by Jaye Wells
“Shit,” I said. If Duffy found us at Volos’s place, he’d go supernova. “All right, we’re leaving. I suggest you double your security detail for the time being.”
Volos’s mouth quirked. “Your concern warms me, Detective.”
“Yeah, don’t get too excited,” I said. “Considering the shit show you’ve put us in the middle of—again, I might add—you’re lucky I haven’t killed you myself.”
“Lucky, sure.” His eyes were on the gruesome video collage and the talking heads. If I weren’t so pissed at him, I almost would have felt bad for what he was facing at the press conference he’d mentioned.
But as it was, I was too busy feeling bad for Morales and me. Volos had to face down rabid journalists, but we had to go tell our boss that we were no closer to finding the man who’d killed Charm, Hot Pocket, Grace Cho, and Gardner’s old team than we’d been the last time we’d seen her.
Chapter Twenty-Four
After sneaking out the back door to Volos’s apartment building, Morales and I got in the SUV and called Gardner. She told us Shadi was on her way in with Puck and wanted us there ASAP.
Morales put the car in Drive and took off. “Well?” he said.
I sighed. “Well what?”
He shot me a sideways glance. “You think he was telling the truth?”
I crossed my arms and slouched down in my seat. “With Volos it’s best to assume you’re getting at least half bullshit.”
He snorted. “At least we have a better idea why Pantera’s in town.”
“Fat lot of good that does to help us find him.”
Morales blew out a breath. “Let’s pray we can get something useful out of Puck.”
“Don’t get your hopes up.”
“I gave up on hope a long time ago, Cupcake.”
His words hung there for a moment. “You want to talk about that folder?”
He kept his eyes on the road. “Not especially.” I nodded, but he wasn’t done. “One of these days Volos is going to go too far.” His hands tightened on the wheel.
“I hear you.”
He looked over at me. “Maybe once this is all done we should take a closer look at him.” These words were spoken casually, as if he was testing the waters.
“What? Build a case?”
He tipped his chin.
“Wouldn’t be easy,” I said.
“The best cases rarely are.”
I chewed on my bottom lip as I thought it over. “If we went after him, he’d fight back—hard. I’d bet cash money that folder he showed us today is only the tip of the iceberg. You willing for your skeletons to get paraded out in order to bring him down?”
Morales’s jaw hardened. “It would depend on our chances of making the case. If we had enough shit on him to bring him down? Maybe.”
I blew out a breath. “Let’s leap off that cliff once we get Pantera off the streets.” He shot me a surprised look. “What?” I asked.
“I just thought you’d be against it.”
“Going after Volos?” I frowned. “Why would I be against that?”
He raised his brows.
I sighed. “What we had was a long time ago. He’s not the same guy and I’m not the same lovesick girl. If he’s as dirty as we believe, I’d have no problem bringing him down if I thought it would make a difference.”
Morales turned onto the street in front of the gym. He parked next to the curb before answering. “Like you said, now’s not the time. But eventually, Volos is going to learn he’s not above the law.”
Inside the gym, we found Gardner, Shadi, and Mez standing in the boxing ring. Next to the whiteboard bearing the evidence we’d gathered on Souza, Puck was cuffed to a chair. “I want to call my lawyer,” he yelled.
“You’re not under arrest,” Gardner said. “You’re free to leave anytime.”
Puck’s eyes narrowed. “Then uncuff me.”
She crossed her arms and shot him an apologetic look. “Lost the key.”
“Bitch,” Puck hissed.
“Did we miss anything good?” Morales called. He held the ring’s ropes open for me to climb under before following me through.
“Just got started,” Gardner said. “Mez, Shadi, why don’t you give us a minute.” The pair exited the ring like we were fighting a tag-team match.
“Where ya been, Puck?” I asked.
“Pain,” he said. “I told you I don’t go by Puck anymore.”
I crossed my arms. “All right, where ya been, Pain?”
