by Tegan Maher
The contacts he'd made during his years on the dark side proved useful in his career, and he'd quickly climbed the ladder.
I narrowed my eyes at the implication. "You know as well as I do, Mike went straight years ago when he joined the PCIB."
He dipped his head and pulled in a breath. "You know that and I know that, but it's bound to come out. That gives you motive, opportunity, and ability."
I plopped down in the chair but reached beneath it to raise it up so I was eye-level with Blake. "You know I didn't do this."
After searching my face for a few seconds, he said, "I know you didn't. But I also know it's only a matter of time before they find out about Michael, and then you're done. They'll bury you."
The worst part of it was that he wasn't necessarily being figurative. In many situations, this one included, the penalty for murder was death if the location fell under PCIB jurisdiction, which the Enchanted Coast did. With such a wide variety of species that could kill with just a look or touch, they had to take a hard stance on it.
"So what are you saying?" I asked.
The familiar pleading look was back in his eyes.
"I'm saying that I'm going to do everything I can to clear you from this side, but you're going to have to dig in, too. I don't have the same access you do to people. Find out who saw what." He ran his fingers through his hair. "In essence, dig like your life depends on it, because it does."
Well, then. I had to hand it to him; he really knew how to motivate a girl.
CHAPTER FIVE
HE CALLED HIS MUSCLENESS back in and proceeded to grill me on who I'd seen Cass talk to, what he'd said to me, where I'd seen him go, and who'd been in the bar and on the beach while he was there.
"Does anybody in particular stand out to you?"
I thought, but nothing was outside the norm. Of course, that covered a lot of ground when the clientele ranged from drunken cupids to vampire young. I shrugged helplessly. "No. We had our regulars, then we had several tables of vacationers."
"Did Jim stop by?"
Jim was a reaper who usually stopped in a couple times a week when he had a day off. He was one of those quiet guys who just wanted to have a couple beers and relax. He usually hung out with Stan or Evan, probably because both of them were immune to his magic. If he had a little too much to drink, he didn't have to worry about killing them if they helped him up.
"No," I replied. "As a matter of fact, he hasn't been in all week that I know of."
He thought for a couple of minutes, and the silence became uncomfortable.
I glanced toward the door. "Are we finished?"
"For now," he said. "And Tempest?"
My little fox turned to him, brow raised.
"Thank you for coming to get me. I'm glad you're at Destiny's side."
She tilted her head at him, and something passed between them, though it was brief.
As soon as the door clicked shut, I asked her about it out loud.
“He simply asked me to stay by your side and take care of you.”
"Why would he say that?"
“He still cares about you, Destiny.”
"Then he probably should have kept his lips to himself," I said, irritated by just the thought.
“I'm not saying he gets a pass, just that he knows he screwed up and that it's not a good idea to ostracize him right now. Now that handsome werewolf ...”
I smiled. "He is kinda hot, isn't he?"
“Pfft. He's a predator. That's part of his arsenal.”
"I don't know," I said. "I think that's more a vampire thing. Werewolves don't need to attract food. And besides, it's gauche to eat people these days."
She laughed. “Yeah, I'm sure that's why it's passed out of fad.”
"Well?" Bob said once I made it back to the bar. "What did he say?"
"Nothing. Just asked me about our argument this morning and about who was here."
He set several drinks onto the server's deck. "These are for table five. Did he mention any suspects?"
"Yeah," I said, barking out a dry laugh. "Me."
I scooped up the tray and went to greet the group. When I made my way out to the beach tables, I noticed they'd taken Cass away but hadn't cleaned up the mess. Great, the man was a pain in my backside to the very end.
The last thing I wanted to deal with was mango slime that had dripped off a dead angel, or anything dead, for that matter, but it didn't look like I had a choice.
Amber and Dax had left, probably to get the kids, but Elsa and Tolthe were there for the week. After I cleaned up the mess, I took them another round of drinks, then cringed when Blake's voice raked across my nerves yet again.
"Des, I need you to watch the bar while I talk to Bob," he said.
I gave him a thumbs-up, unwilling to walk back and interact with him face-to-face again.
"You know, it's likely you'll be seeing much more of him, at least until this is resolved," Elsa said, a dry smile curving her plump lips.
"Yeah, I know,” I said with a huff, “but that doesn't mean I have to like it."
I stopped by a couple tables on my way back to the bar and cast a glance down to the deck of the water bar just to make sure nobody was waiting for me there. Even though there was a service bell, I'd found many people thought it was rude to actually ring it to get my attention.
I stepped behind the bar to make my drink and shifted the fan in my direction. Ah, one of the first benefits of Cass being dead, I thought as the cool air brushed over my sticky skin. I felt like that thought should have made me feel bad, but it really didn't. He'd been a horrible person. I wasn't exactly glad he was dead, but I was grateful I'd never have to deal with him again.
While I was waiting for a Guinness to pour, I wondered who his replacement would be. Probably Bob, at least for the interim.
Within fifteen minutes or so, the place was filled to capacity. Nothing like a good murder to bring in the crowds. The chatter bounced back and forth between tables, each sharing the information they'd already picked up.
