Lunacy (Blood Trails Book 13), page 16
“It’s not her official weapon. Apparently, she only took it with her if she was meeting with one of the lone wolves.”
“Does she have any idea who could have taken it?” I asked. “Who did she talk to that day?”
“She said the bar doesn’t allow firearms—or silver,” Liam said. “Only the bartender has access to either. That’s why lone wolves consider it a safe spot. Emma had to leave her gun in the car.”
Peasblossom shifted her weight on top of my head. “How is it supposed to keep her safe from lone wolves if she can’t bring it in?”
“I don’t think it’s when she’s inside the bar that she’s worried,” Ruth guessed.
Liam nodded. “Mostly the gun was for when she met someone elsewhere. She visited Tom at his apartment building a few times, talked to him and some of his neighbors. They tolerated her well, she said.”
“If someone took it while she was in the bar, then wouldn’t she have been able to tell someone had been inside her car?” I asked. “Signs of a break in, or maybe she could smell someone?”
“Getting into a locked car isn’t hard if you know what you’re doing,” Liam said, rolling his shoulders until his tendons popped. “There wouldn’t necessarily be any obvious outward sign if you weren’t looking for it. And Emma’s been worked up and fighting for balance. I doubt she’d have been able to tell the difference between a scent clinging to her from being in the bar and a scent lingering in her car.” He frowned. “She did say that she spoke to a guy named Nate. She said he hugged her goodbye, which she thought was weird. It’s possible he did that specifically to make sure she didn’t notice his scent lingering in her car.”
I straightened abruptly, earning a dirty look from Peasblossom. “Nate. He’s the one that helped me find Howard. I was asking him about Tom, hoping he might know where to find him, but all he wanted to do was tell me horror stories about your father.”
Liam opened his mouth, likely to ask what Nate had had to say about his father, but I continued.
“Then when I mentioned I was worried Tom was hunting Howard, suddenly he’s the spirit of cooperation. And when we found Howard, Nate was very careful not to hurt him, even when his life was being threatened.”
“You think he’s working with Howard?” Ruth asked.
I shook my head. “Whatever his concern for Howard’s health, Howard didn’t feel the same toward him. I’m quite certain.”
“Sounds like it’s time to have a talk with Nate.” Liam headed for the door that led back to the lobby. “Emma’s going to stay in the holding cell for now. It’s the safest place for her while Dad’s here, and having her locked up might make him overconfident he’s getting his way. Hopefully, that will stop him trying to make new trouble for a while.”
I followed after him. “I’m going to head to Borvos Springs. That’s where they took Nate.”
“Be careful,” Liam warned. “Take Edwin with you.”
I stopped walking, and Liam paused, looking back at me.
“What?”
“I think Edwin should take a break. Maybe Blake could come with me?” I looked at Ruth. “Howard threw a grenade at Edwin. There was significant damage to his face.”
Understanding dawned on Ruth immediately, and she looked at Liam. “I want to talk with Edwin before he goes anywhere.”
Liam caught on too. He’d been the one to bring Edwin into the pack, and he’d seen firsthand what the silver-scarred werewolf had been through. Understood that experiences like that left a mark every bit as real as the scars on his face. “Take Blake with you then. Sonar is still out tracking Tom, I’ll have her contact you if she finds anything.”
“I’ll meet him at my car,” I said, falling into step behind Liam again. “I want to call ahead to Borvos Springs and make sure Nate doesn’t go anywhere.”
Liam and I parted ways at the elevator on the main floor. Ruth stayed in the elevator, ostensibly to go see Edwin. Some of the tightness in my chest eased, knowing Edwin was in good hands.
I waited until I was safely secured in the privacy of my car before pulling out my cell phone to call Borvos Springs. The last thing I needed was for Cormac or one of his pack to overhear me. Now that Nate was moving up the suspect list, I couldn’t help but wonder if his connection to Cormac and his pack was a coincidence. Sure Nate had claimed to hate Cormac, but unlike the fey, werewolves could lie to their beastly heart’s content. For all I knew, Nate was here as an agent of Cormac’s. Though what he’d possibly have to gain, I had no idea.
