“I… I can’t remember,” said Terry. “But I was probably with Joey for a lot of those.”
“Alibi conveniently dead,” said Dirk.
“Hey,” said Terry. “He wasn’t an alibi. He was my boyfriend.”
Dirk stood up. “I’ll be in touch.”
Lachlan and I stood up too. Lachlan stopped and peered closely into Terry’s eyes. “Did you kill those men?” he asked in a low voice.
“N-no,” said Terry, his voice unsteady.
Lachlan nodded. “Thanks for your time, Mr. Jenkins.”
* * *
“What was that about?” said Dirk. “He’d already denied it. And you saw how he stuttered when he tried to say no to you.”
We were all outside on the street outside Terry’s house. Dirk was at her car, but we weren’t going to drive with her. We were taking our own car, and I was glad of it, because I didn’t want to listen to them fight.
“Who cares why Lachlan did that?” I said. “That’s the way he is. We’ll see you back at the station, Dirk.”
She shook her head. “You don’t think he did it, do you?”
Lachlan licked his lips. “Could have been him. He doesn’t have an alibi. There’s evidence linking him to the scene.”
“And he’s the boyfriend of one of the victims,” said Dirk.
“Yeah, but that kind of doesn’t fit, does it?” said Lachlan. “Most serial killers are too smart to kill people that would be linked to them.”
“Maybe,” said Dirk. “Or maybe he’s getting sloppy, like we were theorizing he would do.”
Lachlan considered. “Maybe.”
“You think it’s that guy you’ve been following around. You haven’t let that go even though you haven’t found a shred of evidence.”
“Well,” said Lachlan. “At this point, we really only have two suspects. We’ve got Silas Gordon, and we’ve got this guy.”
“This guy did it,” said Dirk.
“Maybe,” said Lachlan.
“I’ve got enough for an arrest,” said Dirk. “And if I can’t get a confession out of him, I bet the legendary Flint can.”
Lachlan’s nostrils flared. “If he’s guilty, I can.”
I inserted myself between the two of them. “Okay, this is great and all. Good talk, guys. Lachlan, let’s go.” I grabbed him by the arm and tugged.
“He is guilty,” said Dirk.
“You don’t know that,” said Lachlan.
I tugged harder.
He came after me. “We’ll see, Dirk!” he called over his shoulder.
Once we were inside his car, I glared at him. “I wish you wouldn’t talk to her if you can’t think of anything to say that’s not fighting.”
“We’ve got to look into this Terry person,” said Lachlan. “It’s possible she’s right. The final victim is actually gay, he doesn’t fit the pattern. Maybe this has been about killing Joey Green all along. Maybe the other victims were stand-ins for Joey. Maybe finally, after everything, he couldn’t help it, and he killed his boyfriend.”
“Really? You’re not going to oppose this suspect because Dirk likes him?”
“Come on, Penny,” he said. “I’m not a thirteen-year-old. We go where the case takes us.”
“So, what now?”
“Now, we find out more about Terry,” said Lachlan.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Kimberly Ortiz leaned on her dust mop. She and Terry had worked together as janitors at Sea City Middle School. “Yeah, we didn’t really associate too much, but we did talk a bit, Terry and me. Honestly, not much recently, because I’ve been covering his shifts a lot. I don’t mind. I like the extra cash, and he works early in the morning, which is fine with me. I can get in a few hours early and then get home at the same time, and it doesn’t feel like I worked any extra. It’s all good, if you know what I mean.”
“So, there was a change?” said Lachlan. “Before recently, he didn’t take off work very often?”
“No, never.” Kimberly shrugged. “I don’t know what happened. When I first started working here, he was a real nice guy, and he was always here, and he always looked, you know, presentable. He would make jokes and shake my hand, and be pleasant.”
“But that’s changed?”
She nodded. “Definitely. I don’t know what happened to him, but I kind of wonder if he’s, you know, sick?” She bit down on her lip. “Like I don’t mean to be stereotypical, but I know he’s gay. I know anyone can get it, but I … knowing that he’s gay, that’s where my head went, you know? And he seems like he’s going downhill.”
“You think he might be sick?” I said.
“You know,” she said, dropping her voice, “like with AIDS.”
Lachlan and I both exchanged a glance.
“Not that it would matter if he did,” she said. “I don’t have a problem working with him. I’m not worried about it or anything, and I’m not spreading rumors. It’s sad is all. He used to be so full of life. And now he seems depressed and upset and sick all the time. When he’s here, that is, which isn’t even all that often.” She shook her head, looking truly broken up about it.
* * *
“We can’t release that information to you,” said the nurse behind the desk. “It’s against the law to discuss a patient’s history.”
“We don’t need to know anything other than whether or not he has a mortal disease,” said Lachlan.
“That’s exactly the kind of thing that I can’t tell you,” said the nurse.
Lachlan put his hands on the counter. “Listen, have you ever read Oedipus Rex?”
“Read what?” said the nurse.
“It’s a play about a man who ends up marrying his mother and killing his father,” said Lachlan.
