Relatively Familiar (Accidental Familiar Book 2)

by Belinda White

  She tilted her head and raised one eyebrow. Yeah, I wasn’t going to give him a pass on that one, either.

  Finally, he took a deep breath. “Okay, look, Dad said he wasn’t in the office. But he wasn’t alone, either. I could hear someone talking behind him.” This time the gulp was very evident. “It sounded a lot like Opal.”

  The gulp was catching. I knew I’d recognized that man’s voice from my early morning call. Sheriff Taylor. And Aunt Opal? A shiver passed over me.

  “It could be nothing more than him helping out a friend, right?” Opie sounded hopeful.

  I hated to burst his bubble. Besides, I didn’t feel right spilling the beans on them being together last night. For all I knew, they were in separate beds when I called. Not that I believed that for an instant, but it was a possibility. I kept my mouth shut on that.

  Lily glanced back at the door. “I take it you don’t want Ruby to know that your parents are together?”

  “No, I don’t. If they really are a . . . couple now, then they should be the ones to tell her. Right now, there isn’t anything positive. Dad helps people. He’s always been that way.”

  I felt Lily’s gaze on me, but I couldn’t meet her eyes. I don’t know how she knew, but she did. Maybe Opal wasn’t the only one who could read my thoughts.

  “Very well,” she said. “This is safe with me.”

  That’s when I remembered the other part of my conversation with Opal from the night before. “Opal told me to ask Ruby to do personal protection spells on all of us, and offered any supplies we might need from the shop. I totally forgot to tell her.”

  I started back toward the door, but Lily stopped me. “You two go on. I think I know the spell she has in mind, and I’ve got everything here we’ll need. It’ll get done. You have my word.” Then she turned and went back into the house, leaving me and Opie standing there on her front porch.

  The sooner the subject was changed, the better. He must have felt the same way.

  We almost made it out to the car before Ruby came running out of the house.

  “Wait. You two need to know this!”

  Opie pulled me to a stop, and we turned.

  “The very first search we did on Roger Hendrickson listed his last employer. He worked for the Indianapolis division of Firestorm United.”

  I glanced back at the open doorway. Arc was standing there with an I told you so expression. I made a shooing motion for him to get out of sight. It wouldn’t do for him to go showing himself now. Just because the council couldn’t actually go into Lily’s didn’t mean they didn’t have eyes watching her place.

  But I got his point. Ryan Shea wasn’t the only connection between the two murders. Stan Grayson was one too.

  Now we were getting somewhere.

  Arc whistled, and we walked back. I hoped whatever it was he had to tell us went quick. I wanted another run at Stan Grayson. And this time, I planned to stay until I’d gotten some answers.

  “There’s something else I just thought of,” Arc said when we were back on the porch. At least he’d stepped out of the main doorway. Now he was hidden in the shadows from anyone more than a couple of feet away.

  “A few months back, Sonya approached me with a business proposition from Grayson. He wanted to expand into home security. As he knew how to take houses down to the ground, he seemed to think he could do a pretty good job of protecting them from that too.”

  “Let me guess . . . he wanted your wards.” I mean, at this point, it wasn’t much of a guess.

  Arc nodded. “Yup. And that means he knew about them and exactly what they could do.” He paused. “And he knew about the keys too.”

  Okay, now I really wanted to talk to the man.

  Chapter 20

  “So how are we going to work this?” Opie asked.

  We were parked outside the small office trailer of Firestorm United. Stan’s truck was parked outside.

  I chewed my lip for a minute, thinking it through. I knew that Opie wouldn’t go for the whole impersonating a cop thing, but what if we didn’t have to say anything? If he just assumed it, that wasn’t on us, was it?

  “The last time I was here, he thought I was with the police.” Sure enough, Opie gave me a stern look. “Don’t look at me like that. I did absolutely nothing to warrant him coming to that conclusion. All I did was ask about Sonya, and he kind of made the leap on his own. I think he has a major guilty conscience.”

  “Uh-huh,” Opie said. He didn’t look like he quite believed me.

