She shook her head, her eyes fixed on the rain-streaked window for a full minute. “I wanted to thank you.”
I frowned. “For what?”
She swallowed. “For believing me this afternoon. Believing I wasn’t in cahoots with James, even though you found that phone in my desk.”
I shrugged. It hadn’t been hard to believe in her innocence. It took me about ten minutes to realize the truth. Alice had been framed. While exceedingly accident-prone, she was far from stupid. So why would she leave evidence of her crimes in her own desk? I suspected someone had planted the burner phone and the blond hair on the pillow at the loft, not to mention the picture of the obscured blonde at the frat house.
Which meant one thing: James did have a partner.
And he or she was just the lead I needed to find my parents.
James’s partner must’ve overheard me tell Izzy about the Ferns’ claim of having seen a woman with hair as blond as spun gold and decided to pin everything on Alice. I had little doubt of her innocence given her IQ, which was why I’d arranged for her very public exit. I wanted whoever had planted the bogus evidence to feel safe.
From the looks on everyone’s faces as Alice was dragged from the building by Jonas and his security guard pal, my plan had worked perfectly. Now it was time to catch a killer, or rather a few killers, two of whom were also known as Mom and Dad.
CHAPTER 51
When we’d found the burner phone in Alice’s drawer, it had taken me less than ten minutes to put two and two together and come up with a few suspects. Considering the only people with access to Alice’s desk were employees of Reynolds & Davis Securities, my suspect pool was fewer than ten people total. I would find James’s partner and that person would pay.
That was how I found myself sitting in a car in Alphabet Soup City with Alice in the passenger seat. I’d had her run the rest of the numbers called from James’s phone, as well as the one we found in her desk this afternoon. She’d agreed to meet me far from the bright lights of our office when she had the information I needed.
According to Alice, the only other number found on James’s burner phone was the Reynolds & Davis switchboard.
James’s cohorts had been smart—never dialing him directly. Given that on an average day, we received and made more than five hundred phone calls at the office, tracking each call felt like an impossible task. And the killer knew it, too.
With that information swirling around my head, I had Alice pull every single employee’s record, from the janitor to my partner. Somewhere there had to be some evidence of whom James had partnered with. An idea that quickly faded in the face of one fact—whoever had been working with James likely held a wee bit of a grudge after his death. I doubted they’d admit to anything, let alone starting two fires and murdering an old woman.
“The files have everything I could find on each name,” Alice was saying. “Some more than others.” She tapped Clark Boyer’s file folder, which was as thick as a book, while her own was much slimmer. “I hope this helps.”
I nodded, not quite sure what I expected to find. Picking up the first file, I ran my finger over Izzy’s name. As much as I hated what I was about to do, I couldn’t stop. Izzy had a secret, one she wasn’t willing to share. And that put her in danger, especially if said secret had something to do with my past. As I flipped through the file, one piece of paper caught my eye. It was a list of computer searches, some seemingly innocent enough, but when they were viewed as a whole, a pattern emerged. I showed the list to Alice. “These are all from Izzy’s computer?” I asked, the paper shaking along with my hand.
She nodded. “Mostly from three weeks ago. Nothing in the last week.”
I closed my eyes, fear growing as the full weight of what I had read filled me.
I now knew what case Izzy had been working without me.
I just hoped it wouldn’t take her from me too.
CHAPTER 52
While I waited for Izzy to arrive back at my apartment from her “date,” I flipped through Clark’s file without much interest. On paper Clark was the same as in person—completely vanilla—boring to the very end. The Boyer clan was a bit more interesting. Not enough to keep my mind from wandering, though.
I thought of what I would say to Izzy when she arrived home, if she came home tonight. That thought left me electrified with anger. I planned on slowly twisting the screws until she finally came clean, offering up all of her secrets like thousands had done for her with their molars. I blew on my heated fingertips as my attention returned to the Boyer file. The first family of New Never City. Hell, Clark’s relatives had come over on the Fairyflower. Not a hint of scandal, let alone a gaggle full of murderous relations like yours bluely. The Boyers were New Never City élite, just as my former Tooth Fairy cohort was in Fairyland.