I grinned as I hustled my buns off to serve everybody; being from a small town, I was intimately familiar with the efficiency of the gossip tree, and the resort was its own little community. The only difference between the human world and the paranormal one was that there wasn't such an underlying need to be fake about it or pretend to be sorry when you weren't.
The place took on an almost festive air, and I smiled to myself as I thought about making a drink special in honor of the occasion. Maybe use a little Midori or KeKe liqueur to give it a green tint. Call it the Cass is Grass Martini.
Probably too soon, and definitely indelicate, but again, I was dealing with people who drank blood, ate raw fish, and shot people in the ass with heart arrows for a living. Political correctness really wasn't a thing. Me being a suspect was, though, so I figured it would be best to at least pretend to maintain a modicum of propriety.
Bob filed back out of office, jumping behind the bar when he saw how busy we'd gotten.
"Wow," he said. "Gossipmongers, or is everybody just as happy as we are?"
I smacked him on the arm as I filled my tray with the drinks I'd just made. I just needed the beer and wine. "I'm not really glad he's dead. Can you pour me three house reds and grab me a couple bottles of Big Wave?"
He cocked a brow at me. "Yeah, you sound real tore up about it."
"Pfft. It's no skin off my nose, but I'm not glad about it. Pretending I was torn up would be suspicious for sure. I'm just ... ambivalent and choosing to see the silver lining."
I pushed back through the crowd, and eventually somebody stuffed a few bucks in the jukebox. It was hard not to feel at least a little bit of the positive energy of the crowd when everybody was laughing and Buffett floated on the tropical breeze.
CHAPTER SIX
"WOW, WHAT A NIGHT," I told Bob once the last customer had cleared out. I was thankful the tiki was only open until eleven. It was almost midnight, and the party hadn't stopped si
nce that afternoon.
We hadn't been that busy since the last leprechaun wedding we'd hosted. Now those folks could drink. They were tight with their gold though, so it was always a good idea to add the gratuity to their check rather than depend on their generosity.
Vampires and weres on the other hand? Fat tippers in general, but the job was a little more hazardous because they tended to play rough.
I took off a shoe and flexed my foot, pulling my toes back toward my shins and rolling my ankles.
Bob collapsed on a chair beside me. "You ain't kiddin'," he said.
"Grab the drawer," I said. "You count, and I'll clean."
With a few flicks of my wrist, the mop was chasing the broom across the worn wooden planks of the floor, and the beer was floating from the stockroom, filling the coolers.
He shook his head. "I loved Glendelle"—the brownie he worked with before me—"but I gotta say, you're much more handy at closing time."
It didn't take him any time at all to count the till, separating out the credit card receipts from the room charges. I ran the cash-out slip from my register and did the same thing. When I was done, I had a nice stack of cash left over.
"Not too shabby," I said as I finished counting my tips. "Did you do okay?"
He was grinning. "A little better than okay, I'd say."
We both made more than we usually made in three nights, and considering we had dirt cheap room and board at the resort, it was basically pure profit.
"I do feel a little bad, though," he said. "I mean, we made most of it because Cass was murdered."
I lifted a shoulder. "Don't look at it like that. He'd be dead regardless of whether we made ten dollars or ten thousand."
He lumbered back behind the bar and poured two shots of Irish whiskey and handed me one.
"To Cass," he said.
"May he finally have that stick out of his ass," I said, clinking glasses. In truth, I really did hope he was happy. I'd always suspected he was miserable for a reason, and nobody knew the true story behind why he got the boot.
I grimaced as I took the shot, and Tempest spoke aloud. "You know, you should be careful saying things like that. I know what you meant, but others may not."
The mop and broom were finished and hovering outside the closet, so I opened the door with the swish of a couple fingers and put them away.
"Like who? There's nobody else around."
"Like me," Blake said, stepping off the dark path from the hotel and into the light.
I sighed. "You know I didn't do it just as well as Bob does. Now if you had one of your minions with you, that would be another story."
He scowled at the term. "You know those are some of the most highly trained magical investigators and guards on the planet, right?"
"They still look like goons," I said, slipping my feet back into my shoes.
"Any progress?" Bob asked.
Blake shook his head. "Not yet, but I forgot to leave the keys earlier." He pulled some keys out of his pocket and handed them to me.
"What am I supposed to do with them?" I asked, confused.
"Do you mind being interim manager until I can find somebody?"
Color me shocked. That was the last thing I expected to hear, but then again, I expected whatever he had to say to be punctuated by one of his gorillas putting cuffs on me.
"I don't mind, but do you think it's a good idea, considering I'm suspect numero uno?"
"Since I'm executive director of the resort, I get to decide what's a good idea, so yes. I think it's a good idea. You've done the job before and done it well. I'd offer it to you full time once this is all over if I thought you'd take it."
He slid onto a stool beside me, and I was irritated because the smell of his cologne still made my heart stutter.
Scowling, I moved down a stool under the pretense of reaching for Bob's drawer so I could do the second count and deposit it into the magical safe in Cass's office—well, I guess now it was my office. From there, it went directly to the accounting department.
As always, his count was right. Blake walked around the bar and pulled out three beers, handing one to me and one to Bob, and keeping one for himself.
