"I don't know." I ran a hand through my hair. “That makes sense, but I don’t know.”
“I don't understand how somebody could do that," Valencia said, her voice cracking.
"Do what?"
“Bring drugs anywhere," she said. "I had –" She caught herself. “One of my best friends died from an overdose," she said. "One stupid decision, and it cost her her life.”
Mentally I winced. None of this had to be bringing up good memories for her. "I'm sorry for your loss," I said, and I meant it. It was the cherry on the top to losing her boyfriend. I was surprised she was still standing.
Her smile was faint. I could hear it over the phone. "Just catch who did this," she said. "Find out if it was somebody trying to distribute more drugs."
She hung up before I could say anything else, and I sat there for a while, staring at nothing.
What she had said sounded familiar. ‘One stupid decision’. It had been Mix who had said that, hadn’t it? But he hadn’t been on the client list. And he was obviously too weak to have murdered anyone on his own.
I chewed my bottom lip.
“Any answers?" Mocha asked.
"Not really," I said, not really thrilled about it. An idea was starting to tug at the corner of my mind. If Valencia was at the hospital, it meant her house – the house they shared – was unoccupied.
But that was breaking and entering, the law-abiding voice in my head told me.
That same voice also didn’t want to be convicted of murder, either. If it was drug-related, there was probably evidence there. “I’ve got an idea,” I said slowly.
"You sure this is the best idea?" Mocha asked, although even as she said that, she didn't do anything to stop me. She was riding in the passenger seat, ears flopping due to the partially-opened window.
"Nope," I said. I glanced down at her. "You're not stopping me."
"I like seeing humans do dumb things," Mocha said absently. "It warms my heart.”
"I'm glad I can provide some amusement.” My heart was racing so loud that if Mocha had been a human speaking out loud, I didn’t think I would be able to hear her. What I was doing was wrong. But Kerrity showing up on my doorstop like she had was wrong, too.
Two wrongs didn’t make a right. But would it be enough to keep me from being arrested?
"I hope they don't arrest you for this," Mocha said conversationally.
“I'm guessing that's another thing you would find amusing?" I asked.
"You bet," Mocha said. "You're about to miss the left turn.”
"Thanks," I said, correcting myself. Directions were not my strong suit, so I was grateful to see at least one of us had a sense of direction.
"Nobody's car is here," Mocha said. She’d apparently sensed that before I did, but it was easy confirm when I came in sight of the house seconds later.
I'd never really broken into anything before, not since Addie had helped me figure out how to break into the coffee shop. It wasn't exactly a skill I wanted to add to my resume, but neither was being convicted of murder. It was funny how your priorities changed.
I parked the car in front of the house, taking a risk and not worrying about where it was. I didn't see anything else, so there wasn't anybody else there.
Mocha sniffed the air, suspicious. "It doesn't look like anybody's been here," she said. "I smell antiseptic, hospital smells. They probably took him from here to the ER. You should be okay.”
"Do you usually do this kind of thing?" I asked, heading up to the front door.
“Help humans break into somebody's house?" Mocha asked as if she was seeking clarification.
"Yep," I said.
“Not as often as I'd like," Mocha said, without any hint of irony. "I'd forgotten how fun humans are.”
I shook my head, although I went to the front door. I knew they were magic, because Valencia was. There wasn't an ordinary front door lock, not that I’d brought a lock pick set with me anyway.
"You can pick locks?" Mocha asked.
“I had a lot of free time as a kid," I said. "And one of my main specialties was getting in trouble.” Harmless trouble, but trouble nonetheless.
I could feel Mocha watching me, her curiosity increasing. "I wish I could've met your mother," she said. "She probably deserves to be nominated for sainthood.”
“Sometimes,” I agreed. I put my palms on the front door, closing my eyes briefly and seeking out the runes. "They don't seem to be too complicated," I said, although I was well aware that my definition of that was probably different than others’.
"Why wouldn't they leave a simple combination on it?" Mocha asked, the counterpoint to my insanity.
“If Mix was really weak, they probably needed an easy spell that he could use," I rationalized.
Mocha considered this, and then gave a sharp nod. "But it may mean they have more difficult runes inside. Be careful.”
I started tracing the design on the door with my finger, not physically drawing runes.
"No drawing?” Mocha asked.
"Breaking and entering is illegal," I said dryly. "If I do happen to be doing such a thing, I would prefer that I not get caught. One of the ways to not get caught is to not leave traces.”
Mocha hummed softly. I wasn’t sure why, or what it meant. "Definitely nominated for sainthood.”
The door swung open once I applied a gentle pressure. I grinned at Mocha, delighted.
“Congratulations,” Mocha said dryly. “You can add breaking and entering to your new list of skills when you’re arrested.”
"You're such a pessimist," I said.
"Says the burglar," she retorted.
I didn't really have a rebuttal to that.
I headed inside, moving as quietly as I could. Even if nobody was there, I'd want to try and not leave any remnants of my presence.
“Can you look around?" I asked Mocha.
"I don't have opposable thumbs.” She glanced down at her feet.
I gave her an exasperated look. "Exactly how much do you let that stop you when you want something?"
"It doesn't," she said. "But I don't like getting involved in human affairs,” she said, while sitting in the room of a house I had broken into. Uh huh.
“Whatever,” I said.