He slouched in his seat. “Oh, you know, little of this, little of that.”
“By that do you mean conspiring with Pantera Souza to bring down your cousin?” I asked.
At the mention of the A Morte hit man, Puck’s eyes widened, but he quickly schooled his features. “Who?”
“About this tall”—Morales raised his hand to his shoulder—“midnight-black skin. Sometimes becomes a cat.”
Puck’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t know no one like that.”
I sighed. “Cut the shit, we know you were at the junkyard with Pantera the day Harry Bane was beaten.”
“Bullshit.”
I grabbed his uncuffed right hand and raised it, pushing back the cuffs of his shirt as I did. “You stupid son of a bitch, did you really think I wouldn’t recognize Votary tats when I saw them?”
“Every fucker in the coven has tats like mine.”
“Yet you’re the only one who’s leading the coven now that Charm’s dead.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
I waved a hand to dismiss that dead end. “Where’s Pantera Souza?”
“I told you,” Puck drawled, “I don’t know anyone named Pantera.”
I sucked on my teeth for a moment, watching him. “Gardner, Morales, you want to give me a minute?”
Morales looked like he wanted to argue, but after shooting me a speculative glance, Gardner nodded. “Let’s go see if we can find that key.”
Puck watched them leave. His expression told me he actually believed he’d walk out of this building without spilling his secrets. I smiled at him because I knew different. “Sorry you had to wait for Morales and me to arrive,” I said.
He frowned. “Huh?”
“Earlier,” I said. “We were coming from a meeting, so the interview was delayed. Sorry about that.”
His expression turned wary. “Whatever.”
“It’s kind of funny, actually. Your name came up in our meeting.”
He looked at the floor, as if dismissing me.
I laughed. “I wish you could have seen the look on your cousin’s face when we told him we suspected you were helping Pantera kill Charm.”
Puck’s head jerked up so fast he almost overturned the chair. “You told Volos I killed Charm? Why?”
I shrugged. “The mayor wanted a status report on the case, so we told him what we knew. Needless to say, he was extremely interested to learn of your involvement.”
“Shit, tell me you’re kidding.”
“I assure you I’m not.” I looked him in the eye. Stupid asshole bought it, too, if the sudden paleness of his skin was anything to go by. I didn’t bother telling him Volos hadn’t even blinked when I’d mentioned Puck’s possible involvement. Men like Volos didn’t give a shit about kittens like Puck when real predators like Souza were prowling. “Especially now that Souza’s pulled Volos into this mess by killing that reporter—”
“What reporter?” Puck’s voice pitched an octave higher than normal.
I crossed my arms and pursed my lips while I stared him down. “Lying to me right now would be a very bad fucking idea.”
He raised his right hand like a freaking Boy Scout. “I swear. I don’t have a fucking clue what you’re talking about. As far as I know Harry Bane killed Charm.”
“Who told you that?”
He shook his head. “The street told me. My gut told me.”
“I don’t know. Maybe if I took you to Volos he could get the truth
out of you.”
“Fuck no. Please, I’m telling you everything. Honest.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You scared?”
“Um, yes! Look, put me in jail, read me my rights—whatever. Just don’t hand me over to Volos. He’ll kill me. No doubt.”
“But you’re family.” I was playing devil’s advocate. There was no doubt in my mind, either, that if I handed Puck over, Volos would hurt the kid.
Puck snorted. “Family—right. He don’t know the meaning, otherwise he wouldn’t have betrayed the coven five years ago.”
“Is that why you decided to work with Souza? To make Volos pay for betraying the Votaries?”
He sighed as if exhausted. “I’m not working with anyone.”
“If it wasn’t you, someone else in your crew killed Charm and beat Harry Bane. Who was it?”
“I’m telling you, no one in my crew would dare do something like this. Charm and I had our moments. I told Charm that if we didn’t adapt we’d continue to lose street cred, but he didn’t listen. But I didn’t take him out and neither did any of my people.”