"We have to figure this out," he said, raking his fingers through his hair. "For cripe's sake, an angel was murdered at my resort. And to make matters worse, you’re the one everybody's gonna be looking at. Assigning you interim manager is a proactive step to show my confidence in you, but we need to solve this thing," he said.
Bob cracked his beer and took a big swig. "We're not exactly detectives," he said. "It's not like we're golfing with these people."
"No," Blake said, waving his bottle toward Bob, "You're nonthreatening and, if memory serves, a damned good bartender. People talk to you."
"That's true," I said. "It never ceases to amaze me that you're seven feet tall and have hands that could crush skulls but still manage to come across as harmless. People are more scared of me than they are of you."
"That's because you're terrifying," Bob said.
"What? I am not. I'm one of the friendliest people I know. And I'm like a foot and half shorter and a buck-fifty lighter than you." I raised a brow at Blake, telling him to back me up. It was the least he could do, really.
He pinched his lips together and pointed at me. "That look right there," he said. "That's terrifying. I'm afraid to disagree with you, and I'm a ninth-level wizard. Don't get me wrong. You're friendly, too. People love you. But you're a prime example that they're not mutually exclusive traits."
"Why do you think Cass had it out for you so bad?" Bob asked.
Blake's words from earlier drifted back to me. He said he'd known why Cass didn't like me.
"You two should probably fill me in on that because I've been working with the jerk for two years now and haven't been able to figure it out."
They both looked at me like I was nuts. Or blind. I couldn't figure out which.
"You didn't know?" Bob asked, scratching his head.
"Know what?" I felt like I was the only one who was missing the punchline of a joke.
"There was a reason he got the manager's job when you declined it. He got it because the higher-ups wanted him to emulate you."
"Come again," I said, raising my brows. Surely I hadn't heard that right.
"You're exactly what he was supposed to be but wasn't," Blake said. "People love you but don't walk on you. You have a temper, but you control it. You love cake and beer as much as the next person, but you eat and drink in moderation. You know how to walk the fine line between enough and too much—at least most of the time—but he couldn't, or wouldn't, figure it out. It's what made him so horrible at his job—this one and the angel gig. He always went too far one way or the other. Temperance, remember?"
I snorted. "I'm the poster child for a lot of things, but temperance isn't one of them."
"Okay," Bob said, then pulled another beer for each of us from the cooler.
I eyeballed the beer because it had been a hell of a day but sighed and waved him off. "I'm good. I have to be here to open in the morning, and heat and hangovers don't mix."
Blake raised a brow at me. "Oh, the irony."
Glowering at him, I snatched the beer from him just to prove him wrong.
CHAPTER SEVEN
EIGHT HOURS LATER, I really regretted that second beer. I was a lightweight when it came to drinking, and between the shot and the two beers, I'd gone to bed with a bit of a buzz. Thankfully, Elena, a cute Italian vampire, was waitressing that day, so all I'd have to do was schmooze and help out as needed. Unlike Cass, I just didn't have it in me to let the place go down in flames rather than jump in and help.
She was good at her job and wasn't afraid to work, so the most I ended up doing all day was bussing a few tables and refilling a few drinks. Besides that, I took advantage of the time to talk to folks who'd been there the day before.
Though I worked it into conversation, I managed to find out in one way or another exact
ly what everybody was doing there. Considering there were only a few people missing from the day before, it wasn't hard. By the end of the day, the only people I couldn't nail down were the mystery werewolf, a gorgon who wasn't there with Fiona's group, and a couple witches who'd managed to fly under my radar.
Bob was working again, and I jumped in and helped him when the gorgon group came for lunch at the same time a bunch of nymphs showed up at the water bar. We worked through the tickets, and once we were through the rush, I helped him clean up.
"So, no mysterious werewolf guy today?" I asked, restocking the cooler with Cabern-A, one of the blood wines we used in our vampire sangrias and wine slushies. I wasn't much for the cutesy name, but the vampire portion of our undead community loved it.
He shot me a sideways glance as he set down an extra case of Miller Lite he'd just brought up from the back. "I wouldn't go so far as to call him mysterious," he said. "He just wasn't much of a talker. It's not like he was using John Doe on his credit card."
He put his hand to his chin and wrinkled his forehead. "Though I did actually know a John Doe once. British cyclops. The man kicked ass at darts but couldn't play poker for squat."
I tilted my head and took a deep breath, waiting for him to catch back up.
"Sorry," he said. "I think of that guy every time I hear the name."
"That's only logical, since it was his name," I said. "But what I need to know is the werewolf's name. And did he say what he was doing here?"
"His name was Colin Moore, and he said he was here on business."
"What business?" I asked, frustrated. "It's your job to dig this information out of people."
"No," he said, drawing the word out. "It's my job to provide an excellent customer experience. And for him, that was keeping his beer full and making sure his steak was cooked right."
He was right. I'd seen him trying to engage the dude and falling flat.
"But I did happen to overhear some of his conversation with Cass while I was uh ... cleaning the cooler," he said, looking smug. "For some reason, people forget Sasquatches have excellent hearing."