by Lyra Evans
Cobalt made a low sound, somewhere between a growl and a sigh that came rooted deep in his spine. He leaned heavily over his knees, propped on his forearms, his head dipping down to create a swerving hill out of his shoulders and arms. The urge to touch him was strong in Niko again, but he pressed it aside.
“Is there some way we can support this theory? Perhaps a comparison of other young women he’s targeted in the past?” he asked, teeth clenched tight. “Some kind of pattern?”
Uri and Starla immediately began typing away, searching for answers. Niko didn’t think they would come up with anything. Redwood was too good at covering his tracks on these kinds of things. He had too many friends.
“I can’t find any other open missing persons cases that match this kind of situation,” Uri said. “And no unsolved cases involving female victims that fit the type.”
“There wouldn’t be police files,” Starla said, and Niko looked over at her. “Not if there are no bodies and no one ever came forward to report him. I found some outgoing payments from Deeproots Capital and Loyalty Investments to ‘consultants’ that don’t make much sense. I haven’t looked up all of them, but here are the last three recipients.” She pulled up three images on her screen, turning it to show everyone.
Three women smiled out at them from portraits. Each of them had wide, round eyes, perfect lips, and long, dark hair. Though the colours of their hair were always different, they all fell on the darker end of the spectrum—navy blue, burgundy red, forest green.
“They’re all cleaning staff at one of Redwood’s buildings?” Coral asked.
“Not anymore, but they were,” Starla said. “The payout was pretty high. These three women all moved on to other things. One of them went back to school to get a degree in city planning. One of them started her own clothing business, and the other seems to be apprenticing as a doctor.”
“It certainly seems like Esther fits his type,” Cobalt said. “But odd that in the past he would typically pay them off. All these women are still alive? Intact?”
Starla made a face. “I assume you mean not mutilated or missing limbs or something,” she said. “In which case, they are all fine. Still alive and visibly unharmed.”
“Then why has Esther not reappeared?” Cobalt asked.
“Maybe he went too far this time,” Niko said, remembering Redwood’s penchant for abuse and torture. “Maybe that’s what Phoebe has to keep hidden. He’s actually killed someone this time.”
Coral slouched in the sofa, arms folded over her chest, her black curls splayed around her like a deity’s headdress. “I don’t buy it.”
“Which part?” Starla asked.
Niko frowned. “You don’t think Redwood is responsible?”
Coral sucked her teeth in displeasure. “No, no, he definitely took her. I just don’t buy Linden’s going to all this trouble to cover for him. How’s that her problem?”
As though a brick wall had manifested in front of his speeding train, Niko found himself careering to a sudden stop. She was right. Phoebe was purely self-interested. She might go out of her way to help her brother cover his tracks if necessary, out of some familial duty, but she would not throw the entire Court into disarray to take Niko out just for this. Esther Cottonwood might have been a problem if Redwood killed her. But she was Redwood’s problem. If he got arrested for murder, which was already unlikely, she could easily wash herself of that. One way or another.
So whatever threat Esther Cottonwood posed, it had to be personal to Phoebe. Very personal.
“We need to dig deep,” he said suddenly. “Very deep. Who were Esther Cottonwood’s parents? Grandparents? Did she ever have any siblings? What is her background? I need details.”
“Her parents are both gone,” Starla said, calling up birth records. “Father was Abner Cottonwood; mother was Csilla Cottonwood, nee Pine.”
“What did they do?” Niko asked. “How did they die? When did they get married?”
Uri was eyeing Niko in confusion, but Coral and Starla seemed intent on finding him answers. Cobalt watched Niko too, but there was something other than confusion in his gaze.
“Csilla worked at a daycare,” Coral said. “Abner was a landscaper. Oh, wait. Well, I guess. He worked for a landscaping company as a ‘groomer.’ Fancy word for gardener or what?”
“They got married the year before Esther was born,” Starla said. “So about thirty-three years ago. Looks like they got married a little later in life. Csilla’s pregnancy was difficult. Medical records show she suffered constant complications. Died in the months following Esther’s birth. Oh, that’s awful.”