When, much to my disgust, my mind inadvertently pictured Izzy in Clark’s arms, I tried to fight the feeling of inevitability. Two people of and from the same circles. Izzy might dabble on the dark side, but the cream always rose to the top.
And one day she’d leave me for, if not Clark, then someone very much like him.
The thought turned my stomach.
Suffice it to say I had worked myself into quite the rotten mood by the time Izzy arrived back at my place. I was half in the bag to boot. Whiskey had tasted a whole lot better than the half-eaten bag of chips I’d had for dinner when I returned home.
I sat in the dark, a half full bottle of whiskey in my hand, when Izzy unlocked my front door. I heard her say good night to Clark, thankful when she stepped inside alone a few seconds later. Keeping the lights off, she hurried by on her way to my bedroom. To my bed.
My grip tightened on the bottle, the cold smoothness doing nothing to ease the burning inside me. “Have a nice evening?” I asked from the shadows.
She gasped, dropping her purse. It hit the floor without a sound, the contents slipping out between us. A small, clear vial of dentin rolled in a circle, finally settling a few inches from my boot. My gaze stayed locked on the vial, too afraid to glance up at my partner. I was half afraid of what I might do when I did, but even more scared of what would happen if I chickened out and said nothing.
“Blue,” Izzy said, a slight tremor in her tone. She took a small step forward, as if nothing was wrong when in truth everything we had was crashing in around us. “Is everything all right?”
Finally I glanced up, searching her beautiful yet treacherous face. She looked unsure and even a little afraid. “Don’t lie to me.” I slowly rose to face her, my legs as unsteady as my voice. “Not anymore, Izzy.”
“I don’t—”
“Yeah, you do, sweetheart.” I licked my dry lips. “You’ve been investigating me for the past month.”
CHAPTER 53
“I wanted to tell you,” Izzy was saying as we stared at each other from what was only a few feet apart but might as well have been the length of an unspooled roll of floss. I lifted the whiskey bottle to my lips, drinking deeply to squelch the current threatening to rise. “But . . .” She trailed off.
“But what?” I swallowed past the lump of bitterness choking me. “You were what? Afraid of what I might do?”
She nodded slowly.
I laughed, loud and hollow. “You’re lying, like you did every time I asked you about your case. How you must’ve laughed when I offered to help.” Her lips thinned, but she didn’t argue, though I wanted nothing more than a fight. “All this time my past was your super-secret case. To what end?”
She turned, giving me her back. “I never meant to hurt you. I was trying . . . I am trying to protect you.”
“From what, Izzy? The truth? From freedom from this?” Electricity bolted from my fingers as my laughter grew darker. “Let me thank you for that. Really.”
For the first time since she entered my apartment, genuine emotion showed through her façade, like ice cracking when electricity was applied. “You don’t understand, Blue. There are things ... secrets
... about your parents.”
I grabbed her arm, shocking us both literally and figuratively. I let go when sparks shot from my hand, burning her delicate skin. “You know where they are.” I shoved my hands in my pockets to keep from throttling her. Didn’t she see how dangerous the people who birthed me were? They’d already killed one person, and probably more, in hopes of hiding the very secrets Izzy now held. The thought of anyone, let alone the people who’d abandoned me, harming Izzy nearly drove me mad.
She took a few steps away, her eyes steady on the night sky beyond the grimy windows of my apartment. “Two months ago, completely by accident, mind you, I read the file you kept on your birth.”
I snorted. “Considering it was locked in the bottom of my desk, I’m guessing the accident part is”—I paused—“like most of the things you say, a lie.”
