CHAPTER FOURTEEN
*Augusta*
THE FIGHT INSIDE WAS LOUD and death defying. Cade was like some kind of fiend in there. I truly felt sorry for the guy with the Mohawk. He wasn’t going to get out of there unscathed.
I ran out of the entrance and stood by the archway. There was a column to the side. Furtively, I dashed over to it and hid behind it. I had my back pressed against the rough pebbles of the pole when I realized I was imitating some spy in a bad seventies movie. I straightened up from it but kept it as my cover.
Straining, I listened to what Diana said to her short-haired bodyguard.
“We have to get out of here. Xavier is not supposed to kill Cade, he knows that right?” Diana asked.
I could hear the frown inside the bodyguard’s voice. “Don’t worry about Xavier killing Cade at this point, Diana. Did you see the crazy look that went across Cade’s face when I threatened his woman? Are you certain that was a good idea to do? I told you, Cade’s from a time and place when evil things happened to men who overstepped their bounds.”
“I’m aware Cade used to be a warrior. He's civilized now. I wouldn’t have let either of you hurt Augusta. But Cade doesn’t need to know that,” she said.
“Anyway, after tonight, I no longer work for you. I doubt Gabriel in there is going to want to, either. You don't go messing with a guy like Cade.”
There was an edge to Diana’s tone when she answered Xavier. “Are you scared? You're both nearly as old as he is. That's why I hired you two. There's more money in it for you both if you stay with me.”
His voice was flat. “What’s money, when you’re dead-dead and unable to spend it?”
I heard the desperation in Diana. She really seemed to want to keep Xavier near her. Was it because she was afraid of Cade? Or was she afraid of someone else? I doubted I struck that kind of worry in her. What had her so willing to go this far to get us off her tracks if she was innocent?
It looked suspicious to me.
I heard the sound of car doors slamming and realized that they must have gotten into a vehicle and were probably headed to another location. For a moment, I chewed my lip, remembering that Cade had said he didn't want me to do anything rash, and he’d bade me not to put myself in the way of harm.
Also, he'd said he wanted me to go to his vehicle. I approached his truck. He’d given me the keys when he’d tried to make me leave the first time.
I wondered if I should follow them. Their scent was still in the air, and I would have no problem tracking them down. However, I wasn't certain if it was such a good idea to blatantly misconstrue Cade's meaning about going to his vehicle. I was aware that he just wanted me to sit in it.
I shook my head. Just sit in there? Of course. That's what I’d do. Slowly, I opened the door and got in. Through the fumes of the exhaust from Diana's car, I still could follow them even if I lost their personal scent.
She smelled like a new desk, though, and I doubted I would lose her. Right beside her smell was Xavier’s. He smelled older, more fragrant, more like a bouquet of very pungent herbs. Both of them had a distinct smell of vampires to me.
I wondered why it was that Cade had never smelled like death to me. He always had a comforting scent. Like of all the places I wanted to be, sitting there beside him and smelling his fresh clean clothes, and his freshly washed hair, and inhaling his soothing scent was the best place in the world to be.
That darn Cade—he was sending those thoughts to me. I stuck out my chin and decided if he was going to play unfair—then I was going to get my hands dirty.
I had a car to follow.
I turned the ignition and went after her. I sped up some because I was fairly certain they didn't think anyone was following them. I didn't want them to get too far ahead in case I needed to hide my car behind some trees or other cars or even on another street. Where were they going? I had no clue.
With the window rolled down, I followed the scent until I came to an old cemetery. I got out, put on my coat and followed their trail. It wasn't long before I saw Diana and the vampire standing before a headstone.
Now, why was Diana visiting her friend, if she'd deliberately given her those chocolates and killed her? I had so many questions. Diana was aware that we knew she had given Odra those chocolates which Odra had shared with Slade.
As I watched, Diana's shoulders began to shake, and I realized she was crying. If this was some guilty remorse, then I felt bad for Diana in a way. I reasoned, though, she should have thought about what she was doing when she was doing it at the time. Her friend was dead. And from what I could tell, I believed Odra had really liked Diana.
Slowly I walked up behind a tree. I waited there and watched as Diana said a few words over the grave. Then she turned to her body-guard and asked him softly, “Will you leave us alone for a moment?”
I thought she was talking about Odra until when he left, Diana called out to me. “I know you're there. Xavier’s gone back to the car, and he won't bother us. You can come out. I promise I won't hurt you.”
She was talking to me. I'd been quiet and covert. I hadn't snapped any twigs. I didn't want to come out. For a moment, I was too stunned that I had been caught spying. Should I just turn around and go back to the car? I parked it on the other side of the cemetery, and Xavier had walked to the front. I knew there was no chance of me running into him.
“She was my friend, you know.” The way that Diana said the word friend made me think that she was telling the truth at least on that end.
Trying to look as confident as I could in my failed snooping attempt, I stepped out from behind the tree that I hid behind, and slowly walked over to Diana. “What happened the night Odra had her date with Slade?”
