“I can bring you a copy of the file in the morning, meet me for coffee, say nine a.m. at Coffee Republic.”
“Sure, all right.”
“It’s a date. Get some rest, see you in the morning.” He hung up, as did I. When Hamilton said “date,” I hoped he really didn’t mean it the way it had sounded.
Chapter Nine
I fiddled with the locket around my neck. I had charged up the spell inside it and put it around my neck before I finally closed my eyes for the night. It anchored me to this world so that I could do things like meet D.I. Hamilton for coffee. The Coffee Republic had two floors, and I hunkered down in the nearly empty upstairs part, in a corner by the window and the comfy chair. I had a normal coffee and sat picking at a muffin. I stared at the grayish sky and the snow that was still on the ground. It wasn’t white anymore—it was that nasty brown slush that had lots of footprints in it from the traffic of people going to and from work, shopping and generally bustling about town. It made the streets extra slippery.
Hamilton came bounding up the stairs, his trench coat blowing out behind him, folder under his arm and a cappuccino in hand. I gave him a little wave and he walked over to me. He put the folder down on the table on his side resting his elbow on it while he settled in and sipped his coffee.
“Good morning, Detective. Is that the file?”
He looked at me, looked at the file and took a non-communicative sip of his coffee. I had the feeling he was drawing this out for some reason.
“Can I see it?” I asked, reaching toward it a little; he shifted it away from my fingers with his elbow.
“In a minute. Can I get you a refill?” He looked at my nearly empty cup. I didn’t do back-to-back coffees—the increase in my caffeine levels wasn’t good for me. I declined the offer. I wanted to get my paws on the file.
“I really shouldn’t have brought this out of the office,” he said, holding up the file but still keeping it too close for me to reach out and take without looking like I was snatching it from him.
“Yes, but then you would have missed your chance to get me alone in a more social setting.”
He looked at me, a little shocked. I think I’d startled him with how easily I could see his ulterior motive. He lowered the file close enough that I was able to slide my fingers over the folder and prize it from his hand. I placed it down on my side of the table, opening it and starting to flick through the pages. I pushed what was left of my muffin toward him as some sort of a concession. “Here, I’m not going to finish it.”
Hamilton ate it heartily while I read. Nikki Lewis had been found in the living room of her home by her nanny. She had been stabbed through the heart and had several defensive wounds on her arms, which meant she hadn’t wanted to die and had fought like hell. It explained why Ivan had chosen a knife as his weapon and why the death blow had been through the heart, but how had he gotten hold of the information? He could have talked to the nanny, but once she’d called the police, she wouldn’t have known any more about the body than that Nikki was dead. There were some color pictures that showed how she had been found, lying on top of a broken coffee table like she had been pushed into it.
“Ivan has got to have seen this.”
“Well, you’re the only person who’s seen that file, apart from those involved in the case.”
“Who was handling her affairs? Her lawyer?”
“It should be there somewhere,” he said, going back to sipping his cappuccino. I flipped over the page and the name looked familiar. I closed my eyes and went through my memory, trying to pin down where I had seen it before. On the letter list to the prison.
“Oh,” I said, more to myself that to Hamilton, “Ivan and his daughter have the same lawyer. That’s how he got all the information to recreate the murder scene. The coffee table, the death blow through the heart.”
“Sneaky little bastard,” Hamilton said, slamming his coffee down. “I could have him for that.”
“You could, but bringing him in won’t help me. If he learns who’s on the case and what we know, how long do you think it will be before he gets word to his client?”
“True.”
I turned the file round so that he could look at it too and pushed the color photograph to the middle so he could see it properly.
“How similar is that to last night? The coffee table and the knife wounds. Ivan is on another revenge kick like when he lost his wife. He has money and resources. He’s tracking down the people who were involved in his daughter’s death.”
“What about the granddaughter? There’s nothing to indicate she’s definitely dead.”
“No, you’re right, but that would explain the torture.”
“How so?” Hamilton scooted his chair around closer to me; I gauged his closeness out of the corner of my eye and continued reading through the reports.
“I can only think of two reasons for someone to torture another person. Ivan thinks that the murder and the missing child are connected. He’s not only trying to punish his daughter’s killers, but he’s trying to find information that will either lead to his granddaughter or her body.”
“What’s the other reason to torture someone?” Hamilton asked. I took a sip of what was left of my coffee.
“You really, really hate them.” Hamilton gulped, and I smiled behind the rim of my cup at the thought I might have scared him a little. Maybe he thought I had tortured someone. It made me want to laugh watching him recover himself.
“Then we have to find the connection to Tony Dietrich.”
“Yes.” I kept reading through the statements. They’d talked to the nanny thoroughly; they’d talked to all Nikki’s friends, people she worked with and even some people who knew her only as an acquaintance.
“Nikki was seeing someone. All the statements from the people you talked to suggest that she was very secretive about him, but not about the fact that he was powerful, influential, and rich. Sounds like she might have fallen for someone exactly like Daddy.”
“Meaning?” Hamilton prodded me.
“You said Dietrich was a small fish, working for a much larger syndicate, but you didn’t know who the big fish was.”
