“He’s got a rap sheet—racketeering, carrying a concealed weapon, GBH, suspected of having a hand in a murder or two, but there’s no proof. He’s a small fish, though; he works as part of a syndicate. We know of several of the small-time players, but we’ve never found out who Mr. Big is—the guy at the top.”
“Gangsters? Really?”
“Why not? This country has had some famous mobsters, like the Kray Twins.” I had to concede the point, as I had heard of the Kray twins, but when someone said “gangsters,” I automatically imagined scenes from The Godfather.
“But what would Petrovich want with them? He was ex-Russian mob, moved here a rich man and went legit.”
Hamilton closed the file and tossed it down on his desk. He swung his chair around, looking at me and leaning on the wood.
“Tell me about Petrovich. He was in prison because?”
“He and his young wife were burgled; the wife was abused and eventually topped herself. Petrovich tracked down the men responsible and killed the lot. Lawyers pleaded it down to manslaughter; don’t ask me how.”
Hamilton let out a whistle and swung back in his chair again. He placed his hands over his stomach and rocked with a look on his face that told me he was thinking.
“Maybe I should take a look at his file. I didn’t handle the case—it was before my time—but we’ve got to have his case file in records somewhere. I’ll send a request down and get everything sent over, see if I can find anything.”
“I’d also try to track down known associates for Tony Dietrich. He might be going after them next. I can’t say that for sure, but it’s a direction to go.”
Hamilton nodded, picking up the telephone. He leaned in like he was going to start dialing, but he rested the receiver against his shoulder and looked at me.
“What about you? What are you doing to do?” he asked as if he wasn’t sure whether I was or wasn’t going to dump him with all the chasing and research.
“I know he’s got a daughter and a granddaughter. If he’s out, he might have contacted them, or they might know where he’s heading and why.”
Chapter Eight
I didn’t go back to my office; I made sure it was locked and took the elevator upstairs. I unlocked my door, headed inside and went immediately to my answering machine. There were no messages. Magnus hadn’t called me. I stared at the machine, hating the damn thing. All I’d wanted was one blinking light. I was a hypocrite—I hated to leave messages on answering machines, but I expected everyone else to love it so much that they would leave them frequently on mine. I grumbled, slamming about in the kitchen, and started making cocoa with the works: whipped cream and little marshmallows. I needed comfort. Then I decided to put that on hold until after I’d had a shower. I stalked through my bedroom, stripping down, throwing bits and bobs in the hamper.
The hot water fell against my skin in a cascade of pure pleasure. I groaned as I tried to work the stress out of my shoulders and back. I lathered up my hair till it was a frenzy of foam. Mmm. It felt so good to rub my fingers full of soap against my scalp. Shampoo was a wonderful thing; mine was strawberry scented. Both Magnus and Aram liked it. I had a feeling if I ever changed it, it would tick them both off; it was so tempting.
After my shower, I put on some warm pajamas and returned to making a cup of cocoa the old-fashioned way. Warm milk in a pan, add the cocoa powder and stir till it’s creamy. I dug my favorite mug out of the cupboard, laid the cream and marshmallows on thick, and rummaged around until I found a bag of cookies. Comfort food at its best, achieved. I climbed up onto my bed, covering my feet with the duvet, and dug my laptop out from underneath. I plugged the cable into the phone socket and waited for it all to load up.
“I hate dial-up,” I grumbled and bit the edge of a cookie. Dial-up was so slow; I wanted to upgrade to wireless, had even tried to, but any magic near it and I blew up the transmitter. I was having fewer power surges—that one Magnus induced had been the first in weeks—but there was no point in pushing a fresh log against the fire, just in case sparks caught.
