by Dannika Dark
Wyatt circled around me in a flash and searched the bedrooms down the hall. I rummaged through the drawers of a console table but only found pens, notepads, candles, and several lighters.
“Whose name is on the lease?” I asked.
Christian peered behind paintings on the wall. “Viktor didn’t say, and we’re not to ask. He doesn’t want us questioning anyone in the building. No neighbors, no witnesses, no leasing office.”
“I found the freshy,” Wyatt said grimly. He strode into the living room, shoulders stiff and lips pressed tight. “Well, half of him.”
“Ask him who the murderer is,” I said, hoping we could wrap this up so I could go back to my Angus burger.
Wyatt snatched his beanie from Christian’s hand and tugged it onto his head. “That’s not the half I found. Now he’s stuck to me. Thanks a lot.”
Christian wasn’t about to tolerate any complaints. “Then ask the body to write down what he knows.”
“It doesn’t work that way unless he took a pen and paper with him in the afterlife.”
“For feck’s sake.”
“Does he know where his severed head is?” I anchored my hands on my hips, watching Wyatt stare at a void space beside him. “Maybe he can point the way.”
“Well?” Wyatt asked. “Where’s your head?” After a moment, Wyatt turned as if watching someone walk into the kitchen.
We all followed, and Wyatt stopped short of the body. “It’s in the freezer.”
When he made no move to go after it, Christian stepped around him and opened the freezer door. He pulled out a severed head, holding it by the frosty hair. “Now that’s a morbid sight if I ever did see one.”
Wyatt spun on his heel. “I’m gonna have nightmares.”
I jerked my head back. “Why? You’ve seen dead bodies before. Besides, the eyes are closed. It’s not like he’s looking at you.”
“Yeah, but his ghost head’s not in here, and I’ve searched the place. That means his head moved on to the next life but his body didn’t.” Wyatt reached for his collar and pulled it away from his neck as if he might vomit.
“Go search the house again—you probably missed it. Try looking out the open window in the living room. Maybe he wanted some fresh air and couldn’t get back inside.”
Wyatt gave me an indignant look and stormed out of the room.
I leaned against the counter, the body to my left. “Why do you think they put it in the freezer?”
Christian stepped over the corpse and lowered his arm. “It was facing out, so he wanted the authorities to admire his work.”
“How do you know?”
He stepped close, his gaze hot. “Don’t ask a killer that question.”
My pulse ticked faster.
“Has anyone ever told you how fetching you are?”
I glanced down. “I’m covered in blood.”
Christian looked at me the same way I’d looked at those chocolate-covered strawberries. “And do you think that turns me off?”
“I bet you’re easy to please on a date. Not that I would know.”
He gave me a hot look that could have incinerated my panties. “Don’t make plans on Valentine’s.”
“Are you asking me out on a date with a head in your hand?”
His fangs slid out, and he leaned in tight. “I’m not asking, Precious.”
Moments after he stepped back, Wyatt appeared in the open doorway.
“The spirit head’s gone. My work is done.”
As he spun on his heel, I chased after him. “Wait a second! You can’t just leave.”
After he flung the door open, he stopped in his tracks and turned. “Hold your ponies. I can’t have a conversation with a headless body, but you want me to stick around here long enough for it to bond with me? You guys are a couple of fruit loops. See ya.”
Christian stood a few paces behind me, the head still in his hand. “What’s gotten into him?”
“Your cologne?”
“Whoever did this had a sharp blade,” he remarked, showing me the severed neck.
I averted my eyes. “The victim also trusted him enough to let him inside and offer him a drink.”
“A drink? And how did you come to that conclusion?”
“You should know better than anyone, my Irish friend. When someone invites you into their house, why else would they go to the kitchen?”
“Maybe it was the maintenance man coming to repair a drippy faucet.”
“Does the maintenance man wear a sword?”
