“We can do it,” I said. “We can catch this killer.”
“Maybe he’s not even dead,” said Lachlan. “Maybe he ran away from home, and we’ll hunt him down, and that will be that.”
* * *
We arrived at the summer home of the Remington family, which was tucked into a beautifully landscaped corner of a tasteful housing development to the north of Sea City. All the dragons lived up north here, near the border of Delaware. The south part of the city was where the drakes, vampires, and mages concentrated. Sea City had a reputation as a place friendly to magical creatures.
The house was covered in wooden siding that had been stained dark brown. It managed to looked subdued, almost cozy, even though it was practically the size of my hotel. That display of tasteful extravagance was typical amongst dragons.
Once, it had been my world, but now I didn’t fit in here at all.
Lachlan knocked on the door.
It was answered by a woman in a maid’s uniform. She took us around the house and out back, where there was an oval-shaped pool flanked by bamboo-slat chairs.
There was a pavilion set up next to the pool, and Fletcher’s parents, Viola and Richard Remington, sat beneath it, a breakfast spread set out on a rustic-looking wicker table.
“The detectives are here,” said the maid.
Both Richard and Viola stood up, wiping their mouths with snowy white cloth napkins.
They shook our hands.
“So good of you to come,” said Richard.
“We’ve heard all about the good work you did with the tragic case earlier this spring,” said Viola.
Guessed Lachlan was right, then.
“Won’t you sit down?” said Richard, gesturing to two seats opposite their table.
We sat.
Lachlan took off his sunglasses, tucked them inside his suit jacket, and lounged in the chair. He gazed over the Remingtons’ heads, at the ocean in the distance. “So, this son of yours who’s missing. Is he in trouble a lot?”
I was surprised by the way he’d brought up such a painful subject, and by his casual demeanor. But I figured it was calculated. Lachlan was good at getting people to spill their secrets. It wasn’t any magical ability, just an uncanny effect he had on other people. He was a good detective.
Viola clutched her napkin. “Excuse me?” She was obviously offended.
Lachlan sat up in his chair and gazed into her eyes. “You know, I’ve taken parents to identify the bodies of their children before,” he said softly. “More times than I can count.”
Viola drew back. “Listen, we were under the impression that—”
“You know how many of them come back for a second look? How many of them ask the attendant to pull the sheet back one more time, so that they can look at that face again?” he said.
“We obviously don’t,” said Richard in a tight voice.
Viola’s face was ashen.
“Almost all of them,” Lachlan said, focusing on the ocean again. “It’s not because it’s the last time they’re going to see their baby’s face again, it’s because they’re hoping that if they look again, that it won’t be true, that they won’t see their child lying there, they’ll see some stranger. They want—even in the face of damning evidence—for it not to be true.”
Viola put a hand over her mouth. “I don’t understand why we’re—”
“Let me be clear then, Mrs. Remington.” Lachlan turned back to her. “Your son is only missing. There’s no body been found. There’s no evidence at all that he’s dead. And yet you called the station because your boy was murdered. That reads oddly to me. I can’t think of one parent who’d be convinced that her son was dead without evidence. Unless, of course, she had some sort of inside knowledge of what happened to him.”
Viola’s eyes widened. “You can’t be saying that you think…” She looked at her husband. “That you suspect…?”
“I think maybe you should leave,” said Richard, and his voice had a dragon-y rumble to it.
Lachlan didn’t look afraid. He didn’t make any move to get up. “Why are you so sure he’s dead?”
“We aren’t sure,” said Viola. “But we can’t find him anywhere, not since last weekend. And it isn’t like him, not to come home. He might sometimes leave for a few nights, but he always calls to say he won’t be back. We can’t get in touch with him.”
“And his cell phone,” said Richard. “We tried to trace it, but it’s nowhere to be found.” He still seemed angry. “Honestly, we came to you for help, not to be accused of—”
“I’m sorry, sir,” said Lachlan, “but I wouldn’t be any kind of detective if I wasn’t thorough.”
“That’s true, I suppose,” said Viola. She reached over for her husband’s hand. “We just want him back. Do you really think he might be alive?”
“I think that until we can find any evidence of his death, we should think positively,” said Lachlan.
“But there won’t be evidence,” said Richard. “This is obviously a slayer. What else could it have been?”
“A kidnapping?” said Lachlan. “You have some accumulated assets.” He gestured. “Perhaps someone wants a payoff.”
“They’d have contacted us by now,” said Richard. “Now, if you aren’t going to search for this slayer—”
“Maybe he’s right,” said Viola, looking hopeful. “Maybe Fletcher is alive.”
“Do you have a recent photograph of him?” said Lachlan. “Something we could use to show people during our inquiries?”
Richard and Viola looked at each other. “Maybe inside, there might be something,” she said.
“On my phone,” said Richard. “I don’t know about any physical photographs.
“Digital is fine,” said Lachlan. “You can text it to me. Could we look at his room?”
* * *
Fletcher’s bed wasn’t made. The covers were in a ball in the center of the bed, tangled up with the wiring from some video game controllers. The bed faced an enormous flat screen television that seemed to take up the entire wall it hung on.