Yet.
“Borvos Springs, how may I help you?”
I shook off thoughts of Liam’s father and focused on the pleasant voice on the other end of the call. “Yes, hello, this is Shade Renard. A shifter was brought in late last night. His name is Nate. I’m investigating a murder, and Nate has become a person of interest. I’m on my way there to speak with him, and I’d appreciate it if you would make sure he doesn’t leave?”
I didn’t actually have the right to detain Nate, but I could get that authority if I had to. It would cost a little more time though, so with any luck, the Borvos Springs staff member I was speaking to was feeling cooperative today.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Renard, but that gentleman isn’t here. He checked himself out this morning.”
I clutched the phone tighter, barely remembering to keep my face from pressing against the screen. “He left? What time?”
“It was against the doctor’s orders,” the woman said, and I could hear the frown in her voice. “He suffered a significant case of silver poisoning. He was too weak to be released on his own, but he had a friend pick him up, so there was nothing we could do to hold him. He left around two hours ago, I’d say.”
“What did his friend look like?” I asked urgently.
“I’m afraid I didn’t see them. As I recall, they pulled up in front of the building and Nate went out to meet them. All I can say is that he got in the passenger side, so he definitely didn’t leave alone.”
I leaned my head back against the seat.
Perfect.
My passenger door opened and Blake slid into the passenger seat. Peasblossom yelped at the gust of cold wind and leapt onto the heating vent, burying her face in the flow of lukewarm air.
Blake froze, staring at the pixie as if fearing retribution.
Smart man.
I said my goodbyes to the woman on the other end of the line and ended the call. “We have a problem. Nate left two hours ago. He’s in the wind.”
Blake slumped back against the seat. “Perfect. Do you have any of his blood?”
“I do, and I can use it to track him. But he heard me say I have to wait for someone to stop moving before I can use blood to track them. If he’s smart, he’ll keep moving.”
Blake’s phone chimed, and he pulled it out of his pocket and glanced down at the screen.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Message from Vincent. His report is ready.”
Something in his voice made me tense. “What’s wrong?”
Blake looked at me, his face grim. “There’s been…a complication.”
Chapter 15
Vincent Aegis, the wizard who’d handled most of the crime scenes I’d been to, worked in the same building as the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner. For this particular case, a medical examiner hadn’t been called, so there was no need to head for the morgue. It should have made it easier to handle being in this building, knowing who was missing.
It didn’t.
I had to walk by her office door. I walked faster, putting my feet down harder than was necessary just to make sure I didn’t overhear noise in her office that might suggest someone else had taken over. I wasn’t quite ready for that. Blake gave me an odd look, but then almost immediately his face softened as he realized whose office it was. Blake had known Kylie even longer than I had.
I wondered if he missed her too.
“Have you been in Vincent’s office before?” I asked Blake, desperate for some conversation to distract from what neither of us were saying.
“No. I usually just get his report at the station. Vincent doesn’t like people coming into his office unless it’s absolutely necessary.” He paused. “It’s a little odd that he invited us here, now that I think about it.”
“Unless he knows who’s visiting New Moon.”
Blake wrinkled his nose. “Good point.” He grasped the doorknob of Vincent’s office and turned it. “Why do you ask if I’ve been here—”
He stopped talking as soon as he opened the door and got his first look at the wizard’s domain. I couldn’t blame him. I’d been a bit overwhelmed myself the first time.
Vincent didn’t have an office, so much as he had a laboratory/library/study. As if a Hollywood producer had decided to save money by filming the mad scientist’s scenes on the same set as a wizard’s tower.