“She used to live with me, you know. Then a year ago, she moved out.”
I waited for clarification. When none came, I prodded. “So you're admitting that you did it?”
She sighed sadly, shook her head, and pulled a small ring out of her pocket. Then she placed it on the grave.
“This was her mood ring. She loved it. She wasn't wearing it that night, though.” Then she turned to me. “We were really close. I’d finally made up with her the day she went to go meet Slade.”
I searched her face looking for sincerity and found it. “Then why did you give her the chocolates? You do know that we’ll get to the truth, don't you? The moment we do, Cade's going to have to take you into the agency.”
“Please drop this case, Augusta. Nothing's going to lead back to me other than the fact that I gave her chocolates that were given to me.”
I tilted my head to the side. Given to her? She’d had them delivered to her office. Who was she implying had given her those chocolates? She’d signed for them. Was she saying that someone else sent them? If so, then who?
“Cade and I saw your signature,” I said.
“I signed for all of Dayle's deliveries. Augusta, I can't say any more. It's not what you think, though.” She began twisting her fingers so hard, I thought she was going to pull them out of their joints.
“Not only did we see your signature, but there are multiple witnesses who saw you taking the chocolate out of the office.”
“You don't understand,” she said.
I was losing my patience. Inconspicuously, I checked my watch. And now I was running out of time. I was fairly certain that the bar brawl between Cade and her vampire had concluded. A moment later, I received a phone call from Cade. I didn’t dare answer it. A minute later he texted me, “You took the truck. You left. Where are you?”
Quickly, I texted back. “The cemetery where Odra was buried.” I didn’t want him turning the town over looking for me. There was no doubt in my mind that he could.
It wouldn’t be long before Cade would arrive. I knew how fast he could be. I was on some borrowed time.
“You’re the ‘D’ that was on the invoice we saw.”
“Me?” Diana asked.
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I nodded. Time to shake up her story. “You thought that you were being sneaky by having the gift delivered to the office. You probably assumed that so many packages come during the day that no one would think anything of it. But we went through how the gift arrived and when we didn't see anything notable coming personally to you we did check the office for deliveries. There was one for a person named, ‘D’. If I’m not mistaken, that’s the first letter of your name.”
“But I erased the receipt from our office receipt books,” she said.
“There was a carbon,” I said.
I could feel my tiger coming to the surface. Diana thought she was going to get away with this. “We called the carrier and they informed us that Diana was the person who signed for the package.”
“It’s not what you think, Augusta,” she said.
“So what I think is that you had the package delivered to the office. Since you're the secretary there, you thought no one would notice you signing for it because you sign for most things. Then you took it home and gave it to your unsuspecting best friend,” I said.
Her chin began to shake and her cheeks trembled. “I never should have signed for that package.”
I looked at her wondering how she could appear so vulnerable after saying something so cold. “And that's your only mistake?”
“No, it's that I didn't eat them myself!” She gazed at me as I took in what she had just said. Eat them? Why would she want poisoned chocolates? “They weren't meant for Odra.”
“If you have something that you need to tell me, Diana, you need to tell me now. I'm here trying to help. I just want to know what happened to Slade and Odra.”
“I said I wouldn't tell anyone anything,” Diana said.
Now I was curious. “Who did you promise that to?”
There seemed to be a lot of emotions that danced across her face. Chief among them, was shame. And that's what got me completely bewildered. She was here at the grave site when she arrived showing that she cared about her friend.
Cade had told me that perpetrators liked to go back and visit their victims. But somehow, what she was doing just didn't seem the same. It was like she was mourning a friend.
And now with that look that had just crossed her face, I wondered if there was something bigger going on. “Who did you promise you wouldn't say anything to?”
She held her arms around her chest and dropped her head. I was no psychic, but all of a sudden, I realized something that had been staring at me the whole time. What if she had signed for the person it had originally been addressed to?
Maybe they were trying to cover it up somehow. Then everything pointed back to her. All that was left was her signature. Did she realize that the person she was protecting was setting her up?
“Diana, you have to tell me what's going on,” I said.
There was a huge struggle inside of her. I could see it by the way that she was ripping at her fingers—by the way she began to tremble.
Finally, some form of decency must have won out. Her shoulders sagged. “Dayle. He doesn't want anybody to find out about the two of us.” Slowly, she looked at me up at me. “We were having an affair.”
“What?”
“Augusta, Slade called me into his office that day because he had something he wanted to tell me.”
I knew about the argument the day before, but she’d seen Slade the day he died?
“Something public knowledge or something not very many people knew?” I asked.
“The only person who could have known what he revealed he knew about me was Odra—or so I believed.”
Thoughts began to race through my head, and I started coming up with a theory. I had wondered why Diana had argued with Slade. But now I was thinking that possibly it was because he knew something that she didn't want out in the open, and he’d called her there to tell her about it. Whatever it was, had been tense enough that Thorley had noticed that she was upset.
