by Jaye Wells
Duffy cleared his throat. “Back to Charm. Why would A Morte be making a move on Babylon now?”
Abe shrugged. “I wouldn’t pretend to try to understand the motives of those savages.”
Duffy tapped his pen on his lip. “Do you honestly expect me to believe that a man of your extensive connections never had dealings with the Brazilian cartel?”
“Absolutely not. I was well aware of their reputation and refused to work with them. I can only assume that’s why they waited until I was incarcerated to make their move on Babylon.”
“You’ve been here for five years. Why wait so long?”
“All I know is that Charm had been approached by the cartel operative—”
“Did he give you a name?”
Abe nodded. “Hector Souza.”
“Bingo,” Morales said.
“Did he mention where this meeting took place?” Duffy asked.
Abe shook his head. “We didn’t get into that.”
“What did the operative want?”
Abe adjusted in his chair. Not for the first time, I wished I could watch his face directly as he talked to get a read on him. “That’s the odd part. Souza said he wanted Charm to make a move against the Sang Coven.”
Duffy frowned. “Hold on. I thought you said A Morte wanted a cut of the potion trade. Why ask Charm to attack the other coven?”
“All I know is Souza gave him seventy-two hours to comply.”
“What did you tell him to do?”
“I told him it was out of the question.” My uncle shrugged. “The Sangs and the Votaries have a long history as allies. Even though Harry Bane is leading that coven into the ground, it’s no reason to start a war. I told him to circle the wagons and get ready to defend his territory.” Abe shook his head. “He seemed like he was going to do it, too. I don’t understand how Souza got to him anyway.”
“We have reason to believe a member of the Votary Coven betrayed Charm,” Duffy said.
Abe’s head jerked up. “Who?” His voice burned like a match tossed into grain alcohol.
“We have some theories, but no arrests have been made.” We’d told Duffy not to mention Puck’s name in the hopes Abe might finger possible cohorts.
“Give me some names,” Abe demanded.
“I don’t think so.”
Abe snorted. “Surely you don’t believe I’d tip off someone who killed my best friend.”
Duffy’s gaze hardened. “I’m willing to believe you capable of almost anything.”
Abe’s head pulled back in surprise. “Believe what you’d like about me, but don’t let that blind you to how dire this situation is.”
“I assure you we’re all well aware of what’s at stake.”
“We?” Abe’s posture straightened.
“The BPD,” Duffy said.
“Hmm. So you weren’t referring to my reckless niece and her meathead partner?” Abe swiveled toward the window and waved.
“I’ll be damned,” Morales said. He crossed his arms and had the gall to smirk.
I glared at my uncle’s smug face. “I really wish I’d had something stronger than a Taser last time.”
Morales wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “Relax, Cupcake. We got what we needed.”
I tilted my head. “Did we? I didn’t hear anything we didn’t already know.”
In the interview room, Abe had turned back toward Duffy. The detective didn’t look impressed by the little drama. “Mr. Prospero, if you’re done showing off, I have one additional question.”
“What’s that?” The smile he’d flashed at me laced his tone.
“Do you know of anyone in the Cauldron besides the covens who might have had business dealings with A Morte?” I frowned. That hadn’t been on the list of questions we’d given Duffy, but now that he had asked it, I really wanted to hear Abe’s answer.
Abe froze. “What do you mean? Who would have—I’ll be damned.”
I frowned and shot Morales a glance to see if he knew what was happening. He just shrugged and turned back to the window.
Abe was practically vibrating in his chair. “I heard a rumor several months ago that there had been a business deal gone sour with the cartel, but I hadn’t believed it at the time.”
“With whom?”
“Time’s up, Detective,” the guard said.
Duffy held up an impatient hand. “In a second. Abe?”
Abe motioned to the guard to come unshackle him. The guard moved forward and unlocked the brackets that kept my uncle chained to the table. The metal scraped against the concrete floor. The sound crawled into my ears and scratched down my spine.
