by Erin Hayes
“Exactly.”
“Let’s do it.”
She moved closer without prompting, and this time wrapping his arms around her felt natural, not forced and not like something she didn’t want him to do. He closed his eyes, as she rested her head on his shoulder. The scent of her hair brought back more memories than he was prepared to deal with, but he welcomed them. He let them flood through him, pushing away the muzzy bits of darkness that clung to the corners of his mind.
“Euros…”
“Yes.” Her voice was soft, and he didn’t open his eyes, didn’t want to break the spell.
“Your magic doesn’t seem to be working.”
“It works. I’m thinking.”
She shifted, and he opened his eyes to find her looking up at him, her dark eyes finding his. Her gaze was steady. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“You do?” He willed his heart to slow down, to remain calm, but that wasn’t happening. Not with her in his arms.
“Yeah. You’re pretty transparent at times.” She sighed against him. “It’s not the…”
It was his turn to sigh. “I know.” He took a breath, the Latin and Gaelic words rising in his mind, ready to cast the spell, and end her telling him once again it wasn’t time. He wasn’t sure his heart could take hearing that right now.
“But once this is all over…”
The words died in her throat, the magic still swirling around them, chaotic and confused, but he held her gaze.
She rose on her tiptoes and kissed his lips gently. The sensation of her mouth against his, her breath warm like a summer breeze. It was a brief kiss, but one that stirred so many emotions within. Looking deeply into his eyes, so many words left unsaid, she could only smile. It wasn’t the time—their time—not yet.
“Take me to Lansing’s. We have two murders to solve. And one to keep from happening.”
Chapter Twelve
Euros set them down in the back garden of Lansing’s house. The early autumn evening was chilly. The sky through the leafless trees was turning a deep indigo.
It didn’t help that he’d done this to her before. The whole magic business, this sending them through space, it still made her queasy. She clung to Euros for a minute, letting the swirling inside her come to a halt. Eventually it did, but it was an uneasy feeling. It was like at any moment all her cells could just be flung into the air and never come back together. Like the glue that normally held her together, had turned to water.
“You okay?”
She pushed away from Euros. “Yeah. I’ll be okay. Is there a limit on the number of times I can go through that without there being some sort of side effect? Like my fingers are going to end up on the wrong hands?”
Euros only smiled, and led the way under the trees, to the back door of Lansing’s house. “No need to worry. You’ll always have your fingers in the right place.”
There were no lights on inside of the house, and Jessica wondered if patrol was still outside. They probably were, and by now, they all knew she’d been booted off the cases, and that she’d gone rogue that afternoon. Even if nothing official was put out, gossip spread faster than wildfire among patrol. Heading around to the front undetected, and getting through the front door, would take more magic than she thought Euros would be comfortable doing in public.
“No, not the front door.”
Euros’s words, more than his voice, made her jump. “Stop reading my mind.”
He looked at her over his shoulder, still smiling. “Not reading your mind, Jess, but I know how you think.” He gestured with his chin toward the front of the house. “I can use magic, but the chances of someone seeing you, when I’m busy controlling another…well, it makes this a little riskier than last time. Besides…” She heard him trying the door handle. “I’ve always wanted to break into a building.”
“You can’t break…” She climbed up the last few steps beside him, reaching for his hand.
But it was clear, he wasn’t listening to her. Eyes closed, he held the door handle. In amazement, she watched as the metal began to glow an eerie blue. Then, effortlessly, he turned the handle and the door swung open.
“Entrez s'il vous plaît.”
“Just because you say it in French doesn’t make it right.”
With a grin, he held the door and she stepped over the threshold into the house. This was Lansing’s study, and she found herself standing behind his desk in the dusky light of the door open door. Euros quietly shut the door behind them, and the light faded. Fishing her flashlight from her pocket, she turned it on, letting the beam play around the room. To her right, was the wall where the torn page of the grimoire had been hanging, where Lansing had posed with the public.
“Okay. So, we’re looking for photos with female names.” She pulled the call list from Parnell’s case out of her pocket, smoothing out the folds of the pages. Too many pages. “Hopefully, this isn’t going to take forever.”
“If the pattern holds, yes, we only have a few hours to figure out the connection between the two.”
Her enthusiasm for this bizarre adventure suddenly dimmed. “But that doesn’t mean anything as far as keeping the next murder from happening. If you could do your thing with magic, make time stand still…it would give us more time.”
The look he gave her told her that wasn’t going to happen. Maybe there was a limit to what magic could do. He turned to the wall between the windows. “We might as well start here.”
She stood beside him, as they looked over the photos. Not all of them were signed, but she recognized several of the people in the pictures.
“This is the deputy mayor. Here’s Ross.” She made a face. “Lansing was instrumental in getting Ross promoted.”
“Yes.” Euros’s answer was just a murmur. “I remember.”
He would. It was part and parcel of the story that ran like a muddy undercurrent in their relationship. With an effort, she pushed those thoughts down.
The buzz of her cell phone startled her. Euros frowned, as she pulled the phone out of her pocket. The display was Derek’s number. With a shrug, she watched Euros’s frown deepened, as she lifted the phone to her ear.
