I, on the other hand, am shaking. First with the shock of being caught and then pretty soon with the urge to giggle. I cannot believe it. Storm, Mr by-the-book Special Agent, is covering up for me! It is really happening. And boy is he hopping mad about it.
I clamp my hands over my mouth to hold the giggles in. Sooner or later I am going to have to pay for this, but right now it is the funniest thing on Earth.
Storm’s brogues move away from the desk. I see Beatrice Grictor’s dainty shoes turn to face his, as if he is a magnet. Clever clever Storm. I could kiss him. Heck, I could kiss him for plenty of reasons.
“Oh gosh!” Beatrice is saying in a tone of utter distress. And then she sags down into the chair again. She must be covering her face with her hands because her voice comes out muffled. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have tried to keep it from you!”
“Keep what?” he asks, still in that charming voice, as if he has already forgiven her for it. He comes to stand in front of her, blocking her view of me.
“My house was broken into recently. They ransacked our offices. I didn’t report it. I wanted to, but Raif said it would be best not to.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Because…” She clears her throat nervously. “Because some aspects of our charity work might be perceived as being… not entirely legitimate.” The last bit comes out as a whisper.
Storm is standing so close to her. He is probably holding her damn hand to comfort her. “You can tell me anything, Beatrice,” he says. “Because I know you want to help catch Raif’s killer.”
I wonder if he is putting on that honey-sweet voice to irk me. If so, he is doing a damn good job of it. Beatrice must be melting into a puddle, and she had been pretty mushy to begin with. It sounds like she is nodding by the little affirmative murmur that escapes her lips.
“We helped liberate water sprites and their kin, you see,” she says softly. “We’d bring them to this world, to areas where they could help address issues with draught or water shortages and other environmental issues. They help entire communities to thrive!”
She hesitates.
“Go on,” Storm encourages.
“It’s just that some of the sprites were beholden to their Otherworld masters, bound into service for perpetuity. See this picture? See the collars on their throats? It’s a terrible thing for them. They’re practically enslaved!”
“So you freed them? And you used magic to do it?”
“Yes,” she whispers. “Bound water sprites are too valuable, you see. Their masters would never free them for money. Raif sought mages to create false keys to unlock their collars. He… he paid for it out of the charity’s funds. I wasn’t aware until it was too late!”
Keys, hisses the little voice, as if I hadn’t noticed.
“And a police investigation into a break-in would have uncovered the truth about what Raif was doing, implicating your business, so you didn’t report it,” Storm says.
“We couldn’t,” she says pleadingly. “Some of the biggest donations for our charitable work come from high profile people. Including the ambassador. If the press found out, it would have damaged their reputations and their business relationships with Otherworld partners. They didn’t deserve that! Please, if you could just keep it quiet?”
“We can be discreet,” Storm reassures her.
His readiness to help her annoys me. She may be a do-gooder, and no one could fault her for wanting to help those water sprites, but she’s just admitted to lying about her business to her donors.
While I stew, she is thanking Storm profusely. She tells him she has been so worried about having to close down the business now that Raif is gone.
She is probably batting her long eyelashes at him. Her tears are probably clinging to them like dewdrops. Meanwhile I am stuffed under this desk in danger of cramping. I dare not shift. Just one little noise and she would know I am here. And then Storm will be double-mad at me and have to be double-nice to her.
My one leg is beginning to get horrible pins and needles. I bite my lip to stop making any sound as I flex my foot. To distract myself I mull over the complex symbol drawn on the slip of paper I found.
This symbol was important to Raif. Zarina wore a collar in the photo. She must be one of those bound water sprites. Looking at the photo closely I can just about make out the lines of this symbol carved into her collar. It must be part of the magic that is binding Zarina to her master.
I wish I could read the symbol, but it takes those who study magic years to learn the sigils and decades to get anywhere close to mastering their language. Naturally I can’t read it.
Beatrice is still gabbling to Storm about Raif’s illegal activities that she’d covered up. The damn woman can’t even break a law if it isn’t related to do-gooding. The amount she is going on, you would thing she was in a confessional.
My fingers trace the lines of the symbol on the paper, hoping to somehow derive meaning. Suddenly the shape of the symbol burns into my mind like it is made of fire. My body seizes up, my muscles going rigid with pain. I cannot move. I am pinned in place by some other force. And then a feeling of suffocating darkness claws into my mind. An endless raging darkness. I am vaguely aware of a noise.
It is me. I am screaming.
Chapter 13
STORM
Storm arrives outside the restaurant that Remi has picked for the team dinner, a place called Luca’s in Notting Hill, and isn’t sure whether he has the right place or not.
Tonight was Remi’s turn to choose, and her tastes are usually a little more upscale, and lately she’s been going through a pan-Asian food and sushi obsession. Storm checks his messages, but it is definitely the right address.