Abe whispered something to the guard.
“Mr. Prospero? Who was involved in the business deal?”
The guard led Abe toward the panel of glass separating us. He walked right up to it, directly in front of me.
I had to force myself not to back away. After all, he was looking at a mirror—he couldn’t really see me. Regardless, he smiled as if he could. The expression wasn’t the amused grin when he’d revealed that he’d known I was there. Instead, this one was mean, like a snake’s just before it strikes its prey.
Morales put a steadying hand on my arm. I kept my gaze on my uncle’s face because even though he couldn’t see me, I’d be damned before I looked away.
“You want to know why A Morte’s in Babylon, Katie Girl?” he said quietly. “Ask yourself who has the most to lose if there’s a coven war.”
I blinked. “What?” But my question didn’t reach him because of the glass separating us. “What does that mean?” I asked louder.
Abe was already turning away, and the guard who’d stayed at the door during the interview was already coming forward to take him back to his cell. I hit a hand against the glass to get his attention. If he heard it, he didn’t show any sign.
I ran to the door of the observation room and threw it open. I spilled out into the hallway. Just beyond the door to the interview room, the guard and Abe were walking away.
“Abe!” I called.
My uncle paused and turned slowly. The smile on his face was pure evil.
I rushed forward. Behind me, I heard Morales calling after me. The guard held up a hand. “Stop, Detective. You’re not allowed within twenty feet of the prisoner.”
My boots skidded on the floor. I held up my hands. I sucked in a breath to still my heartbeat and looked my uncle in his eyes. “Who?”
His blue eyes twinkled. “You’re the detective. Figure it out.”
With that, he turned his back on me and walked away.
Chapter Twenty-One
After the confrontation with Uncle Abe, the day didn’t get any less frustrating. BPD patrols all over the city were on the lookout for Pantera, but so far no one had run across the shaman. What they had found plenty of were drive-by hexings, street brawls, and lots of defacement of public property by coven Heralds wanting to issue threats to their enemies. No doubt about it, the atmosphere in the Cauldron was heating up.
After dropping Duffy at the precinct, Morales and I had called it a day. He’d asked me if I wanted to grab a bite, but I begged off. I used needing to spend time with Danny as an excuse, but I really just needed space to think about the things Abe had said.
By the time I made it home, it was already pushing five thirty. I’d stopped at Danny’s favorite pizza place to grab a pie for supper. When I pushed my way through the door into the kitchen, I’d expected to find the kid sitting at the table doing homework. Instead, I found Baba cutting coupons from the paper.
She looked up. “You shoulda told me you were getting pizza—I got a coupon.” She fished a slip of paper from the stack. “BOGO, too. Damn.”
I shrugged. “BOGO?”
“Buy one, get one free,” she explained. “One for us and one for the human vacuum.”
I joined her at the table and willed the day’s frustrations to slide off my back. “Where is he, anyway?”
She shrugged.
“Said he was gonna stay after to work in the library. He promised to be home by supper.”
“Does he have a paper due or something?”
She shook her head. “Not that I know of.”
My brows rose. “And you didn’t think it was strange that he’d voluntarily stay at school to study?”
She frowned. “Why would I?”
“Because he’s a teenager, Baba. They lie.”
She shrugged. “He’s a good kid, Katie.”
I rose to grab my phone and call the school to see if he was there. I knew that Pen would have already left for the day and was on her way to her weekly AA meeting, or else I would have called her. But before I could dial the number, the back door opened.
Danny didn’t walk through the door, he slammed through.
“Hey.” I put down the phone. “Where ya been?”
He kept his head down and acted like he planned to walk straight through the kitchen without answering.
“Yo,” I called, “I’m talking to you.”
He paused at the threshold. “What?” His head was angled away from us, and the hand gripping the handle of his backpack had a couple of bloodied knuckles.