Niko tried not to acknowledge the pang of understanding in him, tried to be critical and objective. He needed to see the answer through the fog of irrelevant information.
“The father?”
“He died later,” Coral said. “A workplace accident. Ouch. Looks like something went wrong with some kind of equipment. Someone lost control of something and then—” Coral cut off abruptly, grimacing deeply. She drew a finger across her throat. “Literally.”
Starla shuddered. Niko pressed on.
“Was there an investigation?” he asked.
Coral nodded. “Nothing came of it. Deemed accidental. And before you ask, the guy who lost control was in therapy for months, committed to hospital for suicidal thoughts. He was destroyed by the whole thing. I don’t think it was any kind of intentional.”
With a heavy sigh, Niko screwed his eyes shut and pressed his fingers to his temples. “Is there any connection between either parent and the Lindens? The Redwoods? Phoebe specifically? Did the kids go to Csilla’s daycare or something?”
For a moment, only the clicking of keys met Niko’s ears. Then Starla said, “Not the daycare, but it looks like Abner Cottonwood’s company was contracted by the Redwoods. They provided landscaping services for years, then suddenly stopped.”
Niko moved over to Starla again, leaning over to see what she was looking at. “When did it stop? Was Abner Cottonwood specifically employed there?”
Starla scanned through. “I don’t think they had electronic records then, but it looks like their contract with the Redwoods ended—huh.”
Niko saw what she saw, made the same connection she did. And he didn’t believe it at first. His mind supplied the likely answer, Preston’s own words flitting through his head, but it was impossible. Wasn’t it? It was insane.
“What is it?” Cobalt asked, getting to his feet to come around and see for himself.
“That year—isn’t that—” Uri started, squinting at the numbers.
“What a fascinating turn of events,” Coral said flatly. “It really does bring everything together to know that specific detail.” She was stubbornly sitting in her place facing the back of Starla’s screen, unable to see anything.
“The year the contract ended was the year Phoebe Linden was born,” Niko said.
Coral’s expression didn’t change much. “Okay. That’s a bit odd, but I’m not sure that really means anything.”
Except it did.
“That’s a first edition,” Preston had said, referencing the tome of family lines of Maeve’s Court, The First Trees in the Woods. “The only one of its kind left. They reprinted it with some adjustments. You can’t find this version anywhere anymore.”
He’d hesitated when Niko had claimed Phoebe wouldn’t trigger the Astral Roots unless she knew for certain her bloodlines were proven of the Old Trees. Her mother’s name was Greta Yew. But Preston never referred to Phoebe’s father.
“Was Esther’s DNA ever tested? Run in the system to find a match against unclaimed victims or unsolved cases or—” Niko started, urging Uri to look.
But Uri was already searching when Niko asked, and he cut him off, saying, “They collected her DNA but never ran it. I don’t see a reason why. Just a note refusing the test. I don’t know whose authority—”
Niko did. He knew why. “Run it now. Run her DNA and compare it to
Phoebe Linden’s. Linden’s DNA is on file because of her role in the Court system, correct?”
Uri paused, giving Niko a strange look. “I mean, yes. It is. But—”
“But what? This could be the answer,” Niko snapped.
“I can’t run DNA, Nik,” he said, as though Niko should have known that. Which he did. He did know that. Uri wasn’t trained on that kind of test. Neither was Niko. In a moment of urgency and desperation, he’d completely shed all his knowledge of police procedure.
Cheeks colouring, he snapped, “We have to get it tested. Somehow.”
Cobalt’s mouth pulled to the side, as though he was considering. “Dr. Aspen would have the skills necessary for that, no? And access to the police DNA database?”
A chill ran down Niko. Aspen was already in trouble because of him. She was already forced off work. If she got more involved, got caught running DNA like that, particularly using Linden’s DNA—it could mean the end of her career.
