The little voice makes me stand up. “There is,” she says. “Me. In this.” She reaches into my satchel and takes out the glimmering body con dress. She holds it up against me and she moves, swaying my waist and my chest, making the thousands of sparkly sequins catch the light.
“I’ve been having this little dream,” she croons. “Of you and me at the end of the night at the Ambassador’s Ball. Under the chandeliers. Dancing. Moving. You wearing your smart manager’s suit and me wearing this little thing. And what happens next… Well… It’s been so frustrating. The dream always ends before I find out. But tonight it won’t.” She purrs those last few words in a sensual tone.
Smithers looks like he knows this is too good to be true but he is trying to figure out a way to make it real. He really really wants it to be real. He puts his hand on my hip as if testing me. The look on his face makes me want to barf.
The little voice takes his hand off. She abruptly puts the dress back into my satchel, and she shrugs. “It’s up to you, of course.” She manages to sound sexily challenging and like she doesn’t give a damn all at once.
“Yeah,” Smithers says, sniggering. “It is up to me. Yeah, I like that.”
“Good,” she says. “I’ll tell Rosalie, shall I?” She saunters towards the office door and throws him a last sultry look over my shoulder.
Rosalie is waiting outside the office, pacing back and forth in an agitated manner. She glowers at me
The little voice smirks. “Eric told you to fuck off Rosalie,” she says. “Because the job is mine.”
Chapter 18
STORM
Storm gets to Agency Headquarters in a better mood than he has felt in days. He had parked his car a little way up Diana’s street and then tailed her to see where she’d go. She had hopped into a cab that drove east, towards her place of employment. It is good to know she has finally let go of her mad ideas about Beatrice.
He is glad she is finally getting back on track with her life. He plans on speaking with the chief later, to see if the Agency will consider sponsoring her to train as an Oracle. Even better, he can finally focus completely on his job and stop worrying about her.
He finds his team is already working, sat at their desks outside his glass walled office. As Storm approaches, Leo raises an eyebrow, as if silently acknowledging that Storm came in late, which he never does. Storm ignores it. He ignores Remi’s grin too. Clearly they’ve been speculating about Diana staying at his place last night.
His scowl only makes Remi smile wider, particularly when he says, “Monroe, arrange a hotel for Diana to stay at tonight until forensics clears her apartment. And give her a call later to tell her about it, will you?” After seeing where she lives he no longer thinks posting an officer outside will work.
“And make sure it’s somewhere with a good breakfast,” he adds.
“Yes, sir,” Monroe says.
He quirks his brow at Leo and Remi. “Update?” he says.
Remi groans. “It’s first thing in the morning, boss. I’ve barely had my coffee yet.”
Monroe gives a nervous laugh. “She’s joking, sir. We got something back from forensics. That partial fingerprint that Remi found on the window outside the Everett house? A result came back for it.”
Storm gestures for the team to follow him into his office. They take their usual seats around the small meeting table in there. Storm deposits the coffees and the box of donuts he picked up on the way in front of them, and they help themselves. Remi snatches the chocolate one before Leo can get to it. She cackles at Leo, who scowls back at her.
“And?” says Storm, depositing his jacket on a hook and dragging his chair out from behind his desk to join them. He helps himself to a frosted lemon donut. He hands a plain sugared ring to Monroe who has yet to help himself.
“Plain?” Remi scoffs.
Storm shrugs. “I get the feeling Monroe is a plain donut kind a guy.”
Monroe accepts his donut. He gives an apologetic glance to Remi. “He’s right. I don’t like too much sugar.”
“Ha!” says Storm.
Monroe grins. He hands over the tablet he has bought into the room with him to Storm.
“It was Kris Caprio’s fingerprint,” says Remi, inadvertently stealing Monroe’s thunder.
Monroe looks disappointed. “We matched it to the fingerprints taken for elimination,” he mumbles.
Remi is unaware. She licks chocolate frosting off her thumb. “It doesn’t mean anything unfortunately,” she continues. “Because in theory Caprio could have been there peering in through the window for some other reason, given that he is Everett’s personal assistant. Heck, maybe Everett makes him clean the windows.”
“What’s the status on Caprio’s alibi?” Storm asks.
“He might not have been at the set like he said he was,” says Monroe. “Nobody I have questioned so far remembers seeing him for most of Friday and half of Saturday. It doesn’t mean he wasn’t there. The set was busy. I wasn’t able to get hold of some of the people I tried calling. I’m still chasing them.”
“Anything on the murder weapon?” says Storm.
Remi speaks up. “No prints on it. No DNA other than the victim’s. I spoke with his vampire-hunter TV show people. The props handler said the axe definitely didn’t come from the show set, and they do actually have some real axes there. The killer staged it to look like it was from Everett’s show. Which does throw doubt on the possibility of Caprio being the killer because Caprio had access to the set. He could just have stolen an axe from there to make it genuine.”