I was across the room before I had a conscious thought to move. “Were you in a fight?”
He swung around. The corner of his mouth was streaked red and swelling. “How did you know?”
I rolled my eyes. “Never mind that.” I grabbed his chin to get a better look at the bruise forming on his cheek. “Who punched you?”
He hissed and pulled away from my probing fingers. “I ran into a wall.”
“Oh, please. Don’t bullshit me.”
He sighed and leaned back against the wall with his arms crossed. “Look, I’ve got it—all right?”
I snorted. “Right—”
“I’m sixteen, Kate—not six. I can take care of myself.”
I didn’t like the stony determination in his gaze, but he had a point. “Just”—I sighed, trying to calm my instinctive need to protect him—“where were you?”
“I told Baba,” he said. “I stayed after to work on a project.”
“This happened at the library?” I asked, an eyebrow raised.
He rolled his eyes. “No, Kate, it happened on my way out. Just chill, all right? Mr. Hart broke it up before it got out of hand.”
My brows shot to my hairline. “Is he planning on calling me to discuss it?”
He shrugged. “I told you, it wasn’t a big deal.”
I hadn’t told Danny about my date with Hart, and now wasn’t time to get into it. However, I found it odd that he wouldn’t call me about this.
“Don’t call him, Kate.” Danny’s tone was on the border between pleading and demanding. “It’s nothing to worry about.”
“Forgive me, but I’m allowed to worry when you walk in looking like someone used you for target practice.”
He snorted. “You’re one to talk. You get beat up all the time.”
“I’m a cop, Danny. And it’s not all the time.” Behind me, a significant throat clearing sounded. I glanced over my shoulder to see Baba making a let-it-go gesture. I blew out a breath. “All right, fine. I’ll trust you to take care of this on your own, but promise me you’ll ask for help if this escalates.” I was lying. I fully intended to at least call Pen so she could keep an eye on things.
He nodded. “I will.” When I looked unconvinced, he sighed. “I promise, okay?”
I nodded and watched him make his escape. “There’s pizza,” I called belatedly.
“Not hungry.” A second later the sound of his door slamming in the basement filtered through the house.
“How much you want to bet there’s a girl in the middle of this?” Baba asked. When I turned around she’d returned to clipping coupons, but her eyebrows were raised.
“Has he been telling you about Luna?”
“Nah.” Baba waved the scissors. “Isn’t it always about a girl with a teenage boy?”
Part of me was relieved that Danny hadn’t gone to Baba instead of me for girl advice. Not that he’d really told me much, either. It’s just one day he suddenly started looking for excuses to bring up Luna’s name in conversation and I’d put two and two together.
I looked toward the door again. “I don’t like it. He’s never had a fight before.”
Baba shrugged. “That you know of. All boys fight at some point. Just takes some longer to get pushed to the edge.”
I chewed on my lip and wondered what in the hell could have pushed Danny to that edge. Instead of marching down to his room and demanding answers he wouldn’t give anyway, I picked up my phone and tried Pen. As I’d expected it switched to voice mail. I didn’t leave a message, though. I’d see her in the next day or so and ask her then. Maybe by then this whole thing would have blown over.
I grabbed a slice of pizza for Baba and handed it to her before taking some for myself. Then I grabbed a beer from the fridge and went into the den. It had been weeks since I spent a night vegging on the couch. I sank into the cushions with a sigh and fished around in them until I came up with the remote.
Taking a sip of beer, I clicked the button and settled back. Unfortunately, the six o’clock news was on, which meant the face grinning at me from the screen was Grace Cho’s. I made a disgusted sound, but before I could change the channel I caught what she was saying. “… my exclusive interview with Babylon’s new mayor, John Volos, about the recent coven violence.”
The screen jumped to an image of Volos sitting behind the desk in the mayor’s office. Cho sat across the desk from him, looking poised but determined.
“What steps are you taking to keep the people of this city safe?” Cho asked in her practiced evening-news voice.
