Page 107 of The Sister's Curse

“Jasper? What’s up with the cloak-and-dagger?” I tried to sound casual, but probably failed.

“Hey.” His gaze swept the woods behind me. “Did you get followed?”

“No,” I said warily.

He exhaled. “I was followed earlier tonight, by a car with plates from Lister’s dealership.”

He glanced down to my side. “And who’s this?”

“This is Gibby.”

Gibby leaned against my leg, uncertain.

“So, what are we doing here?” I asked.

He knelt, showing me a bag full of a dozen glass vials. “My friend at EPA needs some convincing. I’m bringing water samples to him from nearby bodies of water, for him to test unofficially. If there’s something there, that might spur his superiors to action.”

“I’m excited that you were able to get someone to take you seriously,” I said dourly.

“But I wanted to show you something important.” Jasper took what looked like a flashlight from his bag. “This is a UV light. Gasoline, benzene, and several other aromatic compounds glow in its presence.” He flashed a beam of UV light at one of the vials, and the surface glowed with an unearthly light. I suppressed a shudder. It reminded me of fox fire.

“It’s an old firefighters’ trick. Tells you where the accelerant is before mass spectrometry can be used to identify it in an arson case.”

He gestured for me to follow him, and we walked to the water’s edge. It was a curiously quiet darkness; I heard no frogs or crickets, only the rush of water in the distance. It sounded like water moving in a sink in a public restroom, echoing and cold.

Jasper swept his light ahead of us, and I saw nothing remarkable at first. But as we approached the river, soft fluorescence gleamed around us on foliage, on the ground. He turned the beam to the water, and a sheen glowed on the surface, looking like a faint oil slick.

“Is that what I think it is?”

“This is some kind of artificial compound. I’m betting it’s Vapozene, one of Copperhead Valley Solvents’s proprietary benzene compounds. It’s a very strange one, chemically. Its viscosity and oil-like characteristics mean it can persist in the environment and doesn’t evaporate straightaway, like most aromatic compounds do.”

“Vice is investigating the use of one of Copperhead Valley Solvents’s benzene compounds in the manufacture of meth. But…why dump it if it’s valuable?” It didn’t make sense to me.

“Copperhead Valley Solvents typically produces massive quantities of this stuff. Sales may have slowed, and they may be looking into cheap avenues for disposal.”

I frowned. “I guess there might be another limiting factor in the amount of meth the local dealers can create. They can probably get only so much pseudoephedrine.”

“What I’m saying is just conjecture at this point. EPA will have to make sure before pointing the finger at the company.”

“And what does that mean for those involved in illegal dumping?”

“Fines, likely. If there was knowledge, EPA will probably push for any applicable civil and criminal charges. My buddy says that if he can, he’ll nail them to the wall, all the way down. I sense that you’re on the same page?” He looked at me hopefully.

I nodded sharply.

I seemed to be amassing unseen allies.

—

Jasper said he was heading to the state capital that evening to drop off his samples. Which was probably a good thing, since the Kings of Warsaw Creek had a way of creating obstacles for those against them.

Since Jasper had had the opportunity to kill me and take me off the investigation permanently and he hadn’t seized it, I was willing to believe he wasn’t involved in the string of near-drownings and deaths I was investigating. This situation had been sketchy as hell, and he had been on the up-and-up. I felt guilty for suspecting him of any wrongdoing.

When he’d left, I checked my trail cam. To my disappointment, someone had sprayed black paint over the lens, and the SD card was missing. The witches of Bayern County got around.

I took it down and crouched at the riverbank. I felt both at the edge of realization on this case, and the height of frustration. I had to be very, very careful to make sure my case against Sumner andLister stuck. But that meant I had to find Viv, and the evidence was leading me nowhere. It was all well and good to hit Sumner in the wallet, but I wanted more. I wanted him and his cronies to be held accountable for what they’d done to Dana and Viv. I wanted to remove their political capital, to shame them, to reveal them as the monsters they really were.

I reached out to the monster that lay beneath the water. I knew she was there; I could hear her breathing in the back of my head. Gibby sat still beside me, his ears alert. Maybe he heard her, too, or maybe he just heard my voice. I understood Rusalka—whether she was Dana or not, whichever face she chose to wear. I understood her desire for vengeance. I knew, deep in my heart, that Dana was dead. Dead like thousands of other girls across the country who were dead and buried in forgotten places, mourned and lost forever, for the whims of men.