Christian’s face went stony, and he tipped his head to the side. Then he looked around and noticed what I’d already observed: there was no sign of a struggle. It wasn’t uncommon for Breed to carry weapons. After all, I wore daggers in plain sight. But a maintenance worker or deliveryman wouldn’t arm themselves. That meant the victim either knew the murderer or had reason to trust an armed man.
The unmistakable click of sharp heels on a hard surface made me turn. A brunette with bright-red lips, black gloves, and a pearl necklace froze in the open doorway. I was sure she also had on clothes, but she flashed out of sight before I could look at the rest of her.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” I growled, racing out the door after her. She had already reached the end of the hall and was pushing through a door.
I skidded into a stairwell, but she was already on the next landing down. I had on my red sneakers, and that meant no woman in high heels was going to win this chase. Halfway down, I jumped over the rail to the landing below. Before she could descend the next flight of stairs, I snatched the back of her black dress, and she whirled around, throwing a blast of energy into me.
I smiled. “Thanks for the energy drink.”
She wrenched away and managed three more steps before I jumped on her back and we went sailing to the landing below. We hit the concrete with a thud, and the bone that snapped wasn’t mine.
I sat up and rotated my shoulders, making sure I hadn’t dislocated anything.
“I’ll kill you!” she screeched unconvincingly, her jaw clenched as she rolled over and hugged her arm against her body.
Winded and sore, I scooted back against the wall to catch my breath. “Not if I kill you first.”
Christian and I watched the haughty woman rip back her silk drapes to heal her broken arm in the sunshine. Christian had already set the bone so it would fuse together seamlessly. There was a moment when I almost pitied her, but that thought perished when she took an imperious tone with me and demanded I get my cheap shoes off her precious oriental rug.
“Don’t you think breaking her arm was a bit extreme?” he asked me quietly. “She doesn’t look like a killer to me.”
“Guilty people don’t run.”
“Aye, but you’re also drenched in blood. Perhaps you gave her a wee bit of a fright.”
He had a point. “What did you do with the head?”
“I put him back in the freezer to chill out for a while.” Christian waltzed over to the woman and gestured for her to take a seat.
She gave me a venomous look before kicking off her broken heel and sitting down on the couch. “Those Manolo Blahnik heels were one of a kind, made especially for me.”
I jutted my hip and folded my arms. “You shouldn’t have run.”
“Excuse me if I had a knee-jerk reaction to a vagrant, covered in blood, standing inside my apartment while her Vampire companion is flourishing my lover’s head in his hand.”
I met Christian’s gaze. Lover. This was getting interesting.
Christian circled behind the sofa and leaned over the back, his fingers laced. “You say this is your home?”
She touched her flushed cheeks, her gaze settling on the red roses on the table. “Yes, I rent this property. How do I know the higher authority hired you?”
I strutted toward the swivel chair and plopped down. “Because you’d be dead otherwise, don’t you think?”
“Was that your friend I saw loping down the hall?” Her lip quiv
ered when she looked at the flowers again. “What happened?”
“That’s what we’re here to find out,” Christian said coolly. “Who’s the numpty we found in the kitchen?”
When she removed one of her black gloves, she smacked him in the face with it. With a cross look, Christian straightened up and circled to the front of the couch. He shoved the flowers aside and took a seat on the glass coffee table. I waited anxiously to see if it would hold his weight or crack.
After popping a peppermint into his mouth, he continued. “Can you tell me the name of the dearly departed?”
“Walter. Do I have to give his last name?”
“If we’re to identify him for a proper burial. Let’s start with your name.”
She reclined her head, eyes closing. “Elaine Sanders.”
Christian crunched on his candy. “Why do I know that name?”
Her brown eyes popped open, and she gave him a peevish glance. “I’m an official representative of the higher authority. The man you found is Walter Hughes.”
“Does he live here?” I asked, wondering if maybe she was his sugar mama.
“No.”
“But he has a key.”
