by Bo Reid
Chapter 9: Mercury
Talin
One of the worst parts about this job is attending funerals to gauge the reaction of the others in attendance. We pay close attention to members of the family, colleagues, and others that show up. Sometimes it’s a useful tool and other times it just feels like we’re assholes.
Today we’re standing away from the crowd that’s gathered to pay their respects to Aeron Valdis, which is nearly everyone in the Sanorah community. They’re a loved family despite the rumors of their activities. Or maybe that’s just fear.
A black limo pulls up to the curb moments before the service is set to start. I watch as the children of Aeron Valdis, and our prime suspects, exit the vehicle.
Ranger Hayes steps out first, followed by Hunter Miles and Nash Lee. The last to exit is Morana Valdis, the only living blood relative and sole heir to a vast Valdis fortune. The wealth that’s been amassed by Aeron Valdis both legally and otherwise is enough to turn heads. His fortune alone, despite Morana’s reputation, would be enough reason to mark her as a suspect. Anytime a single person stands to gain financially from someone’s death, they’re the prime suspect.
The guys are all dressed in black suits, black combat boots, black undershirts, and black ties. Morana’s wearing a black dress, black leather jacket, black tights, and black heels. They’re all wearing dark tinted sunglasses, and Morana has one of those large brim hats, which is, of course, black.
Even though this is a funeral and black is the prime color chosen by attendees, the children of Aeron Valdis are the only ones that look at home in their subdued colors, wearing them more as armor than for mourning.
Instead of walking side by side, Morana walks across the lawn of the private cemetery as the guys trail behind her. I watch as she’s approached by a heavily tattooed man in his mid-forties. He wraps his arms tightly around her, and she returns the hug. He whispers something to her and runs a hand along her arm over her jacket. She gives him a tight smile and nods. When he walks away, he pats Ranger on the shoulder and gives the guys small waves. I watch as he walks across the lawn and gets onto a Harley, not staying for the service.
The next man to approach is someone we know as Marcus ‘Mad Dog’ Martin, and Aeron Valdis' right-hand man. He offers Morana his elbow and she accepts as he leads her to the front row. As she takes her seat he places a small kiss on her cheek, and they exchange a look I can’t quite read with their eyes shielded behind dark frames.
When he leaves Ranger takes his place, wrapping his arm around her waist as Hunter puts his hand around her shoulder. Nash stands behind them holding her hand, pressing his chest to her back. She’s fully guarded this way and I suspect they do this on instinct, protecting what’s theirs.
I feel agent Holt stiffen beside me as she watches the way Nash and Morana interact together. I haven’t brought up what Morana said about them sleeping together, but it would be hard to miss when she clearly pines for him.
When the service is over a young man approaches Morana on their way back to the car. He’s in his twenties with blond hair, dressed in slacks and a dress shirt. The guys around her visibly stiffen, but Morana seems unfazed. She gives him a brief hug and a tight smile before waving him off and continuing to the car.
I watch as he continues across the lawn and the slightest head tilt is delivered in Connors' direction. Something an untrained eye would never catch but to me, it's just one more thing that sets my nerves on edge. One more trick Connors has up his sleeve.
Holt and I have been tasked with tailing Morana again, which means going to the wake at the home of Aeron Valdis that has recently been cleared for re-entry. I’m starting to feel like all this babysitting is a way to keep our noses out of the evidence or lack thereof. We can't ask too many questions if we’re never given the chance.
We walk towards our waiting car, then follow the Valdis limo towards the large Victorian mansion where Morana grew up. This house is so large it has wings. We searched the whole property after Aeron was killed and the charges were dropped against Morana. We had to keep in contact via radio with members of the team because the property and house are so big.
I found what I believed to be the room of Hades Valdis, seemingly untouched by time. A vast contrast to Morana’s childhood room, which held zero personal touches. The guys’ rooms were on the opposite wing of the house and kept clean by the maid, but otherwise left as if three eighteen-year-old guys would be moving back in any day.
Inside the mansion there are people milling about, talking and gossiping over champagne.
This place must be worth a fortune.
What do you think the kids will do with it?
I wonder if there are any bodies buried on the property?
Who did they get to cater this?
It seems most of the people in attendance are only here to gawk at the rich. I spy a small flash of black exit through a side door. “Keep your eyes open,” I tell Holt before moving through the crowd of people.
I exit out the side door and find a pair of black high heels discarded by the door. Scanning the lush green lawns, I barely see that same flash of black before she disappears into the line of trees at the edge of the property.
I look around but don’t see anyone else, so I quickly make my way across the lawns after her. Once I enter the tree line, the sunlight barely breaks through the canopy of redwood trees. There’s no trail that I can see and the ground’s littered with broken tree branches, roots breaking through the forest floor and wet foliage from the recent rains.
“Making sure I’m not running away, Agent Marks?” I hear a small melodic voice call through the trees. Turning I try and place the voice, but I don’t see anything.
“Where are you?” I call out.