I waited impatiently for my Net to connect, drumming my fingers on my bedside table. I grew frustrated, grabbed the remote for my stereo, and slammed my thumb down on the play button. Kids in Glass Houses started streaming out of the speakers, and finally my connection was made. I headed straight for Google. It’s an amazing place—you can Google anything. I put “Petrovich” into the search engine. A list of articles came up from local papers about his original trial. I clicked on the first big article. It detailed the death of the three men, who by all accounts seemed to be two-bit thugs. They were friends who’d fallen on hard times and decided to rob the richest guy they knew of; but one of them had been a really twisted individual, more so than his friends had known. He’d taken a fancy to the young wife and made one of his weaker—mentally weaker—companions hold her down. The paper went halfway to justifying their murders.
I went back to another page that had focused on the effect on his family. It had a picture of his daughter, a two-year-old granddaughter and an elderly sister whom he’d helped emigrate a few years after he had come to the UK. He seemed like a reformed character from his old days in mother Russia—until his wife’s suicide. He must have really loved her; she wasn’t just some trophy wife. So what had set him off this time? Governor Bird had said he’d been a model prisoner, a sweet little old Russian man. He’d stayed in jail for ten years without trouble, and he seemed like a man who needed a motive for murder.
I Googled the sister, an Ilyana Petrovich, and found that she lived locally, too. I darted into the living room and grabbed the phone book, scrolling through the P’s till I picked out the number for a Miss I. Petrovich. I palmed my mobile and dialed the number and listened to it ring.
“Hello? Who is this? At this time of night.”
The woman who answered was elderly and had a rather thick Russian accent.
“Miss Ilyana Petrovich?” I asked just to be sure.
“Yes.”
“I’d like to talk to you about your brother, Ivan.”
The dial tone sounded. It took me staring at my phone to get that she had hung up on me at the mention of her brother’s name. I bet I could call her a hundred times and be hung up on the exact same number of times. I would give her name to Hamilton, see if he could get her to talk. I might have better luck trying the daughter. I put Nikki Petrovich into the search and got nothing. I went back to the article with the family interest to get her last name. She’d been born a Petrovich but had married at some point.
Fingers brushed my neck and took up a lock of my hair; I felt the intake of breath against my skin.
“Aram,” I said without even looking, “now is not the time for this. I’m working!”
“But you smell delicious.”
He reached around me, lifting my laptop effortlessly with one hand and sliding it onto my bedside table. I huffed an indignant sigh.
“Aram, really, I’m working, and shouldn’t you be too? Jareth is going to get mad at you if you keep skipping out.”
I grabbed a pillow, wrapping my arms around it so Aram couldn’t slide his arms around me.
“He allows me the time I require when it comes to chasing down my bride.”
I got off the bed, still clinging to the pillow as he scooted back comfortably against the headboard. Damn him! He was wearing a green silk shirt tonight and really tight leather pants. He looked positively mouth-watering. I had to really hold on to staying angry at him.
“Must you keep using that word? You know Magnus and I had a really big fight because of your big mouth.”
“You and Magnus fought? Oh no, how terrible!” He put his hands on either side of his face, pretending to look shocked and upset. I threw the pillow at his smug head. He caught it, laughing, and placed it in his lap. He patted it and made it look so inv
iting. I found myself crawling toward him and laying my head and upper body in his lap before I could stop myself. He started stroking my hair, soft brushes of his fingertips over my scalp. It was alarmingly soothing.
“I’m sorry that it grieves you to be fighting with the elf boy.”
“He’s so concerned with the fact that you might be competition that it makes him act like an over-possessive jerk. He should trust me.”
“He should,” Aram said, leaning down close to my ear. “You resist me very well.” He nipped my ear and it sent a shiver down my spine, but I didn’t tell him off. I closed my eyes and tried to clear my head. I could fight Aram’s effect on me, but it took a lot of effort on my part. It was hard to fight living breathing sex in a humanoid frame. He made me sexually frustrated and deeply aroused. He was an arrogant, seductive asshole. I tried to take a mental cold shower. It was my own fault—I had gone to see him, spent time with him, alone with him, and it hadn’t been horrible. He was easy to talk to, and sometimes he would read to me; it was secretly very endearing.