“Don’t even start, Niki,” Starla said, already typing up an email. “She wanted to help, remember? And she won’t get fired if we can prove we’re right. If we take Linden down, she’ll be safe. We all will. And if we don’t—”
“Nobody will,” Uri agreed. “Ask her.”
Starla sent off the email, a message sent through a throwaway account and coded in some way Niko couldn’t fathom at that moment. He ran a hand through his midnight blue hair and breathed out a ragged breath.
“Now we wait, I guess,” Coral said, but as she spoke, something dinged on Starla’s computer. There was already a response from Aspen.
“She said she’ll send along results in a minute,” Starla said, equally surprised by her speed. “I guess she was staring at her computer, hitting refresh.”
“Going stir crazy, I’d wager,” Uri said. “That woman needs to be working. Kind of like Nik.”
Niko ignored the barb. He began pacing again, walking around Cobalt, who had placed himself in Niko’s outlined path. The Selkie didn’t move as Niko tried to get by him, forcing Niko to brush him as he moved. A shower of sparks cascaded beneath Niko’s skin at the minimal contact. He was a sparking wire, cut but still live, dangerous to all those nearby, and Cobalt seemed intent on getting too close.
There was no time for that, no space for personal shit. Not now. Not when everything could come crashing down around them at any moment. The Court could fall into Phoebe Linden’s hands. Queen Maeve herself could be in danger. And none of them would ever be free again if Linden managed to claim power. Who knew the damage it could do to the whole of the Three Courts if that came to be. All Niko knew for certain was that it would mean war. Connor and Nimueh wouldn’t stand by while Linden assassinated Maeve and turned the Fae Court into a dictatorship. They wouldn’t stand for her xenophobic rule. They would fight back. And the Selkies would too. And there hadn’t been a war that widespread and devastating to the Three Courts since the First Wars.
Another ding, and Niko turned back to the screen. Starla opened the email, and Niko couldn’t breathe for his heart pounding in his throat.
“Well that’s that, I guess,” Starla said. “Esther Cottonwood and Phoebe Linden are half-sisters. They share a paternal link.”
The silence was thick in the room, but Coral broke it without trouble. “What does that actually mean for us then?”
Niko felt a small smile pulling at the edges of his mouth. “It means Phoebe Linden is not of the Old Trees. Not by blood for four generations. Which means she has no right to invoke the rite of Astral Roots.” He finally breathed out, as though he’d been holding it all in his chest for days.
They had a way now to stop her. They just needed to figure out how to get everyone in the Court to know it.
Chapter 27
“I need air,” Niko said, his mind bubbling with options and problems and new information. He felt overfull, ready to blow out his ears, from all that had happened and was still yet to come. He tried to pace, fervently sketching out a track in the room now it was abuzz with the news Phoebe Linden was not as Old Trees as she claimed she was. But as he tried to move, his steps became increasingly erratic, jerky, like a glitching computer game. There was too much going on, too much in his head. “I need to think!”
Everyone stopped, staring widely at him, and he realized he must have sounded as frenzied as he felt. Starla eyed him carefully, scanning him with a piercing look he never liked being the focus of. She had a way of cutting to the quick of him with that look, of figuring him out when he couldn’t figure himself out. He needed to sort through it all himself.
“Nik,” Uri said quietly, having possibly the most experience with Niko in this state out of everyone in the room. Niko remembered many a case, pacing back and forth in the precinct’s bullpen, struggling to see the larger picture. Uri would remind him when he got too laser-focused to go down to the pool. But there was no such option now. “Cap has a swimming pool in his backyard.”
The pacing stopped immediately. Niko stared blankly at Uri’s face while the others watched in silence. “What?”
Uri sighed and moved around Starla, leading the way toward the yard. “It’s got a tent set up over it. No one will see you. I thought you knew.”