Her soft gasp told me I’d hit the mark. “Anyway,” she said coldly, “I decided, as a friend, to do a little investigating on my own.” I chuckled at her use of the word “friend,” but let her continue her fairytale. “I didn’t know what I would find, but I wanted to . . . thank you for giving me a chance to be something other than the expected.” She emphasized her point by flapping her wings. A small cloud of fairy dust filled the air, taking some of the edge off my anger.
I inhaled deeply, hoping to ease the rest, including the gnawing fear churning in my gut. “I take it this is where I beg your forgiveness and tell you just how damn much I appreciate your attempt to help poor Little Boy Blue?”
Anger flashed across her face. “No need to be snarky. I admit my actions weren’t the best, but my intentions were and are pure. I thought I was doing the right thing.”
I gave a bitter laugh. “You want to do right by me? Then tell me where I can find them.”
She closed her eyes. “I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“You don’t know what you’re asking, Blue.” A single tear slid down her cheek. “Please. Just let it go.”
“Tell me,” I barked. “Where are they?”
“The New Never City Cemetery.”
CHAPTER 54
My parents were dead. Had been for quite some time. The headstones said so. Neatly engraved with the words “Husband” and “Wife,” but no names accompanied them. I wondered why, but Izzy didn’t have the answer and there was no one else left to ask.
The Wife headstone held a death date more than thirty years ago, right after my birth. My father had died five years later. Had he mourned her loss? Had the very thought of losing her choked him with sadness?
I glanced over at Izzy. She stood next to me, silent, watching the gravestones as if they held the answers to our tumultuous partnership. Surprisingly, her being by my side eased a little of the shock at the deaths of the people who’d borne me. Oddly that was all I felt. No grief or pain. Maybe that would come later. And maybe it wouldn’t. After all, I’d never known either of them.
Were they good people?
Did it matter either way?
They were dead, buried in a mysterious cemetery open only twice a year, once in the spring and the other time in the fall. Unless you were fairy royalty; then you simply fluttered your wings at the gatekeeper and he let you and your glaring companion right in.
The cemetery was oddly beautiful, with marble headstones of the old city’s elite. My parents were buried closer to the back, under a forest of trees, the perfect place to bury bodies—and their secrets. I wondered who’d done just that. Who had loved them enough to pay for their burials? Was it the same person willing to kill to keep their blue-haired secret?
“From what I learned, they loved each other very much,” Izzy said quietly. “Your mother—her name was Cybil. She died with your father’s name on her lips.”
I turned away from her, not wanting to hear another word about the woman I would never know, the woman who gave me life. “How’d you find them?” When I couldn’t, I added silently. Maybe this was meant to be, a way of showing me I wasn’t quite the badass investigator I’d thought. Rather than humble me, Izzy’s investigational prowess filled me with equal parts pride and self-disgust.
“I asked Christine.”
I spun back toward Izzy. “What?”
“I asked Christine,” she repeated, biting her bottom lip. “I somehow caught her in a moment of clarity, and she told me about Mr. and Mrs. Smith, about . . .”
“About what?”
“Their deaths.”
“When?”
Her forehead wrinkled. “When did they die?”
I shook my head. “No. When did you go to see Christine?”
“You’re not going to like my answer,” she said.
“Try me,” I said, though I had a strong feeling she was right.
Taking a few steps toward the graves, she ran her hand over the cold marble of my mother’s headstone. “The day James was found at your apartment. I saw Christine that morning.”
And James came to kill me that afternoon.
Too much of a coincidence to think there wasn’t more to it.
Had Izzy’s visit to Shady Wings started this mess? I didn’t see how ... unless someone at the home had notified James, the guy who paid the bills, of Izzy’s visit and the questions she had asked. Or maybe he’d had a plant there all along? Just waiting for someone to show up and ask questions? I pictured the sweet fairy girl manning the reception desk. She’d known who Izzy was at first sight. Then again, the old bastard who’d cracked me in the knees with his cane seemed like a better suspect, mostly because of the three-inch-long bruise still imprinted on my leg.
