Volatile Bonds

by Jaye Wells

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The next afternoon, Morales and I arrived early for the six o’clock wedding. By the time we got there, people were still rushing around, getting things ready, which lent a frantic energy to the Orpheum Theater. Of course, the solar eclipse might have had something to do with it too. Adepts were always more sensitive and magic more unstable when big celestial events occurred, like eclipses or blue moons.

  “You look good in a suit,” I said to Morales as we climbed the steps to the Orpheum’s balcony. “You look like one of those sexy tycoons from Baba’s romance novels.”

  He shot me a side-eye. “You clean up pretty nice, yourself, Cupcake.”

  It had taken two hours of trying on dresses for Pen to find something that fit both of our requirements. I demanded that it conceal weaponry and Pen wanted to be sure it flattered my assets. We’d finally found a sleeveless red dress with a deep neckline and something Pen called an “umpire waist.” The skirt was long and flowy with a knee-high slit.

  Judging from the looks Morales kept shooting my cleavage, Pen had accomplished her goal. And considering the amount of firepower I had hidden in my underpants, I’d succeeded in mine, as well.

  “But why are you walking like that?” he added.

  I looked down at the black high heels. “Pen wouldn’t let me wear my boots. She made me wear these.” They were only two inches tall, but I felt like I had two skyscrapers attached to my feet. “Also, I have a lot of metal strapped to my thighs.”

  “What?”

  I waved my tiny purse. “I don’t know why women bother with these. It only has enough space for lipstick and one lousy knife. I had to get creative and use a garter belt as a holster.”

  He missed a step. “Garter belt?”

  “Sure.” I walked ahead of him onto the balcony area. “It chafes something fierce, but it’s good for holding my Glock and an extra magazine.”

  “That’s not all it’s good for,” he whispered to himself.

  “Are you coming?” I said over my shoulder.

  He stopped and speared me a glare. “You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?”

  I shot him a saucy smile. “Maybe.”

  “Devil woman.”

  A loud crash on the floor below us destroyed the moment. We both ran to the balcony railing. The sound of a high-pitched voice yelling echoed through the cavernous space.

  “Goddamn it, Leon, be careful.”

  A slim man wearing a white tuxedo with a sparkly lavender cummerbund stood onstage with his hands on his hips. He was yelling at his assistant, who was rearranging some chairs on the floor. He also wore a white tux but his cummerbund and tie were black. He also looked to be on the verge of tears. “I’m sorry, Stefan!”

  “Must be the wedding planners,” Morales said.

  “Charming.” I dismissed the arguing pair and focused on surveying the room as a whole. “This place is pretty cool.”

  The people who renovated the Orpheum had decided not to polish all the surfaces or paint over all of the signs of decay. They’d cleaned it up and shored up the structure, but they hadn’t replaced all the seating on the floor or restore the chipped mural on the ceiling. The entire effect was a sort of post-apocalyptic chic.

  “I just wish Aphrodite had chosen an easier space for us to surveil.”

  Behind Stefan, a brand-new purple velvet curtain hung across the stage. In the center was the logo of the theater, a large golden lyre. Every now and then, a banging sound would sneak out from behind the curtain and Stefan would yell something. Apparently, he had other people working back there to prepare the backdrop for Aphrodite’s nuptials.

  “I used to sneak into this place in high school. The backstage area is basically a maze.”

  He cocked a brow at me. “Breaking and entering? I’m shocked.”

  “Hardly. There used to be huge holes in the walls. You could just walk right in. It was pretty cool if you didn’t mind stumbling over homeless people having sex.”

  “Weirdly, that is something I mind.”

  I shrugged. “Potayto-potahto.”

  He nudged my arm. “Let’s go check out the backstage, then. Make sure there aren’t any horned women hiding in a supply closet.”

