“Hey, I have a question for the three of you. I have a few unsolved cases that I’d like to have gone before I retire next year.” Bryce asked him what sort of crimes. “Well, mostly like this one. Drugs or murder, but not too many of the latter. Then I have one that has been there for only a few days. Insurance company wants me to see if the death in a house fire was just that. I’ve barely had time to even ask to have his autopsy done, much less go over the house. The house has been boarded up, by the insurance company again, and the family is driving them crazy to collect so that they can move on. I’m worried if I mess this up, there will be a lot of people not getting a pay off.”
“You think that its suspicious?” Arnold nodded at her and told her that was why he wasn’t rushing it. “And this house, the man was in it when it went up? I’m assuming that the body is still in cold storage.”
“Yes. They had an empty casket at his funeral so that he could be kept for me to go over. But like I said, I have so many things to go over that I’ve not had a great deal of time.” Noah asked if there were that many murders in this town. “No, not at all. But when you have five counties for our morgue, then things get a little behind.”
She could see that. And in a bigger town, like Essex, it would be even worse. They agreed to take on the cases on a case to case load. There was no point in them getting as overloaded as the department was if they didn’t have to. Bryce was happy for the work.
“This is something that I did in the States, working on cases. I had this detective that would always find something to bitch about, but worse with me.” Bryce asked Noah if he had quit. “Not to hear them tell it. I’m still on their roster, but it was getting to be too much. Not really the stress of it but trying hard not to use too much of myself to get one solved. Then there was the fact that my dragon needed out more. It’s extremely difficult to fly, even on cloudy days, when there are so many people with drones around.”
Making their way back home, she studied the file that they’d picked up. There were pictures in the file, along with a log of calls made to the department by the family. One person that kept showing up was Howard Carter.
Howard had been married to Mr. Krupps’s daughter. But they had long since divorced and had quite a few rows since them. One in particular was about two weeks before the fire, when there was some dispute about money. It had turned violent in the local pub. Bryce asked if they could run by the house.
“Sure, it’s about on the way home anyway.” Bryce had forgotten that Devon had lived here his whole life and got them there in just a few minutes. “Christ, that was a horrible fire.”
Most of the roof was gone, as well as two of the walls. One of the other ones was being held up by a pipe leaning into it. The fourth one was just fine other than the windows were blown out. Getting out, they walked around while she read off the findings that had been noted after the fire had been put out.
“Electric has been shut off, but it says that the garage is still with power. That way, if a copper, just what it says, could make it out here in the evening, then he’d be able to have a torch.” She looked in the gaping hole that had been a window as she continued. “This would be the kitchen. It didn’t start in here. You can see how the fire burned less in here. Had it been the starting place, it would have been totaled.”
“There’s an electrical cord here.” Noah kicked it around before turning to follow it to the garage. When he stopped and turned to her, he looked confused. “I just thought of something. It was boarded up. I mean, he did say that, didn’t he? If so, then why are the boards on this side all taken off?”
Good question. As they researched more, they found an old fridge in the garage that had soot damage to it, and shelves of the same sort of canned food. It would be a mystery meal when opening them, as all the labels were burnt off, and a couple of them looked like they might have been contaminated. They were fat with poisons.
The more they looked around, the more they realized that it wasn’t just some homeless person living there, but Howard Carter. And he was also working on the home. Some materials were stacked up behind the garage with a tarp over them, and Howard had signed for them. The bill was net ninety days. The man, they assumed, was banking on having the insurance money before three months’ time. But why fix up the house?
Calling the police seemed like the best thing to do, and when they arrived, not only were there two of them, but they were in their personal vehicles with no lights. Devon knew these men as well. It seemed that he had an in with everyone in his little burg, for which Bryce was slightly jealous.
“They said that they’d been coming by here every couple of days since Mr. Krupps passed away.” The officers were looking over the garage, and Noah was showing them what else they’d found. Devon continued when she nodded. “They have an idea that he’s doing this so that he can move in and find the money. Old man Krupp, he told everyone that he buried money on his land when he’d been a little boy.”
“I see. What an idiot. Unless he did bury it.” She looked at Devon when he didn’t say anything. “You think he did. And that it really is out here on this land.”
“I do. He came to me just after my sire died. Told me that he was concerned that someone was taking his money out of the bank. After a general search of the bank records, as well as some recordings that had been made, we found out that it was his daughter, Beth.” She asked if he was serious. “I am, but she wasn’t alone in her taking out the money. It looked as if Howard was making her do it. And in a couple of the recordings, it looks like he might have beaten her up a bit before going to the bank. Also, now we believe that he had a gun on her. So, when confronted, not only did she say that was right, but Beth divorced Howard and moved in with her father. That didn’t set well with Howard, as Krupp would come to the door with a shotgun when he arrived. He didn’t knock her around after that. But the money is buried here.”
