“Not important.” I thought back to the party and distinctly remembered the intense heat radiating off the water. And the state of Akwan’s body seemed to support Jakob’s claim. “Why would you do that to him?”
Jakob turned his head to look at me. “Revenge.”
“Don’t tell me you’re a sax player too.”
The elf gestured to himself. “Does this body look like it could support the weight of a saxophone? I’d tip forward.”
“Then why?”
“Because he used his magic to steal Linzy’s heart. She was my girlfriend before she was his.”
“You think he used magic to win her?”
“There’s no other explanation. We were so happy together, until the night we went to see his band play. I saw the way he looked at her from behind the saxophone. He might as well have unzipped his pants.”
I quickly held up a hand. “That’s enough of that imagery, thanks.”
“You didn’t see the intensity,” Jakob said. “There had to be magic involved. She barely looked at me the rest of the night. I ended up leaving before her. One of my friends told me later that Linzy and Akwan were there until closing that night, just talking. She broke up with me the next day.”
I patted his shoulder. “I’m really sorry about that. Breakups suck hard. Just because they seemed to have an instant connection doesn’t mean that he used magic. Sometimes it happens.” I knew firsthand how that felt. I watched one of my most serious relationships implode right before my eyes. I’d met him at work and we’d been dating for six months when Drew came into our lives. She was a new hire and they started spending a lot of time together. I saw the way he looked at her, the way he laughed at her jokes. She wasn’t even that funny. Then I got sick with the flu and was out of work for a week. That was all it took. Instead of having him feeding me chicken noodle soup and nursing me back to health, he was fixated on his phone and I knew he was texting her. He had the decency to wait until I’d recovered before breaking up with me, but I quit that job soon after. Then I had to listen to my family scold me for leaving yet another job before I had a new one. They told me how irresponsible I was and that I would never amount to anything. It wasn’t worth arguing. I knew they would always see me the way they wanted to, regardless of reality.
“Well, Jakob. I’m going to let you in on a little secret from Camp Marshal. We’ve been working to determine the cause of final death.”
“So what does that mean? You don’t think I boiled him into obliteration?”
“It’s too soon to tell,” I said.
He offered his hand up for a high five but then seemed to realize the inappropriateness of it. “I’m not under arrest then?”
“Not at the moment, but the investigation is ongoing.”
He tugged on the pointy end of his ear. “You spoke to Linzy, right? On a scale of one to ten, how upset does she seem?”
I stared at him. “You want me to rate her level of grief?”
“Yeah, okay. I hear how that sounds. Do you think it might be too soon to try and win her back? I really miss her.”
“I’m going to go out on a limb and say now isn’t the best time,” I said. “Why don’t you wait and see whether you’re both still here in another week?”
“Whether we’re both still here? Why wouldn’t she be?” His features rippled with understanding. “Oh, you know about that?”
I’d seen enough episodes of The Bachelor to sense that a secret was about to be revealed. “It was hard, but Linzy was very forthcoming,” I said, and then added, “I assume we’re talking about the same thing.”
“That Linzy is here because she murdered her husband in the mortal world, right?”
“She murdered her husband?” I blurted. So much for playing it cool. I tried for a quick recovery. “I mean, she said she killed him, but she didn’t say how.” And why wasn’t she burning over hot coals for eternity?
“She said it was an accident, and I believe her, otherwise she wouldn’t be here.”
“When you say an accident, do you mean like she was the driver in a car crash that killed him?” Or was black magic involved?
“She never said exactly, but I know she tried to cover it up and got caught.”
Maybe that was why she was so quick to confess this time. She knew she’d be caught eventually, especially with a new law enforcement unit in the village. If only she’d done this two weeks ago, there wouldn’t be anyone investigating.
I thought about Moses and his confession. Maybe Linzy had been upset about Akwan’s efforts to impress the other woman at the party.
“Is Linzy the emotional type?” I asked. Emotional acts weren’t rational by their nature. Maybe Linzy had an emotional knee-jerk reaction to Akwan’s perceived flirtation.
“Not really,” Jakob said. “She’s sensitive, but I wouldn’t say overly emotional. I cry at all the Pixar movies and she never sheds a tear.”
“Hey, Worthington!” Mara yelled. “There’s a game happening over here in case you’ve forgotten.”
“Duty first,” I called over my shoulder. “Do you happen to know if Linzy also told Akwan about her past?” Maybe she’d divulged more than her dalliance with black magic and Akwan had used it against her in an argument, so she killed him—not that snoring alone wasn’t a perfectly valid reason for wanting someone dead. I once dated a guy in college that snored whenever he was drunk, which was basically every night except Tuesdays because he had an eight o’clock class on Wednesday mornings. Tuesday nights were the only night I’d agree to stay overnight with him and he eventually broke up with me because of it. I couldn’t fathom a guy who needed his girlfriend to sleep over all the time. What was the problem with sex followed by a goodnight kiss? No cuddling. No borrowing of T-shirts and boxers to wear as pajamas. No mess.
Jakob shrugged. “She never mentioned it. We didn’t have much contact after she broke up with me. Whenever I did talk to her, it was Akwan this and Akwan that. You would’ve thought they’d been together for years.”