Niko followed without speaking, brain suddenly clear of everything but the objective of getting into the pool. Uri showed him out a back door to the sprawling yard of the Captain’s home. Palms and oaks and olive trees gathered closely around the perimeter fence, blocking out the sight of anything beyond the sanctuary of the yard. Flagstones laid out a terrace and pathway to an in-ground pool that looked almost like a natural water feature. One side of the pool butted against a rocky structure from which spilled a relaxing waterfall, though all of this was shaded beneath a large, tented structure open along the sides. Lounging chairs were stationed around one side of the pool, then along the smooth lawn to the other side was a large, outdoor dining table and umbrella. A fire pit was dug into a different area with outdoor sofas arranged around it, and further toward the corner was a jungle gym well-equipped enough to compete with any of the best public parks. The jungle gym reminded Niko that Captain Baobab had a family, children. Where were they? What danger had he brought upon them?
“The kids—” Niko started, cursing himself for being so self-absorbed.
“Took you a while,” Uri said, with only mild judgment in his tone. Niko coloured. “Don’t worry. Cap sent them off to stay with friends in Nimueh’s Court when all this shit began. At worst, they can never come back to Maeve’s Court. But at least they’re safe with people who won’t let them get hurt.”
Niko’s teeth felt glued in concrete, his mouth tasting of asphalt. There was no way he was going to allow that to happen. He would ensure Captain Baobab’s family would have a chance to come home, to be safe in their sanctuary play-yard again. He had to.
“Thanks,” Niko said. The word was short and clipped, yanked from his throat like a carrot torn from the ground, and Niko wasn’t certain what he was thanking Uri for. But he felt the need to do it.
Uri clapped him on the shoulder, squeezing slightly. “I know.” He sighed, turning back to the house. “I get you, Nik. I finally do. Sorry it took me so long.”
With a soft, almost soundless laugh, Niko let his head fall slightly. He was never meant to be with Uri. They were not each other’s match; he knew it from the start. But Uri had clearly only just realized it. A squirming in his stomach, buried beneath all the other intense feelings going through him, reminded Niko he’d been unfair to Uri in their relationship.
“Someone will deserve you some day,” Niko said, surprising himself with the statement. Uri’s mouth actually fell slightly open. Cheeks burning, Niko immediately turned to the nearest lounge chair and pulled off his shirt, back to Uri. The fabric rustled against his piercings and twinged at them slightly. He shivered.
“Ah, sure, Nik,” Uri said, stilted. He shuffled back toward the door. “I’ll, uh, leave you to your thinking.”
&nbs
p; Without answering, Niko kicked off his shoes and began undoing his fly. Setting his pants aside, he stared at the shimmering surface of the pool, the water glinting with a cloud of tiny lights reflected from the inside of the tent. He debated taking off his boxer briefs or swimming with them as trunks. Deciding it might be somewhat cleaner to go naked, Niko dragged them down over his legs and stepped out of them. The cool air of the night wrapped around him, standing at the edge of the pool, and Niko tried to let it soothe him.
“As much as I enjoy the view of your ass, perhaps out of respect for the Captain and his family you should wear these?”
Niko turned to find Cobalt standing a few feet away, holding a pair of black swim trunks and a small tube of something. A shiver ran over Niko, standing naked before Cobalt. But maybe it was the night air. The unusual light in Cobalt’s crystal eyes was more probably to blame, though.
“Yeah,” Niko whispered, taking the trunks from the Selkie. He slipped them on. He didn’t recognize them, but they fit him well.
“The Captain apparently keeps a few extra sets of swimsuits on hand for guests,” Cobalt said, answering Niko’s unasked question. He’d been able to read into Niko’s head since almost the day they met. Niko looked up, catching Cobalt’s eye, and wondered how the Selkie could be so in tune with him and so distant at once. “I found your size.” He held up the tube in his hands. “And this is for your new accessories.”
Niko glanced down at his nipples, and even the simple attention on them caused a kind of throbbing. Blood rushed southward in Niko’s body, and he took the tube from Cobalt. Mouth dry, he squeezed out a measure and applied it gently to his piercings in smooth, massaging circles. Every turn jostled the rings, alighting his already tingling skin further. Cobalt made no noise but watched him intently, so Niko watched him back.