Free Night Games by Crystal Jordan Page A

glasses that magnified her eyes so much she looked like a confused owl.
    He glanced at Selina, but her face had turned to stone. If she’d been difficult to read before, it was impossible now. What had caused the change, he didn’t know, and he didn’t have time to find out. Sliding out from behind his desk, he held out his hand to Dorothy. “Mrs. Lapinsky, I’m Special Agent Jack Laramie. Call me Jack. And this is Detective Selina Grayson. Why don’t you come in and sit down?”
    “Hello, Jack.” Her voice was as soft and fluttery as her appearance. “Mrs. Lapinsky is what we call my mother-in-law. I’m just Dorothy.”
    He stepped back and motioned to the chair Peyton had vacated. Nodding his thanks to the receptionist, he shut the door to keep the conversation they were about to have private. It was hard enough to do this without an audience.
    He hadn’t even resumed his seat when the woman burst into tears. “The voices told me that my dear sister is dead. That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? Isn’t it? ”
    Her voice rose to a birdlike screech, and he fought a wince. “The voices?”
    “I have clair-au-au-audience.” The last word broke into pieces as she sobbed.
    Well, he didn’t have to break the bad news. Her precognitive clairaudience had done it for him. Not for the first time, he was glad he hadn’t a drop of magic in him. He didn’t want little voices in his head.
    The next fifteen minutes were a blur. Dorothy was a mess. Tears and snot dribbled from her chin onto her shirt as she talked and sobbed and gestured with the tissue Jack handed to her. Sympathy squeezed his insides. He knew what it was like to find out that someone he loved was lost forever. He knew how all the bullshit that might have occurred in the relationship fell away to nothing and all that was left was the loss. A gaping hole in the heart and life where that person had once been. Any possibility to have a better, closer, deeper relationship was gone. Time cut off. The present and future with that person ceased to exist. It was a shock to the system, and he’d seen people react to the news in many different ways. Some were stoic and calm, some fell apart like Dorothy.
    None of it was easy.
    And it was even harder when that loss came with the knowledge that someone else had stolen your loved one from you, ripping multiple lives apart. It was ugly and scary, and it twisted a person up inside. This was so clear a demonstration that the person who’d been killed wasn’t the only victim. Friends, family, co-workers. So many people could and would feel the ripple effect of loss.
    This was also part of what drove him. Justice for all of the victims, not just catching the criminal.
    He caught Dorothy’s hand, cutting off her rambling story about how Mary had always been so kind and sweet, even to their baby brother’s mean familiar. “Thank you, Dorothy. I’m so sorry for your loss. I know this is difficult, but it would really help our investigation if you could answer a few questions for us.”
    Selina stirred in her chair, the first sign of life from her since Dorothy had informed them about her inner voices cluing her in to her sister’s death and her subsequent meltdown. Jack wasn’t sure what was going on with the detective, but now wasn’t the time, so he pushed away the concern that flared to life within him.
    “We have reason to believe that the person who killed your sister might have wanted to make a statement about Magickals who brought Normals into the Magickal world.”
    “My sister would never have broken the nondisclosure laws!” Indignation sparked in the woman’s tear-glutted gaze.
    “I’m sure she wouldn’t have.” He kept his voice quiet. He’d found that the quieter he got, the less upset and confrontational witnesses and suspects became. They had to lower their voices to hear his. “The records we have for her don’t indicate that she ever married a Normal. Is that true?”
    Dorothy shook her