“That’s funny,” said Lachlan, “because Elizabeth Cooper says that you used to leave her voicemails complaining that Alastair was still interested in his ex-wife.”
Sonia’s smile faded. “Oh, she did, hmm?” She made a face, and she suddenly looked six years older, almost haggard in her disgust. “Well, isn’t that special.”
“So, you did know?” I said. “You knew he was mated to me?”
She looked me over. “Not at first. But after we were involved a while, it came out. He was a liar, that man.”
“Gotta say,” said Lachlan, “it’s not looking great for you, keeping things from us right out of the gate.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Who did you say you were? Are you with the police?”
“We’re heading up this investigation,” I said.
“What else did he lie to you about?” Lachlan said, before she had time to react to what I’d said.
“Oh, all kinds of things. That we were going to get married. That he was done with dragon women and he only wanted to date human women now, that kind of thing. I found out later that he was sleeping with that girl who got killed by the Dragon Slasher, and she wasn’t a human woman, that’s for sure.”
“So, you were angry with him,” said Lachlan.
“Angry?” said Sonia. “I hate that bastard’s guts. He made me do weird shit, too, let me tell you. At the time, I’d be all into it, and then later, I’d wonder what had possessed me.”
“What kind of weird stuff we talking about?” said Lachlan.
“In the bedroom,” said Sonia, her face flushing a little. “I’m not a prude or anything, but I also don’t see the need to do all kinds of perverse things either. But whenever I’d protest, he’d just look into my eyes, and then I’d do whatever he said.”
“He compelled you,” I said.
Sonia looked at me. “Yeah, maybe I heard of that before. I didn’t know it was real.”
“It’s real,” I said, thinking of my own experience being compelled by Alastair. As a dragon, I shouldn’t be compellable. No magical creatures were. Neither was anyone with a magical artifact or amulet. But Alastair had been so powerful after he killed Fletcher that he’d been able to do all kinds of horrible things.
“So, when was the last time you spoke to him?” Lachlan asked.
“He stayed with me for a few nights in the beginning of June,” said Sonia. “I told him to get out. I knew he was trying to get back together with you, and I didn’t want anything to do with him. But I guess he did that compelling thing on me or something, because I couldn’t say no to him. And it was the same old song and dance, telling me what kind of future we were going to have together, how we were going to be together forever, all of that crap. And then one day, he up and disappeared, and I haven’t seen him since. Now, you’re telling me he’s dead.” She stopped, knitting her brows together. “Oh, maybe he didn’t leave. Maybe he disappeared because he got killed.” Abruptly, her eyes filled with tears.
“You ever use a bow and arrows, Ms. Meader?” said Lachlan.
Sonia was thrown. She looked up at Lachlan, confusion in her eyes. “Why do you ask that?”
“Have you?” said Lachlan.
“He was dead,” said Sonia, and there was a tremor in her voice. “That’s why he left. And I’ve been hating him for it. But I shouldn’t have, because maybe he really meant it that time.”
“Meant it?” I said. “Does that matter? I thought you hated his guts.”
“Well, if he chose me in the end, then I would have forgiven him,” she said.
“Bow and arrows?” said Lachlan.
“I took archery in college for half a semester,” she said. “But I was terrible at it. Never hit the target. Why is that important?”
“He was killed with an arrow,” said Lachlan.
“You don’t think that I killed him?” Sonia was shocked.
“Did you?” said Lachlan. “You admit that you hated him. Maybe you couldn’t help it. Maybe you just got so angry that—”
“I don’t even own a bow and arrows,” she said. “Where would I get something like that?”
Lachlan shrugged. He waited.
“I didn’t kill him,” said Sonia. “I couldn’t have killed him. I swear to you. I loved him.”
* * *
“So,” I whispered, “what are we going to do?” It was dark, and we were lying in Lachlan’s bed. I was lying on my back, the covers thrown down and tangled around my ankles.
Lachlan’s bare body was pressed into mine. He had an arm flung over my waist, a leg nudged between my legs. He made a soft, sleepy sound. “Do?” he murmured. “That wasn’t enough?”
“I don’t mean right now in bed,” I said.
“Because,” he said, “I was pretty sure that you got off. Twice, actually. I distinctly remember those very sexy little moans you were making and they did get awfully high-pitched.”
I poked him. “Shut up.”
He raised his head. “Seriously, if you are in any way dissatisfied, I am happy to perform any services you like.” His hand snaked down over my belly, heading further south.
I giggled, twisting my hips.
His fingers found me anyway.
I gasped. “Stop it, you’ll get me all worked up again.”
His voice at my ear, low and rich. “Is that a bad thing?”
I wriggled onto my side, moving my pelvis away from his fingers. “I meant about the case.”
He groaned. “Let’s not think about that right now.” He rolled onto his back, away from me.
We weren’t touching, and my body felt cold.
“But that’s what you said before,” I said. “After we left Sonia Meader, you said we should give it some time before we tried to think too hard about anything. Let everything gel in our heads.”
“Because that’s a good idea,” he said.
“But that was three days ago,” I said. “So, have you thought of anything since then?”