“Aram, I should be working. I’ve got a case.”
“You’re just taking a break, pet. Surely that’s allowed.”
I nodded as he curled his fingers through my hair. Sometimes I thought Aram and I could have been good friends if it weren’t for the fact that we were both deeply attracted to each other. I could admit to myself that I liked Aram, that I found him attractive, but I kept that pretty much to myself. Of course both Magnus and Aram could tell without me saying anything. I tried to think of Magnus, push back the soft veil that Aram cast over me.
“This isn’t right; Magnus would be pissed if he caught you here. How the hell do you keep getting past the lock?”
Aram laughed. It slithered over my skin like a velvet-wrapped hand, and I felt low parts of my body go tight in response. Damn stupid hormones. I was not a teenager; I could control myself.
“I am over five hundred, pet—how many times do you think I have come across a locked door?”
“I can imagine many fathers who would take such measures to keep you away from their daughters. I imagine my father might have if he were alive.” Aram stroked my cheek and turned my face to look up at him.
“You do not speak of your father often.”
“Never knew him. He died when I was little more than a baby.”
“It must be so lonely, not to have family,” he said and ran a finger over my lips. “I will be there for you. I promise.” He leaned down, and I swallowed really hard. He kissed me, and it was a chilling sweetness; my power was hot, and pressing against the coldness of him was like being balanced out by my opposing element. It was peaceful. I put my hand on his shoulder as he lifted me closer to him. I closed my eyes, trying to fight against it; it was hard to resist because all we seek in our lives is that kind of peace, the feeling of wholeness. His lips left mine, traveling down my neck, and I felt his fangs slide into my skin, right over the same spot where he had bitten me before. I gasped, my back arching, and he stroked his hand down my body sensually.
My hand balled into a fist that I brought down against his face. He dropped me, and I rolled away from him. His lips were decorated with my blood; his long, treacherous tongue ran over them, sucking it up. I pressed my fingers to my neck. It was only bleeding a little; his fangs hadn’t gone too deep. His color changed: his skin looked brighter, and he looked more human than usual. His cheeks were almost rosy.
“I’ve told you before, no biting,” I growled. He moved toward me, and I took a step back.
“You used to tell me no kissing too,” he said, his voice soft and gentle like he was talking to a frightened rabbit. “Your taste is maturing, pet.”
I grabbed a pillow from the chaise and threw it at him.
“You’re a jerk. I don’t want you biting me.”
He batted the cushion out of the air and, moving fast, he wrapped his arms around me from behind and lazily started licking at the wound he’d made.
“Here, I’ll make it all better.”
“Stop it,” I said, shivering in his arms. I wanted him to stop not because it was bad—oh no, it felt good, and that scared me deep down to the core of my being. I took a deep breath in. “Aram, I revoke your invitation.”
A warm wind blew around me, and Aram was thrown from the room and out onto the balcony the door, slamming shut behind him. I put the catch back on, knowing he was still on the other side.
“I’m getting a better lock,” I said loudly so he could hear and went to the bathroom to see to the bite on my neck. It was smaller than I had thought, and it was already healing. I covered each hole with a Looney Tunes bandage that had Sylvester and Tweety Bird on it.
Since my near death, things had been weird: my powers were in flux, my body was healing faster and more completely than before, and I was stronger than I had been. I had winded a man twice my size when I wouldn’t have been able to before. I didn’t know who to talk to about it. I had tried with Virginia several times, but she always shot the subject down or was remarkably quick to change it. What was happening to me was a mystery for another time, though. I had to get back to work.
I walked back into the bedroom to find Nancy—the cat—lying on the pillow that had been in Aram’s lap. I curled up like I had before and moved the laptop back over.
Aram was here. Did I miss him?