Vincent was a wizard, and there was no denying this was a magic user’s domain. But if you asked the man himself, Vincent was the first to say that science was superior to magic, and the only place magic had in fields of scientific inquiry was to hurry results along. Every surface in the room was spoken for, with glass tubes fighting for breathing room amidst piles of dried plants and herbs. Athames peeked out from the clutter like thorns in a rose bed, and candles of all varieties peppered the room with a myriad of colors and scents. Between the candles, the herbs, and the tub of burned human flesh, the room smelled like someone was trying to use a giant bowl of potpourri to mask the evidence that they’d burnt dinner.
The man himself appeared as if by magic as he stood up from a spot on the floor, popping into visibility above a table laden down with a large silver tub full of burnt flesh and bones. The wizard had gotten a haircut since the last time I’d seen him. A stylish short cut that would have looked very distinguished if he wasn’t constantly tugging on his hair when he considered a scientific puzzle. As it was, the shorter cut made the tufts of brown hair stick out more firmly, giving him the appearance of an overly harried thistle.
“Mother Renard,” Vincent said with a nod. “A pleasure as always. And Detective Blake.”
I tried to smile, but failed. Feeling suddenly self-conscious that I felt so strange meeting with Vincent and not Kylie, I directed my attention to the bones. Howard’s remains. I opened my mouth to ask Vincent what he’d found so far, when suddenly a man I didn’t know bolted into the room. I caught a brief flash of dark reddish brown skin and black hair, but that’s all I could see as he kept his head ducked down, as if expecting the ceiling to be four feet lower.
“Ah,” Vincent said with forced brightness. “Russell, excellent timing. I’d like you to meet—”
“Stop it!” Russell swung his arm through the air just over his head, ducking as if something were attacking him from above. “Go away!”
I looked at Vincent, one eyebrow raised.
“Well, I told him not to touch the haunted birdhouse, didn’t I?” Vincent said defensively, shooting a glare at the young man. “I told him, when a property is haunted, you have to be ready to find ghosts anywhere. I told him not to touch anything. But he didn’t listen. And what did we learn, Russell?”
“Make it go away!” he wailed.
“He’s being attacked…by a bird?” I asked.
“The ghost of a crow, to be precise,” Vincent muttered. “The witch’s familiar, I think. She’s proven very difficult to get rid of. I’ve put in a call to the Vanguard, but you know how they prioritize these things, and no one thinks a grumpy crow qualifies as an emergency.”
“Have you tried Poppy?” I asked.
Vincent huffed out a breath. “I’ve left a message.”
For a moment, we both looked at Russell, watching as the bird seemed to abandon its efforts, and he stood there straightening his white lab coat and then running his hands over his temples. His jet black hair resisted his efforts to smooth it back. It made him appear slightly harried even as he regained his composure, and I couldn’t help but note he and Vincent were a good match.
But he wasn’t Kylie.
“Kylie is all right,” Vincent said, keeping his voice low and gentle. “Vera Winters convinced her husband to allow her entry into her former stepmother’s fortress. She retrieved a—”
“Glass coffin,” I finished. Oh, it had been so long since I’d thought of the glass coffin. The subject of so many rumors back when I lived in Sanguennay, one of the five kingdoms. Vera—and her stepmother—were from the kingdom of Dacia, where Anton had been a prince. The rumors from Dacia had always been the most interesting, and the story of the glass coffin was perhaps the most interesting of all. A capsule capable of putting anyone within its glass walls into a sort of suspended animation. An enchanted sleep. Like death, but not.
“Yes,” Vincent said. “It will keep Kylie from burning through her soul while we figure out an alternative. And Anton Winters is paying for it all.”
“As well he should,” Peasblossom hissed. “Since he’s the one who killed her.”
I agreed with Peasblossom.
Blake stood in the room like the straight man in a Marx Brothers movie, an expression of strained patience on his face. Vincent caught his expression and cleared his throat.
“Well, let’s get to it, shall we?” He picked up a bowl sitting between the silver tub with the bones in it and a microscope. “There was blood mixed in with the salt crystals used to make the circle on the floor of the basement where we found the body. I compared it to the sample you gave me of Howard’s blood. It was a match.”
“So Howard cast the circle,” I said.
