by Dianna Love
“Why? Two shifters need their own hairstylist?”
Smart ass. When he put it that way though it didn’t make any sense. Who knew why they wanted me? To get me away from Dominique? Or was something going to happen and they didn’t want me asking questions? Or just being around. New girl on the block.
Which reminded me. Sasha. If someone wanted me could they also want her?
I turned to stagger back to the interior of the boat.
“Where are you going?” Bran asked, right at my side.
“To find Sasha.”
To get my world back on an even basis.
He paused then followed me, which was fine because the sooner I could find Sasha the sooner I could make sure she was okay. The fact I’d been attacked made me worry about her safety. If she was all right I could leave. I’d had it with boats and too many questions. Way too many about what Bran had done and what price I’d have to pay for it.
And damned if he wasn’t right, about how I’d feel. I hurt as if I’d been the punching bag for a couple of shifters. I should have let him finish fixing me the way he’d done to my ribs.
He caught up with me as I stepped into the stateroom.
“Why are you looking for Sasha?” he asked, his voice suddenly wary.
Oh, yeah, I’d forgotten the whole Bran and Sasha together thing. I glanced at him over my shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’m not out to hurt your squeeze. I just want to make sure she’s okay.”
He was right on top of me as I left the stateroom. It was empty which meant Suzette was okay. Gone, but then I didn’t blame her, she looked easily spooked. Most people were from attacking shifters. Go figure.
Bran grabbed my arm, not rough but he managed to pull me to a stop which caused me to suck in an oath.
He look bothered, then added, “Tell me what you want with Sasha. And what do you mean by squeeze?”
I stared at him, my brows drawing down. “You know, romantic interest, girlfriend, temporary bed partner.”
He actually looked like I’d gob-smacked him. He could revive corpses but get stopped by a comment? “She is not—”
The suave, urbane Bran actually sounded like he was stuttering.
“Doesn’t matter,” I cut him off, knowing if I didn’t find Sasha soon I was going to crash into a heap and I didn’t want that. Especially in front of Bran.
I was about say something else, when I spied Franco beetling down a far passageway.
“Got ya.” I stiff-legged it to catch up to him, which sounds way faster than I was moving, hailing him when I got close enough not to shout. “Franco. Wait a minute.”
He stopped as if jerked by invisible strings; only when he saw who it was did some of the tension seep from his shoulders. His tone was sharp as ever though as he said, “You are a disaster. A total disaster.” He stretched his hands wide to make the point of how total he meant.
So bite me. If only he knew all of it.
Then I remembered. I had Gurn’s blood smeared on my hands and parts of my clothes. I must have hit my head pretty hard after all to go running after Sasha looking as I did, or maybe it was that dying thing.
“What have you been doing?” Franco asked, his eyes wide, his skin pale.
“Working on an outfit for Halloween, what do you think I’ve been doing?” We were wasting time here chatting. My gut screamed, Find Sasha now!
Franco shot a glance between me and Bran. “Seriously? Halloween?”
“No,” I bit back. You idiot. “I’ll tell you everything later.” Or as much as I was willing to share, which wasn’t much. “As long as we can find Sasha.”
He tsked, tsked with a wag of one finger. “You should be off the yacht by now. Staff is not to be seen here at all tonight.”
That’s right. I’d forgotten about that. It explained why I couldn’t find anybody on board, but it raised another niggling question. Why tonight?
Later. One problem at a time. “I’m trying to get off the boat,” I said, in my most patient tone, which wasn’t so patient about then, as Bran joined me, earning only a quirked brow from Franco. I cleared my throat to get Chop-Chop’s attention. “I’ve been looking for Sasha.”
“Why?”
The question slapped like a wet cloth on bare skin.
“Dominique wants to see her.”
“Oh, she won’t be happy that you haven’t found her and are still hanging around.”
Too bad this wasn’t kindergarten show-and-tell, like the time I’d tried to talk my brother Jake into going as my pet wolf.
I flattened my palms out before me. I was not the enemy here. Maybe I should start wearing a pin stating that fact if the men around here kept biting my head off. “Collette said you were looking for Sasha. I thought if you’ve found her, you could let me know where I can, too. Nothing more.”
He eyed me for a moment, as if hunting for a hidden agenda, then shook his head before speaking to both Bran and me. “I can’t find her.” He sounded worried, genuinely worried. “I’ve checked everywhere I can think of.”
I found I wanted to wipe the worry off his face. The man was a prick, but right now he was a concerned prick.
“If you’ve looked in all the logical places Sasha should be, it’s time to check the rest.” I pointed toward the front of the boat. “I’ll check those rooms.” I didn’t add the word, “again,” even though I thought it. “And you check the other direction. The last boat is long gone, but I can call a water taxi after I get cleaned up.”
Franco glanced in the direction I pointed, at the community rooms, which included a Roman bath, a personal spa, and a training gym. Yacht life had all the benefits. “Maybe we should check these first together,” he said, “before we bother Dominique whose room is down that hall.”
As if I didn’t know that already. In fact the community rooms were behind the door I’d seen Bran exit earlier that evening. Was it only a little over an hour ago? Felt like so much longer.