She shifted, looking away and fidgeting with a gold bracelet on her wrist. “Look, if you must know, I’m bonded with another Mage.”
Bonded being the Mage equivalent of marriage.
I leaned back and crossed my legs. This lady’s story wasn’t anything I hadn’t heard before. “So… you own this little apartment and share it as a rendezvous point with your lover? That explains why it doesn’t look that lived-in. Why did you kill him?”
“Do you really think I’d murder my lover in my own apartment and come back?”
“Maybe you got spooked and ran. But you had a little time to think about it and decided to come back and clean up your mess. You’re not off my suspect list until you can provide an alibi.”
She gave a dramatic sigh while tucking her skirt beneath her legs. “I just came from work. There are at least ten people who can testify to my whereabouts all day.”
“Does your husband know about this little arrangement?” Christian asked.
Her expression remained as rigid as her posture. “He doesn’t know about this place, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
Elaine was avoiding eye contact with Christian the way most people did around Vampires. She didn’t know we were only here to identify the body, but anything additional we learned would go straight to Viktor.
Christian kept his voice steady. “Do you think your husband might have found out?”
Her eyes rounded, and she shot to her feet. “Absolutely not! Henry would never do anything so obscene. You better think twice about implicating an official of the court. I’ve taken every measure to keep this affair private.”
“Can he provide an alibi?” Christian asked.
She shook her head. “Your clumsy efforts to solve a crime will tarnish his reputation unnecessarily. The scandal could jeopardize our positions. Merely questioning him without sufficient evidence is slanderous, and I won’t stand for it.” Elaine wrinkled her nose at me. “I’m going to have to replace that chair.”
I glanced at the bloodstains on the upholstery where my arms had rubbed against it. “You’re going to have to replace a lot more than that, starting with your refrigerator.”
Her dark eyebrows pressed together. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Christian cleared his throat in what was an obvious attempt to shut me up. “Is there anyone else who knows about this place?”
Elaine shook her head.
“Are you sure?” he pressed. “A best friend, a delivery service…”
“No one.” Her lip quivered, and she steered her gaze away. “This was the only place we could have uninterrupted privacy. Walter didn’t have a mate, so he didn’t have to make any sacrifices. But he felt it was imperative to protect my reputation, and going to hotels or on trips would create too many opportunities for mistakes. My face is recognizable among the elite, so having a place of our own was his idea. My husband and I don’t work the same hours, and he’s not the doting kind who calls when I’m away. Walter and I planned for this weekend. I came up with a ruse by convincing my husband that I had a meeting with a designer. Walter was so excited.”
That explained the roses. He must have shown up early with flowers and the chocolate-covered strawberries I’d seen in the fridge.
Christian leaned forward. “You said Walter didn’t have a mate. That’s not a Mage term.”
She rubbed her forehead. “Walter was a Chitah.”
Ahhh. His dark hair had thrown me off, and since his eyelids were frozen shut, I hadn’t seen his eye color. That explained why she didn’t want anyone finding out about the affair. Her husband would probably see it as a slap in the face that she’d chosen to have an affair with a Chitah—and a defect at that.
“Would you have knocked or just walked in?” I asked.
She jerked her head back. “Why should that matter?”
“Because he let someone inside the apartment. You have a peephole, and I’m guessing if this place is a secret, he would have looked out first. But if you had a habit of knocking, he wouldn’t have thought twice about opening the door.”
“I have a key,” she said. “We both do. I’ve never knocked.”
Christian rose to his feet and put his hands in his coat pockets. “Would he have ordered delivery?”
She huffed out a laugh. “We never order that garbage.”
I wiped my arm on the sofa as I sat forward. People like her probably thought they were too cultured to eat a little chow mein or pepperoni pizza. “Well, you two obviously can’t go out to eat at a restaurant.”
“We’ve also never had an entire weekend together,” she said with derision. “Walter stocks the kitchen in case I get hungry, but I don’t come here to eat.”
