by T. G. Ayer
Had she finally returned? If so why did the family not notify me?
“I’m Mel Morgan, the investigator.” I wasn’t sure what else to say.
The girl folded her arms, the muscles in her neck bunching. Angry. “If you’re done here, you can leave. We don’t need people prying into our lives.”
I frowned. “I’m only trying to help. Your father asked me to come.” Again I wasn’t sure how to end that sentence. I was beginning to suspect this might be the sister Santiani had mentioned. Could it be possible the girls looked so much alike? Santiani hadn’t mentioned that the girls were twins. In fact, he’d barely spoken about the remaining sister.
I studied her closely, and began to notice slight differences. A slightly fuller lower lip. A nose that was a little bit too flared. Eyes the tiniest bit thinner.
And then, as she turned her face away, the skin beside her left eye came into view. Mole-free skin. This was not Gia.
“I’m really sorry for the circumstances. Must have been a really trying few weeks.”
Though I’d dealt with children and young people all the time, it was difficult to empathize with the unfeeling girl staring at me.
She raised her eyebrows, the haughtiness in her expression clear to me. “It’s been a trying few months. First mother, and now Gia. I don’t think this family can take any more tragedy.”
Without a single word, Gina turned on her heel and headed out the door. She paused on the threshold and from the cool look she gave me it was clear she wanted me to exit the room. I let it go, already done with the room.
What did it matter that she’d assume she’d won?
In silence we both walked down the hall to the landing. Just as we reached the bottom of the stairs Santiani walked out of his office. “I see you have met Gina?” he said with a stiff smile.
There was an odd look in his eye as he gave his daughter a glance. His eyes certainly didn’t contain the same amount of affection they had had when he’d been talking about Gia. Had the mother’s death affected the relationship between father and daughter? People handled tragedy in different ways. It was likely Santiani blamed Gina for Gia’s disappearance. Or he could well have favored the other daughter. Thus resenting the one who remained.
I wasn’t about to get involved in family politics.
“I think I have what I need,” I said lifting the plastic bag with the hairbrush. “The only thing I didn’t find was shoes.”
“What do you need shoes for?” snapped Gina.
I glanced at Gina, then looked at Santiani as I spoke. “I’d like to take a sample of the soil and dirt from beneath your daughter’s shoe. It will help to identify places she’s been that you didn’t know about.”
Gina snorted. “Most of the places my sister frequented don’t have soil or dirt.” She smiled. “And besides, dirty shoes remain downstairs in the washroom. Marshall would have had them cleaned. You’ve seen the carpets in our room. We’ve never been allowed to wear shoes inside.”
She gave me a haughty glare, then looked up at Santiani, a challenge in her eyes.
He shook his head. “There is no need to be rude, Gina. Ms Morgan is here to help us find Gia. Can we at least allow her to do her job?”
“Of course, Father. But make sure you get your money’s worth. And more than that, I hope you’ve done your homework on her background. I’m sure there are a lot of people out there just ready to take your money and give you mere lip service.”
I suppressed a laugh. The girl was clearly against my presence. But could it be she was also against the investigation?
“I don’t know why you believe she was incapable of running away. She had her own issues. And maybe the cops were right. Maybe she took off because she needed some time alone. Who knows, maybe she’ll come home when she is ready. I just don’t like seeing you throw all your money away in the hopes Gia will return to you.”
“Gina.” That’s all he said. Then he closed his mouth, visibly struggling with words he wanted to say.
I cleared my throat, aware of the tension in the air. “It looks like I’m done here for now. I’ll let myself out.” I nodded at the two of them and began to walk toward the door. As I pulled it open, I looked over my shoulder and met Santiani’s eyes. “I’ll let you know as soon as I find something. I’ll have the brush tested, and get back to you should I come up with anything.”
He gave me a grateful smile, but I didn’t return it. I was already closing the door on the pair. Managing only to catch the briefest glance and his expression as he stared at his daughter.
It was the last thing I expected to see on his face.
Guilt.
Chapter 6
While heading home I thought about my visit to Santiani’s palace on the hill.
Gia’s disappearance still needed further investigation. Marshall seemed to be an open book. But one never knew.
Santiani, on the other hand, was definitely hiding something. The way he’d looked at Gina made me wonder how bad that secret was that he’d have such a pained, guilt-ridden expression on his face. Were father and daughter in collusion and both responsible for Gia’s disappearance? That would explain Gina’s reluctance to help me, and her disapproval of my presence.
And Gina?
She was a puzzle within a black box. Something about her didn’t sit well with me. Maybe it was the expression in her eyes. A maturity in her bearing that didn’t fit with her age. But, I knew from personal experiences that the death of a parent or sibling, took a person to a whole other level of emotional experience. Which was likely what Gina was going through.
Coupled with a rocky relationship with her father, hormones, a missing sister and being a spoiled rich girl, and we’d probably get attitude.
Didn’t explain the father though.
I parked the truck at the side of the road in front of my house. The place had been in my family for years, and I hadn’t had the heart to leave it after my parents had died. I hadn’t changed much in the decorating sense either. Even the kitchen remained exactly the way my mom had liked it.