“You sure about that? Maybe you aren’t as in charge as you think.”
Puck’s eyes hardened. “Find that fucking key and call my attorney. I’m done talking to you.”
I looked over my shoulder to the doorway to Mez’s lab, where Gardner and Morales were watching us. “Call Volos, will you? Tell him we got Puck.”
Behind me, laughter crawled up my spine like spider legs. I turned slowly to see Puck’s gaze on the small, muted TV on a nearby desk. I guess Gardner had clicked it on to watch the news reports on Cho’s death. When I saw what was on the screen, I cursed silently.
“Yeah,” Puck said, shooting me a victorious smirk, “call Volos.”
On screen, the mayor stood behind a podium fielding questions from reporters. Tension lines bracketed his politician’s smile. A scrolling ticker at the bottom of the screen read, “Mayor Volos holds press conference on the death of reporter Grace Cho.”
“Looks like my cousin’s got problems of his own right now.” He shot me a superior look. “And I got a call to make to my lawyer.”
An hour later the door to the building slammed closed behind Puck and his attorney. We couldn’t hold the shit because we didn’t have any hard evidence to connect him to the murder or the junkyard beating. We’d tried to convince him to make a statement implicating Pantera Souza in the crimes, but he’d told us to go fuck ourselves. Unable to hold him without a charge, we’d had no choice but to let him walk.
“Fuck,” Morales said, his eyes on the empty stairs.
Gardner looked like she wanted to either throw up or punch something. “Please tell me you got something we can use from Volos.”
We quickly filled her in on his theories about why A Morte might be targeting him. We were careful to avoid mentioning Volos’s ill-fated deal over the truth serum. It was still too risky to expose his direct influence, since he could still send that file on Morales to Gardner.
When we were done, she rose slowly from the desk she’d been leaning against. “So basically we’ve got nothing?” Her tone was too quiet to be trusted. “Is that what you’re telling me?”
Morales deflated. “Yes, sir.”
Gardner turned and stalked away. Slack-jawed, we watched her enter the office and slam the door. The glass on the window vibrated from the force.
I blew out a long breath. “Shit.”
“When you were talking to Puck, she told me her boss called from Detroit.”
I dropped into a chair. “Let me guess, if we don’t shut Souza down, he’s shutting us down?”
Morales shook his head. “No, they’ll bring in someone to replace Gardner. They’re concerned that her personal history with A Morte is compromising her ability to get the job done.”
“Jesus. What else can we do?”
“I still think Puck’s in contact with the shaman. A Morte isn’t known for leaving people alive who can testify unless they have plans for them.”
I nodded. “We can put Shadi on him again. See if we rattled his chain enough to get him to make contact with Pantera.”
“That’s what I was thinking, too.”
“What about us? Should we see if LM’s found out anything new?”
He shook his head. “We’re going to spend the rest of the day hitting the pavement. Souza isn’t exactly the kind of guy who’d blend into a crowd. Someone’s seen him, and I intend to knock on every door in the Cauldron if that’s what it takes.”
I sighed. I didn’t love the idea of spending my day getting doors slammed in my face, but it beat sitting around waiting for the shaman to make his next move. “Should we tell Gardner?”
At that moment, the sound of a raised voice came from the office. We turned to see Gardner yelling into her phone.
“On second thought, maybe we should give her some time,” I said.
Morales nodded gravely. “Unfortunately, until Souza makes another play, time is the one thing we got.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Several hours later I dragged myself up the steps into the gym. After a long, frustrating day knocking on doors and visiting real shitholes looking for someone who’d seen Pantera Souza, we’d turned up nothing. Morales had dropped me back at my car an hour earlier with promises to pick me up the next morning to get back at it. But I hadn’t been able to relax enough to go to bed, so I’d decided to grab crime scene reports from the office to go over while the rest of the world slept.