Derek’s voice made her wince. “Where the hell have you been? Where are you?”
“I can’t tell you. But I need your help.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
“You won’t tell me where you are, but you’re asking for my help? That’s ballsy, even for you.”
In the background, she could hear sounds from the precinct. Fisher’s voice came to her loud and clear. It wasn’t hard to imagine him lumbering around the room, his face a dangerous shade of crimson.
“Fisher’s having a meltdown, and for the first time ever, Ross has lost his cool. You’re in the deepest shit…”
“Do you have the evidence list from Parnell’s? I need to know if they found anything out of the ordinary.”
Derek’s silence didn’t give her much hope, but then the sounds in the background grew faint, and then were cut off by the clang of a metal door. Stairwell. Good old Derek.
“Okay. I’m risking my career here even talking to you, much less telling you what forensics found. But I’m a fool, so here it goes. There was nothing out in left field. The cleaning staff apparently does a great job. There was very little trace at the scene, which is odd in, and of, itself.”
Someone shouted Derek’s name, and then the connection went muffled. For a second, she was afraid her heart was going to jump out of her chest. Then Derek was back.
“Very little trace. Just a few stray hairs in the bedroom, mostly Parnell’s. None belonging to anyone other than the staff. Nothing to indicate anyone was in the room with him. Certainly, nothing to indicate that he’d put up a fight. No trace under his nails.”
“Anything else?”
“Just some fur from one of the coats in Parnell’s closet. He apparently gives them like candy to his lady friends.”
Her heart, already pounding at a dang
erous rate, sped up. “What kind of fur?”
Euros moved closer, almost standing on her toes. She held the phone away from her ear so he could hear.
“Standard. Mink, mostly. Did you know he has an actual cold storage unit in his penthouse?”
“Mostly mink?” Beside her, Euros was practically vibrating. He motioned, nodded his head, but she shrugged. I don’t know what that means. “Anything else?”
“Sable, beaver, fox…apparently, he keeps a furrier on retainer. For being…”
Euros grabbed her hand so hard it hurt. He mouthed fox.
“Derek, did you say fox?”
“Yeah. Fox.”
Nodding at Euros, she pulled her hand out of his death grip.
“Only…” Silence again, agonizing silence.
“Only what? What, Derek?” Euros’s eyes were locked on hers, and she could feel him willing Derek to say something, anything.
“Hold on.” Another pause. “Huh…CSI didn’t list any fox furs in cold storage. Must have been transferred from us, or CSI. Site contamination, most likely.”
“Jesus. Thanks, Derek. I appreciate this… more than you know. I gotta go, but I promise, I’ll be in touch.” She flipped the phone shut.
“Euros, fox fur found at both scenes. You almost broke my hand when you heard that. What does it mean?” Nothing rang a bell, but she had the nagging sense she was missing something, something important. But the harder she tried to grab that thought, the more ephemeral it became, until it was gone altogether.
But Euros had moved away from her, looking briefly at the photos that lined the mantel. Confused, lost, she followed him. “These are all cronies of Lansing’s. Minor functionaries, all political individuals.” Abruptly, he turned away.
“You don’t think it’s any of those? What’s the deal with the fox fur?”
He moved past her into the hall, his black coat swirling behind him. “I don’t think it’s someone high profile, not someone who worked with Lansing. And the fur…”
Catching up with him in the hall, she shined her light on the photos while keeping an eye on the front entrance. She expected patrol to throw open the door at any moment.
“I need to think about the fur for a minute. Here, look at these. As close as the news made the two of them seem, Lansing and Parnell didn’t have that much in common. Lansing helped Parnell when he could, with real estate deals, and such. But they didn’t travel in the same circles, socially or politically. Here…”
Euros pointed at the photos. “Lansing tended to bring people that he considered lower on the social ladder, into his home. The poses, the body language, all suggest he’s trying to show he’s one of the people.” He turned to her, his eyes almost burning with intensity.
“His election was controversial, divided the city. Since the election, he made a strong effort to show the world that he’s one of the people, to bring the ‘regular’ class into his home. Trying to make himself look like one of them.”
“But Parnell didn’t give a rat’s ass about anything, but status though.” She looked down at the list, and her heart sank. “This is the crème de la crème of Chicago society. None of these people are in any of these photos.”
They moved down the hall, scanning the photos against the list in her hand. This was impossible. She was ready to ask Euros for magical assistance, when he stopped suddenly, and she bumped into him. “What?”
“This…” He pointed to the empty spot on the wall. “This was the photo with the basketball player, and his girlfriend.”
“Right. It’s…” She frowned, trying to think why it would be missing. “Oh, wait. It’s the one you used…”
“To identify the Materia Magica.”
They maneuvered around each other in the narrow hall, and ended up back at Lansing’s desk. She scooped up the photo, and they looked at the image.
“So, it’s Lansing and his wife, and David Hudson, and some woman.” Jessica pointed to the smiling woman in the photo. She was petite, dwarfed by Lansing, who was average height, and Hudson, who was well over six feet. Her most striking feature, besides a wide smile, was a cascade of red hair, loose waves tossed over one shoulder. “I don’t know her name but, wait…here…there’s more than just his name on the photo.”