“Oh, yeah, I guess I’ve heard of that,” she said.
“Well, why does that happen in the play?” said Lachlan.
“I don’t remember, but I think it was like fate or something,” said the nurse.
“No,” said Lachlan, “it was a lack of information. If someone would have told Oedipus who he was before any of it started, it never would have happened.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. Seriously? Because the way I remembered that play—
“Nice try,” said the nurse.
I shoved Lachlan out of the way, and I faced down the nurse. I peered into her eyes and I pushed a tendril of magic at her. “You’d like to tell us whether or not Terry Jenkins is sick or not.”
The nurse blinked, her eyes going glassy. My compulsion had worked. She turned to her computer screen. “I would like to tell you. I would.”
“So, tell us,” I said, nudging her with more magic.
“He’s not sick,” she said. “He hasn’t been in to see the doctor in over two years. He seems to be healthy.”
* * *
“That was cheating,” said Lachlan.
“I know,” I said. “And it felt wrong too. It reminded me of when we compelled all those vampires to kill those drakes.”
Lachlan’s jaw twitched. “Well, you made her break the law.”
“I know I did.”
“But it did make me wonder why I don’t have you doing that all the time. Like, let’s go find Silas Gordon and compel him to tell us the truth about what happened. Why not?”
“Because it’s cheating,” I said. “You’re always adamant that you don’t get confessions because of magic.”
“Right,” he said, “and it’s a slippery slope. One minute you’re compelling him to tell the truth, the next you’re compelling him to confess. You’re forcing him to do something against his will, and it makes it all cheap somehow.”
I sighed. “I’m sorry I compelled her. I won’t do it again.”
“I know you didn’t mean anything by it,” he said.
We were quiet.
I twisted my hands together. “You think it’s because you’ve been drinking my blood? It’s making me weak? Making me want to do stuff like that?”
; “No,” he said. “We tested the blood drinking.”
I chewed on my lip.
“I’m sorry I came down on you so hard.”
“No, you were right to,” I said. “I shouldn’t have done it.”
He rubbed his forehead.
I looked down at my hands.
My phone buzzed. A text message. I pulled it out. It was from Clarke. She had another rogue.
“What’s that?” said Lachlan.
“It’s Clarke,” I said. “I wanted her to call me when she killed rogues so that I could try to identify them. She’s got a rogue.”
“You going to where she is, then?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I was planning on it.”
“You want me to come along?”
“You don’t have to.”
He nodded. “All right. Then I’ll see you later.”
“Later,” I said.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Well, I’m going to text you a photo,” I said into the phone. I was on with a woman in New York State, whose mate had gone missing a month or so ago. So far, the description of his dragon form seemed to match up with the rogue.
“Oh,” she said. “I don’t know. What if it’s him?”
“Then you’ll know what happened to him,” I said.
Her voice cracked. “How would he end up all the way down in Sea City?”
“If you really don’t want to see the photo—”
“No, send it. Send it to me now.” Her voice was desperate suddenly.
I sent the photo that I’d taken of the rogue to her. I waited.
She breathed on the other end of the phone, quick and staccato. Then she made a tiny noise. “Oh.”
“What?” I whispered.
“It could be him,” she murmured. “It could be, but there have to be lots of dragons with red scales and yellow wings like that. Maybe it’s not him.”
My heart started to pick up speed. “It could be him?”
“I don’t know.” She was crying now, softly. “He, um, he has a little yellow pattern on his left claw.”
“Oh,” I said. “Wait. Here, I’ll send you another photo.” I did.
She saw it, and then she dissolved into sobs. “Oh, no. Oh, God. Jordan, what happened, baby?”
“So it’s him?” I said.
“He was going out to get some of those eagleclaws. You know that it’s popular to drop them in with energy drinks and liquor? All the kids are drinking them at the clubs, and he wanted to try them.”
“Are you sure that it’s him?”
“We were having people over, and he went out to get the eagleclaws and the energy drinks and he never came back. Why did he go to Sea City? Why did someone hurt him?”
“I don’t have all the answers. I wish I did,” I said.
“I wish he’d never wanted to make one of those stupid drinks.”
“Drinks? Made with eagleclaw candies? The ones that Eaglelinx makes?”
“Yeah, those,” she said. “You haven’t heard of the drinks? They’re called Claw Rushes. Everybody’s drinking them.”
“I, uh, maybe.” I knew she was focusing on the drinks because she couldn’t take the reality of her mate’s death. “Listen, I’m so sorry.”
“Where’s his body?” she said. “How did he die?”
I let out a long, slow breath. “I, uh, I might have to get back to you.” I hung up. Damn it, I really hadn’t thought this through, had I?
I dialed Clarke.
“Penny,” she said, picking up on the first ring.
“Has anyone hauled off that dragon body yet?”
“No. But it’s only because I keep getting voicemail when I call, and I won’t leave messages about this shit.”
“Good,” I said. “Because I found his mate.”
“What?” Her voice got high pitched.
* * *
Clarke was dragging her hands over her face. “You think they’re all, you know, people?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“I killed him.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t think you did. I’ve killed them too, and they aren’t… He was already dead.”