“And Everett’s alibi?” says Storm.
“Astrid Wikander has not been answering her phone,” says Leo. “I left several messages, and I’ll chase her again today. I did manage to speak to her assistant, Kyra Lyle, who confirmed she had a forty minute video call with Wikander at 8:00 pm on Friday night, the evening of the murder. She saw Wikander walking all around the beach cottage during the call, so there’s no doubt that Wikander was there. That takes her out of the frame for the murder, because there were no flights that would have got her to London in time. But Kyra doesn’t recall seeing Everett anywhere in the video during that call, even though Wikander walked between both the lounge and the bedroom.”
Storm takes a sip of coffee, mulling it over. “It still doesn’t mean Everett wasn’t there,” he says.
“Yep,” says Leo. “We’ll need Wikander to confirm it for sure. I’m on it.”
“And can someone chase forensics and mystics for anything from the envelope Diana got last night?” says Storm.
“I’ll do it,” says Remi.
“Anything else?” says Storm.
Remi and Leo shake their heads. They grab their coffees to leave Storm’s office, Leo reaching for another donut. Monroe hesitates. He is shifting awkwardly on his feet in a way that makes Storm look at him.
Monroe hesitates for a moment, and then says, “Erm, has anyone seen my stunbommer?” He looks like it was actually painful to get the words out.
Remi and Leo shake their heads.
Storm frowns. “You haven’t found it yet? You’d better make a report to lost property.”
“It’s probably around here somewhere,” says Monroe hastily. “I’ll look for it.”
“Make the report anyway,” Storm says, all too aware of the damage a stunbommer can do it the wrong hands.
Monroe’s face goes red, and he quickly follows Leo out of the office. Remi hesitates at the door to shoot Storm a look that says she thinks he was too harsh. “He’ll find it,” she whispers, before pulling the door shut.
Storm switches on his computer. Diana’s gripes about Beatrice have been playing on his mind. He knows she will be downright smug if she knew he was doing this, but he does a search on Beatrice’s background anyway.
As he expected, he finds Beatrice is squeaky clean. She has no criminal record to speak of, and a long list of professional and charitable accolades to her name. Briefly married, then divor
ced but had kept her husband’s name. No children.
She had been born in England, spent a gap year in Otherworld before returning to England to study psychology at Oxford University. Then she’d practiced professionally in America for some years before returning to England eight years ago to build the charitable branch of her business with Raif Silverstone, which has flourished.
The only potential black mark against her was not on file, and he would not even know about it if she had not admitted it herself. She had not reported Raif when she found out about his questionable dealings in liberating the bonded water sprites, something she claimed she hadn’t been aware of. And even if she had been, any actions taken in Otherworld itself was outside of his jurisdiction.
Storm taps his fingers against his desk. The thought of officially reporting what Beatrice has confided in him galls him. He has no problem with anyone helping to free bonded water sprites, finding the practice of enslavement abhorrent. And he has no desire to damage the reputations of Beatrice’s charity or her donors. Yet the law may have been broken. And it is not his job to judge the ethics of it. Cops making their own judgments on which crimes to overlook leads to a slippery slope. It is his job to investigate, to follow the evidence.
Sighing, Storm grabs his phone to call a trusted friend who works in the Otherworld immigration bureau. Giving only the briefest of details and highlighting the need for discretion, Storm asks his friend to consider whether any further investigation is needed.
As he is hanging up the call, Remi knocks on his door. Through the glass Storm can see that Remi is bouncing a little on her heels, the way she does when she is excited. He gestures for her to come in.
She bounds in and thrusts her tablet at him. “We’ve got the call logs for Everett and Caprio’s calls the week of the murder. Everett’s are as expected. He spoke to Lynesse every day he was away, with the last call being the Thursday that they argued.”
She scrolls down the screen. “But see here? These are Caprio’s calls. He also called Lynesse nearly every day during the Ireland trip. Most interestingly, he called her six times on the day off the murder, all brief calls lasting less than a minute. Then this last call is at 10:00 pm, an hour before the murder window. Then nothing after that. Nothing at all. It’s almost as if he knew she was dead.”
She swipes the screen to bring up a different report. “And this came through. Forensics got a hit on the envelope that was sent to Diana. The card and coin were print-free, other than Diana’s, but there was a single thumb print on the envelope itself and it belongs to our new prime suspect, Kris Caprio!”
No wonder Remi is bouncing. She knows what this means. Storm grins. This is enough evidence to bring Kris Caprio in for official questioning.
Monroe, who had followed Remi into the office says, “Too bad Diana Bellona was wrong.” He is smiling a little, clearly excited the team are ahead of Diana on the wager.
“Diana wasn’t wrong,” interjects Remi quickly. “Not really. She said she saw the killer lurking by that window and she was right. We found Caprio’s print there. And anyway, maybe there is something off about that Grictor woman. It must be hard not to get wrapped up in a train of thought when your psychic instincts are screaming at you about something. Perhaps Diana caught onto something else. She’ll figure it out.”