I rubbed my temples. Transformed witches and wizards like Nancy, who were punished by being turned into an animal, were left with only one real power: they could talk right into the head of another witch or wizard. I guess the purpose of this was to ensure we didn’t take home the wrong stray, but mostly I found it annoying, even if it was getting easier to do. However, I still preferred to answer her out loud.
“Yes, he was here. He was up to no good as usual.”
Nancy stretched out, lightly plucking at the fabric of the pillow with her claws as she resettled herself.
Shame. I always seem to miss him. I may be stuck as a cat, but even so, I can still look at him.
“And drool,” I added. Nancy gave me an unfriendly look from her yellow cat eyes.
Ungrateful is what you are. Here you are with two of the hottest men I’ve ever seen, and they both want in your pants. It’s totally not fair.
“I’m sure there is a lovely black tom out there somewhere, prowling the night, looking for a gray Persian with a personality disorder just like you.” Nancy let out a mewl that didn’t sound very pleasant.
“I’m sorry, Nance, I’m being catty.” I bit my lip as I spoke, but Nancy just glared at me. “But I’ve got a new case that’s puzzling me, and Aram just waltzed in to distract me as usual, and I came out of it worse for wear.” I rubbed at the bandaged scrape on my neck that less than ten minutes ago had been a bite mark.
Where’s the other one? Mr. Studly McElfman?
“If you mean Magnus, then I don’t know. We had a fight, funnily enough over Aram, and he’s not called since I kicked him out.”
I watched as Nancy shook her head, arched her back and rolled off the pillow. She marched across the bed, dropped down to the floor and stopped at the bedroom door.
Feed me before you get engrossed.
I got up, found a can of top-grade tuna, mixed it with a little mayo and some croutons and put it down for Nancy before heading back to my laptop to get back to work. Petrovich’s daughter had the last name of Lewis according to the article, so I Googled Nikki Lewis and was not happy with what I found.
A month ago Nikki Lewis had been found dead in her home, murdered by all accounts, and her twelve-year-old daughter Anna was missing. I pulled up a newspaper article about the death, but it didn’t give me much. She’d been a stand-up member of her community; her friends said she was seeing someone, but she never gave any real details about the guy. The friends thought he was a little shady but tha
t Nikki seemed happy with him. She’d been stabbed to death, but there was no trace of her little girl. Anna had been at school when her mother had died and had disappeared when her mother failed to pick her up.
I shook my head at the tragedy, but it explained why she had stopped writing to her father so suddenly and what had set him off now. He was out to avenge the murder of his daughter and maybe his granddaughter, which meant that somehow he had found out Tony Dietrich had been involved, or he was sitting on information about whoever was. I picked through my bag for my purse and pulled out the card Hamilton had given me. I took the cordless house phone into the bedroom, unhooked the Net and dialed. It rang twice before Hamilton picked up.
“D.I. Hamilton.”
“Hamilton, it’s Cassandra.”
“Excellent. Your calling me must mean you have something.”
“A few somethings. I found Petrovich’s sister,” I said and rattled off the phone number, “but the minute I mentioned her brother she hung up on me. Either she doesn’t want to talk about him, or he’s been in contact recently and she’s protecting him.”
“Right. What’s her name?”
“Ilyana Petrovich. Immigrated here a year or two after her brother with his help.”
“Okay, got it.” I could hear sounds from his end that sounded like he was writing it down. “I’ll have a couple of uniforms go around in the morning, talk to her. If she’s from a bad part of Russia, she might not trust late-night phone calls or the police, but still it’s worth a go. What else?”
“Do you have a case file for a Nikki Lewis?”
“Yeah,” he said, and his voice sounded a little suspicious. “Dead mom and missing kid. We hit a bit of a dead end with it.”
“I’d like to take a look at the case file.”
“Okay, tell me why?”
“Her maiden name is Petrovich—she’s Ivan’s daughter.” There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone, and I waited for the information to sink in.
SkinThief Page 7