by Jaye Wells
“You didn’t hear?” he said. “We got a call about a body.”
“A jumper?” It wasn’t uncommon for someone to decide life was worse than leaping to their death in the frigid waters of the Steel River.
“Don’t think so,” he said. “Dispatch sent out Duffy.”
My stomach dropped. If they’d sent Duffy they thought there was a murder involved. “Thanks, Santini.” I hung up and called Duffy’s phone number. He answered on the third ring.
“Where the hell are you?” he answered.
I frowned. “Stuck in traffic. Why?”
“Didn’t you get my message? You need to get your ass to the Bessemer.”
“I’m stuck in the bridge traffic,” I said. “Half a mile away.”
“Park your car and walk it. You need to see this.”
My stomach pitched south. “What the hell’s going on, Duffy?”
“I gotta go. See you in a few.”
“Shit,” I said into the dead line. I hit End on the phone and tossed it on top of my backpack. Then I flipped on my blinker and started the painful process of edging my Jeep out of traffic and toward the ditch on the side of the road. The guy behind me honked to let me know he disapproved of the move. I turned off the car, grabbed my bag, and exited.
As I was locking the door, the guy who’d honked rolled down his window. “Hey! You can’t leave your car there!”
I waved with my middle finger and took off jogging. Ten cars up, my cell buzzed in my hand. That’s when I realized why I hadn’t gotten Duffy’s call earlier—the phone was set to silent. “Morales?” I answered.
“You heard from Duffy?”
“Yeah, I’m on my way to him right now.”
“I’m stuck in traffic on the way out of the Cauldron.”
“I was on my way in and ran into the same thing. I’m hoofing it there now.”
“Good idea,” he said. “I’ll meet you in the middle.”
After he hung up, I stashed the phone again and continued to jog past cars. Every now and then, someone would toot their horn. I ignored them and put a little more speed into my run. There was no reason I could think of for the homicide detective to be calling me to the scene of a murder. Well, no good reason. Had Pantera Souza hit another coven leader? Aphrodite had left town and as far as I knew Harry was still safe at the hospital under twenty-four-hour police surveillance. But he could have hit one of the lieutenants from one of the covens.
By the time I reached the start of the bridge, I was winded. Police lined the entrance, but they nodded as I approached and let me through. The waters of the Steel River were churning that morning, and the cloudy sky made the water roughly the color of tarnished silver. I glanced over the edge of the railing to see the police boats bobbing in the water.
Up ahead ambulances had created a perimeter around the action. Most likely this was to block bystanders and the media from seeing what was happening on the other side. It appeared that the action was centered around the railing on the left side of the bridge. I jogged in that direction to try to find Duffy.
I came around the bumper of the closest ambulance. Across the way, I spotted Morales, who appeared to have just beaten me. He was walking toward Duffy, who had his back to both of us as he knelt in front of something at the base of the railing. Morales jogged over.
“Any idea what’s up?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Only one way to find out.”
Duffy was standing up and turning around as we approached. He saw us and paused. I tilted my head and opened my mouth to ask him what was going on. But he simply stepped to the side.
My legs locked up, and the coffee I had for breakfast turned into a brick in my stomach.
A rope extended from the metal bracers high up on the bridge’s structure. The end of the rope was tied into a noose around the victim’s neck. The head tilted down toward the left, and a tongue hung from between blue lips. The victim’s expensive suit was mottled with blood and God only knew what else. Her feet were bare except for run-through pantyhose, and her toes reached toward the ground a foot below.
A single white sheet of paper hung around her neck like a bib. Before I could ask what it said, shock descended like a steel door.
“Mother of God,” Morales whispered beside me.
My face felt cold. It had nothing to do with the wind whipping up off the river, and everything to do with blood draining from beneath my skin. I didn’t speak because I couldn’t.
The detective’s eyes were on me, but he didn’t say anything.
“What do you know?” Morales asked.