“I can find it.” Devon said that he hoped that she could. “Do you have any idea how much it might be? I mean, will it be enough so that Beth can find herself someplace safe, and get Howard out of her life?”
“Oh, he’ll be out of her life. That’s a given. The police have enough evidence on him to know that he set the fire. What they don’t know is how he did it. Noah is going to work on that for us.” She looked at the expansiveness of the yard. “It wouldn’t have been close to the house, if that helps. That would be what Howard would think. Mr. Krupp wasn’t crippled, but he didn’t move very well.”
Nodding, she walked into the back yard. Devon might think that it wasn’t close to the house, but she had a feeling that it would have been, so that he could keep an eye on it. The man wasn’t greedy, but he was smart. If he had figured out that someone was into his accounts, then he’d be smart in burying the money.
As soon as she was near the graveyard, she knew just where to look for the money. Bryce stood there near the little cemetery. It was cleaned up, just a little overgrown now that the mister was gone. The fresh grave there had no marker, but she wasn’t concerned with that. He would have one, even if she had to get it for him herself. But the more she looked around, the more she realized how sad Mr. Krupps’s life had been.
He and his wife had lost several children, all of them under the age of two. They were hard times then, and women didn’t get the care that they did now. She read over each of the stones, her heart breaking for each little lamp that had been meticulously carved into the small stones. When she came to his wife, Elizabeth Krupp, she paused and read over the dates three times before it occurred to her what she was seeing. Turning when she heard a twig snap behind her, she looked at Noah.
“Beth isn’t their child.” She waited while Noah read over the headstones as well. “Beth was born four years after their last child died and took Elizabeth with her. There isn’t any way that she’s their child. What do you suppose happened?”
“I don’t know. But I’m betting that we can find out.” She nodded and took his hand into h
ers. “The police are going to wait inside and see if Howard comes by at some point. They’re thinking he might be out trying to get himself a hotplate. That’s the only thing he’s missing to set up house here. What an idiot.”
“Yes, I agree with you.” She looked at the headstones again. “Noah, can we have children? I’m thinking not. But either way, I’d like to have us bring up some children together. All right? Even if we don’t have them by our bodies, we can still have children, right?”
“No, we can’t have children, you and I, but you’re right. I’d love to bring children into our home and raise them. Also, if you’d not mind, I know that your mom and grandma are looking, but I’d very much like for them to stay with us. Unless they’d rather not. I mean, your grandmother, she does own this place, doesn’t she?”
“They didn’t want to intrude. And yes, she does own it—or she did. She signed it over to me when you moved in with me. I think she mentioned that it should be in the family again.” He laughed when she did. “I’ll talk to them. But it would go a long way in having them feel welcome if you told them that you’d like for them to stay as well.”
He said that he would, and they headed home. She had some work to do. Finding out the real relationship between Beth and Mr. Krupp would be helpful. Bryce wondered if it would help solve a few things as well. Then tomorrow, she’d go and get the money.
Chapter 6
“If she decides to not disown her mother, then we challenge her. We’ll be able to then sentence her to death. Or Bryce could choose to lose her magic. Either way, we come out winners. The very fact that we have to worry about this woman shows how our former leaders didn’t do their job. She should never have gotten this strong.” White nodded and Gray simply looked away. “Are you two even listening? I told you that if she wants, she could have us step down and then she’ll take over running the WC. I can tell you right now, you won’t have nearly the perks you have now from the Witches’ Council.”
“I thought when we had her father killed that would be the end of it. I mean, with a human mother, how were we to know that she’d become so strong? Not even her grandmother is as strong as any of us.” Black knew that Bea had been teaching her granddaughter magic. But they’d never been able to catch her at it. If they had, then she too would have been killed. “Perhaps we can make friends with her, show her that we’re not as bad as she thinks we are.”
“The moment that she gets to know us, she’s going to know exactly what sort of people we are. From what I’m to understand about her, she needs only to touch us and she’ll know all that we know, even things we might well have forgotten.”
“Oh, that would be bad indeed.” Black nodded. “Then she’ll just have to be killed. I don’t even like the idea that she could give up her magic. There could be repercussions with that as well. Yes, dead is better.”
They had the most insidious names—Black, White, and Gray. He supposed it had to do with the fact that they were to see all sides, including the gray area of an issue that came up. All they’d ever been able to see, since realizing that they had all the power, was whatever gave them the most. They should have been called Green, he often thought. Green, as in they were getting all the perks and none of the bad shit that came along. They even had powers that they’d not had before. And Black had been his name for so long that he could no longer remember what he’d been called before.
“I have an idea.” They all turned to White, the stupidest of all the witches that he knew. “Why don’t we just tell her that we want her to behave herself? And to stay out of our business?”
“And what if that has just the opposite effect? That she just decides that, since we want her to stay out of our business, she’ll dig deeper? What do you think she’ll do when she finds out that we’ve imprisoned several witches for no other reason than we could? That we have parties nightly with humans, then kill them? Do you think she’ll just turn a blind eye to that?”