“Catch me if you can,” she singsongs before I see another flash of black darting in my peripheral vision. Quickly I turn in that direction and attempt to sprint through the forest. I’m constantly smacked in the face with tree branches, nearly tripping over roots, and the only direction I have to follow is the sound of a harmonic laugh floating over the wind.
“Morana, just come out!” I call after her. I don’t have the slightest clue where she went, and if I’m not careful I’ll get lost out here.
“Didn’t peg you for one to give up so soon,” a voice calls from above me, and when I look up Morana’s lounging lazily on a high tree branch looking down at me. Clad in all black, with her dark hair falling over her shoulder she looks like a jungle cat lounging on a summer day. Like this, she seems to not have a care in the world.
“How did you get up there?” I ask, looking around for her access point and coming up empty.
“You know they say bears and mountain lions prowl these woods at night,” she comments. “Maybe it’s best if you go back to the house where it’s safe.”
“Morana, would you just come down here before you fall.” She smiles and laughs.
“You wouldn’t catch me, Talin?” she asks.
“Morana…” I start to warn her, but she merely stands up on the tree branch and climbs higher. “Morana! Get your ass down here!” I yell while looking around for a way to get to her. Not a good plan. I grew up on a ranch; a lot of fields, not many trees.
“You’re cute when you act like your authority means shit, Agent Marks. But this is my land, and this is my tree, and I can climb it if I want to,” she hollers from a place in the tree I can’t see.
“I just don’t want you to fall and get hurt,” I call up. She doesn’t answer, but I start to smell the telltale scent of marijuana wafting down from where she hides in the tree. “Damnit, Morana, you’re going to fall. Please come down,” I call to her.
“Naw, I think I’ll stay here. Come and get me when the busybodies are out of my house,” she calls.
“She in the tree?” I hear a gruff voice call from behind me. I turn, startled at how close Ranger was able to get to me without me noticing.
This girl has me off my game.
“Yeah, I don’t know how she got up there, and she won’t come down,” I tell him gesturing to the tree.
He nods and then takes a seat on a fallen tree, leaning his back against the trunk of another. He kicks his feet up, crossing them at the ankles, lacing his hands in his lap and closing his eyes.
“Uh, aren’t you going to do something?” I ask.
“I am,” he replies without opening his eyes.
“You look like you’re about to take a nap,” I deadpan.
“Guess that depends on how long she stays up there. You can go, I’ve got her. Unless you’re tasked with following her. In that case, I’d take a seat, it could be a while,” he says.
Hunter appears from around another tree. He takes in the scene and then finds somewhere to sit, making himself just as comfortable as Ranger.
“She’s so far in that fucking tree that I can’t see her, and she’s smoking weed, and you guys are just going to leave her up there?” I demand. She could get seriously hurt and they don’t even seem to care. I thought they loved her.
Hunter just chuckles. He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees. “Look, fed, we get that you’re new around here. But Morana doesn’t do things because she’s asked to, she does them because she wants to. There’s no way you, me, or Ranger are going to get her to come out of that tree till she’s good and ready. And there is no way you’re going to be able to climb up there. Nash is the only other one that knows the safe route up and down, and he’s probably sneaking up to his old room with Agent Holt.”
I groan and scrub my hands down my face in frustration. How have they put up with this for so long? I find a place to sit, shooting a text off to Holt before getting comfortable on the forest floor.
How has this become my life? Babysitting a murder suspect who’s up in a goddamn tree refusing to come down like a sulky child. Taking advice from killers, while my partner sneaks around with another would-be murderer.
And why is it that I’m more concerned about Morana’s safety than I am that she’s a killer? I should probably be a bit more concerned about my growing attachment to her, but I might already be too far gone to care.
Morana
I could come out of the tree now. I’m sure everyone left the house hours ago. I asked Lucinda to make sure everyone was sent away no later than three in the afternoon, and it’s dark now, the sun having set over the forest hours ago.
Yet here I sit, in a tree, in the forest outside my childhood castle. Just a monster in the dark forest, hiding in her cave, waiting for the princes to try to slay her.
“Morana, where did you go? Come on, Darlin', get out here. I can’t see a damn thing through these trees! What is it with you guys and the fucking forest?!” Nash calls out, and I watch him pace below me as I lounge on a tree branch.
“You know how much I like the dark,” I call from my perch, and he snaps his head up to find me. But it’s too dark now, and I’m hidden like always.
“Are you in a fucking tree?” he asks, and I laugh. God, it feels good to laugh.
“Yeah, come on up,” I holler.
“Not a chance in hell, Darlin'. You come down,” he demands.
“Okay, put your arms out and catch me,” I holler.
“What?! No! Don’t you dare, I can’t even see you!” he yells with panic before I laugh and swing from branch to branch, landing barefoot in front of him on the forest floor.
“You brat!” He hollers with a laugh, pulling me into his arms for a hug. We walk back to the house arm in arm, laughing. “I hope you know where we’re going ‘cause I can’t see a damn thing,” he says, laughing as we emerge from the tree line.
“Don’t worry, Nash, I’m better suited for the dark.”