Duffy sucked in a breath. “That this is going to be a media shitstorm.”
I glanced toward him. “You call Gardner and Eldritch yet?”
He nodded. “They’re on their way.”
I placed a hand over my eyes and squeezed. “Fuck.”
“Kate.”
I pulled my hand away to look at Duffy.
“Her phone was on her.” He said the words like a verdict.
I just looked at him. Somewhere deep in my gut, I knew what he was about to say was going to make this shit show turn into a real fuck fest.
“The last call was to your cell.”
Remembering how my ringer had been off, I tilted my head and ignored the ping of dread in my center. “Of course it was.” I pulled out the phone again and saw I’d missed three calls. The most recent was from Duffy with no corresponding voice mail. At midnight, long after I’d crashed on the couch, Morales had called and left a message. But in between those, Grace Cho had called at two in the morning. I held the phone up for Duffy to see she hadn’t left a message.
“Any reason she’d be calling you?”
I nodded. “She’s been trying to get me to do an interview. I told her I wasn’t interested, but she’s been pretty persistent.”
Duffy wrote that down in a little notebook. “Where were you last night?”
“Fuck off, Duffy,” Morales said. He stepped closer to me. “You don’t have to answer that.”
“Give me a break, Morales,” Duffy snapped. “You know I have to ask.”
I held up a hand. “It’s okay,” I said to Morales. “I was at home. Fell asleep just after the ten o’clock news. That’s why I missed the call. My ringer was on silent and the vibrate function wasn’t loud enough to wake me.”
“Can anyone corroborate your story?” Duffy asked.
“Baba—my roommate.”
His brows lowered at the mention I had a roommate, but I didn’t elaborate and he didn’t ask me to. “Why was Cho investigating you?”
“She said doing a piece on an Adept cop would be a nice complement to her piece on the city’s first Adept mayor.” I ran a hand through my hair and sighed. “Christ, what a mess.” The body drew my attention. To avoid the bloated face and blood, I focused on the white square over her chest. “What’s the note say?”
Duffy scratched his head. “I can’t make sense of it. All it says is Swift, Hard, and Absolute.”
Gravity seemed to double in force, pulling all the blood from beneath my skin to pool in my gut.
“I take it that means something to you?” Duffy said.
“Fuck.” I looked at Morales, who appeared as lost as Duffy. “Fuck,” I whispered. “I knew it.”
Before they could question me, a new set of sirens ripped through the air. A moment later Gardner ran with Eldritch on her tail around an ambulance. When they saw the hanged woman they both froze. Then they swiveled toward each other and had a low-toned conversation I couldn’t hear.
Gardner and Eldritch completed their confab and beelined for us. “Do not go anywhere,” she said as she passed by. Then she and Eldritch pulled Duffy away to get a report.
Morales grabbed my arm. “Let’s talk.” He dragged me toward the opposite railing. “What was that reaction?”
I sighed. “Remember how I called you last night?” He nodded and waited for an explanation. “I’d just watched an interview between Cho and Vol
os about the coven violence.” I pointed toward the body. “He said those exact words.”
Morales watched me for a moment with an unreadable expression. “Abe was talking about Volos.”
I nodded. “Last night, the connection was just a theory. Volos’s words seemed too much like a personal threat.” I nodded in the direction of the body. “But with that note—”
“Pantera Souza was sending a message back to the mayor by killing Cho,” Morales said. “Shit, Prospero. What the fuck has Volos gotten himself into now?”
“Prospero, Morales,” Gardner called, “a word, please.”
The wind made her hair flap around her face like crow wings. She wore sensible gray slacks and a black twinset that day. Her lips were free of lipstick and tightened into a tense line. The skin under her eyes had the bluish tint of sleep deprivation.
When she reached us, she angled her body so that we were turned away from Eldritch and Duffy.
“What do you know?” Her eyes angled toward the body.