Inside he finds the team sitting around a large round table, their starters having just arrived. Remi has ordered calamari for him.
Storm frowns at her, and gives a meaningful look around the interior of the restaurant, with its dim lighting and its walls crammed with photographs of patrons over the years.
“Not your usual kind of haunt,” he comments mildly.
Remi shrugs and averts her gaze in a manner that immediately arouses Storm’s interest. He wonders if she picked this place for Monroe’s preference. “I heard they do the best veal scaloppini,” she says.
“I would have thought that veal was not your thing,” he says.
“Yeah but I thought I’d be nice to Leo for once, the carnivore.” She shoots Leo an amused look.
Leo shrugs. For his starter he has ordered six portions of chicken wings and is already devouring them. He is always extra hungry near a full moon. New kid Monroe is watching him with a mixture of fascination and mild dismay from his seat beside Remi. Storm has no doubt Remi has finessed this seating arrangement.
Feeling amused, Storm takes a bite of his calamari. Remi was right. He needed this dinner. They all did. All day he’s been feeling on edge and impatient to make progress, and Diana socking him in the face at Beatrice Grictor’s office earlier had not helped matters.
He had very nearly cancelled the team dinner, thinking the team could do with the extra time in the office, but Remi had pleaded a convincing case, saying it might be good to look at things with fresh eyes over a meal out.
The calamari is crisp and delicious, an unexpected surprise. “It’s good,” he comments.
“You bet it is,” she says. “You were gonna complain about me dragging you all the way across town to this place. Admit it!”
Leo gives a snort of laughter, but continues digging into his wings. Monroe shoots Storm a nervous look.
“Damn right,” says Storm. He had been interviewing a witness in Whitechapel, a stone’s throw from his apartment. He’d just come back all the way across the city for this.
“So, erm, how’s your eye?” Monroe enquires.
“Fine,” Storm says shortly, not wanting to go into it. In her determination to escape from Beatrice Grictor’s office, Diana has left him with an ugly black ey
e.
“So?” Remi quirks a brow. “Did you find her?”
For a moment Storm thinks Remi is asking about Diana. But she can’t be because he hasn’t yet mentioned the Diana incident to the team.
He doesn’t know why. They’re bound to find out sooner or later. He wants to speak to her first. To demand an explanation for her downright illegal, not to mention stupid, behavior. Grieving for her mother’s death or not, he is worried about her irrational behavior.
He realizes Remi is talking about the suspect. “Yes, Carmen Perrone was at home. She’s not our killer.”
“Disappointing,” says Remi. She gives Monroe a grin. “We had one case where the cleaner was a badass undercover assassin on the run from Otherworld organized crime. It was brilliant.”
“Not this time,” says Storm. “She’s exactly what she appears to be. She admitted to arguing with Lynesse Jones on the morning of the day before the murder. She said Lynesse fired her.”
“Motive for murder?” asks Remi, reaching for one of Leo’s chicken wings. Leo bats her hand away.
Storm shakes his head. “She spent the next day, Friday, doing household chores and the evening cooking dinner for her family, which she then ate with her husband, teenage children, her sister and sister’s husband. Solid alibis. The daughter even posted part of the thing on snapchat.”
Leo pauses from munching his wings. “The coroner narrowed the murder window to late Friday night, early hours of Saturday morning. Around 11:00 pm to 2:00 am.”
Storm nods. “Carmen Perrone stayed up late with her family watching a movie until 1:00 am. It wasn’t her.”
“Did she know anyone who would want Lynesse Jones dead?” says Monroe eagerly. He hasn’t ordered a starter and seems to be regretting having nothing to occupy his hands. Clearly the kid is feeling out of his depth.
“Everyone, apparently,” Storm says dryly. “Carmen Perrone did not get along with her employer’s new fiancée. She says Jared Everett has given her no trouble in the two years she’s worked for him. She claims the man is a saint.”
“Hmmm,” says Remi skeptically.
“However Carmen had nothing good to say about the new mistress of the house,” Storm continues. “According to Carmen, Lynesse Jones complained about the cleaning, the food, the décor etcetera in her new home. She wanted to change it all. It led to friction between the two. Plus she didn’t think a succubus was good enough for her employer. She says Lynesse was a prostitute and she was not surprised she came to a bad end.”
Storm has kept his voice calm while updating the team, despite how much the witness’s attitude had grated on him. Carmen Perrone’s prejudices are not the first he and his team have or will come across.
“Wonder what she’d think if she knew her sainted employer was grisborn,” Remi says sharply.
“She wouldn’t believe it,” Leo says. “Some people only believe what they want.”
“You should have told her you’re half angelus,” says Remi. “And see what she had to say then.”
“I doubt it would have made her more forthcoming,” says Storm.
“So I’m guessing she didn’t know about Jared Everett’s little tryst with Astrid Wikander in Ireland?” says Remi.