  He was joking, but the longer I was in that theater, the more my instincts warned me to be careful. Word was, Aphrodite had invited more than two hundred people to the wedding. That list included everyone from coven leaders to business associates and cops all the way up to the mayor. The potential dramas of mixing all those different strata of society was bad enough, but add the increased magical energy of a large-scale arcane ritual happening during an eclipse, and you had yourself a recipe for fireworks. Not to mention, neither of us trusted that the Fangshi were done making statements. If they wanted to send a message, this would be the place to do it.

  “You look like you’re thinking,” he said. “I thought I warned you about that.”

  “Just thinking through the variables,” I said. “When’s the boss getting here?”

  Dixon and McGinty were already in their sedan across the street from the theater to have an extra set of eyes on the entrance. Shadi was on the roof of the building behind the theater. She had the back exit covered. Mez was an invited guest, and he was bringing Gardner as his “date.”

  “Gardner said they’d be here thirty minutes before the ceremony.”

  We’d originally all planned to arrive together, but at the last minute, Gardner decided it would look too suspicious to have the entire MEA task force arrive en masse.

  I looked at the exits around the building as we walked through the lobby. Security guards in tuxedos were already manning the door. They were Aphrodite’s army, not law enforcement, so we couldn’t count on them pitching in if we had an emergency situation.

  “Relax,” Morales said.

  “I’ll relax once this is over and I can take off these shoes.”

  We reached a door that led to the dressing rooms. Two of Aphrodite’s guards stood in front of it like well-dressed statues. I didn’t recognize either of them, because I usually dealt with Gregor. When we reached them, one raised a hand. “No one goes backstage.”

  I pulled my badge from the tiny purse. Morales opened his suit jacket, where his ID was hanging from the inside pocket. “Is Gregor around?” I asked “He knows us.”

  He shook his head. “We’re on strict orders not to let anyone back there. Period.”

  “Call him—or Aphrodite,” Morales said.

  The guy shook his head. “No can do. The Hierophant is meditating.”

  “What the hell are you doing here?” a voice called from behind us.

  We turned to see Duffy barreling our way.

  “Here we go,” Morales said under his breath.

  “Hey, Duffy!” I called, all friendly. “You clean up nice.”

  He wore a gray suit that looked like it had been in a heap on his floor until about fifteen minutes earlier. The bags under his eyes told me he’d probably been up all night, too. I almost felt bad for the bastard, but his expression told me he was about to ruin that, too.

  “I thought you were told to stay away from my case.”

  I raised my hands. “This is a wedding, not a crime scene. And last I checked, we were invited.” I nudged Morales, who produced our invitations from his jacket pocket with a flourish of cream paper and green ribbons.

  Duffy squinted at them. “Pains in my ass,” he muttered. “You know, when this is all over, we need to have us a little chat about your friend Alexander Hung.”

  “You’re mistaken,” Morales said. “He’s the mayor’s friend, not ours.”

  Duffy crossed his arms and got that look he wore when he knew something we didn’t. I braced myself out of habit. “Had some real interesting things to say about you,” he said to Morales. “Real interesting.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Morales played it cool.

  “Mmm hmm. Said you used to be part of the Fangshi. Undercover, like.”<
br />
  “That’s true, Duffy,” he said. “I was undercover in Los Angeles for many years. I helped put away a lot of the Fangshi, too, so you’d best take anything one of their soldiers says about me with a massive grain of salt.”

  Duffy sucked his teeth. “He said you were obsessed with bringing down the Fangshi. Said this whole case was a witch hunt.”

  I snorted. “If this is just a witch hunt, why are so many bodies popping up?”

  “According to Hung, another coven’s responsible for the murders.”

  “You know, Duffy,” I said, “criminals tend to lie. It’s not generally a good idea to take their word for things.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I spent most of last night poring over the evidence—or lack thereof, I should say—that Gardner dropped off. Thanks for nothing, by the way.”

  “A lot of that was gathered by your own CSI team, so talk to them,” Morales shot back.

  “Anyway,” Duffy continued, “I can’t believe you two were working the Chinese angle so hard.”

  “Why’s that?” I demanded.