“No. She’d probably be mad.”
Black rolled his eyes at the man. Christ, did they have to put a brilliant man like himself together with two of the most ignorant warlocks on the planet? He supposed that was what they meant when they said it was a balance. To him it was just annoying.
“We need a plan. One that will make us look good and for her to no longer be a threat to us. I’m willing to listen to any and all good ideas. No more stupid ones about asking her to be friends with us.” White shook his head. He didn’t say much, but when he did, you had to stare at him for several seconds to realize that whatever had spewed from his mouth had really been what he’d said. “This plan has to be smart too. And even though I doubt very much that either of you can come up with one that is, we still need to work together on this.”
“I don’t remember. Who is it that put you in charge?” Black wanted to get up and smack the shit out of Gray, but he’d tried that before and couldn’t use his hand for a month. “Why don’t we try and deal with this? The last time you dealt with someone, we had the Wolf Council, as well as the Vampire League, on our asses.”
“I’ve told you several times, I had no idea that woman was a half breed. When we were allotted this position, they took away our ability to tell what other creatures are, except witches. And since you can’t tell either, how the hell were any of us to know?” Gray told him that he could have simply left the woman alone. “And given up on the best night of sex I’ve ever had? I don’t think so. And if I remember correctly, you came about six times yourself that night. So, don’t go all sanctimonious on me now.”
Neither of them said anything, nor did they have any suggestions. So, once again, he’d have to plan it all out and make sure that it was done right. Damn it all to fuck and back, where was a nosey neighbor when you needed one?
Of course, there hadn’t been one in the first place with Austin. He’d been in the back yard, teaching his little girl how to use her powers. Black had seen them together, and before he realized how strong Bryce was, he hated the fact that the two of them were having such a good time. And they seemed to genuinely love each other. What really pissed him off was the human mother just sitting there observing their magic, more than likely ready to learn it herself—not that she could. He’d ever allow that. It was as if she, as a human being, had some right to be watching them.
After the other two had annoyed him to no end, he left them to whatever they did when he wasn’t around. More than likely they just sat around, not speaking, not even blinking until he said their names. He was working with idiots; plain and simple, they were idiots.
Black had never liked Austin. None of the other warlocks really, but he’d despised Austin. Black only had his job because Austin had turned it down. He’d wanted to spend more time with his growing family. Like anyone wanted to hang out with a child and a human. But apparently there was no accounting for taste in some.
Austin had been strong too, stronger than any other warlock that Black had ever met. And that had terrified him. The thought of him deciding that he’d had enough of his family and wanted to have the seat that Black had taken made him plot and plan like he’d never done before. And it had worked—to a point.
Black had planned to take his mother too. Bea—what a ridiculous name for someone—had been watching Black like a hawk since before her son had made his decision. And Black was reasonably sure that she knew a great deal more about him and the other two than they wanted her to know. Like the fact that they were killing witches because they might someday be stronger than them.
Killing a witch for power was fine, but they had to be stronger than you. And that was a biggie. But they also would have had to have done something to you to warrant such behavior, such as slighting you in some way. Or—and this one was what he’d been using—they had to do something that the WC had deemed bad for their kind.
Not in the last hundred or so years had a single witch who they’d—mostly him—deemed bad for their kind done anything more than be in Black’s way when he’d
wanted something. And Black thought that there could never be anything that he didn’t want.
Making his way to his private rooms, he opened the lock and walked in. He had so much in his one room alone that he knew that it would get him killed. There were magic books; all witches had them, and he’d taken as many of them as he could. He had brooms and hats. Most of them were decorative, but he’d taken them because he could. Black had bits and pieces of magical spells, seeds for herbs that no one else had. He’d even taken clips of hair, knowing that magic, very strong magic, could read them and find out all sorts of things about the person who’d had them. Magic; it was all here, and the saddest part was he couldn’t use it, nor could he glean what was in the books because of what he was.
When they’d been given their positions, the best part of him had been taken away. None of them could do a great many things that would have made them stronger. Not only could they not see what a person was—that was small in comparison to some of the things they couldn’t do—but they couldn’t read other magical books. Couldn’t gain more magic from killing a witch or warlock. And when they stepped down, their power, the power that they’d gotten for being on the WC, would be taken from them and they’d have to start from scratch.
That was why he’d been collecting over the years—to be able to have all this to build himself up with again and do it quickly. But that wouldn’t mean shit if Bryce was out there too. She’d take him down so quickly that he’d never have a chance to fight back.
“Fucking witch should never have been allowed to be conceived.” Black just didn’t understand it. Why did the council allow a half-breed child to become a part of the world that he had come to love? “Magic is everything.”
Noah: House of Wilkshire ― Erotic Paranormal Dragon Shifter Romance Page 7
