“You’ve got to admit that looks suspicious.” Detective Franks glared at me out of his little piggy eyes. Guess he was playing bad cop today. Must be a nice change for Detective Hartley; that was usually her role. “And now your aunt’s dead too.”
I didn’t have to admit anything of the sort. “Are you suggesting I killed my aunt?”
“Not at all,” said Detective Hartley, with an impatient glance at Franks. “But you’re obviously very rich. Even richer now your aunt’s dead. This place, the terrace at The Rocks, that big property out at Arcadia. You must be one of the wealthiest people in Australia.”
The wealthiest, more likely. Not that I was going to tell her that. “What of it? Is it a crime to have money?”
“Rich people think differently,” said Detective Franks. Bad cop time again. “Act differently. As long as they’re achieving their goals, they don’t tend to notice the fallout. They don’t care what happens to the little people.” He was describing dragons to a tee. Ironic, really, considering how hard I was trying not to act like a dragon. The urge to swat him like the insect he was was becoming harder to resist. “We’re just wondering what your goals might be, and why you keep turning up in connection with these incidents.”
Okay, I needed to turn this around. I had too much to do to spend time squirming on their hook.
“It doesn’t matter how rich I am, Detective Franks, I don’t go around blowing up hotels. I’m not a terrorist.” I took a deep breath. “My goal is to get my son back. My husband has kidnapped him.”
The big detective’s hairy eyebrows crawled up his forehead in surprise. “This is the son you told us about last time, that your husband faked his death?”
“Yes. I only have one son. An associate of my husband’s snatched him last night.”
“Why didn’t you contact the police? And why did you lie to us just now and say you were going clubbing?”
“My husband threatened me. He said if I told the police anything I’d never see Lachie again.”
“So what were you doing at the Park Hyatt? Not going clubbing, I gather.” Detective Hartley leaned forward in her chair, like a bloodhound sniffing out the truth. Well, they do say the truth will set you free. Truth might serve my cause better than lies now.
“I knew my husband had been staying there. I went to get my son back.”
Okay, so there was truth and there was truth. I had to be careful now not to give her too much or she’d end up investigating me instead of Jason. I didn’t want to come across as the deranged mother prepared to do anything to save her child. Even if it was true.
“So you go to the Park Hyatt to meet your husband.”
“Not to meet him, no. He didn’t know I was coming.”
“You planning on roughing him up with those big guys that got in the lift with you?” Franks suggested.
“Just moral support.”
I tried to remember if there was a camera in the lift. Probably. I hadn’t been thinking of such things at the time. Would they have footage of us getting out on the third floor? Of entering the room? My palms started to sweat. Dammit, I hated talking to the police.
“And which room was your husband staying in?” Detective Hartley’s voice was still mild. Somehow that was more threatening than Franks’s posturing. Maybe she was playing bad cop after all.
“I don’t know. My son managed to contact us without his father knowing. He said it was on the third floor, but he didn’t know the room number. But when we got out of the lift the hallway was full of people running, and smoke, and there’d been some kind of explosion. It was chaos. I couldn’t find Lachie.”
Actually, it wasn’t talking to the police that was the problem. It was the lying to the police I hated. But what else could I do? I could hardly tell them what had really happened, could I?
“But you tried? You went into the room where the explosion was?”
“No. We couldn’t get close. The fire … it was too hot.”
“Do you think the explosion had anything to do with your husband?”
“Yes, I do. I think he found out Lachie had called me. It was his way of warning me not to try to get Lachie back. He’s a dangerous man, Detective. You have to help me.”
“Do you have a recent photo of your son? And of your husband? We’ll need you to come down to the station and make a full statement.”
“I can’t do that. He told me not to go to the police. If he even finds out you were here today …” I put some mental pressure behind my next words. No matter how I tried, it always seemed to come down to dragon compulsions in the end. I was keeping too many secrets to stick to the straight and narrow path. “You’ll have to keep this quiet. I can’t be involved. You have to find him.”
She nodded, that familiar glazed look in her eyes.
“And when you find him, call me. He’s a dangerous man. You’ll need my help.”
In her current state, she didn’t question that. I gave her a photo of Jason, and she didn’t even notice there wasn’t one of Lachie too. There was no need to get the police too involved. Hopefully the impulse to call me would stick, even if she didn’t quite remember the reason for it, and I’d be able to swoop in and snatch Lachie back without any of the police getting hurt. They’d be no match for a dragon, but they could be useful in locating one. So why did I feel like such a monster for using them?
CHAPTER FOUR
Probing the innermost secrets of someone’s mind is hard work, even for a dragon, if you’re not at full strength, and I was still recovering. Add a police interview to that, and by the time I’d finished interviewing my new staff I wasn’t fit for anything but bed. Dr Ben and Dr Luce conferred, then prescribed plenty of rest.
“I have things to do. Lachie—”
“Is safe with Jason for the moment,” said Ben. “I don’t like it any more than you do, but we will get him back. And it will be easier if you’re not about to collapse.”
