P. Stormcrow

The coffee was nowhere as good as the one Agent Jackson made for her, but she hadn’t quite descended to the level of asking him about it yet. Instead, she clutched the paper cup she had picked up on the way to work as she got out of the car, sunglasses hiding the dark circles around her eyes.

The alcohol had not helped her sleep.

She wasn’t late by her watch, but by the time Finn arrived, her partner was already talking to Agent Newman. She caught the last bit of conversation.

“… they’re getting antsy. You know how they are with kids and their information.” Newman passed a manilla envelop to the taller man as she drew near. 

“Thanks, man. I owe you one.” Jackson snatched the papers away.

“Just catch the perp before anyone else gets hurt.”

Jackson gave him a salute with two fingers and with a shake of head, Agent Newman walked by him and nodded to her before he moved past her back toward his car. 

Finn watched him leave before she caught up to Jackson who waved with all together too much cheer until he looked down at her drink and grimaced. 

“That place scorches their beans,” he muttered.

She opened her mouth, but he shook his head first. “Go to UnderGrounds two blocks down. They don’t over roast.”

Finn pursed her lips. Of course her partner was a coffee snob. “Sure.” She took a sip from her cup and winced. Well shit. Now all she could taste was faint charcoal, like blackened toast.

“There, there.” Jackson patted her with a light touch, then increased the pressure a little. “Come on, Principal Kelly’s waiting for us.”

Principal Yolanda Kelly turned out to be a tall, imposing woman with dark hair pulled back into a severe bun and long red nails that contrasted with her darker complexion. She met them just as they stepped through the front door. 

“Agents,” she acknowledged without a smile and dove straight to business. “You may use my computer to access the files, but I expect you to review only at what is absolutely necessary.”

“Of course,” Jackson replied with a grin, unfazed.

Finn said nothing as they followed her lead. Like yesterday, their footsteps bounced off the walls of the empty halls. The school would not resume classes for another week.

They stopped in front of an office with a tiny window and a sign on it. Yolanda fidgeted with the keys and only then did Finn notice how they shook. Nerves or grief?

Yolanda pushed the door open at last. She stepped through and pointed to the file cabinets crowding one side of the small space. “The older student files that we haven’t digitized yet are in there.” Without breaking stride, she swung around to her desk and bent to type at the computer. “I have given you administrative access as per requested.”

“Thanks.” Finn moved to the desk next to Yolanda and waited until she stepped aside. After a moment and a last glance at both of them, the principal left.

Finn sat in the old office chair and was about to put her hands on the keyboard when she paused, fingers hovering above the worn plastic. No blue electricity arced out at her, but her heart pounded in her ear all the same.

“Hey.” 

She didn’t register Jackson until he placed a hand on her shoulder and she startled. But he only smiled at her. “I got your back, okay?”

There was no reason to trust him given the newness of their partnership, but everything in her relaxed and she nodded. She set her hands on the keyboard and began to type.

“So what are we looking for?” Jackson asked after a minute.

“I’m seeing if she has network access. Most school systems keep a log of what activity happened and what the student were trying to look up. Since this place has been closed, there shouldn’t be a lot for me to sift through.” It would have been easier to head to the computer Katy and Bettany had used, but she found herself reluctant to return to the room.

“Sounds good.”

After that, he remained quiet, much to Finn’s surprise. Most people would chatter in while she worked, feeling the need to fill in the silence. Appreciation welled up in her. 

“There!” He pointed at the screen.

“Looks like they got into the student files,” Finn mumbled, worrying at her lower lip. 

He whistled. “That’s impressive.”

“Not really,” she muttered without looking up as she continued to type. “A lot of these systems are not secured very well. Easy to hack.”

“Ouch. Snob.” There was no sting in the word, and she heard the teasing grin behind it.

At that, she smirked. “Like you and coffee?”

“Touché.”

“They were looking at…” She hit a few more keys before she stopped and eased back against the chair. “This.”

They both stared at an old blurry photo of a lanky boy with sallow cheeks, hunched over despite the formal portrait he posed for while he avoided gazing directly at the camera.

“Wait.” Jackson leaned closer and peered at the picture. “Why does he look so damn familiar?” He crossed the tiny room to the cabinets, pulling the top drawer out to flip through the file folders.

Meanwhile, Finn returned her attention to the computer in front of her. There was a name and a photo, but not much else. The girls wouldn’t have been able to discover any more intel. 

“Ah ha!” Triumph glittered in Jackson’s eyes as he came back with a file folder he had already opened, and was reading through the contents of. “Phillips Weed. Sixteen.” He laid the papers down on the desk. “Died senior year from a fall down the bleachers.”

