She shook her head in exasperation. “Are you trying to provoke me or avoid the subject at hand?”
“Which is?”
“Terryn macCullen, as if you didn’t know.”
“Ah, I was wondering when he would come up.” An obvious lie. Rhys didn’t care that she was angry.
“You should have told me he was suspended,” she said.
Rhys made a show of surprise. “Is he? I thought he went on leave.”
“Orrin, I’m getting very close to losing my temper. There’s a difference between being challenged and being antagonized.”
He chuckled. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Laura. I’m feeling perverse today. Things are going so well, I find myself unable not to gloat and irritate.”
“Well, if this is your good mood, warn me when a bad one’s coming,” she said.
He laughed. “Okay, I should have told you. It was part of the package with getting rid of the leanansidhe. I told InterSec that if macCullen didn’t accept a suspension, I would publicly accuse them of incompetence and have Maeve allow me to throw them out.”
“But you’re accusing them anyway,” she said.
He shook his head. “Privately, yes. Publicly, I’m letting them save face and claim they initiated their own investigation.”
“You should have told me,” she said.
“I was going to, but macCullen took me by surprise. I gave them twenty-four hours. He walked out before I knew what happened. I should have anticipated such a move. These macCullens are always working at cross-purposes.”
Truth hummed in his words. That did sound like something Terryn would do. He didn’t like being given ultimatums any more than anyone else, but if he had to accept one, he’d find a way to do it on his own terms. Rhys’s throwaway comment intrigued her, though.
“Cross-purposes?” she asked.
He waved a hand dismissively. “Our Lady Regent gave me the idea to suspend him. When I told her I was getting rid of the leanansidhe, she said she understood and that it would be unfortunate for such a fate to befall her brother. I thought the idea intriguing, so I used it.”
“But she said . . .” Laura stopped at an exasperated eyebrow lift from Rhys.
“Don’t be naïve, Laura. She said it to me with the purpose of putting the idea in my mind. I don’t know what her game is, but sidelining Terryn macCullen appealed to her and works fine with me.”
Rhys was right, she realized. She wasn’t naïve. She knew the nuance of conversations with subtext. But like Rhys said, she didn’t understand why having Terryn out of InterSec would benefit the Inverni cause. It surprised her.
“All well and good. In the meantime, I’m getting pressure from the media. They see your hand in this,” she said.
He grinned. “Do they?”
She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. He was intent on staying in this mood. “Okay, I get it. You want them to know the Guild is behind it, but you want deniability. Can I ask why?”
He leaned forward. “It sends a message. The Inverni need to know that the Seelie Court will not be passive if they seek allies against it. And the public needs to know the decisions that the Inverni make. Letting a leanansidhe into the Guildhouse has upset many people, Laura. That thing was dangerous.”
“No, she isn’t,” she said. As soon as she said it, she bit her lip. It had been an impulsive reaction.
Rhys pulled his chin in, surprised. “How do you know that’s true or not?”
She shrugged. “She’s a solitary. Resha Dunne would tell us if there was a danger, wouldn’t he?”
Rhys scoffed. “Dunne wouldn’t know his ass from his back fin.”
Laura shook her head. “Still, Orrin, Resha knows how to cover that back fin. If he knew of a danger that might reflect on him, I think he’d do something about it.”
He leaned forward again. “How about this, then: I don’t like it. I don’t like that a leanansidhe was free to roam this building. I don’t like that it exists. You’re young, Laura. Here-born. You don’t know the damage those things have done here and back in Faerie.”
She closed her eyes a moment. She hated when an Old One invoked the past in Faerie. She couldn’t argue it. Never mind that the fey who did remember Faerie recalled only bits and pieces. That Rhys remembered a leanansidhe meant he had experienced them, and by all accounts, the leanansidhe did cause havoc. If what she had heard was any indication of the true reality, Cress’s sister leanansidhe—if not Cress herself—were formidable foes.