Luce turned me firmly in the direction of the stairs. She would never have dared with Leandra, but since her stint as Alicia’s virtual slave, Luce had returned even more determined to control everything and everyone around her. I could sympathise. No one liked being someone else’s puppet. I’d had some pretty bad experiences myself recently, when Leandra had been trying to steal my body. That didn’t mean I was going to let Luce boss me around. I was top dog in this relationship.
Asserting my superiority might have to wait until I felt less like a limp dishrag, though.
“You have to admit,” Luce said, “whatever Jason’s other faults—and they are legion—he’s very protective of Lachie. He staged the kid’s death just to hide him away from Valeria and … you.” She shook her head. “Leandra-you, not Kate-you. I’m still having trouble adjusting to that.”
You and me both, sister.
“He didn’t do such a great job of protecting him when Valeria was threatening to throw him off the roof of her house,” I objected. “Or when she decided to drop him off the top of the Harbour Bridge.”
The fact that Jason was supposed to be her ally hadn’t stopped Valeria from using our son as a pawn in her game against me. He was only safe with his father for as long as it took Jason’s new mistress to see Lachie in the same light. How long did we have?
“Those were unusual circumstances.”
“And aren’t these unusual circumstances?” Worry for Lachie nagged at my exhausted mind, insisting I should be doing something, anything. I was his mother; he needed me. Get up. Move. Save him.
Ben put an arm around my shoulders, and I couldn’t help sagging against him. “Nevertheless, you’re no use to anyone like this. You need rest.”
He urged me up the stairs, and I allowed myself to be led to the bedroom. Despite my protests, in my heart I knew they were right. There was still time before Lachie was at risk, and I would be no use to him like this. It would require all my skill to pick my way through the maze of problems that confronted me. I couldn’t afford to stuff this up. Grat
efully I sank into the soft white cloud of my pillow and let oblivion take me.
So it was the next morning before the planets aligned and Blue was sober and I was able to string more than two words together in a coherent thought.
We met in the throne room, on Luce’s advice.
“A show of strength,” she said. “Goblins won’t do anything unless they can see what’s in it for them. You need to appear powerful.”
“He helped us before.” Goblin mages had their own defences against dragon manipulation, and I knew I couldn’t compel him. I hadn’t wanted him here, but since he was, I hoped for some co-operation.
“That wasn’t for you, that was for Garth. He owed Garth a debt, and now that debt is repaid. I doubt he’ll be so accommodating this time.”
I considered the big werewolf. As usual, his grey eyes followed me. He watched me almost as keenly as the thralls did, though in his case it sent a thrill of pleasure through me every time I met his gaze across the room. He never had explained what that debt thing was all about.
Still, there was always money. It was old-fashioned, but money was still a great motivator. I had plenty of it now, and there was nothing goblins liked more.
“He wasn’t keen on coming in,” Ben said, interrupting my train of thought. Probably best not to spend too much time staring at the werewolf when he was around anyway. “I had to be quite persuasive.”
I threw him a startled glance. Though I’d known him for years, he’d managed to keep some sides of his personality well hidden. Like the whole delight-in-beating-up-recalcitrant-goblins thing. For that matter, he’d kept the goblins themselves and all the rest of the shifter world a secret too, so I should hardly be surprised. I really didn’t know him as well as I’d thought.
Without meaning to, my eyes slid back to Garth. Him, on the other hand, I’d only known for a short time. But he kept nothing hidden. What you saw was what you got.
With an effort I wrenched my thoughts back to the problem of the goblin. “Bring him in, then.”
The big doors swung open and Steve marched our goblin “guest” in. He looked a lot more alert than last time I’d seen him, and he didn’t flinch away from the light streaming in the long wall of glass that ran down the side of the throne room. The eyes behind his little round John Lennon-style glasses were still bloodshot, but less bleary. He had on clean clothes, too, though they were a little big. Probably borrowed from Dave, who was closest to his height, though built on more solid lines than the scrawny goblin.
His eyes flicked around the room as he advanced. He nodded to Garth, lounging with Mac by the French doors to the terrace. Garth returned the nod but said nothing. He scowled when his gaze fell on Ben, standing beside my chair.
“Nice place.” His gaze took in the whole of the imposing room and settled on me in my chair on the dais. “You’ve moved up in the world.”
“You could say that. I hear you’re back to living in caves again.”
“Nothing wrong with a nice cave. Just the thing for a goblin on his own.”
“And where’s your clan chief these days? Still on the Gold Coast, is he?”
“Living it up at the casino, I heard,” said Ben. “He’s a high roller. Limousines, women, parties every night.”
“Half the clan’s up there,” said Luce. She was positioned on my other side, her arms folded across her chest. She regarded the goblin with disdain. “They’ve got a whole floor of the hotel to themselves.”
Blue scowled at her.
“Seems a shame they’ve got all that money, and you’re the one living in a cave, when it was your magic that earned it.”
“Money doesn’t buy happiness, you know.” The goblin’s tone was sharp. “Look at you—got all your mother’s millions now, but are you happy? And you can’t seem to afford more than one chair.”
He looked around the empty throne room pointedly.
“Garth, bring a chair for our guest,” I said, as if noticing for the first time that he was still standing.