Voicing my opinion, I said, “Slade had something on you. You killed him to protect it. Maybe you didn't want to kill Odra, but the only way you could ensure your success was to tamper with that gift that was delivered to your office—before it came.” I hadn’t yet worked out how she could have done that. “Your signature was on the carrier's receipt.”
She shook her head. “Augusta, please, I'm telling you, just forget about it.”
“Did you or did you not tamper with that gift?”
“Augusta,” she said.
“Why were you and Slade arguing?”
She threw up her hands in agitation. “He knew that I was sleeping with Dayle. The only person that I told that to was Odra. I thought she had told Slade, and I wasn't talking to her. He loved her and didn't want anything coming between her and her friends. When he found out I blamed Odra for him learning the truth, he confronted me and tried to clean the slate. He did it for Odra.”
“That’s why the two of you argued?”
She put a hand up under her nose and sniffed. “He could have used it against me, and that's what I was afraid of.”
“Which is why you killed him,” I said.
She glared at me. “But he didn't. He told me he knew. That’s why we argued. He told me that I was making a mistake getting involved with Dayle. That Odra was only concerned in regards to my choices. Then he told me that she hadn't said anything to him.”
“Because she was your friend,” I said.
“And I was hers! When Slade told me Odra hadn't said anything to him, I felt terrible. Slade had stumbled upon the two of us in an embrace inside the office one day when he was supposed to meet Dayle. Rather than let us know, he left, and then came back a few minutes later and pretended he’d only just arrived.”
“That’s how he knew. He saw you two,” I said.
“By that time Dayle and I had stopped fooling around. Dayle thought nothing of it and neither did I.”
I tried to keep her talking. “Then why did you do it? Why did you poison the chocolates?”
“Aren’t you listening? I didn’t do it,” she said.
“Why did you really sign for the chocolates?”
“Because I always sign for gifts that come to Dayle. I’m not lying. He doesn't want anyone to know that they come for him because he sleeps around. He doesn’t want any of the girls he’s sleeping with to know. I signed for this particular package. It wasn't addressed to him by name. It merely said ‘D.’”
So the package wasn't meant for her? It was meant for Dayle?
“It was meant for Dayle. Then, because we’d just...” She looked away. “We’d just been with each other, he gave the package to me and told me to have them.”
“And then?”
“I thought they’d be perfect to use to make up with Odra.”
My mouth dropped open, and I closed it. Dayle had given them to her. Dayle was the ‘D’. Then she’d given them to Odra. How terrible.
“Why did you keep this to yourself? This implicates Dayle.”
“I wasn’t the only one sleeping with him, Augusta. Christie, Fifi and I all have slept with Dayle,” she said. “I know about them. I don’t think they know about me.”
“We’ll have to get Dayle’s side of things,” I said.
“Dayle didn't hurt them. He's very—he jumps at scary movies.”
“You kept this from us because you didn't want us to find out that you were sleeping with your boss. Am I right?” I asked.
When her face turned bright red, I wanted to feel bad for saying it the way that I had, but her silence meant that possibly Dayle was getting away with murder.
“You don't understand, I knew it was wrong. I've been working in his office for over ten years. We shouldn't have been together. Dayle and I have been professional this entire time and this was wrong.”
So that's where the shame came from. She was ashamed of mixing business with pleasure. Now I could understand.
She seemed worrie
d that I would judge her. Didn't she realize that she had been very close to getting locked up? Of course, I had to tell Cade what I’d just learned. We'd go over the clues and see if it matched up. But I was fairly certain that the next person that we'd be visiting was Dayle.
“You won’t get a hold of Dayle. He’s out of town on business,” she said.
“Really?”
“Yes, and I don’t want us to be enemies,” she said. “Like, I’m the girl who has an extra room in her cabin for her friends if they ever need a place to stay. Please think of me that way. Don’t think of me as the woman who accidentally gave her friend poison.”
The trees around us began to rustle, and I looked up. I hoped Cade would continue to let me work on this case with him. I wouldn’t have too much longer to find out. Cade was here.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
*Cade*
I DIDN’T EVEN PAUSE TO look at Diana. I stopped in front of Augusta. I had told her not to confront Diana alone. It didn't appear like they were having any kind of cross words with each other, but that was beside the point.
What Augusta had done, had been impetuous. It could have gone so many ways. On the way over, I opened myself up to hear anything that was going on with her. The surprising thing? I’d been able to.
I heard the tail-end of what Diana had said to Augusta. And I wanted to get an explanation from Diana as to what she’d meant. But all I could focus on and think about was Augusta. I'd been so concerned that something might have happened to her.
Couple that with my bloodlust caused by fighting Diana's bodyguard, and I was not the man right now to be standing in a dark cemetery with. I didn't stop to think if I was in my right mind or not. I just reacted.
“You followed, Diana, Augusta.”
“Cade, you have to hear what she has to say.” Augusta’s words rushed out of her mouth. I think she thought if she could tell me something reasonable, it would break through the anger I had for her disregarding my orders and following a perp by herself.
The Vampire's Alpha Mate: A BBW Tiger-Shifter Romance (Arcane Affairs Agency) Page 11