  I crossed my heart. It was a standard gesture, but one he knew I didn’t take lightly. It was crazy but true. I’d never cross my heart on a lie, and he knew it.

  “Okay, so your plan is to use that little fact today? Walk in there and pretend to be cops?”

  “No. My plan is to walk in there and ask some very pointed questions. Like how much Grayson has to do with the Indianapolis division, and how well he knew Roger Hendrickson. If he wants to once again assume that we’re on official police business, that’s on him, right?”

  Opie looked thoughtful. “It’s a little shadier than I like. But I guess if we don’t tell him I’m a deputy, that would be okay.” He gave me a pointed look.

  Once again, I crossed my heart, and he nodded.

  “Okay, then. Let’s do this.” Then he hesitated as his hand reached for the door latch. “Just out of curiosity, do you have your taser with you?”

  I patted my purse. “Never leave home without it.” I’d learned that the hard way, one or two times too many.

  He still wasn’t moving. I got the hint.

  Pulling the taser from my bag, I handed it over to him. He gave me a lopsided smile and shoved it into the waistband of his pants. Then he shrugged. “You have your magic if things go south in there. I feel better having something too.”

  That surprised me. I’d thought he was afraid I would use it without proper provocation. I’d never thought about the fact that I was asking the man to go in unarmed against a man who could quite possibly be a double-murderer.

  What had I been thinking?

  As we walked up to the trailer, I thought about what Opie had said. About how I had my magic if things went south. That was true, but the few times I’d used it had really put the fear of the Goddess into me. Things would have to go pretty darn south for me to risk using it again.

  Then again, if Opie was in danger, all bets were off. I might think twice about using it to protect myself, but protecting Opie was another thing. That, I’d do without a second’s hesitation. And that worried me. Funny, I’d much rather be the one with the taser.

  I wouldn’t kill anyone with that.

  Unlike last time, my entrance into the trailer didn’t get a smile. Grayson’s eyes traveled over me and then Opie in turn.

  “Kind of figured I hadn’t seen the last of you,” he said with a sneer. “Have you managed to come up with some kind of planted clue that somehow proves I’m the one who killed Sonya?” He gave a short bark of a laugh. “Wouldn’t put it past you cops.”

  Opie raised an eyebrow but stayed silent. Good boy. As long as we didn’t actually say we were cops, we shouldn’t be able to be prosecuted for impersonating a law enforcement officer. There wasn’t anything in the rule book that said we had to correct the man’s assumptions. At least, I hoped there wasn’t.

  “We’re just here to talk,” Opie said, taking the lead. Fine with me. I was willing to bow to the fact that he had much more experience with this kind of thing than I did.

  Grayson didn’t bother to stand or offer us a chair, either. The man’s manners were appalling. Then again, I could move faster if I was already standing, so that worked for me.

  “And just what could you possibly want to know that I haven’t told you a dozen times already? I didn’t kill Sonya.” He growled. Literally growled. “And yes, I’m aware that she made a complaint about me. A completely bogus one, too, if you want to know the truth. I never laid a hand on her. But she didn’t get the ra
ise she asked for, either, and revenge is a mother.”

  “Actually, right now, I’m more interested in your association with the Indianapolis division of the company. I believe you own both, don’t you?”

  Grayson went from looking annoyed to looking worried. His eyes went to his desk drawer. No way was he going to make it to open the thing.

  Opie saw the glance too, and his hand moved under his jacket to rest on the taser. “Whatever’s in that drawer, I suggest you leave it there.” There was a touch of flint in Opie’s tone. It was enough to convince Grayson that he meant business. Besides, the hand touching the taser was hidden from view. For all Grayson knew, it was a pistol instead of its non-lethal counterpart.

  Not that being shot with a taser was anything to laugh about.

  Grayson blew out a breath and leaned back in his chair. The fight seemed to drain out of him. “I didn’t kill him, either, not that it will matter to you all.”

  “So, you’re admitting that you knew Roger Hendrickson and the manner of his death?” Opie wanted the record straight.