Finn tilted her head to one side and Jackson shuffled back to let her see. An old local newspaper clipping sprawled on top of a class photo, detailing the accident from ten years ago. She scanned the article, describing him as a shy boy with a love for Rubik’s Cubes and chess. She winced as she recalled those rickety bleachers set high up on the far end of the gymnasium. “Bullied?”

“Yeah, probably. Which explains Joe.”

“But Phillip’s dead,” she blurted before she caught herself.

“Thus summoning,” her partner followed with a grin.

The explanation for way too neat, if not for the supernatural component. No. Maybe it was gas, but with a motivation and purpose driven by revenge? But how could a method like that target someone specific?

By poisoning Joe beforehand.

“We need to go back to see what Joe’s autopsy has turned up.”

“We need to go talk to Phillip’s parents if they are still around,” he said at the same time.

They stared at each other, but it was Jackson who sighed and spoke first. “What are you looking for?”

Finn shrugged, unwilling to give voice to her wild theories yet. She recognized that just because hers didn’t depend on paranormal elements, it didn’t mean they weren’t far stretches either. But in front of her was her partner, giving her an expectant stare. 

Time to switch tracks.

“The kid’s dead. Do you honestly want to dredge up their grief over a hoax?” she asked instead.

The disappointment on Jackson’s face with the slight frown and the light dying in his eyes almost had her apologizing for not believing. But no, this was a case. She had to do her best for the victims.

Jackson smoothed his hair back. “Hoax or not, there must be a reason those girls were searching for him—”

“Go talk to Emily,” she cut him off. “See if she knows why they were looking up Phillip. If—” she hesitated, then inhaled and plowed on ahead — “if Emily was the one teaching them Ouija, there’s no way she wouldn’t know.”

“So you’re saying that she is withholding information.”

“Or at least has something she wants to hide.” Finn dipped her head. “Just be careful.” She had trouble believing that Phillip possessed Emily, but things weren’t adding up with her and her mom.

He flashed her a grin. “I always am.” 

Somehow she doubted that.

***

Within the cavernous warehouse, there were only a few enclosed rooms. Another agent she didn’t quite catch the name of pointed her to one of the two in the back.

“Hold on.” Olivia remained focus on what she was doing. Behind her, rows of instruments sat upon a shelf but Finn didn’t recognize any of them from the usual forensics equipment she had seen before.

“Okay.” She stood to one side, waiting for Olivia to finish what she was doing. 

“Agent Reed!” Olivia perked up as she set her tools aside and grinned as she swung around the large stainless steel table. “How’s it going?”

Her smile was infectious and Finn smiled in return without meaning to. “It goes.” What else could she say? Her inner turmoil stemmed from frustration that everyone here was so willing to throw their hands up and blame ghosts. And that included Olivia, who was supposed to be a scientist.

“How can I help?” the younger girl asked, jolting her from her thoughts.

“I was wondering if the autopsy report for Joe came back.” Finn tugged her shirt cuff. 

“Oh yeah. Criminal sent theirs here first thing this morning. Now where did I…”

Surprised, Finn blurted out her question before she could stop herself. Except it didn’t come out as one. “I thought you did the examination.”

Olivia paused in her search to shake her head. “I don’t have the lab, or space. So I conduct the occult ones, then send the body over.”

Oh.

“Ah ha! Here.* Olivia returned to hand her a file folder. 

“Thanks.” Finn accepted it and flipped through the sheets of paper, noting the standard analyses and their results. It was nothing the other woman hadn’t told her already. She paused on the third page and looked up. “You had a toxins test done?”

Olivia grinned. “Sure. Got to cover all the bases to make sure it’s not some plain old murder first.”

Finn resisted the urge to facepalm and kicked herself mentally instead. Of course they would be thorough. She turned back to the report. Nothing found. Had Jackson known? Why didn’t he say anything before? Her mind played through what that conversation would have been like, and the gears in her head ground to a halt.

Because she wouldn’t have listened. She would have needed to see the proof, anyway.

“What else I can do for you?”

She barely registered the words as the implications of this fool’s errand hit her. For this, she sent her partner alone to a suspect’s place. Because if everything they hypothesized was true, that would be what Emily was, supernatural or not.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.

“Agent Reed?”

“Thanks.” She pressed the file back to Olivia and ran.

What was that from Sherlock Holmes? When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. No, magic was an impossible, not an improbable. Right?

As she slammed the car door shut and hurried to pull her seat belt on, Finn shook her head. It didn’t matter if she was or wasn’t. She couldn’t let the slimmest of possibility go if it meant Jackson was in danger.

It was time to watch her partner’s back,