We filled her in on my theory about Volos’s connection to the case. When I was done, she cursed. “Get out of here and find him. I don’t care what it takes, find out what he knows. Once Duffy and the media connect the message on the note to the interview, we won’t be able to get near him.”
“Got it,” Morales said. I nodded because I was busy steeling my resolve for the coming confrontation with Volos.
“While you’re doing that,” Gardner said, “I’m going to have Shadi bring Puck in for a conversation. Call me when you’re done. And, guys? I expect usable intel from your meeting. I want Pantera in lockup by sundown.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
We arrived at Volos’s apartment thirty minutes later. I’d called his office as we ran back to Morales’s car. Luckily his assistant recognized my name and easily gave up the information that he was working from home that morning. I didn’t question why Volos’s assistant felt I was trustworthy enough to share that information with, because it hinted that the mayor considered me a part of his inner circle. Definitely not where I wanted to be. After I told her I’d call him there myself, I’d hung up and told Morales where to go.
We didn’t bother calling ahead. All things considered, the element of surprise would work better than giving him a chance to concoct a story.
Morales was quiet on the ride up the elevator. I turned to look at him. Stress lines bracketed his mouth. “What are you thinking?”
He glanced over at me. “Why would Souza kill Cho?”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“If he’s after Volos, why hasn’t Pantera gone at him directly? He certainly doesn’t lack the stomach for murder.”
I hadn’t thought of it that way. “Maybe he doesn’t want to kill Volos.”
Morales nodded. “Blackmail, maybe. Or extortion.”
“Question is, what does Volos have on A Morte?”
A few seconds later we knocked on Volos’s door. The woman who answered wore a short black robe; her red hair was piled on top of her head in just-fucked waves. Her gaze narrowed on me. “What are you doing here?”
“Hello, Jade.” I shouldn’t have been surprised to see Volos’s lawyer standing in front of me in boudoir attire, but I was. The last time I’d seen her was the previous fall when Volos had been a suspect in my first case for the MEA.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“We need to speak to your boss.” I couldn’t help putting extra emphasis on the last word.
Her eyes narrowed. “John’s in the shower.” She smiled a catty smile that seemed to say she enjoyed sharing that little tidbit with me.
I barely managed not to roll my eyes.
“Go get him,” Morales said, “and while you’re at it, you might want to put on something more lawyerly—this is an official call.”
She watched us for a moment, as if trying to figure out if we were serious. I raised my brow to assure her we were. “You got a warrant?”
I shook my head. “Not that kind of official. We have reason to believe he’s in danger.” On the way over, Morales and I had decided to lead with that angle instead of going after him about his connection to A Morte head-on. If he thought we were looking out for him, he might be more likely to open up about his involvement. Or most people would be, but John Volos wasn’t exactly most people.
Her expression lost some of its bitchiness, and a little bit of concern crept in. “Come in,” she said. “There’s mimosas on the breakfast bar in the living room.”
I smiled. “We know the way.”
“We’ll be out in a moment.” Her hips swaying, she sashayed away toward the hall leading to the bedrooms.
Morales and I closed the door and walked into the apartment. A couple of steps led into a sunken living room with a massive sectional leather couch. The sun had burned off that morning’s clouds and glinted off the lake like sparks. The view from the large windows on the far wall was spectacular. Morales walked toward them and stood with his back to me. The light spilling through the glass outlined his wide shoulders. The back of his neck was tense, and his posture advertised that he clearly didn’t want to be there. I couldn’t blame him. I didn’t like being in Volos’s home myself. Yet I tended to find myself there with frustrating regularity.
While Morales took in the view, I wandered over to the breakfast bar. A crystal pitcher of mimosas sat next to sparkling glasses. The table in the kitchen still had the dishes laid out from an intimate breakfast for two. Except one of the settings was overturned, as if someone had pushed it out of the way in a fit of passion. A sudden image filled my brain of Volos rising above Jade’s body as he took her on the table. I shook myself, realizing I had no interest in the image or the unwanted, hard spike of jealousy it summoned from the shadows.