The room was relatively clean and nondescript except for the bed. There were some surfing posters on the wall. A bookshelf filled with video games. A desk with a closed laptop sitting on it.
Lachlan was looking at his phone screen. He handed it to me.
I looked at a picture of a good-looking man with blond hair in a wet suit. He was holding onto a surfboard made from light wood with a tribal pattern decorating it.
“I was under the impression you couldn’t really surf on the Atlantic Ocean,” said Lachlan, raising an eyebrow.
“I think sometimes before storms the waves get big enough,” I said, shrugging.
Lachlan took the phone back. “So that’s Fletcher. God, I hope it’s not a slayer killing.”
I went over to the laptop and opened it. I touched the mouse pad.
“It’s not like I don’t know that there are slayers in town,” said Lachlan. “Hell, I know the bars they hang out in. I know who’s a slayer and who isn’t, and I’d arrest them all if I had a shred of evidence. They kill people to sell their corpses, and I can’t think of anything more despicable.” His nostrils flared.
The laptop screen came to life. Enter password, it said.
“But there’s no evidence at all,” he said. “Worst I can do sometimes is bust them for illegal firearms, but that’s not always the case. Lots of them have permits to carry guns. And then there’s all the ones using arrows and stuff. What am I supposed to do about that? So, if it’s a slayer, I don’t know how I’m going to find the killer.”
I was still staring at the computer. “I thought we were supposed to think positive.”
“No,” he said. “They’re probably right. He’s probably dead. It’s been over a week. Unless he ran off on his own somewhere, and what kid leaves all this money behind?”
“The laptop’s password protected.”
“Try ‘surf,’” said Lachlan.
“That’s not going to work,” I said, but I tried it. No dice. The password was also not “wave” or “breaker” or “surfinUSA.” After exhausting my surf lingo, I shut the lid.
“This is crap,” said Lachlan. “The captain is going to hand me my ass, because I’ll never close this case.”
“You don’t know that,” I said. “Maybe he had enemies. Maybe he was cheating on his girlfriend and she got angry and killed him and hid the body.”
“I thought you said that dragons don’t take the relationships they have before they find their mates very seriously.”
“Well, not usually,” I said. Finding one’s mate was all-encompassing. Once dragons were mated, they were physically drawn to each other to the exclusion of everything else. In comparison, the dalliances they had in their youth paled. “But sometimes, before you find your mate, you think that whatever it is you’re experiencing in the moment is actually real, and you might go overboard.”
“You sound like you’re talking from personal experience.”
“Sort of,” I said.
He gave me a thin-lipped smile. “So anything you feel for someone not your mate isn’t ‘real?’”
“I didn’t say that,” I said.
“You kind of did,” he said, crossing to the bookshelf and sorting through the video game cases. “Yet my glacial speed is the issue here.”
“You know, I said that this morning before I’d even had coffee, and I feel like there should be a statute of limitations on bringing up things that I say when I’m half asleep.”
He opened up one of the cases and then shut it. He put it back on the shelf.
“Look, you know that what I felt for Alastair wasn’t real. You know I would never mean that about myself,” I said in a quiet voice.
“So, your mating wasn’t real, but other dragons’ mating is?” He opened another case. “What are the chances he hid a suicide note in one of these? That would make this open and shut.”
“Stop being an ass. How can you be so cavalier? This is a person’s life we’re talking about,” I said. “And I’m not saying that dragon mating is only real for some people and not others. The physical effects are real for everyone. The emotions that develop aren’t a foregone conclusion, however. Most dragons are in love with their mates, but I’m not.”
He paused. “I know.” He set the case back on the shelf. He sighed. “Forget it, okay?”
I sighed too.
He took a deep breath. “All right, well maybe we could find out whether the stuff that slayers are selling is, you know, Fletcher. Go out, have cops make buys and then do DNA tests. We find him, we trace it back to the slayer that killed him, boom.”
“You really think he’s dead?” I said.
“I think—”
“Hey,” interrupted a voice behind us.
We both turned to see a guy who looked a lot like Fletcher, only with longer hair, in the doorway of the room.
“What are you doing in my brother’s room?” said the guy.
Lachlan flashed his badge. “We’re with the SCPD. We’re looking into your brother’s disappearance.”
“That’s stupid,” said the brother. “Who let you in? We don’t need your help, so just get out of here now.”
“We came at the request of your parents,” I said, stepping forward. “I’m Penny Caspian. This is Detective Lachlan Flint. What’s your name?”
“Finn,” said the brother. “But I don’t care who you are. And I don’t believe my parents let you in, either. I don’t want to be part of some glitzy media circus, like what happened to those other dragon families this spring. Don’t investigate this. He’s already dead, and no matter what you do, you won’t bring him back.”
“We’re here with permission,” said Lachlan. “We’re not leaving. Did your brother have any enemies?”
Finn shook his head. “You’re cockroaches. I’m going to have you removed from the premises.” He hurried down the hall.
