Free Guilty by Association (Judah Black Novels) by E.A. Copen Page A

if you aren't going to go see him, then you should call it an early day,” Tindall said, stepping into view beside Patsy. “Otherwise, the department is going to be up my ass when you decide to file for worker's comp. Unless you think you're going to heal that nasty cut up by yourself, Ms. Magic?”
    I glowered at Tindall and mumbled something about how magick didn't work that way. There were people out there that could heal with the laying on of hands but they were few and far between. I wasn't one of them. Like most practitioners, I'd dabbled in other stuff but I'm not particularly good with most of it. Some of it scares the hell out of me.
    “I don't suppose you could sign a waiver or something, could you?” Patsy asked.
    “I'm not going to sue you,” I snapped at her.
    She eyed me up and down. “Good,” she said at length. “Because I'd have to pay you in quarters.” Quincy snickered until Tindall shot him a warning glare.
    “So,” Tindall asked, helping me up. “What was all that? You got into position, stuck your hands out like a blind lady and then went crazy, making choking sounds. I thought for sure you'd done more than just knocked yourself out when you fell. That act of yours was pretty convincing.”
    “Whoever did this to Elias was a practitioner with a lot more skill than me.”
    Tindall eyed me with a blank look. “How do you figure?”
    I knelt down and searched the floor for the two broken pieces of earring, scooping them up and dumping them into the fallen evidence tube. The memory I'd experienced was incomplete, filtered through the veil of death. At least I knew that Elias' spirit had moved on. What I'd tapped into wasn't a memory that either he or his murderer owned. This one belonged to the place and the things around him when it happened. The whole building wore the smear of dark energy. While I couldn't explain to Tindall exactly how I knew it was another practitioner that had killed Elias, I knew that was the case. There's just a certain kind of energy that my kind leaves behind. We recognize each other.
    The memory was also rife with images that made no sense. I'd have to sit and think about what I'd seen, translate the images into something sensible. Bits and pieces were already coming together, but other parts were still elusive. What had he meant by saving Elias? Why had he had such a strange attraction to whomever it was that had killed him? It wasn't a romantic attraction. I knew what that felt like. Elias hadn't regarded his killer with fear, disdain or even disgust. There was a layer of respect there, understanding, even. They knew each other. That much I knew for sure. I could work with that.
    “I just know,” I said standing. “I need to get back to Doc's.”
    I started for the door. Honestly, I didn't care where I went so long as I could feel the warmth of the sun on my face again. That thing, whatever it was, had dragged me somewhere colder and darker than anywhere I'd ever wanted to be. “The scorpion sting,” I said, trying to work through it. “It couldn't have been a real scorpion, could it? Maybe a needle. I'm going to need to get some preliminary results on a tox screen to be sure.”
    Tindall jogged up beside me. “Hold up. What are you talking about?”
    “Valentino said he was clean, though. What if it was something a home drug test wouldn't pick up, something new?”
    Tindall grabbed me just as I reached my car and spun me around. “Black, you're going to have to slow down. First, you spaz out and hit your head and now you're spouting crazy talk. I'm not about to let you get behind the wheel of a car, not until I know you're firing on all cylinders.”
    I shrugged Tindall's hands away and leaned against my car, cradling my head. The fall hadn't been that bad but the vision was still there behind my eyelids every time I closed my eyes. It wasn't something I was likely going to forget anytime soon. Something that intense, it stays with you.
    “My head is