A tiny, very microscopic part of me had hoped to keep it familiar to Ari, if one day she happened to walk in through the front door. The rest of me had accepted she was likely dead. How many people remained missing for so many years and then turned up alive. Sure, it had happened before, but the chances were still pretty low.
And still I searched.
Locking the truck, I checked the wards around the house, thanking Natasha silently as I entered the safe zone and headed up the stairs. The magic sizzled against my skin as I broke through the ward, and instinctively I checked behind me to ensure the dome of power had closed.
Not too long ago the ward had been breached by a pack of demons. Natasha, friend and white witch, had helped me boost the ward’s power using my blood, as well as the blood of the other residents of the house; Drake and Stephanie.
For a plain old human, Steph took the blood-letting ritual in her stride, and had stood watching in silence as her blood mingled with that of a Gargoyle and a Mage. Didn’t seem to bother her though.
Thankfully.
Natasha had come herself to erect the ward, waiting only for when the moon was at its highest and fullest. The power from the moon filled the ward magic, giving it an added boost and acting like a solar panel, absorbing the energy from the moon’s rays while it shone, and using the reserves on the dark nights.
Nights such as tonight.
We were in for a string of bad days over the next two weeks. It wasn’t the best of times to be taking on a new case but it’s not as if people would choose to wait for moonlit nights to disappear.
As I entered the house and shut the door, I peered through the stained-glass paneling, satisfied that any watchers would see a girl come home from work and entering her house. What they don’t see is the girl testing the magic every night, checking the street for magic, or surveillance, for anything that shouldn’t be there.
Like the navy s
edan parked near the street corner. Far enough that it wouldn’t be suspicious, but close enough to keep an eye on my home and its occupants.
Det Pete Fulbright.
On my case since the day my parents died, Fulbright had made the better part of my life miserable. He seemed to think I’d had something to do with Ari’s death. That the reason I’d been splattered with blood when they’d found me was because I’d butchered my parents. He probably also thought I’d chopped my sister up into a million tiny pieces and ate her. Or dropped her down the garbage disposal. God knows the man was crazy enough. How did he think I’d hidden her body? Or killed my parents, for that matter?
The demons who’d broken into our house had gutted my parents so badly that the act had splattered their blood all over the room, and all over me.
And all over Ari.
I’d seen the patch of carpet where Ari had stood beside me. Bare, because like me, Ari had been covered in blood. But the cops hadn’t noticed. Or hadn’t wanted to notice. Whatever the reason, they’d acted under the belief that Ari hadn’t been in the room at the time of the murders.
And even when the blood tests had proven that not a drop of Ari’s blood had been spilled that night, Fulbright had been convinced the results had been doctored somehow. Some great conspiracy protecting Melisande Morgan.
Like I was that important.
But obviously someone had thought my sister was.
They’d taken her. Not me.
Although Drake was of the opinion that they may have been there for both of us and because I’d jumped they’d had to leave without me.
He had a point. And I kept an open mind.
But, who would have known I was capable of projection and teleporting. Even I hadn’t understood well enough what I’d been doing. And neither had my parents or they would have said something to me.
Or would they have?
Deep in thought I headed to the kitchen, I dropped my bag on the table and my keys into the ceramic bowl on the counter. They clinked against Drake’s keys and he looked up from the pot he was stirring. Steam wafted up in spirals, painting his face with a light coat of moisture. His dark skin glistened and black markings swirled and curled on the surface of his skin.
Drake hardly ever dropped his glamor, and never outside the house. I could see through most glamors, but the strength of one usually told me if the person was using it at capacity.
Currently Drake wasn’t using it at all.
I watched him as he glanced over his shoulder, then returned his attention to the pot. He liked to give the impression that he wasn’t a very good cook, usually ordering from the local restaurants just to prove a point. But he was a talented chef. We all knew it.
I drew closer to him, peeked into the pot and smiled.
“Yum. Irish Stew.” I inhaled the aroma and sighed.
Drake grunted. “You know how you sound, right? Sighing and moaning like that?” He gave me a pointed look.
“Of course, I know. That aroma is positively orgasmic.”
He rolled his eyes. An oddly apt expression on a gargoyle.
I reached for the overhead and switched the extractor system on. Drake always forgot. Hence the steam facial he was giving himself. “I hope you’re making dumplings.”
Another grunt. Someone wasn’t in a good mood.
He glared at me. “Of course I am.”
“You are a man after my heart.”
“Yeah. That’s why you’re boinking the Djinn.”
I snorted, glad my emotions didn’t give me away with stupid things like blushes. “I am so not boinking the djinn.”
“Not yet.”
“Whatever.” I was already halfway out the kitchen as I spoke. “I’m going to grab a hot shower. The Santiani mansion made me feel . . . contaminated.”
“That bad, eh?” Drake glanced at me, sympathy in his onyx eyes.
“Yeah. Be back in a second. Steph here?”
“Nope. Girls night. Something about a chicken party.”
I dissolved into a fit of laughter as I climbed the stairs. “Hen’s Party, Drake. Man you so need an education.”