I peered after him. “Well, he was pleasant.”
“Yeah,” said Lachlan.
“Of course, probably anyone would be in a bad mood after losing his brother.”
“True,” said Lachlan. “Still. Suspect number one.”
“What? Seriously? Just because he was rude?”
“It’s classic, Penny. It’s Cain and Abel. Romulus and Remus. Claudius and Hamlet’s father.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said.
“Brother against brother,” said Lachlan. “There’s always some reason to hate your siblings.”
“I wouldn’t know,” I said. “I’m an only child.”
“Me too,” said Lachlan.
I shook my head slowly.
He nodded at the laptop. “Grab that. Let’s see if they’ll let us take that to the station and get someone to crack the password.”
I picked it up and tucked it under my arm.
* * *
We were given permission to take the laptop, and we left without running across Finn Remington anywhere else. His guilt or innocence aside, he’d wanted us to leave, and we’d done that.
Lachlan drove me back to the hotel.
I was a little disappointed, because I sort of had hoped we’d go back to the station and spitball some ideas, get cracking on the case right away. But I didn’t know how to bring that up, so I said nothing.
I just got out of the car, waved, and went inside.
From the lobby window, I watched him drive away, and I wondered if it wouldn’t be smarter to simply cut my losses and walk away from any romantic entanglement there. Tell him it would be better if we remained friends.
It would be, anyway. Less messy.
But I was afraid that things had possibly gone too far to simply back down now. There were feelings and expectations lingering between us, and they weren’t going to go away just because they were messy.
Of course, I couldn’t tell, but maybe that was exactly what he was trying to do. And maybe if I followed suit, all of this would fade out.
Which wasn’t what I wanted, not really, but maybe—
My phone rang.
I pulled it out of my pocket. It was Felicity. “Hello?” I said.
Panting erupted in my ear. “Penny?” A desperate whisper.
“Felicity, what’s wrong? Is it Jensen?”
“I’m in the parking garage in my apartment building. You have to get here. I need you.” She was whispering and breathing hard.
“What’s going on?”
“Oh, shit. They heard me.” And she hung up.
Or maybe she was cut off. I didn’t know.
She’d said ‘they,’ so that seemed to rule out the idea that her boyfriend Jensen was attacking her, but I didn’t trust the guy. Couldn’t help it. No one was good enough for my best friend.
Still, maybe it was him working with a buddy.
She said she was in the parking garage.
I headed out the door, half running for my car.
Wait.
Damn it.
Keys.
I scrambled back into the hotel. My car keys were all the way upstairs in my apartment. What the hell?
I raced up the steps and threw open the door to my apartment. I hurried back the hall to my bedroom, snatched the keys off the bedside table, and then ran as fast as I could back down the steps, through the lobby, and back outside.
It was shaping up to be a warm day, and the seagulls careened cheerily over my head as I rushed down the sidewalk to my car.
The warmth of the sun hit my shoulders.
When I opened the door to my car and slid inside, the interior of my car was already warm. I fitted the keys into the ignition and hit the button to lower both the windows.
Then I backed out of the parking space, turned, and burned rubber out onto Atlantic Avenue.
Felicity lived a few blocks up. It was too far to walk.
It was May, and traffic wasn’t as bad as it could have been in the summer, but th
ere were still more cars than I wanted.
I was stuck over in the right lane, and I needed to get all the way over to the left lane.
I also would have liked to be going about ninety miles an hour, but I was stuck going about forty.
I nudged my nose out, trying to get into the other lane.
And nearly got my side mirror taken off for my trouble when the car next to me sped past at lightning speed.
I need to be following him, I thought. Damn it.
I watched as that car sped down the road, sliding in and out of lanes, somehow finding all the spaces between the cars and getting free of this mess.
Why couldn’t I do that? I had never really done a lot of driving before. I’d been rich. I’d had a driver. And Alastair had refused to let me drive. He said I was a disaster on the road. He was a dick like that a lot.
Ha! There. A space between cars.
I slammed on my blinker and swerved into the lane to my left, barely making it in time.
Ahead of me, the next stoplight was yellow.
It switched to red.
Everyone ahead of me stopped, so I smashed on my brakes too.
I tapped on the steering wheel. Geez. Felicity needed me and here I was, stuck in freaking traffic.
Maybe I should call her again?
No, she said that they had heard her. She was hiding. A ringing cell phone would only draw attention to her.
But what the hell was going on?
And what if I was too late?
The light switched back to green, and I had never been so happy in my life. I surged forward, and the cars to my left streamed past me, revealing a wide open left hand lane.
Thank God.
I switched lanes again and started to pick up speed.
Ahead of me, the next light turned yellow.
Oh, no. Screw that.
I was going through that damned yellow light. I was just going to speed up and fly through that thing—
It turned red.
Damn it.
I screeched to a stop, inches from the bumper of the car ahead of me.
Was I going to get caught at every red light from here to there?
Actually, probably yes. They seemed to be timed that way. It was either all green lights from here to Delaware, or it was a switch to red, one right after the other.
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