Franco’s advice also let me know he was as cowed by Dragon Lady as the rest of the staff. Interesting.
“Okay.” I wasn’t a fool, I wanted to keep my head, and my job, too. “Let’s go. Spa first.”
We found Sasha in the second room we searched, the Roman bath. Whorls of steam circled the air, making it both hard to see and breathe the minute we opened the plate glass door. Which made no sense, as the bath should have been empty.
But it wasn’t.
I stumbled over an outstretched arm, causing me to slam down hard on my knees on the mosaic-tiled floor.
That’s when I recognized Sasha, reclining back against the tub edge, one hand thrown out, her head against the rim, her throat cleanly sliced from one side to the other.
“Bloody, hell,” Franco whispered in the mist above my head, his tone as thin as the air. “She’s dead.”
CHAPTER 29
What was it about death that slowed time? Elongated each moment as if the ritual of passing suspended the laws of physics?
Bran had said nothing at first, but I sensed him right behind me, a solid wall. Obstacle? Barrier? Or protection.
Could he do for Sasha what he had done for me? How to get rid of Franco to ask?
I could hear Franco suck in a breath like a land-locked fish, while I rose to my feet and stood there, trying to read the crime scene as if I’d seen one before. Wait, I had. In fact, I had created my second one back on the foredeck. At least there were no bodies for the cops to find there. Could I get the blood cleaned off of me and the deck before the now inevitable law enforcement arrived?
When I got back to the agency compound I was going to pitch a hissy fit if we were sent out again being so ill equipped to deal with being attacked, fighting non-humans and dealing with brutal murder.
As if Ling Mai gave a flying fart what I thought.
Bran broke the silence. “Franco, you find Dominique. Tell her what’s happened here. She’ll know what to do.”
My brain cells kicked into hyper drive. Leave it to a wa
rlock to take charge, but then Bran was looking out for his interests, which also meant Dominique’s interests and that could be a conflict.
“And if she doesn’t, you call the police. Secure the launch boat first, so no one leaves the yacht before all are accounted for,” I added, not trusting that Dragon Lady would make sure a killer was apprehended. Or that she wasn’t the killer herself.
My tone must have alerted Bran that our tentative truce was over as he gave Franco a short nod before the other man scuttled off, taking one last hard look at me before he did.
Not the time to wonder at that glance as I knelt on the tiles near Sasha, not that I wanted to get closer to that cold, still body.
“Can you help her?” I asked, adding, “Like you helped me?”
I glanced over my shoulder to see him shake his head. “No. Too much time has passed and even if I could, I’d used everything up helping you.”
Damn. I turned back to Sasha, mentally asking her forgiveness.
“Does your cousin know who to contact here in port?” I asked, more to keep both of us focused on the mundane and not the girl before us.
“She’ll call the Gendarmerie Maritime.” His voice sounded ice cold and matter of fact. “They’ll contact the Sûreté.”
That’s right. This was his world. I couldn’t order a meal, but he could snap his fingers and know whom to contact in any situation. Must be nice.
I stood again, which wasn’t that easy knowing there was nothing I could do for Sasha. It left a bitter taste in my mouth.
“Are you all right?” Bran spoke right behind me, his strong hands cupping my shoulders and turning me toward him.
He’d surprised me. The touch and the tone of his voice. I’d expected more anger; after all this death was not removed from his immediate world, neither was the threat of it. But instead all I sensed from him was concern. For me? Why?
I kept my gaze averted as I managed a response through a clogged throat. “Of course—”
“There’s no of course.” His tone now slashed with exasperation, as if I’d poked a sore spot with a torch. This I could deal with, even as he continued, “I want you out of here. You should not be seeing this.”
I inched backwards, forcing his arms to drop, placing steel beneath my tone. Two adversaries once again. “This is my job.”
“It is not right.”
“There is no right, no wrong. It just is.”
That reached him, his lips tightening as his gaze shifted to survey the scene.
“What do you know about this?” he asked, his tone now clipped and distant. I looked, but noticed no change in eye color from him, no pulling a mage mantle across him, no whisper of magic swirling. Whatever Bran was right then, he wasn’t acting like a warlock. Right now he was simply a very focused, very determined male.
Good. I needed the wall of professionalism between us. I’d barely begun to grapple with the fact he could restore life but clearly with restrictions.
“It’s murder.” I swallowed and looked at the lovely body lying so still yet relaxed. “Suicides don’t slit their own throats like this. An easy enough process for someone to quietly walk in from behind, grab her hair and pull her head back. Plus there’s no knife within sight, not to say it’s not around the scene somewhere.” I didn’t want to disturb anything looking for it. Or step nearer all that blood again. I’d reached my limit of wallowing in blood this evening.
“How long do you think she’s been dead?” he asked, though clearly knowing there had been a time delay between death and our arrival.
“Less than an hour,” I lied, then added, “but not much longer by the texture of the blood congealing, though I’m no expert.”
“Convenient that we all three found her together.”
I glanced at him over my shoulder again, at the tightness of his expression, the tension riding his muscles. “Meaning?”