I returned my attention to Izzy as she said, “I’d stumbled upon Christine by accident. I’d read your file, noticed the name, and remembered a visit to Shady Wings during my stint as the Tooth Fairy.” She gave a small laugh. “I went to a lot of nursing homes. That and Friday Night Gnome boxing tournaments are a Tooth Fairy’s bread and butter.”
“You remembered one old lady out of hundreds? How?”
She closed her eyes. “When I was at Shady Wings I said the word ‘blue’—completely at random, mind you. Christine’s eyes went wide and she started rambling about a fire and a baby boy named Blue.” She paused as if gathering her thoughts. “I didn’t mention it at the time because we . . . weren’t on the best of terms.”
I barked with bitter laughter. “Meaning you thought you could lord it over me.”
“Maybe a little,” she said, ducking her head. “But it didn’t click in place until a few days ago. The next day I went to Shady Wings.”
“That’s why you wanted to go with me when Alice first found Christine. You wanted to keep me from the truth.” I paused, waving a hand at the impersonal headstones. “From knowing they were dead.”
She slowly shook her head. “Not that they were dead, exactly.”
“Then what?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “To keep you from knowing how they died.”
Months after my birth, by all accounts, my mother had died at my father’s hands. He’d electrocuted her. The very same way I’d feared I would one day take someone’s life. My father had then spent the next—and last—five years of his life locked in a prison cell.
I was far more like the man who gave me life than I’d known.
I prayed we wouldn’t share the same fate.
CHAPTER 55
Hours after learning of my parents’ deaths, I sat in my moldy office, reading and rereading the newspaper article about my mother’s murder. The newspaper referred to them as a husband and wife from New Never City, never once mentioning their names.
Or the fact that they had a little blue-haired baby.
Was my mother’s death the reason my father had dropped me on the doorstep of the orphanage? Was he horrified by what he’d done? I pictured Izzy’s face, pale in death, and felt a lump rise in my throat. I now understood a little better why I’d been abandoned. Though I now had even less of a reason for James’s attempting my murder and the
two fires set to destroy the file. Both my parents were dead, so who was left to care about from the past?
Now that I was armed with the truth about my childhood, it was time to do a little digging into the night of my mother’s murder. While I could’ve simply picked up the phone and delegated the duty to one of the other Reynolds & Davis investigators, I needed to do this myself.
As much as I hated to admit it, Izzy was right—the truth hadn’t set me free as I’d believed it would. Instead I was left with myriad questions that I might never find the answers to. But foremost in my mind was the fact that I would never be normal. My father had gone to his deathbed an electrified monster. What made me think, even for a second, that I would avoid a similar fate? I just prayed Izzy wouldn’t be the victim leading to my own murder trial. The thought left me cold.
I vowed, then and there, that whatever we were, once I found the person behind this, I would put as much distance as I could between us. Izzy would forever be safe from my electrified touch. My heart ached at the thought of leaving, but the risk was too great now that I knew the fairytale ending to my own parents’ storybook marriage. The writing was plain to see. I would eventually lose whatever tiny bit of control I had over my power, and someone would die.
I pictured my mother, whose face I knew only from the faded newspaper article, and swallowed hard. Then I typed the date of my mother’s death into the search engine on my computer and the name Cybil. Ten thousand results popped up, filling the screen with scenes of death, pain, and destruction from that date.
Just not any of the pain, death, or destruction I was looking for. “What the hell?” I asked the empty office. “The Net has pictures of fairy-on-gnome porn, yet they have nothing on a thirty-year-old murder.”
Tapping a pencil against the desktop, I considered the ramifications of zero results. What did it mean? Was it possible I had the wrong name? Maybe I had the wrong date, I thought. But the newspaper article was dated the following day. A shiver ran up my spine. Was it possible for someone to hack the entire Internet, ridding the world of whatever secret he or she wanted to hide? With one small exception.
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