by Eileen Wilks
Pity she couldn’t smell the way that . . . wait a minute. “Could you sniff out her killer? If I got you to the body quickly enough, could you tell who did it?”
That surprised him. He didn’t say anything for several moments. “In this form, probably not.”
“You’d have to Change.”
“Yes. I can’t guarantee anything, but it might work.”
How much grief would she get if she gave him access to the body? Plenty, she thought, scowling. Because of what he was. If he’d been any other sort of expert consultant, no one would bat an eye over her asking for his opinion now that he wasn’t a suspect himself. And that was just wrong. Someone had ended all Therese’s possibilities, stamping out the stubborn spark that had made the girl surround herself with yellow-haired dolls. It was Lily’s job to find out who.
Damn those torpedoes and all that, she thought. I’m not going to get anywhere with this one by playing it safe on half throttle. “All right, then. Will you, um, need privacy to Change?”
“I’d like to have earth beneath my feet, if possible. Privacy might keep your associates from freaking. Lily—”
“What?” They’d left the valley behind and were drawing near the gate. The same redheaded guard opened it for them. “We don’t want the press to guess why you’re there, but I can’t get you into the scene itself. Aside from the risk of contaminating it, a defense attorney would have entirely too much fun coming up with scenarios about that. So . . . the coroner’s people will be ready to transport the body by the time we get there. Once I’ve looked things over, I’ll have them bring her into the stairwell, and you can do it there.”
“I can Change there if I have to. You’re avoiding the subject.”
“You know, I don’t think you get to choose the subject. Were you at Club Hell last night?”
His fingers drummed once on the steering wheel. “I ate with friends at my apartment. They left about eight-thirty. I spent the rest of the evening at home alone. Why? I thought I wasn’t a suspect.”
“Dot those i’s, cross those t’s,” she said absently. Something about this second murder didn’t add up, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. “I guess someone could have watched to see that you were alone. Who knew you’d be at the club the night of Fuentes’s murder?”
He shrugged. “Any number of people. Thursday was my usual night to meet Rachel there.”
“Did you have a usual time, too?”
“It varied.”
“Did you tell anyone other than Rachel when you’d be there that night?”
“Why does it matter?”
“Humor me.”
“All right. I told Max when to expect me. I believe he told Cullen. But Rachel could have mentioned it to any number of people.”
“True.” She chewed her lip. If only she knew how the killer lured Fuentes to the playground . . . Fuentes’s two main interests seemed to have been women and the Church of the Faithful.
The playground wasn’t a likely spot for a romantic tryst. “Have you ever heard of the Church of the Faithful? They’re also called the Azá.”
“You asked about them before. The name doesn’t ring any bells. Lily, I’ve something to tell you. It’s important.”
“So’s murder. Give me a minute. I’m onto something.” She thought hard for a moment. “Okay, working hypothesis. Let’s say that Fuentes was killed to implicate you. Naturally, the killer wanted to do it when you weren’t alibied, but that’s tricky. He also wanted to do it on your date night so us dumb cops didn’t miss spotting you as a suspect. He knows it’s hard to pin down time of death, though, without a witness. Anyone who reads mysteries or watches crime shows knows that. So what he needs is a window when we don’t know where Fuentes is.”
“I’m with you so far. How did he go about creating that window?”
“Maybe he made it, maybe he found it. Either way, his main concern would be witnesses. He picks the playground because it’s near the club and should be deserted. If he’s smart, he wants to get there before Fuentes does and make sure no one else is around. But Therese didn’t see anyone on the street or at the playground. She talked to Fuentes just before ten, and she didn’t see anyone else nearby.”
“If he was in wolf form, it wouldn’t be hard for him to hide.”
“Maybe, but then why did he go ahead and kill Fuentes? If he was there, if he saw Therese talking to Fuentes, he knew there was a witness for when Fuentes arrived.” She shook her head. “Doesn’t fit.”
