“That’s my chief,” I told him. “He’s cool. He’ll make sure this doesn’t become…” I trailed off as both doors opened, and the chief and Mayor Fussell exited the car.

“Oh, hell no.” I strode forward. “With all due respect to both of you, Chief Turnham, he—” I jabbed a finger at the mayor “—is not allowed into my house.”

Chief Turnham gave me a pained look. “Detective Gillian—”

“No,” I stated as firmly as I could. I planted myself in my driveway between them and my house. “He’s not law enforcement. He has zero jurisdiction or authorization to enter my residence. I absolutely do not give consent for him to enter.”

I swung around to the deputy who was watching the proceedings with thinly veiled amusement. “If he sets foot anywhere inside my residence or any of the outbuildings, I intend to press charges for trespassing.”

The deputy grinned, spat a stream of brown onto my gravel. “Works for me.”

The mayor narrowed his eyes, then turned to the chief. “Robert, are you going to put up with this?”

Chief Turnham looked from me to the mayor and spread his hands. “Not much I can do. She’s right.”

Mayor Fussell’s face flushed red as he rounded on the deputy. “This woman is suspected of serial murder. Do you seriously intend to keep me from assisting in the search for evidence?”

The deputy spat another stream of tobacco juice then hiked his belt up. “With all due respect, yer mayorness, you ain’t a cop,” he drawled in his thick country accent, “and Louisiana Revised Statute title fourteen section sixty-two point three says that if she says yer ass can’t go in there and you do, then I can arrest yer ass.” He folded his arms over his broad chest and smiled a gap-toothed smile at the mayor.

Mayor Fussell’s face went cold, and he turned and stalked back to the car without another word. The chief sighed heavily. “Gillian, I respect that you have the right to ban him from your house, but was that really necessary?”

I met his gaze. “I wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t, sir.” And why the hell is Mayor Fussell so keen to get inside my house?

I leaned against my car, crossed my arms over my chest. Ryan came beside me and crossed his arms in an echo of my stance. I couldn’t match his dark glower, though. I needed to work on that.

I saw that Jill and Votevha had retreated to the back of the house and were sitting on a bench, observing with a careful disinterest. There was no way to know where Eilahn had gone, but I knew she’d stay out of sight. I continued to give the mayor the stink eye while the others entered my house. Tracy gave me another look full of regret as he followed the rest in, a camera slung about his neck. Usually someone from the crime lab came along on search warrants to photograph and record the scene.

“I hope Jill doesn’t get in trouble for being here,” I murmured, suddenly worried.

“Relax,” Ryan replied softly. “She’ll be fine.”

I wasn’t convinced. The mayor was definitely the sort to carry a grudge. Maybe he wouldn’t even realize she was a Beaulac PD employee.

“By the way,” I said, “Roman’s not our guy.”

Ryan grimaced. “I know. Eilahn filled me in. When she wasn’t ordering me to scrub, that is.”

I bit back a laugh. “Is it wrong if I say, I wish I could have seen that?”

“You’re a mean woman, Kara Gillian.”

I hugged my arms around me as I listened to footsteps in my house. I’d conducted any number of search warrants in my years in law enforcement, and I’d always done my best to try and ignore the looks on the people’s faces as we violated their privacy and rummaged through their personal belongings. It was horrible and intrusive, but I could try to take solace in the fact that I’d done my best to make sure it was done with the goal of preventing or solving a crime.

But this was complete fucking bullshit. This was someone fucking with my life just to fuck with it. I resisted the urge to shoot a death glare at the mayor. “Is it just me,” I muttered to Ryan, “or does the mayor seem hell-bent on getting into my house?”

Ryan flicked me a glance. “You think he could be the summoner?”

I cast a sideways look at Peter Fussell. “Fuck, I don’t know, but he sure is acting weird. I mean, I know he hates me, but what if all this is just because he wants a look at my summoning chamber? Or the storage diagram?”

A grimace passed over Ryan’s face. “If so, he’s tipping his hand pretty heavily. And how would he know about it anyway?”

“He could have learned of it from a demon,” I said after some brief thought. “I’ve used it to summon quite a few demons, so I would imagine that word has spread a bit.” I jammed my hands into my pockets and hunched my shoulders. “This sucks.” I didn’t mind them sifting through my not-so-delicates, but the thought of them rooting around my basement made my stomach hurt.

“Can you get the demon you just summoned to check him out?” Ryan asked.