He didn’t say anything.
“Neither have I,” I sighed.
“I think,” said Lachlan, “that there should be a rule about not talking about murder cases in bed.”
“You said there should be a rule about not talking about murder cases at breakfast,” I said. “And then you expanded it to during all meals.”
He sighed.
“So, if we can’t talk about it during meals and we can’t talk about it in bed, then when do we talk about it?”
He rolled back onto his side to face me. “Penny, this is going to come together. You’ll see.” He tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear.
“How?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Do you think it could have been Sonia? She maybe lied about her archery prowess?”
“It’s possible,” he said.
“Do you still think it’s Elizabeth?”
“Haven’t ruled her out.”
“And Richard Remington?”
“Haven’t ruled him out either.”
“Have you ruled anyone out?”
He kissed my forehead. “You.”
“Lachlan, that goes without saying.”
“If you had done it, you could have told me, you know.”
“I didn’t do it.”
“I know that,” he said. “But you wouldn’t need to hide something like that from me. You don’t need to hide anything from me.” He brushed his fingers over my neck and my shoulder.
The feather-soft touch was pleasant. I shut my eyes. “You’re trying to distract me again.”
“Touching you got me a little worked up again,” he breathed, taking my hand and moving it so that I could feel him.
“You’re bad,” I said, my voice unsteady. “You’re a very, very bad man, and you should not be allowed—”
“God, I want you, Penny.” He rolled over onto me, trapping me beneath his hard body. His fingers started doing very clever things that roused me in sweet, warm ways. “I want you all the time.�
�
I sighed. “I want you too. So much. So, so—”
And he was kissing me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“So, I had a thought about the case,” I said, setting down my spoon on the table. I hadn’t brought the case up for nearly a week, but last night, before falling asleep, something had occurred to me. It was a little obvious, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t worth looking into.
Lachlan sucked blood through his straw. We were having breakfast at the Flamingo. “You’re violating the rule about meals, you know.”
“You’re running from trying to figure out the case, because we’ve hit a brick wall,” I said.
“Look, I’ve had this happen to me before while working a case,” he said, spearing a hunk of fried potato with his fork. “And I did eventually solve it. But what I had to do was step back for a bit, work on something else.”
“But you don’t have another case to work on right now, because you’re suspended.”
“Yeah, but we’ve been doing lots of other productive stuff. Like researching stuff for the baby. And we spent two whole days looking at strollers online—”
“I still want the second one we looked at. I don’t see why we have to research every single stroller.”
“Strollers are important,” he said.
“I don’t even want to buy all this stuff yet,” I said. “It’s too early.”
“Why not do it now?” he said. “We have the time—”
“We don’t. We should be solving this case.” I glared down at my pancakes. “Besides, I know it’s superstitious, but buying all the stuff early seems like tempting fate. What if I… what if I lose the baby?”
He looked at me with concern. “You’re still worried about that? I thought that after you found out about the shifting and Alastair—”
“No, I know,” I said, sighing. “But I do worry about it. I worry about everything.”
“Well,” said Lachlan, “you should let me give you a massage after breakfast. We could go out and buy massage oils, and—”
“Lachlan, I had an idea about the case.”
He sighed.
I was beginning to wonder why he was avoiding this case so hard. I had a niggling feeling that it might be because he was lying to me about killing Alastair. The truth was that the timeline was all different than we’d thought. He had no alibi anymore. He hadn’t been with Felicity and Connor when Alastair was killed after all.
It didn’t seem like something that Lachlan would do—well, the lying to me about it part didn’t seem like something he would do. True, he talked a good game about obeying the letter of the law and not taking things into one’s own hands, but he had never taken action against me for having done such things.
I knew he had wanted to kill Alastair. And I knew that, given the opportunity, he would have done it.
But I couldn’t understand why he’d keep it from me if he was guilty.
He couldn’t think that I’d be angry with him. I wouldn’t.
Maybe he was worried about that. Maybe he had been hiding it for a long time, and he didn’t know how to come clean to me. So maybe investigating all these people was just a charade, and he’d grown weary of keeping it up.
I knew that Lachlan would never pin a crime he’d committed on an innocent person. If he was guilty, he was going to have to tell me sooner or later.
“What’s your idea?” He picked up a slice of bacon from his plate and glowered at it.
“Well, we’ve exhausted all our suspects, but what if we were right all along and this was really a slayer killing?”
He shoved the entire slice of bacon in his mouth and chewed.
I waited.
He swallowed and took another drink of blood. “Clearly, they don’t think so downtown, or they wouldn’t have arrested us.”
“Well, so what?” I said.
“So, if it is a slayer, then how are we supposed to figure out who it is?”
“We have slayer contacts,” I said. “Let’s go see Clarke Gannon.”
He sighed again.
* * *
Clarke Gannon was drinking a Corona with lime. She shoved the lime down into the beer bottle and sucked the foam out of the lip as it came out. “I thought we established that I only kill rogue dragons.”
We were at Happy Harry’s, a bar in town that seemed to cater to slayers and drakes. An odd mix, but one that seemed to work for the place. The juke box was blaring “Semi-Charmed Life” by Third Eye Blind. There never seemed to be anything playing in Happy Harry’s but music from the 1990s.