Nothing she could say at that point would change Rhys’s mind. She heard it in his voice and saw it in his body language. She entertained the idea that he was afraid of what Cress was capable of. He had watched her absorb an enormous amount of essence at the Archives, then destroy the roof of the building. That Cress did it to save lives was beside the point to him. That she could do it at all was the problem.
“Let’s let go of this discussion, Orrin. What’s done is done, and we need to address the ramifications for the Guild,” she said.
He leaned back again. “Good. Put something together that says we are surprised at the recent changes at InterSec and look forward to the release of their findings. Throw in something about regretting that such an esteemed member of the Inverni clan as Terryn macCullen decided to go on leave, and that it is an unfortunate loss at this time because his wisdom will be missed.”
His disingenuous tone set her teeth on edge, but she had pushed him as much as she could for one day. “I will. Can I have your word you’ll give me more of a heads-up than the day after you do something radical?”
He chuckled. “I will, but you know I won’t be able to keep it.”
“I know. It would be nice to hear you say it, though,” she said.
He tilted his head in a bow. “I shall try not to make your job harder than it is.”
She stood. “Thank you. I’ll get back to work, then.”
“Before you go, Laura, I want to say one more thing. After all these years and all you’ve seen, I admire your optimism. I hope you aren’t sorely disappointed when people turn out exactly as they are.”
She paused by the door. “Do you believe in redemption, Orrin?”
He seemed surprised at the question and paused before answering. “I do. But I don’t believe that acceptance always follows. Sometimes it shouldn’t.”
A sad smile slipped across her face as she left. She had to believe in redemption—and forgiveness. She had spent years doing some harsh things in the name of the greater good. She believed that someday she would be called to account for them, and she hoped whoever judged her showed more mercy than Orrin ap Rhys.
CHAPTER 31
INTEL FROM THE assassination attempt had begun to flow into the InterSec unit before Laura had returned from the White House. In two days’ time, the volume of material had grown exponentially. Her acting as Mariel Tate for most of the previous day had pushed the public-relations department into critical mode as requests for interviews and statements from the Guildmaster swamped the office. Saffin had done her best—and her best was an understatement—to keep things moving.
With her dual roles slamming into each other, Laura gathered files from InterSec and took them up to public relations. She didn’t like mixing the duties of the two offices, but troubleshooting the media had become a nightmare she didn’t want to leave Saffin alone with. By late afternoon, the pressure had shifted course, and she had to address the preliminary investigation as Mariel. In a moment of desperation, she flat out told Saffin to keep visitors away while she plunged into the InterSec material.
Saffin took the news as if Laura had told her she was going to lunch. Keeping silent about her double life in front of Rhys and everyone else at the Guild was difficult, and knowing that Saffin could be trusted made life a little easier. A quick knock sounded at the door, and Saffin slipped in. “I’m sorry to bother you, but Resha is on his way up again.”
“Again?”
Saffin folded her arms.
“Third time. He’s getting suspicious about your door being closed. He almost opened it last time.”
Laura looked down at her desk. Inverni Guardian schedules and notices were spread everywhere. On her monitor, surveillance video from the assassination attempt played. “I’ve been trying to find decent footage that shows the location from which Draigen’s sniper fired. How much time do I have?”
Saffin raised her eyebrows and twisted her lips. “Minutes.”
She jumped up. “Dammit.” She stacked papers together and shoved them in folders.
Saffin rushed to the desk. “Yikes. Don’t do that in front of me.”
Laura paused. “What?”
Saffin neatened the folders. “Make such a mess.”
Laura bit her lip as she watched Saffin, then checked her watch. “Saf, I have to take care of something and can’t let Resha chew up my time. Can you hide all this stuff and pretend you never saw it?”
She shrugged. “Sure. I do that all the time with crap I don’t want to do.”
Laura picked up her bag. “You’re kidding, right?”
Saffin rolled her eyes. “Yes, Laura. Of course I’m kidding. Get going.”
