“I’ve got to go with him,” Cody said apologetically to me in the driveway. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Thanks.”

“Anytime, partner.” Cody gave me a hug, resting his chin on the top of my head.

It felt good. Warm, solid, and comforting. I hugged him back, inhaling the scent of pine trees and leather, laundry detergent, a lingering trace of Ralph Lauren’s Polo, and a faint, underlying musk. I wished he didn’t have to leave. Reluctantly, I made myself let go of him. “Hey, we make a pretty good team, don’t you think?”

He gave me a crooked smile. “Yeah, we do.”

Back in the Locksley residence, Sheriff Barnard looked dumbstruck. Tim Wilkes had recovered his composure enough to begin documenting the scene with a professional-looking camera.

“Are you filing an official report on her?” I asked him.

“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I doubt it. But there should be a record anyway, don’t you think?”

I placed one hand against the glass of the tank. The rusalka pressed her gray-green hand against mine on the opposite side, webbed fingers splayed. “Yeah. I do.”

Wilkes stared at her in horrified fascination. “The thing I don’t understand is exactly . . . how it worked?”

“The mechanics of it?” I asked. He nodded. “It’s a kind of ventral slit.”

He blanched.

In her tank, the rusalka’s face was grave with sorrow, her dark, floating hair a nimbus around her head.

“I know,” I said. “It makes me sick, too.”

“I wish I could talk to her,” Wilkes murmured. “Tell her how damn sorry I am on behalf of human men.”

I didn’t tell him the rusalka had surfaced and spoken to us earlier. She didn’t show any inclination of doing so again, and after the abuse she’d suffered, if she didn’t want to have dealings with ordinary mortal men, I didn’t blame her. Instead, I patted Tim Wilkes on the shoulder. “You’re a good guy, Detective.”

He gave me a bleak look. “This job doesn’t make it easy. Are you ready to give me a statement? We’ll need it if we’re bringing charges against Dunham.” He fingered his mustache. “It’s going to be a challenge to figure out how to present the facts.”

Wilkes took statements from the ghouls, too, or rather, he took a statement from Stefan, and the others confirmed the details. I had to credit the guy for being thorough. Even if it didn’t all go into an official report, I was glad there would be a record of this. Hel’s justice had been administered to Ray and Mary, but Jerry freaking Dunham couldn’t even be charged for what he’d done to the rusalka. Maybe someday that would change, and if it did, it would be good to have this on record somewhere.