“At least that part isn’t complicated.”
I now understood. If I’d found Sasha on my own, I’d have become an immediate suspect. Which I’d been meant to do, having been sent specifically to look for her.
The group was small enough, and close-knit enough, to mean that as long as I was suspected of murdering one of their own, my effectiveness as a covert operative seeking information was canceled.
Whoever set up this scenario was brilliant and calculating.
Dominique?
Yup, just up her ally. But why take out a lowly hairdresser—unless she realized I wasn’t just an employee. I glanced again at Bran, at the strain bracketing his eyes, the cant to his full lips. Was he up to hearing my suspicions? Suspicions founded on what? Gut reactions toward a woman I hated at first sight.
Maybe I needed a little more concrete info before I rocked what was left of his world. Or before I accused him of being in this area of the yacht himself a little under an hour ago.
Damn and triple damn, this was getting complicated.
“If I were you,” I offered, giving him action instead of answers. “I’d get the purser to block off this area of the yacht ASAP and maybe have someone you trust keep any people still remaining on board separated as much as possible from one another. The law will want to interview them.”
“Dominique will not like this.” Bran’s gaze remained focused on the dead woman.
“Like it or not, the killer is someone on this boat unless someone has recently left on one of the shuttles back to shore.” He glanced up then and I noted the bleakness, the shock being held tightly in check, as if he’d wrestled his anger into submission not that long ago. But then he’d been able to do something to change the outcome. I had lived, Sasha had died, and there wasn’t any changing that.
I hadn’t been an agent that long myself. But I understood the hard reality-slap of violence too well and too recently: images of Gurn’s brains splattered across the deck, of the other shifter right before he fell, the scream, splash, and then silence slammed into my thoughts.
I swallowed bile. This wasn’t time to deal with a flashback. Not with a dead woman at my feet.
I quieted my voice, for both our sakes. “This is going to be hard on everyone, the innocent and the guilty. You have a small window for damage control before the law arrives and takes over. I’d use that time wisely if I were you. Do whatever PR stuff you need to do to give your spin on this before it hits the news from some rag journalist listening to the police scanners or with a cousin on the Monte Carlo force.”
“You’ve done this before.” He looked at me then, really looked at me as if seeing me for the first time.
“Let’s just say I understand law enforcement mentality. They have their agenda and you have yours. In places they’ll merge.”
“To find a killer.”
“Exactly. But everyone has something to hide.” My fingers clenched as if seeking grounding before I continued, “Some information you’ll feel the police don’t need to know, or you might feel has no bearing on the investigation. But the law will want to know about it anyway.”
He made a noise, as if in protest, but I shook my head and shut him out. I knew firsthand what it meant to be a suspect in a murder inquiry and no amount of it’ll-be-all-right coddling was going to sugarcoat the process.
“It’s just the way things are. A man in your position should have contacts, acquaintances, friends. Call them. Now. Before you lose the opportunity. A murder can unravel a lot of lives. There can be a number of victims, not just the dead.”
“This sounds very cold and heartless.”
“It is.” I nodded, clutching at the shreds of my control now. “We’re losing time here.”
“I will do as you suggest.” He didn’t look happy about it, then speared me with an icy glance. “You work in an ugly world.”
I couldn’t have drawn the line between us any more clearly. His world was on one side, creating beauty, mingling with the movers and shakers across the globe; mine was on another, the ugly reality of death and mingling with cops and body bagge
rs. And that was without the whole warlock versus witch element.
As if I hadn’t known there was a huge gap from the beginning.
“You’re wasting time,” I said, there being no need to address his comment.
“And what about her?” He looked at Sasha.
“She’s no longer your problem. Finding her killer is.” Before he or she destroys the rest of your carefully constructed world.
He nodded once but paused, as if fighting an internal battle. I had wanted to offer comfort, some soft words but found that none would come. Just as well, ours was not that kind of relationship.
I turned back to look at Sasha when I felt Bran’s hand hit my back. I stumbled then took a dive into the sauna, coming up dripping and swearing.
“What the—” I sputtered.
“The blood,” he said, standing there on the pool rim. “No one will notice the blood on you or your clothes now.”
As if they won’t wonder why I went swimming in my clothes.
Then he left. Leaving me standing in the pool, aware there was more than blood on my clothes that I’d have to explain. There was blood on the foredeck, the fact Franco had seen me smeared with blood, and my police record as a killer.
Oh, yeah, the nightmare had only begun.
CHAPTER 30
Once I crawled out of the pool I was thankful for two things. The first, I wasn’t carrying my phone so there might be a small window to collect it and send a message to the team, and two, Bran was right, the shifter’s blood was off of me, or what I could see of me, which meant I wouldn’t be arrested immediately.
I was still drying off when the purser-cum-onboard-lackey arrived, sticking his head in the door and blanching. I clutched the towel and pushed him out then joined him in the hallway, squelching as I walked.
“No one gets in this room until the authorities arrive. No one, you understand?”
“Oui, mademoiselle.”
“Not even Bran or Dominique.”
If the man looked pale before he looked worse now.
