair of Cantrip agents must be bored stiff.
The attitude of the police department also told her that Hosteen Sani was a very good Alpha. That none of his wolves—and this was a fair-sized pack of twenty-seven plus Chelsea—had had a run-in with the law was unusually good discipline. Even Bran could not claim that, though his pack … her pack, too … tended to have a lot of the more dangerous wolves, the ones he could not trust in the care of another werewolf.
Marsden’s little speech didn’t have any effect on Charles, but Miss Baird finally hit the end of her tether.
“Idiots,” she snapped. “No wonder he’s not talking to you. You’re supposed to be experts in the supernatural and you don’t even recognize the signs of a fairy kidnapping when it slaps you in the face. It’s a fetch. A mannequin spelled to look like a child and act enough like a child that people who do not know what to look for believe it is a child.” She scowled at the Cantrip agents. “A fetch is the word for a changeling left in the place of the real child.”
Gradually all the rest of the conversations in the room stopped as Miss Baird’s voice grew a little shrill. She was tired; they were all tired.
Leeds, Anna was almost certain he was Leeds, wasn’t paying any attention to Miss Baird or anyone else. He’d been wandering around the room for a while, letting Marsden take point. Anna had seen him check out the artwork (as done by five-year-olds) on the walls and peer into the shelves of games and toys. He’d gotten to the part of the room where the sticks and ribbons had dropped to the floor. In the middle of Miss Baird’s definition of a fetch, he dropped to the floor, too, right next to the bundle that had once looked like a little girl. He stared at the mess and then tilted his head.
No one but Anna was watching him, she thought, though one could never tell with Charles.
Miss Baird was still ranting. She swept her hand toward the silent couple who were seated incongruously on the small chairs usually occupied by children. They were huddled together and silent. “Ms. Edison, two other teachers, and half the day care children can tell you about the nasty fight these two had a week ago right in the hall. With the changeling gone, just look at them. It’s like they’re comatose or something. They haven’t even processed that the Amethyst who came to school today is gone, let alone that she wasn’t really their daughter at all. A family with a changeling in it suffers and dies, gentlemen.”
“And how do you know so much about the fae?” asked Marsden in a nasty voice.
“I read,” she snapped. “Which is something I recommend you learn to do.” She looked at Charles. “I hope whoever you are waiting for is not a complete moron.”
Leeds, still on the floor, laughed.
Marsden looked at his partner, who said, “He’s in Cantrip, Miss Baird; ‘moron’ comes with the territory. No offense, Jim. I think we’ve both been morons about this.”
“Have we?” Marsden asked in an altered voice. He sucked in a breath and then looked at the small contingent of police officers in the room. “Tell you kids what. Shift change is coming in half an hour. We’ve got this. Looks like they’re going to stick by their claim that it’s magic, so we’ll give your department our report. If one of your superiors is upset, you know our names and numbers. We’ll take it from here, and you folks can all go home.”
“You got it,” said the officer who apparently was in charge. “Let’s pack it up, boys and girls. Hey, Marsden, you and Leeds on for softball on Saturday?”
“Yessir,” Marsden said. “Ten a.m. sharp.”
They waited until the police filed out.
“Okay, they’re gone,” said Marsden. “This is real?”
His partner, still on the floor, said, “There hasn’t been a case of a fetch since we first found out that the fae were real. Standard changelings, where a fae disguises itself as a human child, those we’ve had a few of. But a fetch, an inanimate object spelled to mimic real life, that’s a new one.”
Marsden sucked air. “Leeds. Pay attention. Is it a real case?”
“We’ve been looking at a series of oddities in this neighborhood, right?” Leeds focused on Miss Blair. “I overheard you are new. Did you get this job because the previous teacher—I’m sorry, her name escapes me just now—hanged herself? I remember reading about a teacher here who died recently.”
She nodded.
“So,” said Marsden slowly. “It is a real case.”
“And that odd car wreck, Jim,” Leeds continued as if he were talking to himself—even though he addressed Marsden. “This is the right area of town and there were some kids in the car that were the right age for day care.” He caught Miss Baird’s eye again. “Someone in your classroom recently die in a nasty car wreck with their family?”
“No,” said Miss Baird.
“Yes,” said Ms. Edison. “About three days before Mrs. Glover’s unfortunate death. Henry Islington. His mother crossed the median and she and her three boys all died. Henry was the only one who was a student here.” She paused. “There was an incident the day before he died between him and one of the girls in the classroom. I don’t know if it was Amethyst.”
“It was,” said Amethyst’s mother in a dull tone. “Mrs. Glover gave us his written apology after he died.”
“If Henry was in this classroom, he was five years old,” Anna said. “He wrote an apology?”
“Mrs. Glover wrote it, of course,” Mrs. Miller said. “He signed it—his r was backward. Then he died and it was horrible. And now Amethyst…”
Ms. Edison walked over to her and patted her on the shoulder. “I know, Sara,” she murmured.
Amethyst’s mother wiped her eyes, but not because she was crying. Maybe they were too dry. “Amethyst and Henry were best friends from day one. She talked about him all the time. And then, out of the blue one day, he punched her.”
“Henry said she said something bad,” Ms. Edison told them. “He wouldn’t tell us what it was, and she just smiled.” She paused. “In retrospect, it was very odd behavior for Amethyst. It didn’t strike me that way at the time, but she is usually a gregarious, cheerful child.”
“Amethyst?” said Miss Baird. “Cheerful?” She shook her head. “But we weren’t dealing with Amethyst, were we?”
“It’s real, Jim,” said Leeds.
Marsden stared at him a moment, then took a good long look at the bundle of sticks on the floor. “Do you know how many fake calls come in? We’ve been stationed here for a year, and the most excitement we’ve had was when some kids swore a demon was eating their dog’s food every night. Twelve hours of stakeout turned up a half-grown coyote. Then there was the lady who saw a unicorn, which turned out to be her neighbor’s kid running around in last year’s Halloween costume. My brain’s a funny thing—it tends to atrophy if I don’t use it. Real, huh?”
Leeds nodded. “Real.”
Marsden waited a beat. “Okay, then.” He pulled out an electronic notebook and said, in a cool professional tone, “Can I get everyone’s name and what their relationship to the missing girl is?”
Anna leaned on her husband and raised her eyebrows. He narrowed his eyes at her, but she thought he was smiling a little. It was hard to tell.