The lights in the gym were all extinguished, except for a dim glow coming from Mez’s lab. Instead of heading for my desk, I went to say hi to Mez and see what was keeping him working so late. But when I came around the corner and entered the lab, it wasn’t Mez I found there—it was Gardner.
Her back was to me and her head was bent over the worktable. She was so intent on her project that she hadn’t heard me. I cleared my throat, so as not to spook her. “Sir?”
Her head snapped up and she spun on her stool. “Jesus, Prospero. You scared me.”
“Sorry, I thought you heard me come in.”
She cleared her throat and shook her head. “What’s up?”
I pointed a thumb over my shoulder. “I dropped by to grab some files.” I tried to see over her shoulder, but couldn’t make out what she’d been doing.
She nodded and yawned. “What time is it?”
“About ten,” I said. “What you working on?” I tried to keep my tone casual, but I was curious as hell.
“It’s nothing,” she evaded. “Just a side project.”
In all my time on the team, I’d never seen Gardner working in the lab. She was an Adept, so she knew how to cook, but I’d never actually witnessed her do it. “You’re cooking?”
Her gaze skittered to the right. “Not really.”
The scent of ozone in the air betrayed the lie. I also detected the bite of sulfur and something spicy-sweet—frankincense, maybe.
“How’d your rounds go today?” She sounded tired.
“Frustrating. We’re going back out in the morning.”
“Okay.” She nodded absently and glanced back at the glass flask filled with bubbling liquid. I watched her, wondering if I should force the issue about her cooking.
“Did you need anything else?” She stared at me without blinking.
It didn’t take a detective to read the evasive body language. Whatever she was working on, she clearly didn’t want to share the details. “No,” I said slowly. “I’ll just grab what I came for and get out of your hair.”
She nodded. “See you tomorrow.” With that she spun back on her stool. Next to the cooking apparatus, there was a bottle labeled BUCHU. A quick scans of my mental Rolodex of herbs told me an infusion of the herb was often used to enhance psychic powers and induce prophetic dreams. It was especially effective when mixed with frankincense.
“Sir?” I said quietly.
“Yes?” She didn’t turn again. Instead, she picke
d up the bottle and added a little to the potion. The mixture hissed as the new ingredient caused a reaction.
“You’re not doing anything stupid, are you?”
She sat straighter and turned very slowly, as if giving me time to run. But I held my ground. If she was doing what I thought she was doing, someone needed to talk some sense into her. “Prospero?”
“Yes, sir?” I raised my chin.
“Have I ever done anything to give you the impression I’m dumb?”
I shook my head. “Until now? No.”
A single brow rose. “Mind your own business, Detective.”
“If you’re cooking a potion to help you track down Souza, it’s very much my business, sir.”
A flicker of something crossed her expression, but she quickly replaced it with her poker face. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
I crossed my arms. “Good. Because you were right—you are too smart to do something like track down a dangerous cartel hit man on your own.”
She didn’t react.
I sighed. “Look, I know you’ve got history with this guy. And if I were you, I’d probably be tempted to track him down myself. But I would hope if that were the case that someone would stop me and remind me that it was a really dangerous idea.”
She placed her hands between her knees. “Just because an idea is dangerous doesn’t make it bad.”
I cocked my head and looked my superior officer in the eye. “I’ll be sure to repeat that to you next time I get a shitty idea in my head. If you’re still around, that is.”
Her mouth tilted up into a tight smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Watch yourself, Kate.”
“No, Miranda, you watch yourself. We’re all working our asses off to catch Pantera and make sure he feels the full brunt of the MEA’s boot heel to his ass. If you go off half-cocked because your need for vengeance overrides your sense, you could risk the entire operation.”
In the dim light, her eyes glinted dangerously. “You. Are. Dismissed.”
Our gazes collided and held. Hers dared me to say one more word. Just one word calling her on her bullshit. One more word that would give her justification for suspending me for insubordination. Instead of handing her the ammunition to use against me, I simply nodded and turned away without another word.