“Yeah, I don’t have a lot to do with that—it’s more Organized Crime’s area to work that out.”
“Well, what if Nikki was dating Mr. Big Fish? But something went wrong and he killed her, or he had one of his smaller fish take care of her when she became annoying. Ivan would have to work his way through the little fish till he found someone who would point him in the right direction.” Hamilton knocked back his coffee, which was pretty impressive.
“I think I should get on to Organized Crime and see what light they can shed. If I get anything I’ll pass it on.”
“Likewise,” I said, closing the folder and pushing it back toward him. “I’m going to concentrate on how he’s switching bodies, as that’s more my field.”
“Maybe we could have another brainstorming session like this,” he said, putting his hand over mine and smiling a wicked smile, “over dinner, perhaps.”
I pulled my hand sharply away from him and placed it back into my lap so that he couldn’t take it again. I knew it. He was trying to make this a date and was looking for another one. Just what I didn’t need—Hamilton hitting on me all because Rourke had told him not to. Not that I doubted my attractiveness’s involvement in the equation, but there were underlying motives behind his movements that I just didn’t like, even if I hadn’t had a boyfriend.
“D.I. Hamilton, I would prefer to keep our relationship professional, and I am currently seeing someone. I hope you understand.”
“I guess you only ever promised me coffee,” he said, and I flashed back to our small moment in the stairwell months ago. I had needed something from him, and I had used the whole damsel in distress thing, used the fac
t that he wanted me in a purely carnal way to get him to do what I wanted. I had felt bad when I’d done it, and I felt even worse now, because it was coming back to bite me in the ass. It would be harder to redefine the boundaries, as I had been the one who’d bent them in the first place. I stood up and smiled at him, trying to be genial.
“I’d like to be your friend, Paris. I mean, you’re much easier to work with than Rourke by...well, it’s a lot. I’ve got to go, but you have my number if you need me, and I’ll keep you up to date with what I find.” I left it and him there, heading out on a direct course to make up with my boyfriend.
Chapter Ten
I walked into the Swan Theater full of purpose. The girl behind the ticket desk nearly jumped out of her skin when I slammed my hand down on the desk. It seemed she’d been concentrating on a magazine in her lap—the latest issue of what looked like to be Hello. She looked up at me, her big eyes shaking a little with fright. I could be pretty damn terrifying when I wanted to be.
“Is Mr. Reynolds in his office?”
“Yes ma’am, as far as I know.”
“Thank you.”
I turned on my heel and headed for the door that said “Staff Only.” The girl behind me scrambled to her feet; I could hear her knocking things as she tried to get to a position to stop me. I marched through the door. I’d been to Magnus’s office a couple of times, but usually he had taken me through. The door swung open behind me.
“Miss, you can’t be back here, miss.”
I ignored her pleading voice as I grabbed the door handle to Magnus’s office and pushed the door open. Magnus looked up from his desk and eyed me wearily. The girl stumbled in behind me. She was out of breath and shaking.
“Mr. Reynolds, I’m sorry I couldn’t stop her. Do you want me to call security?”
I rolled my eyes at him, and he couldn’t hide a little smile. I ignored the girl and started to look at his collection of old scripts from plays the theater had put on. He coughed a little to disguise his laughter.
“That won’t be necessary, Denise; my girlfriend forgets that the rules apply to her too.”
Denise made an “o “with her mouth and turned to look me up and down. I was in skinny black jeans again and my boots, but I had gone with a deep green V-neck sweater that gave a nice display of cleavage, which my locket was nestled against. She evaluated me and then dropped her shoulders in what seemed like defeat. She was short but pretty, with delicate makeup, and from her attitude I assumed she had had some small crush on Magnus, her boss, but was too timid to do anything about it.
“I’m sorry, sir. I’ll leave you two alone.” She backed out of the room and shut the door behind her. Magnus finished what he was writing, dropped his pen, and leaned back in his chair, taking me in. He noticed the locket around my neck first before following its line down. He smiled, mainly, I knew, because he enjoyed the sight of me.
“Case must be getting serious if you’re here during the daytime.”
“Couldn’t I have worn it just so I could see more of you?” I said. He looked at me a little suspiciously. I guess I warranted that, because I knew Magnus had been my second thought of the day and not the first.
“I might have believed that if it hadn’t been you who kicked me out.”
I pouted and slowly walked around the desk; he turned the chair to face me as I approached. He was dressed in a charcoal gray suit that matched his eyes and an ice blue tie I had gotten him for Christmas. I licked my lips and sat on his lap. His arms instinctively went around me, which made me smile as I stroked my hand up the material of his suit. It felt soft and clean under my fingers.
“You do look so good in this suit,” I purred. I made myself comfortable on his lap and he didn’t seem to mind, even if I was keeping him from work. I put my head on his shoulder. “We need to talk, don’t we?”
Magnus sighed, and I felt his arms squeeze around me tighter. It felt very nice to be pressed against him. Cuddling was nice with Magnus; I could feel at ease, warm and safe.