“Okay, then, he didn’t arrive before Fuentes, so he didn’t know about Therese. When he found out . . .” Rule’s voice trailed off.
“Yeah.” A hard knot of nausea lodged in her throat. She swallowed. “That’s the question, isn’t it? How did he find out?”
“She might have talked to others about seeing Fuentes.”
“She swore she hadn’t, and I warned her. I warned her not to talk about it. Maybe she did anyway. Or maybe someone saw us go to her place, but they wouldn’t have known what she told us. The killer might have panicked—but why? We didn’t arrest him.” The nausea was growing. “He had no reason to think she ID’d him. He shouldn’t have known what she told us. Unless . . .”
Rule finished it for her. “Unless a cop told him.”
A sick sort of vacuum claimed her gut. Her mouth was bone dry. Follow it through, she ordered herself. Who had known about Therese? Phillips . . . but if he’d been bent, he wouldn’t have brought her to Lily’s notice.
Who else? Who all had she told, who would have read the report about Therese?
Mech. Captain Randall. The chief. Those two FBI agents.
God. She ran a hand through her hair. Not the captain. Surely not. Mech? She couldn’t believe it, but he was already at the scene. And the two FBI agents could show up there. No one would think a thing of it.
“How fast will this thing go?” she asked.
“A hundred and twenty.”
“Open it up.”
Rule took her at her word. He didn’t hit top speed—even with his reflexes, there were limits imposed by physics and a winding mountain road. But he pushed those limits pretty hard.
It was wonderful.
“You’re enjoying this,” his passenger said.
“Guilty as charged.” He didn’t glance at her. At this speed, that would be a bad move. “You’re not throwing up,” he observed.
“Yet.”
She sounded more tense than frightened, though. “Maybe you’re enjoying it, too, just a little.”
“Trust me on this. I’m not.” She paused. “Tell me something. You have two brothers, and at least one of them is older than you. Yet you’re the heir. Why is that?”
“Lupi don’t follow primogeniture.”
“So what do you follow?”
Rule hesitated. He’d decided to hold off on telling her what it meant to be chosen. She’d just had a blow, one he understood all too well. Realizing there might be a crooked cop involved must have been a lot like hearing there was a traitor in Nokolai. But she needed to learn about the clan. “Custom. This varies from one clan to the next, but essentially the Lu Nuncio—”
“What does that mean?”
“Roughly, the acknowledged heir. The Lu Nuncio must prove himself through blood, combat, and fertility.”
“You have a child,” she said slowly.
“Yes. Benedict does, too, but not a son.”
“But . . .” Her voice drifted off, then she said, “All right. I guess I’ve made some dumb assumptions. Lupi are always male, so I thought you only had male offspring. Some of the women I saw at Clanhome would be related to clan members, then?”
“Rather than being our sex slaves, you mean?”
“Actually,” she said dryly, “I was thinking more in terms of domestic slaves. Men have a tendency to keep women around to do the dishes and the laundry.”
“I think everyone at Clanhome today was of one of the clans.” He had to slow then, as they were app
roaching the turn onto 67. He glanced at her briefly. “Did you think we drowned our female children at birth? Our daughters and sisters are Nokolai, too, though they aren’t lupi.”
“I admitted that some of my assumptions are showing. I’m working on it. What about your mothers, aunts, and grandmothers? Are they clan?”
“That’s rare.” How rare, and why, he couldn’t tell her. Not yet.
“Hmm.”
Traffic was light this far from the city. Rule slowed but didn’t stop, accelerating strongly into the turn.
“Hey!” Lily cried, grabbing the dash as she lurched to the side. “We are not in hot pursuit.”
“I love it when you talk cop,” he murmured, and floored it. “Do you get to do this often?”
“No. And the purpose here is not for you to live out your fantasies.”
“Newly developed fantasies. I didn’t play cop as a kid. You folks were the bad guys.”