“You’re the best, Saf,” she said as she rushed out the door.
“I know,” Saffin called after her.
Laura took the elevator down to the parking garage. In the lower lobby, she sidled into a blind spot of the security camera and activated the Mariel glamour. It was an old trick, one she used sparingly in case an attentive security guard noticed anything on the monitors in the bowels of the building. Taking a moment to leave her bag in her InterSec SUV, she walked out the exit ramp to the sidewalk.
Barricades along the sidewalk stood like accusations of failure, the chipped sidewalk a testament that the shooting had not been prevented. Draigen was alive, Laura reminded herself. That was what was important. The regent of the macCullen clan was alive and the only person who had died was the shooter.
Laura didn’t think it was over. Despite the failed attempt and the heightened alerts, chatter among security-agency channels had not abated. Rumors abounded of a trial run, that the assassination was meant to fail. The conflicting information came in from disparate sources that had never acted in unison before. Local U.S. interest groups and European political cells were rattled and excited. Yet no one claimed responsibility.
The building Sean Carr had fired on Draigen from was a long two blocks away. The walk was easy but did nothing to set Laura at ease. Bureaucracy had already set in at the building, and she had to work through four lines of security. The D.C. police held the front line, weeding out visitors who did not have legitimate business in the building or who were not law enforcement. After them, the Guild recorded names and photographed any fey who entered. Under the circumstances, that smacked of intimidation of Inverni supporters. The Inverni security staff themselves were next, a suspicious group that acted convinced everyone besides them was interested in destroying evidence. After the twenty minutes it required to meet their approval, Laura was happy to see the familiar black jumpsuits of the InterSec guards who had control of the top floor and attic space of the building. Not all of them knew Mariel Tate on sight, but they knew enough to read a high-level InterSec pass without causing an argument.
Finally alone, she trailed down a dusty hallway on the attic level, sensing body signatures. It was as much exercise as investigation. The hallway wouldn’t tell her much—too many people had passed through it since the assassination attempt—but sorting through the different trails helped her calm down and prepare for what she had come for.
Crime-scene tape stretched across an open door. As she ducked under the tape, the ozonelike odor of essence strikes tickled Laura’s nose. At least two major bolts had passed through the space. She wound her way through stacked chairs to a broken window frame with plastic sheeting fixed over it.
She picked up traces of her essence-bolt where Carr must have stood to make his shot at Draigen. Laura’s return fire had hit him and wrecked the window casing. She peeled back the sheeting. Without leaning out far, she had a clear view of the plaza in front of the Guildhouse two blocks away. Perfect line of sight. She pressed the sheeting back in place.
Slowly pivoting, she noted the pattern of scattered chairs. Her shot would have thrown Carr left, right where the chairs had been knocked askew. She crouched, sensing his body signature on the floor, but no telltale investigation markers to indicate his body had fallen there. Which meant that wasn’t where he died.
She stood. People in a panic used the most direct path available. She paced the open aisle through the stacked chairs to a line of storage boxes against the back wall. With her pocket flashlight, she swept a beam of light along the floor and under the chairs. Crime-scene investigators had been through already, but the chance they had missed something always existed. Maybe not in such a high-profile case, she thought. Before she reached the boxes, someone knocked at the door.
“Hey, someone said there was a crazy lady in the attic, and here you are,” Sinclair said.
Laura smirked over her shoulder. “I’m surprised you got through all that security.”
He frowned in curiosity. “Why?”
Crouching in front of the boxes, she flicked the light along the floor. “Your security clearance isn’t as high as mine.”
He tickled her on a shoulder blade, then stepped back, a subtle reminder that he remembered how she felt about mixing work and play. “It was a breeze.”
She glanced up, smiling. “Are you kidding me?”
He shook his head. “I knew the D.C. cops at the door. The Guild guys waved me along because they thought I was human. You left my name with the Inverni guards, and Eldin passed me in down the hall.”
“Eldin?”