I slowly make my way down the tree, jumping to the ground. When I look around Ranger, Hunter, and Talin are asleep in what I’m sure are very uncomfortable positions for such big men. I look down at my ripped and ruined tights and peel them off of me. I hate tights. I hate pretending to be the prim and proper mob princess that I’m not.
“There’s my Pretty Girl,” Hunter says on a sleepy yawn. “Decided to come back down?” he asks, sitting up.
I walk over to him, settling into his lap and throwing my arms around his neck. “I ran out of weed,” I whisper conspiratorially, and I feel his deep laugh rumble through his chest.
Hearing the rustling of movement behind me I just rest my head against Hunter’s shoulder. He stands and I wrap my legs around his waist.
“Come on, fuckers, she’s back,” he says, before he kicks at someone's foot.
“What the…” Talin starts then trails off when he realizes we’re still in the forest.
“Oh, finally decided to come down?” he grumbles, and I roll my eyes.
“I could’ve just left you out here, you know. Maybe be a little nicer to the people that are going to get you out of the forest.”
Talin stops complaining long enough to be led back to the house where Nash and Holt are standing on the back porch waiting for us.
Holding hands.
“We’re being called back to the sheriff station, some kind of meeting. We have to go,” she says as she eyes my place in Hunter’s arms and I fight not to roll my eyes at her.
“Yeah, okay,” Talin says, yawning and running a hand through his hair.
I take in his crumpled and dirty suit. The bags under his eyes, and the exhaustion radiating off of him. A far cry from the man that was hellbent on putting me in jail a few short weeks ago.
In this town, you either flourish or you falter. Those that don’t last are the ones that fight their place. I’m not sure where Talin’s place is, but I don’t think he’ll find it here. And this case will have him questioning everything he thought he understood about right and wrong.
Good and evil.
Light and dark.
Talin
Holt and I walk into the sheriff station close to eleven at night. “I got those files you wanted,” Holt says, but I subtly shake my head.
“Not here,” I tell her.
She doesn’t understand why I’m having her keep a lid on the stuff I’ve asked her to get, and I can’t exactly explain it’s because the person suspected of murdering dozens, if not hundreds, of people told me not to trust anyone.
“Okay everyone, we have a lead,” Agent Connors announces as we walk into the meeting room. “We have an eyewitness testimony that puts Morana Valdis at the scene of the crime on the night Aeron Valdis was murdered.”
“Who’s the witness?” I ask as I thumb through the papers handed to me.
“We’re keeping his identity quiet for now,” Connors says, and I raise my head to look at him.
“Even from your own team members?” I ask.
“That will be all. Your assignments are detailed in your handouts,” he says without answering my question and dismisses the group.
“Get those papers and meet me at the hotel,” I tell her and she nods, slowly starting to piece things together.
Chapter 10: Arsenic
Morana
“So, what do we know about Malic Connors, other than he’s a mega douche?” I ask the guys.
“We know he grew up in Delling, his juvenile records are sealed,” Nash starts to detail what we know.
“I can get those,” I say, waving him off.
“He was an average student at best. In college there was more than one occasion of him being under suspicion for sexual assault, tormenting his peers, and other frat shit.”
“There’s also the fact that during his stint in college his frat house was referred to as Rape Row. Apparently, it was well known around the college that if you attended an event at that house you ran a fifty-fifty chance of being drugged and raped before the night was over,” Hunter adds in. I try not to flinch at the word, taking calming breaths to avoid losing my shit.
Keeping a lid on my homicidal tendencies isn’t easy.
“Honestly, we don’t have a fucking clue how he made it
into the FBI, let alone how he’s been able to stay in his position. Even receiving awards and promotions,” Nash says in disgust.
“Someone higher up than we realize wants him there, but why?” I ask pacing around the living room.
“Love, are you okay?” Ranger asks in a wary tone.
“Yeah, why?” I ask, confused. But all their gazes drop to my hands. When I look down, I realize at some point I managed to grab a knife. I’ve been spinning it between my fingers enough to cut my skin and now I’m dripping blood all over the floor.
I hadn’t even noticed.
I set the knife down and move towards the kitchen for a towel.
“Okay, so he’s a dirty cop, and someone very high up wants him where he is. He was involved in something with my dad sixteen years ago that also involved the Ashby’s and Fallen Angels MC. What do we know about them?” I ask.
“Fallen Angels MC is a small motorcycle club, or gang, out of Delling. They have a lot of arrests for petty crimes, a handful of manslaughter charges, mostly from out of hand bar fights. Looks like small drug possession charges and a few intent to distribute charges. Their President’s William ‘Wild Man’ Wilder. And VP is Stan ‘Trigger’ Tatum.”
“Do they all have to have nicknames? What is this, grade school?” I ask, rolling my eyes.
“Says the girl that goes by Reaper,” Hunter deadpans.
“We’re The Reapers, it’s basically our gang name. I’m just Morana,” I correct him, and he rolls his eyes.
“Morana ‘The Reaper’ Valdis,” Nash says and laughs while I scrunch up my nose at the nickname.
“What about Nash ‘Bitch Ass’ Lee?” I ask, and his face sobers.
“I do not like that,” he says seriously.