“Kate?” John’s voice carried from the hall.
“In here.” I turned in time to see him come around the corner. He wore faded jeans and a T-shirt bearing wet spots that told me he’d dressed quickly after being called from the shower by Jade.
“What’s wrong?” He didn’t look at Morales, though it would have been hard to miss the big guy looming like a thunderhead by the windows. Instead, Volos looked concerned, as if he expected my reason for being there was to ask for help.
“You might want to wait for your attorney to join us before she answers that,” Morales said.
John finally glanced toward my partner. “Oh,” he said, “so this isn’t a social call?”
I shook my head. “Of course not.”
He crossed his arms and leaned against the bar. “Go ahead and tell me. We can fill in Jade once she joins us.” He indicated the couch in the sunken living room. “Shall we?”
I shook my head. “I’d prefer to stand.”
“As you wish.”
Morales pulled away from the windows and came to join us. “Have you seen the news this morning?”
John looked from Morales to me and slowly shook his head. “I’ve been… preoccupied.”
“Police were called to a murder scene on the Bessemer Bridge. There was a traffic jam for two miles in either direction.”
John raised his brows. “Another coven killing?”
I shook my head. “Not exactly, but we believe it’s connected to that case.”
“So who was it?”
I looked him in the eyes so I couldn’t miss a reaction. “Grace Cho.”
His jaw hardened.
“That’s not all,” Morales said.
“Of course not.” Volos stood straighter, like a man facing a firing squad. “Go ahead.”
“There was evidence found on the scene that indicated her death was a message to you. Any idea why?”
“Who died?” Jade said, coming around the corner. She now wore a pair of dress slacks and a cashmere sweater. The bare feet were now encased in expensive shoes with ice-pick heels. Gone was the seductress who’d answered the door—in her place was a no-nonsense lawyer.
“Grace Cho,”
Volos said.
Jade’s steps faltered and she gasped. She looked at John and he held out an arm. She went to him and leaned against his chest. Over the top of her head, he said, “Jade and Grace were friends. That’s why I agreed to her request to do a feature on my first week as mayor.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said to Jade. Cho had been a pain in my ass, but no one deserved to die so brutally.
She sniffed and visibly pulled herself together. She nodded to accept my condolences. “How did she die?”
I hesitated and shot a look at Volos. He squeezed her shoulders. “Maybe you shouldn’t be here for this.”
She shook her head and stood straighter. “No,” she said, “I can handle it. It’s just—I was shocked. I just talked to Grace yesterday.”
“You did?” Morales asked. “What time?”
Jade pulled away a little bit from Volos, but not far enough that they weren’t touching. She sniffed again. “About noon. We were planning on having dinner together last night, but she called to cancel. Said she was working on breaking a huge story and wouldn’t be able to make it after all.”
“Did she tell you what the story was about?” I asked. My reason wasn’t selfless. I wanted to know if I was the huge story Cho had been so hot to pursue. Her death would be huge news, and it wasn’t a stretch to imagine any stories she’d been working on might also be part of the reporting.
Jade shook her head. “We didn’t talk long. She said she’d be in touch soon.” Her voice cracked at the end of the sentence, as she realized she’d never hear from her friend again. “What happened to her?”
I glanced at Volos, a silent question about whether I should tell her. He tipped his chin. “She was murdered.” I didn’t repeat the gruesome details about how we found her. “We have reason to believe the man who killed her is also responsible for the death of one coven wizard and the beating of another.”
Volos tilted his head but didn’t speak.
“We also found evidence at the scene that indicated Volos might be a target,” Morales said.
The tension in the room was almost unbearable. Us standing there watching Volos for any sign he knew more than he was telling us, and him watching us, trying to figure out how much we already knew and what he could still hide.