“Spare us this rogue dragon bit, please,” Lachlan said, taking off his sunglasses.
All the slayers we’d met seemed to want to believe that there were crazed dragons out there burning people alive. It apparently made them feel better about killing us for money and selling our corpses.
“Besides,” I growled, angry that I had to even stoop to talk to trash like Clarke Gannon, “Alastair Cooper needed to be put down. If there were rogue dragons, he would qualify.”
“No,” she said, “he wouldn’t. You have no idea what rogues even are.”
“Because they don’t exist,” said Lachlan. “So, let’s move on. We’re not accusing you of killing him anyway.”
“Could have fooled me.” Clarke sipped her Corona, shooting us a dark look.
Lachlan tucked his sunglasses into the collar of his t-shirt. He had taken to wearing casual clothes all the time, since we’d given up on the case. He didn’t seem interested in looking professional. “We just want to know if you have any idea who did kill him. Was it a slayer?”
“I don’t even know who this guy is,” said Clarke. “You got a picture or something?”
“Of him in dragon form?” I said. “Does that matter?”
Clarke rolled her eyes. “I never heard of any Alastair.”
“His disappearance was news,” said Lachlan. “He’s rich and influential and—”
“Wait,” said Clarke. “Maybe I do remember this.” She tapped the bottle against her lip. “He was that big shot guy? Lots of money, runs that corporation?”
“Well, that could describe any number of dragon shifters,” I said.
“Yeah, but he’s the one who killed that other dragon you were investigating. You tried to pin that on me too.”
“We were looking for the truth,” said Lachlan. “Just like we are now.”
“Whatever,” said Clarke. “Thing is, I do remember something about that guy. I don’t much associate with the for-profit slayers, you understand? They’re sleazy, and I only do what I do to protect people.”
“Oh, please,” I said through clenched teeth.
“It’s true,” said Clarke.
I held up my hand and poured magic through it, pushing her back against the bar stool she was standing next to. I forced her to sit down on it. Hard.
Lachlan gave me a look. “This was your idea, Penny,” he muttered. “And she’s just starting to talk.”
I leaned close. “You don’t get to play that card, as if you’re doing some sort of service to humanity,” I said in a low voice. “I know what you are, and you’re scum.”
“Okay, that’s enough.” Lachlan tugged me away from her, and he broke the thread of my magic.
Clarke sprang to her feet. “Screw this. I am so out of here.”
“Wait,” said Lachlan, reaching out to grab her arm. “Just finish what you were saying.”
Clarke eyed me warily.
Lachlan turned to me. “Two steps back, Penny.”
“Like that matters,” said Clarke. “She’s got magic.”
“What were you about to say?” said Lachlan.
Clarke’s nostrils flared. “Look, this was big is all. These dealers found a dead dragon. An abandoned corpse, just ready to be cut up and sold—not that I approve of that kind of thing.”
I clenched my hands into fists.
Lachlan wedged himself between me and Clarke. “The dead dragon was
Alastair Cooper? He was already dead when they found him?”
“Yeah, and killed by magic too,” said Clarke. “He was lit up like a Christmas tree.”
“How could they know that?” said Lachlan.
“Most slayers have an amulet that allows them to gauge how much magic is in a dragon,” said Clarke. “Different dragons have different potencies, I guess you would say. But this guy, he had so much magic that he couldn’t have been killed any other way.”
“What if he was just a particularly powerful dragon?” said Lachlan. “I happen to know that Alastair Cooper had bolstered his power by dragon sacrifice.”
“Oh, no way,” said Clarke. “That would have been off the charts. Would have destroyed the amulets themselves. There was no dragon sacrifice, just some extra magic that had been used on him. It was concentrated around the heart. Probably used to make it stop beating. I know this, because I heard things. Finding a dragon like that, dead and abandoned? That’s unheard of.”
“When the police found the body, there was an arrow in it,” said Lachlan.
“Yeah, because they shot him to make sure he was dead,” said Clarke. “But that wasn’t even necessary. This guy was killed by some magical enemy. Someone powerful.”
* * *
“An amulet like what she’s talking about?” said Lachlan from the driver’s seat of the car. “Is that possible?”
“I guess theoretically,” I said. “But I don’t see how she could know for sure that Alastair was killed by magic. The excess magic they detected must have been from the dragon sacrifice.”
“Okay,” said Lachlan, “but then that leaves us with no cause of death. And if there’s no cause of death, it’s probably magic. At least that’s how things get categorized by the police.”
“Well,” I said, “that’s why they went after us, then. They assumed he’d been killed by magic, and they knew that you and I had magic,” I said.
Lachlan was quiet for a minute.
I surveyed him. “Lachlan… you know if you really did kill Alastair, you could tell me, don’t you? I would understand.”
He turned to me sharply. “Why would you say that? I thought we’d been through this already.”
“Well, the timeline’s different now,” I said. “And maybe you’ve been keeping it from me for so long that you just don’t know how to tell me. But if you did it, you can tell me.”
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