“She denied any possibility of Jared having an affair vehemently. She said he worshiped the ground that Lynesse walked on.”
“What about Silverstone or Caprio?” asks Leo. “Did she think Jones might be having an affair with either of them?”
“She laughed at the possibility of Caprio being Lynesse’s lover. Said Lynesse would never give a mere assistant the time of day. But she did have her suspicions about Silverstone. Said he visited the house far too often when Jared was not home.”
“But Diana was sure Lynesse was not having an affair with Silverstone,” Remi points out.
“Diana could be wrong,” Storm says shortly. He isn’t sure he fully believes this, but he is determined to keep an open mind. Beatrice had refused to confirm an affair too, but she had not denied it either. “Even so, we do know Jared and Raif could not have been the father of her baby, so we need to confirm who else she may have been seeing.”
Monroe clears his throat. “Didn’t the chief want us to investigate this Diana Bellona as a suspect? Her adoptive family were murdered in a similar copycat crime when she fled California. Lynesse Jones and she were both former patients of this Dr Carrington fellow. Diana could have known Lynesse…”
His voice trails off as he realizes that Storm and Remi are both glaring at him.
“Or maybe not…?” he finishes in a weak voice.
Storm looks at Leo. “Where are we with that alibi?” he asks.
Leo grins wolfishly. He has already finished his wings and had been looking around to see where his main is.
He shakes his head. “It’s not her. I managed to get CCTV footage from a neighbor's house that covers her front door. She came home just before 7:00 pm on Friday and didn’t leave again until 6:30 am on Saturday morning.”
Storm lets out a breath. He knew that had to be the case, but it’s a relief to have the evidence.
“But aren’t there other exits to the house?” Monroe insists.
“No rear exit. She lives on the third floor, so unless she jumped from a window several stories high, it’s not her. Even then, the footage would have most likely caught it at street level.”
Storm’s shoulders, which had been slightly tensed up, finally relax. “So what do we know?” he says. “Let’s run through this from the start. The murders took place at Lynesse Jones’s home between 11:00 pm on Friday night and 2:00 am on Saturday morning. Lynesse turned the security feed off because she liked her privacy, so we have nothing there. Raif Silverstone was visiting her at the time. Given the time of night, there is no clear security footage of the killer from the neighboring houses. Are we all agreed that the focus of the killer’s rage was on Lynesse? And that Raif got in the killer’s way and was collateral damage?”
He checks to see if anyone wants to propose a different theory, but no one does. “We do need to keep investigating the possibility that Raif’s dealings with freeing water sprites got him into trouble,” he says. “But let’s run through the first theory for now. So who had motive to want Lynesse dead?”
“Number one,” says Remi. “The housekeeper, who had an airtight alibi.”
“Number two,” says Leo. “Her fiancé, who works with axes on his film sets, and could have had sufficient time to fly down from Ireland, commit the murder, and then fly back. He says he’s never seen the murder weapon before, but we’re checking to see if that axe came from his set.”
“Number three,” says Remi. “Astrid Wikander, known to despise Lynesse, could also have flown from Ireland — with or without Everett — to commit the murder.”
“Erm, maybe not Astrid,” says Monroe. “Her Instagram feed has a video that shows that she was in Ireland at the beach cottage at 4:00 pm on Friday, so it makes it a pretty tight window for her to travel. I’m still trying to contact Astrid or her assistant to validate an alibi though. And she was walking all around the cottage in that Instagram video, by the way, and there was no sign of Everett in it.”
“Good work!” says Remi, beaming. “Right?” She looks at Storm.
“Sure,” says Storm.
Monroe blushes, and says hurriedly, “Number four, the unknown father of her baby.”
“I still think it’s possible that could be Caprio,” says Storm. “He said he stayed on set in Ireland when Everett went to the beach cottage, but I need you to pin that down Monroe.”
“So five is Caprio,” says Remi.
“And six is Beatrice Grictor,” purrs a voice in Storm’s ear.
Storm stares at Diana in shock. She has arrived at the table with several main courses balanced on her arms. She unloads them expertly, placing two veal scaloppinis and a steak in front of Leo.
“Gosh, you must be hungry,” she purrs in a throaty voice, and runs her hands thro
ugh Leo’s golden hair. Leo raises a slightly surprised brow, and she playfully pats his nose with the tip of her finger.
Storm’s eyes narrow. She sees it but she only smirks as if in challenge.
Storm decides he really really does not like Diana’s outfit. The blouse is made of sheer luxury white lace and clings lovingly to her curves, as does her black velvet figure hugging mini skirt. Beneath that are a pair of fishnet stockings ending in outrageously high heels that Storm is surprised anyone could walk in. All topped off with a pristine apron that she has tied as tightly as possible around her slender waist. Unconventional as it might be, it is clearly a waitresses outfit. She works here.
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