She shook her head. “Damn.”
“Clarke, keep it together. When this helicopter shows up, you can’t act guilty. Remember, our story is that we found him like this.”
“With an arrow in him,” she said. “She’s going to know he was killed by a slayer.”
“She probably thought that happened already anyway. At least now, his remains can be returned to his family where they belong. You know that dragons usually shift back into dragon form at the end so that our bodies can be used by future generations of our progeny?”
“No,” said Clarke. “I didn’t know that. So, you’re saying that while I’m shuffling off these bodies, I’m robbing their families?” She was horrified.
“You didn’t know,” I said.
“But I do now.” She turned in a circle, shaking.
“Calm down,” I said. “When they get here—”
“I’ll be cool when they get here,” she said. “For now, let me freak out, okay?”
I folded my arms over my chest. “Why do you do this, anyway? You said you barely make any money at it.”
She sighed. “My parents were killed by rogues. I guess I didn’t want that to happen to another little girl, you know?”
“Oh,” I said softly.
She looked at me. “Well, I don’t even know what to do about it now, Penny. If I kill another rogue, I have to try to get it back to its family. How can I do that?”
“I… I don’t know. Maybe if there was a place that people could report their missing loved ones? Post pictures of them in dragon form?”
She nodded. “Yes, that would be good. Like a website?”
“I could maybe do that,” I said.
She buried her face in her hands, still shaking.
I touched her shoulder. “Clarke?”
“What?” Her voice was muffled.
“They do have to be killed,” I said. There was only one other way to neutralize the dragons, and it involved making my son into a rogue magnet. I wasn’t ready to do that. The rogues were dangerous. They needed to be taken care of. “You are protecting people.”
She raised her gaze to look at me. “You know, coming from you, that means a lot.”
I held out my hand.
We shook.
She squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. “Okay,” she murmured. “Okay, I’m all right.”
In the distance, we heard a helicopter approaching. This dragon’s family was going to take him home.
* * *
Eaglelinx. Eaglelinx.
It kept popping up everywhere. Lachlan said not to trust coincidences. Well, this seemed like a neon sign.
But I didn’t get it. How were the rogues connected to this serial killer? How could that even happen? No, maybe it wasn’t all related. I couldn’t see how it could be.
I went to Vivica’s room and knocked on her door.
“Eaglelinx,” I said. “How long did Dan work there?”
“Didn’t you ask me about them before?” she said.
“What do you know about Claw Rushes?”
“The drink?” she said. “What’s to know?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I never heard of one.”
“Well, they’re all the rage with hipsters,” she said. “A way to caffeinate, get your taurine, and all the alcohol you like.”
“But what about the eagleclaw?” I said.
“That makes it taste cinnamon-y,” she said. “Sometimes people make them with cinnamon liquor.”
“I remember those candies from when I was a kid,” I said. “They were godawful. You couldn’t bite into them, because they were too hard, and they were super hot, like spicy, but sweet at the same time. I never liked them.”
“Well, I haven’t actually had one of the drinks,” she said. “Or one of those candies. At least not s
ince I was like ten.”
“But Eaglelinx makes them.”
“Yeah,” she said. “They also make chocolate bars.”
I shook my head. “It means something. It has to mean something.”
“What does?”
“Well, look, all the victims of the killer worked at Eaglelinx. And then I found out that some guy was going out to buy eagleclaws to make Claw Rushes, and then turned into a rogue dragon. And there was a part in the book about the Eagle and the Lynx, and touching a talisman that turned someone into a rogue. Somehow it’s all connected, but I can’t see how.”
She furrowed her brow. “Penny, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I sighed. “Do you want to know? Because I can go back and explain it all.”
“I… if it’s going to make me think about Dan, I don’t know if I…”
“Sorry,” I said. I rubbed my temples. Where the hell was Lachlan? If there was anyone I could talk to about this, it would be him. But it was late, now, already dark outside, and still no sign of him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
~Lachlan~
Lachlan waited through the entire set of the guitar player at The Carlisle. The man was skinny with long dark hair that hung in tight ringlets down his back. He played Spanish guitar, his fingers flying over the fret board of the nylon-stringed instrument, wringing haunting melodies from its depths.
But Lachlan didn’t much care how good the guitar player was.
He simply wanted the man to take a break so that he could talk to him. He needed to find out if the man knew anything about Bartholomew Collins, the ancient vampire who might have answers for him.
If going to Collins’s old place of residence had been a long shot, this was an even longer one. There was little likelihood this man knew where Collins lived, knew how to find him, knew anything at all.
Lachlan ordered drink after drink. He seemed to be going through them fast, which wasn’t typical for him. He hadn’t been drinking at all lately.
His drinking had picked up when the blood bond had gotten hold of him. He’d poured lots of whiskey down his throat. Of course, that had been the least of his vices. All the drugs, all the mixtures with blood—there had been so many different things that it all ran together in his head. He didn’t know what he’d taken, what he’d gotten high on.
Fire Born (City of Dragons Book 5) Page 15