“That would be ideal,” I replied, “I’ll need to renegotiate terms with him.” I glanced at my watch. “Shit. Maybe not. He’s been here for a long time.” At Ryan’s questioning look I explained, “The lower-level demons can only stay a couple of hours. Not like reyza who can stay most of a day or longer.” In fact I really needed to dismiss the nyssor soon, but I couldn’t do that until all the searchers had left. Crap. I didn’t want to draw attention to the demon by going to check on him. Instead I pulled my phone out and thumbed in a quick text to Jill. How is he doing?

A few seconds later the reply came: he says he’s tired. Yep, I’d have to find another way to check out the mayor.

It was nearly twenty minutes later when Chief Turnham emerged, followed by my sergeant and Tracy.

The mayor straightened and lifted his chin as the chief walked down my steps. “Well? Did you find the evidence you need?”

I was thrilled to see the Chief Turnham give the mayor a withering look. “No, we didn’t find any evidence. I told you this was a waste of time.”

Well, that confirmed my suspicion that Mayor Fussell had been the supreme driving force behind this crap.

Fussell’s face twisted into a scowl. “You didn’t look hard enough. Get back in there and tear the place apart! She has drugs hidden in there somewhere. You know she had to have poisoned those people!”

Chief Turnham’s eyes narrowed, but I didn’t give him a chance to speak. “Hey, asshole!” I shouted as I stalked over toward him. “You got a problem with me, that’s fine, but while you’re dicking around with this shit, the real killer’s sitting back laughing at us.” Unless it’s you, I added in a silent death glare.

He drew himself up. “What did you call me?”

I stopped, thought back to my words. “I’m pretty sure I called you an asshole. But that was wrong of me to do. I meant to call you a complete blithering fucking asshole idiot.”

“Gillian!” The chief’s voice snapped out. “That’s enough.”

I struggled to hold onto my anger. I had the cuff on—this was my own very righteous fury. “Really? He won’t be happy until he tears my house to the ground to look for evidence that doesn’t fucking exist! I want him off my property. Now!”

“Detective Gillian, dial it down,” he said through gritted teeth.

I took a ragged breath. “Certainly, sir. But as a citizen, I respectfully state that this man is not welcome on my property.

Fussell sneered. “I’m an elected official. I’m on official business.”

The deputy cleared his throat. “Nope. Yer out of yer jurisdiction, and yer not law enforcement. Under title fourteen section sixty-three, if she forbids you to stay on her property, and you don’t leave, then I’m obliged to carry out my duty as an officer of the law.” He spat, then added. “Y’ain’t my boss, Mister Mayor.”

Fussell stared at the deputy, then spun and marched back to the chief’s car, got in, and slammed the door.

The chief gave me a dark glare. “Gillian, the only reason you didn’t just earn yourself a suspension for insubordination is because, as you said, you were acting as a citizen and not as an officer of the law, and these were most assuredly extenuating and trying circumstances. But, from here on out, if you so much as look sideways at the mayor, or fail to calm your shit down when I tell you to, you’ll be out of a job so fast your head will spin. Am I clear?”

I’d never seen the chief so angry. And especially not at me. “Yes, sir,” I replied, as meekly as I could.

He turned, stalked to his car, and drove off. I let out an unsteady breath and then turned to the deputy. “Thank you. Seriously, you have no idea how grateful I am.”

He chuckled. “No problem. Fussell’s my brother-in-law. He’s a complete dickweed. This was the most fun I’ve had in months.” Giving me a wink, he climbed into his car then headed off down my driveway.

Smiling weakly, I walked back to my house. Sarge stood on the bottom step.

“Did y’all take anything?” I asked. By law if anything was seized, they had to provide a receipt.

“Just pictures,” he said. “Probably would have seized your computer, except apparently you don’t have one.” He cocked an eyebrow at me. I replied with an innocent shrug. “Anyway,” he continued, “sorry about all this.”

“Not your fault.” I glanced back at Tracy. “Just, please make sure those pics don’t get out. I don’t trust the mayor. He’s up to something.”

“They won’t,” Tracy assured me gravely. “Promise.”

“Thanks, y’all,” I said, suddenly insanely weary.

“But, Kara?” Tracy said. I turned back and gave him a questioning look. “You might want to do something about that bag of old gym clothes in your closet.” He gave a comic shudder. “Next time warn a brother!”