Hmm. Why would she confess to the sleeping potion because of snoring if she’d obliterated him some other way for some other reason? Unless her confession turned out to be a…blue fish. No, not a blue fish. “Jakob, you look like a geek. What’s that word when you try to distract someone with misleading information?”
“A red herring?”
I pointed a finger at him. “That’s the one. Thanks.”
“Seeing them together at the party made me so angry,” Jakob said. “When I saw him alone in the hot tub…I reacted poorly.”
“Did he see you?”
Jakob shook his head. “It was pretty dark. I snuck over and turned up the dial as high as it would go and left.”
“Did he make any noise that you remember?” There was every chance that Akwan was already gone by the time Jakob entered the scene. That would explain why he stayed in the water once the temperature increased.
“No, the only sound was the hot tub,” he said.
I thought of watching my boyfriend fall in love with Drew right in front of me at the office and remembered how awful it felt. “It must’ve been hard seeing that they were happy.”
He wiped away an escaped tear. “It brought back memories of my time in the mortal realm. I didn’t have the best track record with relationships. I was hoping Divine Place would be different.” His expression softened. “I guess that’s why it’s considered supernatural purgatory. We don’t get happy endings here. We just get meh.”
“Hey, it could be worse. You could be boiled in a hot tub over and over again in Hell.”
He let out a quiet sigh. “Honestly, if I have to live an eternity without Linzy, then, as far as I’m concerned, I’m already in Hell.”
Chapter Fourteen
I studied the whiteboard on the wall of the lab, examining the results of Mitzi’s magical experiments. Mitzi and Jules were now up to date on all the confessions and claimed methods of obliteration and Akwan’s body was still with
us, although I noticed that it was starting to fade along with the wound on his head and the burns on his body.
“I think you’re right about ruling out the scalding water,” Mitzi said. “Akwan was probably already in oblivion or he would’ve felt it.”
“Unless he was too deeply asleep from Linzy’s sleeping potion to react,” Jules said. The vampire was flat on a neighboring slab, sliding herself in and out of the wall.
“His burns weren’t bad enough to have caused the obliteration,” Mitzi said. “That’s what Brigit said anyway.”
I tapped on the whiteboard and immediately smudged the marker. They never show that part on television. “And the sleeping potion wasn’t enough to do the job by itself either?”
“No,” Mitzi said, “according to the level in his bloodstream, it was an appropriate amount for someone his size.”
“And the tonic that Louis used?” I asked.
Jules laughed. “Not even enough to make him sneeze. Whoever sold Louis that tonic is a complete con artist. You should arrest Louis for being an idiot.”
“Not a crime, Jules.” I’d worry about that later. The con artist was harmless compared with the current situation. “What about the wound on his head? Could it have been more damaging that it looks?”
“Not according to Brigit,” Mitzi said. “She said that the wound wasn’t deep enough or in a location that would’ve obliterated him.”
“Then Akwan must’ve been gone already,” Jules said, “because there’s no way he would’ve tolerated a bash in the head like that without retaliation.”
I cut a glance at the vampire. “We’re not talking about you, Jules, but I take your point.”
In the blink of an eye, she jumped to her feet and flashed her fangs. “Keep up that tone and you’ll be taking mine.”
Inwardly I shivered, but I refused to show any fear. Jules was all talk and no bite. I made a show of continuing to read the notes, unconcerned. “What’s this unidentified substance?”
“I don’t know,” Mitzi said. “That’s why it’s unidentified. It could be a drink. It could be something he ate.”
“You can’t identify food and drink from the party?” I asked. “Were they that unusual?” I thought of the Everclear and realized that maybe some were because they were tailored to my tastes.
“It’ll take time,” Mitzi said. “We’re not set up for experiments like that.”
“I thought you weren’t set up for experiments at all,” Jules said. “Aren’t you supposed to be deficient in the magic department?”
“Not if she treats these like scientific experiments,” I interjected.
“I’m more confident when it comes to science,” Mitzi said. She angled her head. “That’s why I’m using those beakers instead of potion bottles. Makes me feel more like a scientist than a witch.”
I hadn’t even registered the presence of the beakers. “There’s something else I learned that I need to consider,” I began. I hadn’t mentioned Linzy’s past yet. I was uncertain whether to include it in the information.
“What is it?” Jules asked, eyeing me closely.
“It’s about Linzy, but I’m not sure if it’s relevant.”
“We can’t decide if it’s relevant unless you tell us,” Jules urged.
“According to…sources, she used black magic in her past life and she murdered her husband, although it was an accident.”
Mitzi removed her glasses to clean the lenses. “She used black magic to murder her husband?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “And apparently she tried to cover it up, so I’m wondering if she confessed to the sleeping potion knowing that she’d be exonerated for it and we’d focus on someone else.”
Jules whistled. “That’s a devious mind at work.”
“The problem is I get the sense that she really loved Akwan,” I said.
“Just because you really love someone doesn’t make you incapable of hurting them,” Jules said. The vampire’s eyes looked even darker and more dramatic under the artificial light of the lab.