  The man nodded. “Yeah, I knew him. Briefly. He was a real piece of work, that guy. Made Sonya look like a saint, he did. That’s saying something.”

  I had to agree with him there.

  “Do you have any idea who did kill him? Is there someone else we should be questioning? Maybe someone with ties to both Roger and Sonya?”

  His eyes glinted with what appeared to be hope. “Come to think of it, yeah, there is.” He leaned forward, excited. “I’d forgotten about it, honestly, but I had to send Sonya down to help him on a job that was a little bigger than he could handle on his own. When she got back, she was acting real funny. I finally got the story out of her. This Roger guy was the spitting image of a friend of hers. Turns out they were brothers!”

  Then his face fell. “Crap. I knew I should have gotten her friend’s name. But you guys should be able to find him, right? I mean, surely you can get access to birth records and stuff like that, right?”

  He really did look hopeful. I was almost ready to believe him myself. Right up until my eyes fell on the rack of keys hanging on the far wall. One of them was bright green.

  I elbowed Opie and gave a short nod to the key rack. His eyes darted there and back to Grayson in a millisecond. Taking a deep breath, I clapped my hands.

  The key started glowing, and precisely thirty seconds later, it whistled. Not a quiet one, either.

  Grayson jumped out of his chair like he’d been shot from a cannon. “What the hell is that?”

  “That, Mr. Grayson, appears to be the magicked key to Archimedes Mineheart’s apartment.” Opie paused, letting that information sink in. “You know . . . the place where the killer dumped Sonya Ignacio’s body?”

  He tried to run, but he didn’t make it far. Not even to the door before he was on the ground twitching.

  Opie disconnected the taser, flipped him over onto his stomach, then pulled out his cuffs. My eyebrow raised of its own accord. I hadn’t known Opie had them with him. Trust him to bring the cuffs and not his gun. I’d be having a talk with him soon about that.

  I didn’t need a boyfriend who took stupid chances.

  One of us doing that was more than enough.

  THINGS WENT PRETTY quickly after that, at least for a short time. Opie’s friend from the local police force showed up with company, and they took Grayson into custody. Once we relayed the news about Hendrickson and the murder in Indianapolis, they didn’t seem to have any doubts as to Grayson’s guilt.

  Neither did we.

  It took quite some time at the local station going over our story not once but a good half-dozen times. We had no reason to lie. For me, it was a family matter that I was checking into, and for Opie, it was a matter of keeping his girlfriend out of trouble.

  The fact that he was a sheriff’s deputy in another county seemed to help. If I’d made the takedown on my own, I’d probably have been there a lot longer. And things wouldn’t have gone nearly as smoothly as they did.

  Once they had our statements and were satisfied that we weren’t going to change our story even if they asked us to take it from the top one more time, we headed back to Lily’s. By this time, it was late afternoon. The lawyer brothers were already off work and there.

  I was a little surprised to see Merlin peeling potatoes in the kitchen. And he wasn’t even complaining about it. In fact, he looked . . . happy. Part of that was knowing that Arc was finally a free man, but the other part had a lot to do with the woman chopping vegetables beside him.

  There had to be a reason they weren’t more open to the public about their relationship, but I hoped they got that sorted out soon. They deserved to be together. All the time.

  I asked if there was anything I could do to help, but I got shooed from the kitchen.

  “You go rest. You’ve done your work for the day.”

  That got a raised eyebrow from Merlin, but he never said a word. I grinned at him and left while the getting was good.

  Opie and I sprawled out on the sofa, and I looked over at Arc and Ruby. They were sharing an oversized chair, looking particularly happy to have their bodies scrunched up together. Look at us, all coupled off. Lily and Merlin, Ruby and Arc, me and Opie, and soon, Mom and Archie. She just hadn’t gotten there yet. Neither had Opal.

  Not that it worried us. It wasn’t seven yet. They still had a good half hour to make Lily’s diner curfew.