  “Seems to me someone was trying too hard to make it look like the Fangshi did Krystal.”

  I glanced at Morales uncertainly. Just last night, we’d discussed that possibility too. “Did Hung make any guesses about who’s responsible when you spoke to him?”

  “Said he didn’t know. He had an alibi for both murders. As did his associate, Yü Nü, who came by to make a statement last night as well.” He shuddered. “She’s something else.”

  I grinned at him. “If she ever offers you some duck, say no.”

  “Huh?” He shook himself. “Anyway, I checked out the image Dixon sent over of the man who delivered the teapot to Krystal. You were wrong on that, too.”

  “How so?” Despite Duffy’s obvious enjoyment of pointing out our alleged errors on the case, I was interested to hear his take on it.

  “Turns out he’s most likely Korean.”

  My brows popped up. “How can you tell?”

  “You got the picture on your phone?” he asked.

  I nodded and removed the images Dixon texted me. It was a frozen frame from the video capture at the massage parlor. In the first one, the Asian man was bending down to place the gift box by the door with his left hand. In the next frame, he was standing up. He wore a sleeveless black T-shirt, skinny jeans, and a courier bag strapped across his chest.

  Duffy tapped on the second one. “Here, enlarge it.” The three of us bent over my phone to look at the zoomed in picture. “See?” Duffy said. “That’s a South Korean flag on his bag.”

  I squinted at the picture. “I’ll be damned.” I zoomed out again until we could see the whole image. Sure enough, there was a patch on the bag that looked like a Korean flag. “But it’s hardly conclusive evidence. Who says the Fangshi don’t have a couple of Koreans working for them?”

  “Actually, the Korean and Chinese wizards hate each other,” Morales said, almost to himself.

  “Wait.” I stared at the image again, holding it up to the light. “Where have we seen him?” I handed it to Morales.

  He shrugged. “Could be anyone.”

  “Regardless,” Duffy said, “I’m convinced you two were barking up the wrong tree here. And I think I know why.”

  “Cut the shit and say your piece,” I snapped.

  “I had a feeling in my gut from the beginning that the MEA task force was playing dirty. I knew something shady went down on that ship a couple months back, and now I got wizards telling me things about Morales’s activities in Los Angeles. You ask me, it’s only a matter of time until your entire team goes down.”

  “Actually, no one asked you,” I said. “In fact, if you’ll recall, both the Charm Parsons case and this one were originally yours, but you couldn’t handle them. Maybe if you spent more time solving murders and less time lobbing accusations at your fellow law enforcement officers, you wouldn’t be drowning in the Cauldron.”

  “And maybe if you spent more time following the law and less time pursuing your personal vendettas, you wouldn’t be on the verge of an IA investigation.”

  My stomach dropped. “What the fuck?”

  He grinned. “Tomorrow morning, I’m delivering the statements from both Mr. Hung and Yü Nü as well as evidence I gathered about the Parsons case to Internal Affairs. I can’t work this up the chain at MEA, but I can bring you down from inside the BPD. It won’t be long until they bring in the MEA brass, and then it’ll be bye-bye time for the whole team.”

  “You son of a bitch,” I seethed. “What is your problem?”

  He stepped up, getting in my space.

  “Watch yourself,” Morales growled.

  I waved him off and stepped closer to Duffy. “You best not come at me unless you’re prepared to follow through.”

  “That’s your problem, Prospero,” Duffy said. “You think you’re still on the street corner, jockeying for little slices of real estate with other two-bit wizes. But you’re in law enforcement now, sweetheart. There’s rules and they’re the only thing that separates us from the junkies and hustlers.”

  “You’re wrong,” I said, “because if I was still on the street?” I placed my hands on the lapels of his jacket, enjoying it when he flinched. “And you told me you were about to snitch on me?” I looked him in the eye and shook my head sadly. “You’d be praying for a saline enema by the time I was done.”

  He knocked my hands away and stepped back. “You’ll never be anything more than a criminal just like your uncle.” He rounded on Morales. “And what’s your excuse? Fucking murderer.”