Blake leaned forward, peering into the bowl of salt. “Humans can cast circles?”
“Anyone can cast a circle,” Vincent said, taking on a teacher’s tone that fit with the professor-chic of his tweed jacket with its leather elbow patches. “It takes a flex of will and a little power. For non magic users, blood will suffice. And pretty much any human who’s read urban fantasy, or watched the sci-fi channel could figure it out.”
“Pop culture,” Peasblossom muttered. “More trouble than it’s worth.”
“I found more of Howard’s blood underneath the tub where the body was found. A few droplets managed to escape a truly impressive shower of bleach.”
He wrinkled his nose as if mentioning the bleach had brought the smell back to him. “The clothes on the body match the description you gave us of what Howard was wearing when he fled.”
“Any evidence left by the killer?” Blake asked.
Vincent nodded to another bin on the other side of the bones. “A soft drink cup from a local fast food establishment. We found Tom’s fingerprints on it.”
“That’s awfully sloppy for a cop,” Blake said slowly.
I took a step closer to the table. “Vincent, you keep saying ‘the body.’ Not ‘his’ body, or ‘Howard’s’ body.”
“That’s because Mr. Aegis is very thorough,” Russell said, speaking up as he circled around Vincent to squeeze in front of the remains. He beamed at Vincent. “Mr. Aegis cut open one of the bones and was able to get enough DNA to test the marrow.”
“That’s the complication you mentioned,” Blake realized. “You’re going to tell us this isn’t Howard.” Blake stared at the two men across the table. “Then who the hell is it?”
“I’m afraid you’re looking at the bones of one Cameron Walker,” Vincent said seriously. “The nephew of the owner of the house.”
“But Howard cast the circle, and Howard’s blood was found there…” I stared at Vincent. “Did you find Tom’s prints anywhere besides the cup? Anywhere that couldn’t have been—”
“Planted there?” Vincent asked. “No, I did not. Tom’s prints weren’t on anything in the house besides that cup.”
“So Howard goes to the house, kills the owner’s nephew, and uses him to fake his own death and frame Tom for it?” Blake’s voice warmed with anger.
“That is one theory,” Vincent said carefully. “But that’s all it is. A theory. All I can do is present the evidence as I know it. I can’t tell you how that cup came to be there. There were no other prints besides Tom’s, though some of them were smudged. It’s possible Howard planted it, and he wore gloves.”
“If Howard killed this man to fake his death, then our priority has to be finding him,” I said grimly. “Vincent, could I have some of Howard’s blood? Preferably a sample that doesn’t have salt on it?”
“I thought you had some of his blood?” Blake asked.
“I used it up when I found him the first time.”
Vincent nodded and went to a silver case lying at the edge of the table. “I have the samples I collected from the scene. I don’t have very much, I’m afraid. As I said, most of the scene was doused in bleach. I believe the only reason these droplets escaped was because Howard wanted us to believe the body was his.” He held up a hand. “Though that is merely conjecture.”
I accepted the sample he handed me, peering at the swab inside the glass tube. It wasn’t much, but it would work. I wouldn’t get more than one shot though.
Blake and I thanked Vincent and Russell—who had started staring at something on top of the over-stuffed bookcase with something very like terror—and returned to my car. I handed Blake the keys and took the cap off the vial with Howard’s blood sample.
Three attempts later, the spell still didn’t work.
“He’s in a salt circle again.” I dropped my head against the back of my seat, hands clenched in frustration. “Blood and bone, we need to find him.”
“Maybe Bren’s found something,” Blake suggested, lifting the keys to the ignition.
My cell phone rang, and I wiggled it out of the side pocket of my waist pouch. “Maybe. Call her and—” I stopped talking as I looked down at my phone’s screen and saw the word “Restricted” flashing where the caller’s phone number should have been. All other thoughts flew from my brain. I answered quickly, trying to keep my voice even.
“Hello?”
“Mother Renard? It’s Nate.”
Blake stiffened beside me, car keys still clutched in his hand.