“That’s better,” he said when he was seated. “Now, what does a person have to do to get a drink around here?”
“We’re thinking of your liver, Blue,” said Ben.
“My liver doesn’t need anything from you except a bottle of scotch and a few ice cubes.”
“Sun’s not over the yardarm yet.”
“It tastes just the same whatever the bloody time of day.” Blue had a pointed nose that made him look, even in human form, rather sinister, though it couldn’t seem to manage to hold up his glasses properly. They kept sliding down, and he kept pushing them back up. Bloodshot eyes, lank orange hair and a surly expression completed the less-than-attractive picture. “Are you going to give me a damn drink or not?”
“Not. I brought you here to discuss how you can serve your queen, not to watch you get drunk.”
He snorted, an unpleasant nasal sound. “Who says she’s the queen? Heard there were a few other contenders for the job.”
My temper flared. He hadn’t been this insolent last time. What was his problem?
Without any conscious effort, full-sized dragon claws erupted from my fingers. Long as swords and just as sharp, they were enough to make Wolverine jealous. I tapped my claws together and watched Blue squirm in his seat.
“That’s not the way this is going to work,” I said. “The clans have always sold the works of their magi to anyone willing to pay. I’m buying, and you will provide what I need.”
“I’ve left my clan.”
“I don’t imagine Chief Trimboli is very happy that his little money-making goose has flown away. I’m perfectly happy to negotiate with him instead of you.”
Blue might be a drunkard, but he wasn’t stupid. “So you’ll give me back to him if I don’t do what you want?”
“That’s a very negative way of looking at it. Think of it this way: you make me happy, you get to keep the whole payment for yourself.”
He shot me a vicious look, but his shoulders slumped in defeat. He knew he was caught. “You dragons are all the same. What do you want me to do?”
“How about we start with something easy, like changing someone’s appearance?”
I didn’t really know what I wanted him to do. Not for the first time I wished Kasumi were here, even though she’d turned out to be a backstabbing traitor. Or frontstabbing, I suppose. Right up until she’d thrust that knife into my chest, she’d been the most fabulous resource, with her amazing ability to perfectly mimic the appearance—and even the aura—of anyone at all.
Come to think of it, a goblin seeming probably wouldn’t help. I knew from experience that they didn’t affect the aura of the underlying wearer. I’d come across my first goblin seeming in this very room, when Elizabeth was still queen and my sisters and I were meeting for the first time at the Presentation Ball. The ball was meant to introduce the candidates for the throne to the shifters of the domain, but it had set a new record: fastest time ever from presentation to the first death. Valeria’s griffin lieutenant had worn a seeming and slipped into the ball in disguise, but the fact that her aura had still betrayed her as a griffin, despite the spell that changed her appearance, had saved me from the bomb blast that killed my sister Monique. The discrepancy had raised alarm bells with the ever-watchful Luce, who’d gotten me out of the room just before little bits of my sister spattered all over it. Monique had been the first sister to die in the bloody succession war of the proving.
The only one I hadn’t killed myself.
I glanced involuntarily toward the French doors leading onto the terrace. I could still feel the scrape of stone against my face and hear the terrible blast ringing in my ears. I’d gone sprawling across that terrace in an undignified heap, but at least I’d lived. The damage, of course, had been repaired long ago, and all I could see out there now was blue sky and sunshine.
“Just a general change, or are you looking to impersonate someone? ’Cause I’d need part of them for that. Plus it costs more,” he ad
ded.
He used his middle finger to shove his glasses back up onto the bridge of his nose again. It looked like he was giving me the finger. Probably intentional.
“How about we pay you by not handing your sorry arse back to your clan?” Luce suggested.
Blue shot her a killing look, but I waved her to silence.
“Look, Blue.” I leaned forward, letting my claws disappear. “You’re the expert. I want my son back. You tell me what I need, and you will be well and truly compensated.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, that’s your first problem right there, isn’t it?” He jumped up. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the ever-protective Garth stiffen, ready to leap to my defence, but Blue made no move toward me. “Can’t rescue the poor kid if you don’t know where he is. I’ll need to scry for him. You got something of his? Something personal, I mean. Blood or hair is best.”
“Is that all you need?” The prospect of finding Lachie had me suddenly as energised as the goblin. “When can you do it?”
He strode toward the French doors. Garth moved to block his way with an enquiring look at me, and I waved him back. We followed the goblin out into the sunlight. Already the stones of the terrace radiated heat; it was going to be another hot day. Below, the beach glittered in the sun and the shrieks of small children playing at the water’s edge drifted to us on the wind.
Blue took the wide stone steps down to the garden and made a beeline for the central fountain. It featured mermaids and mermen waving tridents, surrounded by pouting fish that spat water when the fountain was turned on. At the moment nothing disturbed the pool of water around the central statues except the occasional goldfish. Blue parked his bony butt on the fountain’s stone edging and took off his shoes. His feet were as long and narrow as the rest of him, and his toenails were filthy.
“Right now, if you like,” he said.
“You need bare feet to perform magic?”
“Nah. I just like to feel the grass.”
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