  The word hung in the air like a curse.

  “Duffy?” a voice called from down the hall. We turned to see Gardner striding toward us. Her high heels clicked purposefully against the concrete floor. She wore a black dress that flowed around her body, making her look like some sort of avenging spirit. Behind her, Mez, dressed in a black suit with a green silk waistcoat, rushed to keep up with her.

  “What the hell is going on?” she demanded when they reached us.

  “Duffy here was just telling us his theories about the case,” Morales said, cool as can be.

  Her gaze moved from Morales to Duffy and to me, as if trying to see the lies on us. Finally, she turned on Duffy. “I promised your captain we wouldn’t interfere in the investigation. If you need help, you’ll need to find it elsewhere.”

  I bit my lips to hide my smile at the way Gardner maneuvered the conversation to leave Duffy no wiggle room.

  “Understood,” he said, his voice tight. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to go take my seat for the ceremony.” With a final nod to Gardner, he turned on his heel and walked away without so much as a glace toward the rest of us.

  Once he was out of earshot, Gardner said, “What was that really about?”

  There was no point in lying to her. “He’s planning on launching an IA investigation for the Parsons case, and he’s using statements from the Chinese to indicate we mishandled this one, as well.”

  “Why’s he going after Kate?” Mez demanded.

  “Because she’s still BPD,” Gardner said. “This way, he gets around me because the IA investigators will go straight to my brass.” She put her hands on her hips and looked down at the floor for a moment, thinking over her options. “Why now?” she said.

  It was the perfect time for Morales to come clean. Once Duffy’s report happened, it would only be a matter of time until the L.A. incident came to light. I looked at him, pleading with him silently to tell her. But he wouldn’t meet my eyes. “He said he thinks I have a vendetta against the Fangshi so we were pushing the investigation in that direction so I could harass them.”

  It was only part of the truth.

  A string quartet started playing in the theater’s lobby. It was almost show time.

  “All right,” Gardner said, “we’ll deal with this later. Prospero?”

  I nodded.

  “Don’t worry about this. We’ve g
ot your back.” Behind her, Mez nodded emphatically.

  “Thanks, sir.”

  I chanced a glance at Morales. He looked like he wanted to be somewhere else. Duffy’s voice echoed in my head: Murderer.

  A new version of the story he’d told me had started to take shape in my head. He’d claimed he’d covered up the murder, but had he actually killed that cop?

  “Kate?”

  I pulled myself out of my thoughts and looked up to find that Gardner and Mez were already gone.

  “You okay?” His hot palm branded the bare skin of my shoulder. I resisted the urge to pull away, to get away from him long enough to get my head straight. “I need your head in the game right now.” He leaned down and forced me to look him in the eye. “You trust me, right?”

  I froze. Did I? If he’d asked me thirty minutes earlier, I wouldn’t have hesitated. But now? I felt like maybe I’d fallen for the Morales he’d wanted everyone to see. The handsome hero, the good guy. But I’d just watched the good guy lie so easily to someone who trusted him.

  He shook me a little. “We’ll get through this, okay?”

  “Did you do it?” The words were barely above a whisper.

  “What?”

  “Did you kill that cop?”

  His expression hardened, like a door slamming shut between us. “How can you ask me that?”

  “Because now my ass is on the line too, and you just lied to Gardner.”

  He ran a hand through his hair. Finally, he sighed, surrendering. “He was about to out me to Yü Nü. Said if I didn’t pay him off, he’d blow my cover.”

  I swallowed that and let it sink to the pit of my stomach like an anchor.

  “He was dirty, Kate. Fangshi were paying him off to protect them. So, I killed him and told Yü Nü that he was stealing from her.”

  “Was he?”

  He nodded. “Of course.”

  I shook my head. “How could you do that?”

  “How could I not?” His voice rose. The music coming from the theater was loud enough to drown it out. “Do you have any idea what people like that would do to an undercover cop?”