Storm doesn’t disagree. Diana would benefit from some training to hone her instincts, if only she would listen. At least she’s finally admitted that she no longer thinks the killer was Beatrice.
“Let’s bring Caprio in,” says Storm. “Remi, you and Leo go pick him up.”
Monroe looks a little disappointed at this, but Storm isn’t ready to let the new guy onto the field yet. Not if he’s already lost his stunbommer. Monroe knows it too. Storm watches as Monroe takes a seat back at his desk and attacks his calls for chasing Caprio’s alibi with renewed vigor. There might be hope for the kid yet. A poorer agent would’ve used the new evidence as an excuse to give up.
Storm himself is filled with renewed energy. If he can wrap this case up today it’ll be a big win for the department, and allow the media to put the case to bed. He is still being inundated with calls from reporters. Even better, it means Diana can set her mind at rest and feel safe in her own home.
However, an hour later it becomes clear that Caprio has gone to ground. The team are unable to trace his whereabouts, and they find that his phone is switched off, preventing them from using it to find his location.
Storm’s spends an hour helping his team trawl through CCTV footage taken from the streets outside Caprio’s apartment, trying to trace his movements. They find that Caprio had packed a bag late the night before and gotten into his car and drove off. The car drove out of the city, where the CCTV trail went dry.
“The sneaky git!” says Remi. “He purposefully nudged us towards Everett’s dodgy alibi, knowing full well Everett made the better suspect. But it was him all along!”
“My calls about tracing his alibi yesterday must have spooked him,” says Monroe dejectedly.
“It’s not your fault,” says Remi. “You were following procedure.”
“I’ll call Mystics to get them to put a rush on this,” says Storm. “Leo, you head out to find Everett. See if he’s hiding Caprio at his hotel. Remi, Monroe, pay a visit to Caprio’s closest friends. See if you can smoke him out. Monroe, pick up a spare stunbommer on your way out.”
Storm’s call to the Director of the Department of Mystics is not pleasant. He is several pay grades above him and lets him know it. He gives Storm an earful about exactly how many other murder cases his department is covering, and huffs about how badly the flu has hit his team and complains that people have been inconsiderate enough to want to take leave during the summer season.
Storm is tempted to tell him he is surprised anyone from Mystics would ever catch anything so common as a cold, but he holds his tongue. When Storm refuses to back down, the director grouchily passes the call on to his second in command, for which Storm is grateful.
The Deputy Director is a brisk woman who, after warning Storm that she will not risk rushing complex magic forensics processes, tells him she will see what she can do.
Several hours later, the call pays off. Storm has joined Leo in making door step visits to one of Caprio’s close friend, when someone from Mystics calls him back.
“Hey,” the guy says in a laid back voice, not bothering to introduce himself in the usual manner of those from Mystics. “Boss-lady said you wanted to hurry this one along. You got lucky, man. We found a minute trace of blood on the small envelope, probably from a papercut. And you know we’re not too keen on blood magic without the proper approvals and escalations, but given the priority of your case, boss-lady okay-ed a locator spell. Not enough blood present to get a precise location, but we had a special consultant in today who was able to get you something better than nothing. I’ll send you what we’ve got.”
Leaving the ‘And you’ll be grateful for it’ part unsaid, the guy hangs up. A moment later a message pings on Storm’s phone. It is an image of a map of central London, marking out a diameter of just over a mile.
Leo leans over to take a look. He whistles. “How the hell are we supposed to find Caprio in all that? Hold on, let me cross reference which of his friends living in that area we haven't visited yet.” Leo checks his phone.
“No need,” says Storm, something on the map catching his eye. It makes him curse. Caprio’s location only adds to the evidence of his guilt.
Storm zooms in on the map for Leo’s benefit and points to the center of the circle. “The Otherworld Embassy is here. The Ambassador’s annual ball is taking place there tonight. They’ll be opening a portal to Otherworld.”
“Shit,” says Leo. “Caprio has strong ties to Otherworld on his father’s side.”
Storm nods grimly. “No doubt daddy pulled some strings for the best hideout in London. Caprio’s going to run. He’s holed up at the embassy and we can’t touch him.”
Chapter 19
DIANA
The Otherworld Embassy in London is a monolith of a building set on the northern bank of the River Thames. Its main entrance sits at the top of a sweeping cascade of steps, flanked by two massive pillars. Streets around the building have been cordoned off by police for the night in preparation for the arrival of dignitaries and celebrities. Only two entrances have been left open; the red carpeted one at the front, and a far less glamorous one at the back for staff. No way would I have gotten in without being staff.
I have spent the morning and most of the afternoon in the building’s bowels, slaving away with preparations for first the Ambassador’s banquet, being held for two hundred select special guests and then later a ball for five hundred guests, with canapes and treats being served throughout the evening.
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