Sinclair gestured over his shoulder with his thumb. “Skinny elf in the elevator? Works across the hall from us?”
Her eyebrows drew together as she tried to place him. “He does?”
“Yeah. He thinks you’re hot, by the way. They all do over there.”
She tilted her head up. “They? You know a ‘they’ over there? How do you know them?”
He shrugged. “Met them in the gym. We shoot hoops.”
She brought her attention back to the boxes. “Don’t tell me—you play center.”
“Nope. Forward. Galt from accounting plays center. He’s a frost jotunn. They’re kinda short for giants, but he’s at least a head taller than me.”
She shook her head. “You know someone in accounting, too?”
He peered over her shoulder. “Yeah. He used to give me the hairy eyeball when I picked up my check. I thought he might have been sensing my jotunn essence somehow, but turns out he couldn’t figure why Terryn was paying me out of a supplies account. I told him it was top secret, hush-hush.”
She smiled. “Paying you out of supplies, Jono, is an example of Terryn’s sense of humor.”
He leaned against a crate and waggled his eyebrows at her. “You know, I don’t mind being used as a tool sometimes.”
She leaned down as the light flashed on something. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“What are we doing here?” he asked.
“Sean Carr had two major wounds—one to the chest and one to the wing. The chest shot killed him. I’m a good shot, but I fired blind. The wing hit was mine.” She walked halfway up the room toward the window. “The essence evidence in here confirms it. My hit knocked him out of the window. Seeing this layout, it would have been virtually impossible for someone to deliver the deathblow from outside.”
“Virtually,” Sinclair said.
She leaned to the side to see beneath a chair. “Right. It’s possible, of course, but I was the only person to react to the gunshots and gauge the direction of their source. We didn’t have security this far up the street, so no one could have been on scene fast enough to deliver the shot without Carr’s being ready for it.”
“You did wound him,” Sinclair said.
“He probably couldn’t fly with the damage, but it wasn’t incapacitating. So he was trapped here on the ground. Which means that whoever killed him did it inside, and if it was done in here, there might be a body signature I can lock on.”
Sinclair pursed his lips. “Except probably a hundred people have been through here since the shooting.”
Laura stepped around a chair that lay sideways on the floor. She crouched again. The flashlight beam picked up a flash of pale yellow. “Ah, there it is.”
She stood next to an index card on the floor. “This marks where Carr’s head was when he was found. Judging by the position, I’d guess he got up from beneath the window and made his way down the main aisle. The impact of the kill shot would have thrown him back a few feet”—she shifted away from the index card toward the back of the room again—“which would have put him about here.”
Sinclair faced her, holding his hand out as if firing an essence-bolt. “So the shooter would have been about here.”
“Lower. You’re likely taller,” she said.
He dropped his hand a foot. “I don’t think the shooter was here. Carr would have been facing him directly and seen he was about to be fired on. He would have tried to defend himself.” He stepped to his left behind rows of chairs. “Line of sight is blocked on this side.” He moved to the right in front of the boxes, keeping his hand pointing at Laura. “Anywhere along here is possible. Carr wouldn’t have necessarily seen it coming from here.”
Laura moved along the main aisle. Dozens of body signatures flared in her senses, streaming colors of blue and white, yellow and green, indicating various fey species. She recognized a flash of a signature here and there, people she had known on the InterSec security teams or some she had met on the Inverni Guardian units. Aran macCullen had been in the room, which was no surprise since he had taken the lead in the investigation.
“It’s pretty contaminated,” she said.
She moved next to Sinclair and immediately registered three or four strong signatures. “Okay, this is interesting. I’m sensing a large pool of Carr’s essence, so he must have hung out back here waiting for Draigen’s scheduled departure. I recognize a druid from InterSec who works on crime-scene investigations. He must have sensed Carr’s essence, too, because he lingered long enough to leave a good imprint. There’s also another Inverni essence that shifts back and forth like someone was pacing.”
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