Christian jerked his head toward the kitchen, calling me away. I followed him through the archway.
“What do you make of it?” I asked.
“I think her husband found out and took matters into his own hands. That would explain the head in the freezer—something for her to find.”
“Yep. That seems like the obvious choice. But if their relationship was a secret, then why did Viktor’s contact send us in first? How would they know who was staying here and what was going on?”
Christian scratched his beard. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they kept files on all their people. It wouldn’t be hard to make the connection if she signed the lease in her name. Now that we’ve identified the body as her lover, it’s business as usual. They send in a qualified Regulator, and after the inquisition, the cleaners take care of the mess. I’m assuming if Elaine had been the victim, there would be special protocol to follow. They’re trying to be discreet, especially if they think she’s dead at the hands of her lover. The higher authority doesn’t like scandal. Can’t let that information get around before they tell her husband, the poor bastard.”
I leaned my back against the doorjamb. “We better give Viktor the scoop.”
“Aye. We’ve got everything we need.”
“What about her husband? I think we need to call him over.”
Christian chortled. “Only if you want to see a real bloodbath. Viktor gave us orders not to question anyone, and we’ve already broken his rule. I think he’ll give us a pass on this one, but don’t push your luck.”
I opened the fridge and grabbed one of the chocolate-covered strawberries. “Want one?”
“Over my rotting corpse.”
“Or his,” I said, stepping over the body. After finishing the last bite, I tossed the stem in the sink. “What’s the male equivalent of a mistress? A mister?”
Christian sighed, his gaze distant. “Second fiddle.”
Chapter 3
Before we left Elaine’s den of iniquity, we reported to Viktor to make sure he didn’t need us to pursue the investigation any further. Satis
fied with our findings, he let us off the hook, and we instructed Elaine to sit tight until the Regulators arrived. Heading back to Ruby’s Diner while covered in blood was out of the question, so Christian and I went home.
After a quick shower, I headed down to the dining room, drying off the ends of my damp hair with a towel. When I walked in, I took a moment to admire the unpolished beauty. Candlelight from the chandelier suffused the room, soaking into the rustic wood table and illuminating the stone floors. Aside from a few upgraded rooms, our modest furnishings removed us from modern civilization. I would never have thought I could get used to the quiet, but Keystone wasn’t without its charms.
Christian and Viktor were having a quiet conversation in one of the booths against the wall that separated the dining and gathering rooms. They were cozy, like what you might see in a restaurant or bar—vinyl benches and wood tables that comfortably seated four per table. Each of the booths was placed next to one of the open archways that overlooked the gathering room. No one was in there, but the firelight in the hearth burned bright.
I fell back a step when Viktor looked up. “Blue said you wanted to see me, but I didn’t know you were in the middle of something. Do you guys need another minute?”
Christian scooted against the wall, inviting me to sit beside him.
When I sat down, the fat candle against the wall flickered and almost went out. I draped my towel over the back of my seat and shivered.
Viktor’s grey eyes glittered from too many spirits. “Can I pour you a glass?”
Before I could answer, he filled an empty goblet he’d set aside and slid it in front of me. After he topped everyone off, Viktor swirled his glass and held it beneath his nose. “This was a very good year. My village in Russia had a record heat wave. Nothing makes you feel more alive than the sun beating down on your shoulders. Our winters were bleak and long, and summers were like your spring. So to have that year of blessed heat—I can still remember running through the high grass and how cold the water felt when jumping in. That was the year I became a man.”
Viktor didn’t have to elaborate on what he meant by that.
After savoring another mouthful of wine, he swirled his glass, lost in the memories. “To you… this just smells like another red wine. But someday when you’re older, you’ll recognize the scent of yesterday. It’s jasmine on the breeze, old leather, a fragrant wine… or maybe for you it will just be hamburgers grilling in a diner.”