“Some of the worst atrocities have been committed in the name of love,” Mitzi added. She slung a tote bag over her shoulder. “Sorry to leave you, but I need to get to True Brew for my shift.”
“I should head out too,” Jules said. “I have a delivery coming to Bloodlust.”
“All the way from this side of The Great Divide?” I joked.
Jules didn’t crack a smile. “I needed to order more salt. Ever since villagers saw you with a margarita, they’ve all wanted to try one. Now I’m selling out.”
I pressed a hand against my chest, feeling choked up. “Are you telling me I’m an influencer?” If it took an untimely death to earn that badge, it was worth it.
Jules clapped me on the shoulder. “Maybe I should have you come in once a week and order something new.”
“If it’s free, I’ll be there.” Heck, even if it wasn’t free, I’d be there.
“What are you going to do about Linzy?” Mitzi asked.
I heaved a deep sigh. “I guess I’ll talk to her again. See if I can get more information out of her.”
“If I were you, I’d spend most of my time in here instead of that hole in the wall they’re calling an office.” Cole swaggered into the lab, his gaze roving from floor to ceiling until it settled on me. “Thought as your deputy that I’d swing by and check on your progress.” He gave my consultants a cursory glance. “I see you’ve enlisted the help of civilians.”
“We were just leaving,” Mitzi said. She maneuvered around Cole, nearly bumping the table in the process.
“You should be more involved,” Jules said, as she passed him.
“I would think you’d object to that,” he said quietly.
She narrowed her eyes. “You know what I mean.”
With my consultants gone, I was alone with Cole. I tried to keep a calm focus on the file in front of me, but my insides were getting tangled worse than computer wires.
“There seems to be a lot going on in here,” he said.
“Is that code for ‘you’re messy?’ We can’t all be a demigod of law and order, you know.” Just because there were fifty gods of thunder didn’t mean each supernatural had multiple counterparts.
“It’s demigod of justice and social order,” he said. He positioned himself directly in front of me. “Eloise, why are you avoiding me? I thought we were a team. I even got you that badge you’re wearing.”
My fingers drifted to touch the shiny hunk of metal. “I think it’s pretty obvious.”
“Is this about what happened at your party? I thought everything was okay between us.”
My chin lifted and I dared to look him in the eye. “How can we be fine? It was mortifying.”
“And here I thought you were incapable of being mortified.”
“I was drunk, okay?” To be fair, I’d used that line a lot during my lifetime. Apparently it was a habit I’d carried into the afterlife as well.
Cole leaned against the wall. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, Eloise, but I think we should talk. Your office is way too small to have an elephant in it. If we’re going to work together, we need to clear the air.”
“Well, then maybe we shouldn’t work together.”
He chuckled. “You really think Hera is going to replace me? First, you’d need to buck up and tell her what happened, which I don’t think you want to do. Second, it will only make her more likely to keep me on as deputy. That goddess would love nothing more than to make me miserable for the rest of my afterlife.”
He had a point. “Fine. Let’s talk. I made a complete fool of myself and now I have to work with you on a new case, which means I get to take that humiliation into work with me every day.” It generally took a lot to make me feel that way. After all, I was someone who thought nothing of spending hours in a hot dog suit with a megaphone on a public sidewalk. Why was Cole’s rejection hitting me so hard? The guy was a freaking demigod. How could I have expec
ted a different outcome?
Cole edged closer to me, his bright blue eyes never leaving my face. “There’s something you deserve to know and I think you should hear it from me.”
My hands flew to cover my ears. “Whatever it is, I don’t need to know. Ignorance is bliss for a reason.” If personal experience was any indication, this was the part where he confessed that he was a furry and would be more attracted to me if I wore a squirrel costume or, worse, that he liked pineapple on his pizza.
Slowly, he tugged my hands away from my ears. “Eloise,” he said gently. “The reason I stopped you…It’s not because I wasn’t interested.”
Right. Bring on the squirrel costume. “Then what? You’d prefer the younger model? Or the one without the extra fifteen pounds? Or the one who doesn’t need a potion for hot flashes?” I shook a finger at him. “Hot flashes saved my afterlife, you know.” Technically, the potion saved me, but I wouldn’t have taken the potion if it weren’t for the hot flashes.
He shook his head. “No, that’s not what I mean. Let me start over. I tried a relationship here. It didn’t work out. I don’t think I can go down that road again.”
“Are you talking about Jules?”
“Yes, but that’s all I’m going to say about her.”
“Because it was so terrible you can’t bear to relive it?”
He chuckled. “It wasn’t terrible. It just wasn’t right. Jules and I…Neither one of us is cut out for a romantic attachment.”
“It’s not like a drunk makeout session at my welcome party was going to kick off a serious relationship,” I said. “You knew I’d been drinking.”
“Another reason I wasn’t going to take advantage of the situation.” He hooked his index finger under my chin. “I’m not going to deny there’s a connection between us. I felt it the moment I saw you in that ridiculous hot dog suit and, to be perfectly honest, I went home that night very confused.”
“That’s understandable. It isn’t every day that hot dogs fall from the sky.”
“But the connection itself isn’t the issue,” he continued. “There are things in my past…”
Homicide and Hot Tubs Page 13