“I guess I should have let you explain exactly what happened with the vampire before I overreacted.” He stroked my head, and I explained how I had gotten Aram out of trouble at the end of last year. He’d bitten me before without permission, and apparently among the vampire group he belongs to that’s a big no-no. So I’d read through one of their law books to find a way to make sure Aram didn’t get his head chopped off or get banished from the city.
“And who pointed you toward this loophole?”
“Sienna,” I admitted. Magnus hadn’t met Sienna, but he didn’t have to—he mistrusted all vampires.
“So another vampire tricked you into becoming closer tied to one of his masters. It sounds like it was a plot to ingratiate himself.” I had never thought of it that way.
“Maybe, I don’t know, but it worked and I felt better for it. I couldn’t have stood the punishment even if it was Aram.”
“Even if he deserved it,” Magnus grumbled. I buried my head against his shoulder, and he rubbed my shoulder softly. “You have too big a heart and are far too trusting.”
“And you’ve got to learn to trust me. I want you, I said yes to dating you. Aram can try whatever he likes, but it’s ultimately about you and me.”
“I just know how charming he is—he’s had five hundred years to practice seduction.”
“And you don’t think I can resist him?” I was a little offended but swallowed that down so we could continue along the path of reconciliation.
“I know you can—you just don’t seem to as much as you used to. He came into your room and kissed you, Cassandra, and you didn’t even revoke his invite.”
“Would it make you feel better to know I revoked his invite last night?”
“Yes and no,” he said, his face twisted with a little jealous light.
“Why the no?”
“No because what was he doing there last night?”
“Trying to take advantage of the fact that we had a fight. I kicked him out right away.” I smiled softly. It was a blatant lie, but I was hoping Magnus would be more concerned with making up with me than picking up on that. His arms tightened on my waist, and I could suddenly tell how happy he was that I was sitting on his lap and not someone else’s. I felt my cheeks flush with heat.
“Magnus,” I said, embarrassed.
“I just can’t leave you alone for a minute. I turn my back and other men are all over you.”
I laughed a little and was silenced when he kissed me. Magnus had warm lips; living blood pumped through them, and it felt nice. Better than nice, actually—it felt explosive. Not peaceful in the slightest. He lifted me so I ended up straddling his lap and I could wrap my arms around his neck as I kissed him back, deeply and passionately.
“Making up...,” he said through short breaths between kisses, “...is the best part...,” he kept kissing me softly, “...of fighting.”
“Mmm,” I agreed, pressing tighter to his chest and enjoying the kiss. Magnus’s hands kneaded the flesh of my back, sliding up and down over my sweater. Slowly they started working their way down till he had a firm grasp of my buttocks and my temperature went up. He lifted me so I was sitting on the edge of his desk and he was pressed over me.
“Oh, Cassandra,” he looked into my face like a starving man at a beef steak, “your eyes are filled by fire.” He didn’t want me to respond to that—I could tell by the way his lips were suddenly on mine again and his hands where everywhere. I wrapped my legs around his waist and held onto him tight as he pressed me against the desk. Magnus was strong, and I could feel every one of his muscles straining to keep himself from getting too carried away. My eyes darted from side to side, and I started pounding on his shoulder; I had remembered where we were. We were in his office at work. It was not the place for over-amorous petting. His pelvis thrust against
mine, and I broke from his mouth to cry out.
A knock came on the door, loud; it sounded like another man.
“Mr. Reynolds? Are you all right?”
I looked up at Magnus, biting my lip to keep a giggle in. His face flushed with color, and he looked at the door.
“Yes, yes, I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
“Positive, thank you,” he said, shooing the man away.
We listened as the sound of footsteps grew fainter. Magnus buried his face against my shoulder, and I started laughing lightly. Magnus fell back into his chair, and I sat on the edge of his desk with my legs crossed, catching my breath slowly. I smiled at Magnus, who was trying to calm himself down too. He ran his fingers back through his hair.
“We seem to keep getting interrupted.”
“In this case, that might be a good thing,” I said, looking at the messed-up papers on the desk behind me. Magnus leaned around to pull them out from under me and set them straight. He lifted me off his desk, setting me on my feet next to his chair.
“Are you free this week? We could go to a movie,” he said, smiling sweetly.
“I’m free right now; let’s go to lunch.”
“All right, give me ten minutes and I’ll meet you out front.” I smiled at him and went to wait by the doors.
Chapter Eleven
We went to one of our favorite places for lunch. Down a small dark alley and under the shade of a giant oak tree was a little cafe. The snow was barely visible here—it had all caught on the branches or been brushed away to make the table habitable. Fires burned inside pottery urns in the corners to provide heat and some light on such a gray day. Magnus and I managed to get a table in the far corner where we could see the specials board. A young waiter rushed over to our table, recognizing us. He was very chatty as usual—he had a fascination with magic although he couldn’t do it himself, and he loved to hear my stories about spells that had both gone right and gone wrong. Magnus didn’t mind him; he didn’t see the sixteen-year-old as a threat. We made our orders and sat back to enjoy them. Magnus dug into a ploughman’s platter while I had a simple cheese and chicken toasted panini.
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