“Yeah. And I so need to get laid,” he mumbled, the sound drifting out of the kitchen and up toward me.
As tempted as I was to continue teasing him, I needed the shower more. Gina’s magnetic eyes seemed to follow me all the way upstairs. I paused as I shimmied out of my pants. Had the girl unsettled me that much, that I was uncomfortable about being naked even though I was miles away?
I shuddered, shook off the thoughts and jumped under the jet of hot water.
Water always made everything better.
Chapter 7
Twenty minutes later I was dressed in yoga pants, a racer back tee, barefooted with my thick hair wound into an untidy bun at the top of my head. I looked ready for a workout and I was.
The evening wasn’t going to be pleasant.
I pattered into the kitchen, again wondering why I’d vetoed the idea of a pet. Would be nice to be someone’s Human for a change.
Drake had already set the table and was washing up a few plates and setting them out to dry.
“This is very domestic.” I grinned as I opened the refrigerator and grabbed the bottle of Sauvignon Blanc I’d opened yesterday.
“White doesn’t go with red meat, Mel.” His admonishing glance did nothing for me.
I shrugged. “Vino is vino. Besides, if I don’t drink it, it’ll spoil. Why waste a perfectly good wine?”
Drake grunted. “Especially since that’s the last of the Napa white wines.”
I pouted as I took a seat. “Really? The last bottle?”
“Yeah. I’ll see if I can get more, but the last time I dealt with Iano, he said the reserves were running low. Not as if Napa is making any more wine.”
I was still pouting. The entire region has suffered devastating water table poisoning a few decades ago. Although the government had investigated, they’d come up with little to explain how poisonous chemical effluent had ended up in the water table beneath the entire Napa region.
The truth of the matter was the effluent spill was a governmental cover-up. The conspiracy theorists would have a field day if they ever had an inkling of what had played out beneath the Napa earth.
A battle between mages and earth fae had waged for weeks beneath the valley, the poisoning of the water table the only way the mages had been able to flush out the fae. In the end, the fae had disappeared, leaving wards along the entire water table, making it impossible for investigators to enter for water testing. Battles like the Napa Fae Wars were the reason the Supreme High Council had so many rules.
I tried to push the thoughts of dead wine regions and lack of sufficient drinking pleasure away, and dug into a different kind of pleasure. Drake placed a bowl of stew in front of me and I picked up a spoon and savored some wholesome goodness.
“So tell me about Santiani.”
I waved him off, preferring to enjoy my meal free from the taint of my visit. Only when I’d finished a second helping, and a second glass of wine did I sit back and give him a quick rundown of my visit.
Marshall the enigmatic butler, Santiani and his arrogance and grief. The missing girl, a contradiction in terms, and the remaining daughter whose behavior only gave me further questions.
Drake twisted his lips as he considered my recap. “Well you did have some success.” He rose and cleared the dishes from the table, dumping them into the sink.
“I’m not so sure I agree.”
“Money’s good.” He nodded, smiling as he took his seat.
“Not the point.”
“Fine. You got evidence?” He asked a hopeful look thrown in my direction.
“That I do,” I grinned and rose to fetch my bag which Drake had placed on the floor beside the kitchen doorway. He nagged me like a mother or a husband, and I never paid him any mind.
Withdrawing the plastic bag containing Gia’s hairbrush, I placed it on the table, following
it closely with the police file on Gia Santiani before dumping the bag on the floor at my seat.
Drake’s expression when he opened the bare file mirrored what my own had been.
He eyed the almost bare file in disgust. “This is what amounts to a full investigation?”
I raised an eyebrow. “I may not agree with the way they handled it, but it’s pretty easy to come to the wrong conclusion here. Previous family trauma with her mother’s death. Possible existing family issues with the father and sister. Missing clothing and bag.”
Drake nodded as he slid Gia’s photograph from under the paper clip holding it to the manila folder. “Good enough reasons to assume she’s a runaway. But clearly you don’t think so.”
I pursed my lips and grabbed the plastic bag with the brush. “Probably because I have a financial interest.”
Drake snorted. “I hate to break it to you but you are not the least bit mercenary.”
I sighed. “Yeah. He offered triple our rate.”
“Fuck yes.”
“Fuck no.”
Drake glared at me. “You turned him down?”
“Kind of. We settled on double.”
He squinted at me. “I can deal with double.” He nodded. “Double’s good.”
“I knew you’d think so.” I smiled and shook my head. With a deep sigh, I said, “Right. Enough with the chatter. We have work to do.”
Drake leaned forward, studying my face.
I tilted away from him “What the hell are you doing?”
“Checking your condition?”
I narrowed my eyes at him, steeling myself against punching him in the nose. Recently I’d been suffering from jump fatigue. Nosebleeds were the worst indicators, but I’d also been suffering from broken blood vessels in my eyes. It made me look quite scary, but they were sometimes coupled with a nosebleed which meant I needed to take things easy.
“I haven’t jumped in at least twenty-four hours, Drake.” I lied through my teeth. “Little chance of anything spewing blood.”
He was still staring at my eyes. “Good to know. But I prefer to be careful. Now, sit still.”