The autograph scrawled in the corner contained David Hudson’s name in large masculine letters. And below, in smaller, much more feminine handwriting was another name.
“Stacy Kane.”
“Anastasia, with the gallery, Anastasia…”
Euros nodded, then pulled the packing slip from Parnell’s penthouse out of his pocket. It wasn’t necessary; the curls and swirls were there, the loops in Kane all present and accounted for.
“So, we found one person who’s got a connection between Lansing and Parnell. It’s a weak connection at best. She seems to have had a business deal with Parnell, at least to supply him with things from her gallery.”
“And she was in Lansing’s house. It is weak, but it’s a start.”
Euros took the photo from her, peering at it. She had questions, but he held up one hand. So, she held the flashlight on the photo, waiting, idly wondering if he could see in the dark without the flashlight, so she could turn it off. It made her nervous to have it on. It was fully dark outside, and she felt like the narrow beam of her penlight was like a beacon, announcing to everyone within a six-block radius that she’d broken in, and she wasn’t supposed to be there.
“Fuck. Here…” She jumped at the sound of his voice, but he ignored her. He was pointing to Hudson. “The buckle on his belt.”
She leaned closer, peering at the man’s belt. “Oh, my God. You think it’s the missing piece of the grimoire?”
“Yeah, I suspect it is.” Euros took the frame from her, turning it over, pulling off the backing and taking out the photo. “I need to show this to Mixt…” The photo disappeared into his coat. “He might be able to identify whether it’s the buckle or not.”
She started to protest being subjected to another magical trip through the ether, but he was already pulling her against him. “No, wait…”
“No. We don’t have time…” He jerked his head toward the door that led to the front of the house. “And we’re not alone.”
Sounds were suddenly magnified. The sound of a key scraping in the lock. The door swinging open. The sudden sound of a car passing by. The scrape of a foot on the floor. Then the flash of a light down the hall. And the sound of a police radio crackling static.
“Shit. Patrol must have seen my light. They’ll see us…”
“But we’re already gone.”
And they were. She should be used to it by now, but the feeling of having her body reduced to individual atoms, and then being flung through space was just as alarming this time as it had been the first time, or the second.
Then she was back in one piece, hanging on to Euros. Tentatively she let go, looking down at her hands, flexing her fingers.
“All your fingers in the right place?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.” Her legs didn’t feel like they wanted to hold her up, but somehow, she managed to stay vertical. The world gradually stopped spinning, something she was profoundly grateful for. She found her balance, and moved away from Euros. The world around her seemed slightly less intimidating than it had the last time. Maybe knowing where she was going this time helped. Or the relief of knowing Euros had whisked them away from being discovered in Lansing’s house, overshadowed her fear of this unknown world.
“So, you’re back.”
She turned around to find Mixt, looking even more ethereal than she remembered. As he moved toward them, his white robes swirled behind him. Euros stepped forward.
“Yes. And we need your help.”
“And you needed to bring her here again?” Disdain dripped from his words, but his expression betrayed concern.
“This concerns you and I, just as much it concerns Jessica. We’ve been over this, Mixt.”
“Fine.
What have you found out?”
“I need you to look at this photo.” Euros pulled the photo out of his pocket and handed it to Mixt.
Mixt took the photo, staring intently at the image. His eyes widened, and for a moment he went completely still. He looked up at Euros, and as an afterthought, at Jessica. “The buckle…”
Mixt glanced back at the photo, in horror. “I can’t be sure… No one has ever seen the buckle, not in our time as Gatekeepers.” His gazed moved over the image, so intensely that Jessica almost expected the photo to burst into flames. Finally, he looked up into her eyes. Not Euros’s. Hers.
“Is there more information from the other murders? Other evidence?”
She swallowed hard, intimidated more than she wanted to admit by Mixt’s direct question. But Euros’s silence pushed her forward.
“The two men were in the upper echelons of Chicago society, but socially, they traveled in very different circles. The number of people who might have known both men is endless, but when it comes right down to it, there’s only a few people closely connected to both.”
“I see.” Mixt nodded, encouraging her to continue.
“One person, in particular…” She pointed to the photo. “The woman in that photo. She appears to have a direct connection with Parnell. She ran an art gallery that was demolished when he built a block of luxury apartments in the area. Oddly enough, her gallery was also the one that supplied Parnell with art for his personal use, and for his public spaces.”
She paused. Mixt’s arched eyebrow told her he had something to say.
“But the man in this photo is wearing the silver buckle. To me…” Mixt drew himself up, nostrils flaring slightly. The last thing she wanted was to have Mixt be upset with her, but she was tired of this pissing match. “It seems as though you are overlooking the obvious.”
“Listen, Mixt. Whatever is killing people in my world wants to get into your world. It seems to me that we should be…” She took a step closer to Mixt. In that instant, her mind came up against what felt like a brick wall. The words she wanted to say became locked in her throat, refusing to come out.