“Times change. I—hey!” She grabbed the dash again.
He’d zigzagged around a couple of semis that were dawdling along at eighty or less. “You did want me to hurry.”
“Try to remember that I don’t heal the way you do. Or you could distract me from my imminent death by explaining the parts about blood and combat.”
He chuckled. “Blood means I’m of the correct bloodline. Combat means exactly what you think it does.”
“You fought your brothers?”
“I fought Mick and two others who challenged my fitness.” One combat had been largely ceremonial, because no heir could be accepted without having proven himself in formal combat. The other had been deadly serious. But it was the battle with Mick that had troubled Rule’s sleep for a long time afterward. Not the challenge itself—that had been inevitable, given his brother’s nature. Even Mick’s attempt to kill rather than merely defeat could be forgiven; some were more taken by the wolf than others.
What Rule couldn’t put behind him was the suspicion that Mick’s man part had been willing to kill, too.
“But not Benedict?’ Lily persisted. “Your oldest brother didn’t challenge you?”
“Benedict supported our father’s decision.” Had he not, Rule wouldn’t be Lu Nuncio. He couldn’t have defeated Benedict.
She shook her head. “Voting would be better.”
“Voting works for humans. We are not a democratic people, but neither are we passive enough to be ruled autocratically. Custom provides some checks on the Rho’s power. The Challenge supplies the rest.”
“Your father said something about a challenge before we were interrupted. How does it work?”
“Challenges are common, both within the clan and between clans, especially among the hot-blooded young. Think of them as duels fought with teeth instead of swords or pistols. When we say the Challenge, however, we’re referring to a clan member challenging his Rho.”
“Your father’s not young anymore.”
“There are cases where a Rho must fight his own battles. Usually, though, if the Rho is challenged, the Lu Nuncio defends.”
“That’s you.”
He nodded.
“This kind of challenge—is it to the death?”
“It can be. Don’t worry, Detective. We fight in wolf form, so it’s quite legal.”
“That was certainly my only concern. If you—Rule, for God’s sake, watch where you’re going!”
“I am,” he said, passing the tanker truck that worried her. He cut it a trifle close, perhaps, but the Datsun in the other lane gave him little choice.
Lily was cursing under her breath. He glanced at her, and his pleasure fled. “I’ll slow down. You’re pale.”
“I turn Caucasian at ninety miles an hour and up. Pay no attention.”
He gave a quick bark of laughter and stole another quick glance. She was frowning slightly, that quick mind turning over what she’d learned.
“Your challenges won’t be legal if the Citizenship Bill passes,” she said.
“My father believes that only challenges to the death will be affected. Those involving lesser woundings simply won’t be reported.”
“And you? What do you believe?”
“The Lu Nuncio doesn’t express opinions. It would be like an army general publicly approving or disputing the policies of his commander in chief.”
“Do you express opinions to your father?”
“To my father, yes. To the Rho—no.”
“Tricky, when they’re the same person.”
“He lets me know which one I’m addressing.” They’d reached the city limits, and traffic was too congested for real speed. He did the best he could. “We should reach your scene in fifteen to twenty minutes.”
“Good. What do you think of the conspiracy angle your father brought up? He seems to consider Nokolai’s support vital enough to the bill’s passage that someone might kill him to stop it.”
“Without Nokolai, the other clans are unlikely to support the bill.”
“The clans don’t have that much political clout.”
“Mmm. Not all lupi are as open about their nature as I am.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Are you saying you’ve got people in high places? People with a furry secret?”
He smiled.
“The mystery bit is getting old,” she observed. “So you think that taking out you and your father could affect the way things go in Washington?”
“The idea wasn’t just to remove me, was it? They wanted me arrested, imprisoned. If the, ah, poster boy for lupi is proved to be a murderer, will the public support a bill making us full citizens?”
“Citizens kill each other all the time, unfortunately. But I get your meaning.”