“Chief Adams and I are in constant contact. He’s upped patrols of the affected areas. I’m also overseeing the efforts of the MEA task force as they work to find the parties driving the violence.” He cleared his throat. “In addition, I’m working closely with the city council to increase budgets for the strained precincts, including possible pay increases for officers.”
I made a rude noise. “Bullshit.”
“What?” Baba called from the kitchen.
“Nothing.”
The exchange meant I missed whatever Volos had been saying next. But I definitely caught the last part.
“Mr. Mayor, do you have any messages for the criminals who are behind the recent spate of violence?”
I lifted my pizza, but before I took a bite I muttered, “This’ll be good.”
The camera panned dramatically toward Volos’s face. With the seal of Babylon hanging behind his head, he looked like a civilized warlord. “Babylon will not cower from you,” he said. “We will stand up and protect ourselves from anyone who threatens what is ours. And when we find you, our justice will be swift, hard, and absolute.”
I took a long swallow of beer to wash down the pizza. I found his strongly worded warning curious. To my ears, it almost sounded like he’d been talking not on behalf of the city, but for himself. Sure, it made sense for a mayor to be pissed that someone was trying to consolidate the criminal powers in the city. Maybe another viewer of the same interview might have had a different impression, but I’d known John Volos for two decades. His words hadn’t just been an idle threat. Instead it sounded almost as if John was taking the cartel’s interest in Babylon personally.
Uncle Abe’s words surfaced in the front of my brain like a flashing neon sign. Ask yourself who has the most to lose if there’s a coven war.
“Son of a bitch,” I breathed.
On screen, Cho was moving on to a new story about a zoning dispute. I picked up the remote and clicked until a dumb reality show popped up. I picked up my phone and hit the button programmed to call Morales.
The call clicked straight to voice mail. I cursed silently while Morales’s greeting played in my ear. “Drew, it’s me. Call me ASAP.”
I tossed my phone on the table and grabbed my beer. Now tha
t the seed of Volos’s involvement had been planted, it sprouted into a poison vine that wound through my brain collecting more evidence I’d missed. His reaction at the gym when he’d seen the board filled with evidence linking A Morte to the crimes. The way he’d asked me to personally keep him in the loop about any developments. The fact that every freaking crime the MEA had investigated in Babylon had John Volos’s fingerprints all over it. As the city’s first Adept mayor, he certainly had a lot to lose if he couldn’t prevent a coven war.
I took another bite of pizza, but the taste just nauseated me now. I made a disgusted sound. Before I’d joined the task force, I’d managed to avoid John Volos for a decade. But the minute Gardner brought me on to the team, the bastard had kept popping up in my life—and my cases. First, he’d been framed by Uncle Abe for putting a dangerous potion on the streets, then he was robbed by the Babylon Bomber. And now he was all mixed up with A Morte’s motivations for trying to start a coven war. In each case, Volos looked like a victim, but I knew better. He wasn’t some hapless guy who always found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Volos wasn’t a survivor—he was a player, a manipulator.
“An asshole,” I said out loud.
“What?” Baba called again.
“Nothing,” I muttered.
Chapter Twenty-Two
On my way in the next morning, there was a traffic jam leading to the Bessemer Bridge. I was running late as it was, after waking up on the couch with a crick in my neck and creases on my cheek from the cushion’s nubby fabric. “Come on,” I groaned and tapped the brakes.
As the main artery into the Cauldron, the bridge often got clogged during rush hour. But that morning, traffic wasn’t just crawling, it was dead—totally at a standstill. I looked toward the lights of emergency vehicles flashing in the middle of the span crossing over the Steel River.
Normally I would have just written it off as an accident, but a couple of BPD boats bobbed under the bridge, as well. I grabbed my phone and punched in the number of my old patrol buddy Santini.
“Hey, it’s Prospero. What’s the holdup on the Bessemer?”