  Part of me wondered if Opal would come alone. I was betting the answer would be yes. As far as I was concerned, there wasn’t any reason that she and the sheriff should have to hide their relationship, especially from us. I mean, they were both single adults. What was the harm? It wasn’t like one of them was committing adultery or something. Opie’s mom had left him years ago. So long ago, in fact, that I couldn’t remember ever meeting her.

  “Has anyone let the council know they’ve arrested Grayson for Sonya’s murder?” I asked. “It would be nice to know they’ve given Arc a clean slate for the crime.”

  “I took care of that personally,” Senior said, settling onto the arm of the couch. “Patty wasn’t too pleased to hear it from me, but she verified it and called off the dogs.” He looked over at Arc. “I’d be watching my p’s and q’s pretty closely for the next year or so. Once you’re in the council’s sites, they don’t tend to let go all that quickly. Proven innocent or not, they’ll be watching.”

  Arc swallowed but nodded. “I’ll be careful.”

  “So,” I said, going for nonchalant, “any chance we can break this binding tonight? Get your magical signature back to what it should be now that there isn’t a reason not to?”

  My brother gave a small shiver. “Sounds good to me. The sooner the better, in fact.” I didn’t understand the rather timid look he was giving me, as if we shared a secret or something. If it was the fact that I personally had no magic, it was hardly a secret to my family. It was something we’d all known for years.

  I’d just never been totally okay with that fact before. Now I was more than okay with the thought of not having magic. The whole world would be a safer place once that was true again.

  At five till seven, Senior glanced at his watch, looking a little worried. “It isn’t like Sapphire to run this close without calling first.”

  When the knock came, he smiled and walked over to answer it. But it wasn’t Mom; it was Opal.

  And she didn’t look happy.

  Chapter 21

  OPAL WALKED STRAIGHT over to Arc without sparing the rest of us so much as a glance. “We need to talk.”

  “O-okay,” he said. “Can I ask what about?”

  “How much do you know about Roger Hendrickson?”

  He shrugged and looked over to me. “Not much. Just that he wasn’t nearly as nice of a guy as Ryan, apparently.”

  “That’s putting it mildly unless your friend was a multi-murdering conniving you know what too.”

  Arc’s face blanched. “Multi-murdering? But
I don’t understand. He was killed before Sonya, wasn’t he?”

  “According to the police and medical reports, yes. But there are some things the police haven’t been able to explain. Like why the blood and skin found under his fingernails match his own DNA but, other than his head wound and the burn on his wrist, there didn’t appear to be a mark on him.”

  Ruby’s eyes widened. She must have understood what Opal was saying, but I sure as heck didn’t. “DNA is a singular thing, right? I mean, brothers wouldn’t have the same DNA, would they?”

  Opal’s gaze never left Arc. “They would if they were identical twins. At least, close enough to fool the forensic team if they weren’t alerted to the fact that they were dealing with twins.”

  Opie nodded. “There’s a test now where they can melt DNA to distinguish between twins.” He turned to me. “According to Grayson, Sonya had said that Roger was the spitting image of Ryan.”

  A feeling of dread started growing in my stomach. “Did you ask the police to run that DNA melt thing?”

  “They are doing it now, as we speak. But they’re a little too late.”

  Well, yeah, Sonya might still be alive if they’d known about the twin thing up front. But something told me that Opal meant more than that.

  “Wait a minute,” Arc said. “Now it sounds like you guys think Ryan had something to do with all this, but the killer was Grayson, wasn’t it? He’s the one in jail, isn’t he? I don’t care what you all think. Ryan isn’t the killer. I don’t care what the stupid DNA test comes back saying. He didn’t do it.”

  Lily put her hand on Arc’s shoulder. We had all jumped to the same conclusion, but it was pretty obvious that he hadn’t made that leap yet.

  It was kind of easy once you really thought about it. Especially with everyone who knew Ryan saying how much he’d changed since finding out he had a brother.

  Arc looked back into Lily’s eyes. “Ryan is innocent.”

  “No one is saying he isn’t, dear,” she said softly.