She fell silent then, which was just as well. He needed to give his driving most of his attention. But driving, even in this traffic, didn’t require his entire mind.
She’d called him Rule.
Such a small thing, a name. But she’d never said his. Yet it had come out in a moment of stress, as if she were beginning to think of him that way. Personally. Warmth spread through him. She was beginning to open up with him about her investigation, too. Discuss the possibilities.
Such as the chance there was a dirty cop involved. Someone she knew, worked with, trusted. Someone who’d sold out the law she upheld, either for money or some twisted ideal that endorsed murder in the right cause. The warmth evaporated.
A dirty cop could plant evidence or hide it. Not a happy thought, considering he seemed to be someone’s favorite pick for suspect. But if one cop was working against him, another one was on his side. At least, he amended mentally, on the side of justice.
How was she going to react when he told her the truth about them?
He’d never expected this to happen to him. Never wanted it, to tell the truth, even as an adolescent. But he’d had Benedict’s example and Nettie’s warnings, so he knew the dangers. And being chosen was so rare . . . he’d felt safe. But he had at least known it was possible, had been taught what it meant. Lily didn’t even know such a condition existed.
She was not going to take it well.
He wanted time to court her. Time for her to begin to know him, for trust to send down its first roots. But his body was urgent for her, insistent in a way that denied delay. She thought she could choose whether or not to act on what she felt; he knew better. And he knew he had to tell her the truth before they lay together.
That’s what young lupi were advised—if the Lady blesses you with a Chosen, be honest with her about what is happening. And be patient. “It would be your responsibility,” Nettie had told him once, “to make it as easy on her as possible. But don’t gloss over the difficulties If she’s young and idealistic, she may romanticize it, see it as some sort of perfect union, a merging of soul.” She’d snorted. “Don’t let her get away with that.”
Rule crept along behind a bus occupying more than its fair share of the road, and glanced at Lily. She was young, yes, and possessed very high ideals, from what h
e’d seen. But she was not going to romanticize her situation. He’d give odds she would fight it, and him, like crazy—and the Lady only knew how much damage she’d do them both.
Tonight, he promised himself. He would tell her tonight.
FOURTEEN
THE street outside Therese’s walk-up was cluttered with cars: two black and whites, the ambulance and the coroner’s car, Mech’s blue sedan, and O’Brien’s battered Chevy. Lily had Rule drop her at the corner.
“I’ll leave word to let you into the building,” she said as she climbed out.
“Good enough. I’ll park at the club. Max’s reputation discourages local entrepreneurs from treating his parking lot as a parts supply warehouse.”
He spoke lightly, but he looked grim. She felt the same. She didn’t throw up anymore when the scene was messy, but her stomach wasn’t happy. It was always worse if she’d known the victim, even slightly. “Are you okay with this?” she asked abruptly.
“I’ve seen death. Go. Do what you have to.”
She nodded, closed the door, and headed down the street.
Lily recognized the uniform stationed at the entrance to the dingy lobby—the rookie from West Texas. She nodded at him. “Gonzales, right? Detective Yu. Is Sergeant Meckle in there?”
“Yes, ma’am. He has a witness. He’s using the manager’s quarters for interviews. It’s behind the stairs.”
“I understand she was found just before noon. Who found her?”
“A juvenile name of Abel Martinez. Fourteen years old. Your sergeant took his statement and let his mother have him. She lives in number ten, same floor. No father in residence. Two sisters, both younger.”
“Number ten’s right next to twelve,” Lily said, remembering from her previous visit. “The walls are thin. No one heard anything?”
“I don’t know, ma’am. Phillips talked to a couple people before Sergeant Meckle arrived and took over, but I’ve been handling access.”
“Any Feds shown up? There’s a couple that have taken an interest in the case.”
“No, ma’am.”
Her mouth tightened. This didn’t eliminate Croft and Karonski, but it suggested she’d better look hard at Mech and the captain.