She started walking towards the kitchen, moving noiselessly.
I stopped, unnerved. "Something wrong?"
I couldn’t see Mocha’s face but I could feel her unease. "No," she said finally. "I can't sense anything.”
"That doesn't mean anything's not wrong," I said.
"How very astute," Mocha said, but she sounded distracted. "Let's hurry up and get out of here. I don't want you here any longer than you have to be.”
I looked at her, something in my gut twisting, and I nodded. Even though I couldn’t put a finger on it, it wasn't just Mocha's words that made me uneasy.
"Let's try the kitchen," I said.
"Why not the bedroom?" Mocha asked.
“If I was going to hide something, I'd assume the first place they would look is my bedroom," I said pointedly.
"Is there a story to this I don't want to know?"
“It depends," I said, sounding faux cheerful. "How long do we have?"
"Not as long as you think." Valencia didn’t sound pleased.
"Oops," Mocha said, the understatement of the century.
When I turned towards the voice, Valencia was looking at me, her hands in front of her and a rune half-written on her palm. “I can cast a rune before you're done," she said. "I wouldn't push me.”
"I wasn't going to," I said, and that was true. "How long have you been here?"
“Long enough," she said. "I didn't kill Mildred, for what it's worth.”
"But you did kill Millie?" I asked.
"Somebody had to," she said, her lips twisted in distaste.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“It was your boyfriend, wasn't it?" I asked.
Valencia glanced at me, then back at Mocha, a snarl fo
rming on her face. "Tell her if she stops resisting, I won't hurt her," she said irritably.
I glanced at Mocha, and then back at her. "Who?"
“Your familiar’s trying to stop me," Valencia said, her voice hard.
"I'm applying restraining magic, but I don’t want to do it too hard." Mocha said, her voice as sharp as a shard of glass. “I want her to stand justice for what she did.”
“Stop at least for now,” I said as silently as I could. I didn’t know if Valencia could overhear our conversations.
Mocha gave me a dark look. When the tension eased a bit from Valencia’s shoulders, I relaxed somewhat.
"Why did you kill her?" I asked.
"The drugs," Valencia said bitterly. "Millie was behind everything, not Mildred.” She let out a short, harsh laugh. "I wanted to kill Mildred," she added. "I tried to kill Mildred.”
I added that to my list of things I hadn't known. "Did you fail?" I asked.
"I was trying to do a long-term poisoning," she said. "Make it appear less suspicious.”
"It didn't work?" I couldn’t think of anyone having mentioned Mildred being sick.
Valencia's lips twisted. "Not like I wanted it to.”
"Why frame me?" I asked, thinking about Kerrity's brouhaha about arresting me.
"That wasn't intentional," Valencia said, although she didn’t look at all apologetic. "I just wanted to keep the police distracted long enough that I could find the evidence and bring the whole ring down. You, and Yanis, were convenient.”
“There's more?" I had assumed it was local. Or was she lying to get me to let my guard down?
“I think so," she said. She was watching both Mocha and I, looking for any minute movements that could signal danger for her. "Millie's family has always been involved in the wrong side of the law. I don't know if they’d been involved in drugs before, but I doubt this was her only shady endeavor.”
She looked at me, her face as calm as a lake. "Kerrity trying to take you down was just an unfortunate side effect.”
“That’s not what I would call it,” I muttered, trying to map out the closest route to the door. I looked at Mocha, who wasn’t moving. She wasn’t even looking at me now.
Anger mixed with rage, mixed with worry, provided a potent combination. "What did you do to her?" I asked, my voice sharp.
“Nothing permanent," she said with a wave of her hand.
"You were the one who broke into the coffee shop," I said. "My apartment."
Valencia nodded. "That apartment had been in Mildred's family for years," she said. "I was surprised when you got it. But I knew Mildred and Millie kept their books nearby, their attempt at security.” She didn't look very approving of their choices. "But with you around, I couldn't look for it the way I wanted to. I was trying to get rid of you, or at least to get you to go somewhere else for a while.”
“Why aren’t you at the hospital?" I asked.
“I wanted to destroy the evidence," she said sourly. "I don't want Mix’s name to get slandered in this. It's bad enough that he's dying." Her eyes were like jade when she looked at me. "His family doesn't need to deal with this.”
"That's a lie," Ethan said conversationally.
I jumped, and so did Valencia. "You're all each other has left," he said.
I was going to have to ask Mocha later about how they got the jump on us. If she was supposed to sense other magics, then I wasn't sure if she was working quite as well as she wanted to.
"What are you doing here?" Valencia snarled.
"A little bird told me," he said amicably.
I looked at him, blank.
Mocha shook herself, trotting over to my side and giving Valencia dagger-eyes. “I notified Wren.”
“That just makes it even worse,” I told Mocha out loud. “That’s a horrible joke.” Next he was going to be calling Wren a bird by default.
"If you ask me, it's one of the better ones," Ethan offered. Valencia seemed to get it, her hands tightening into fists and her pretty face becoming twisted with anger.
"Is that what Vance loves about you?" Valencia snarked. "Your sense of humor?"
“Among other things," he said with a wink.
Then Ethan's gaze grew somber. "You're under arrest," he said, pulling the handcuffs off of his belt.
She was shaking her head. "I know," she said. “I’ll go quiet.”
She turned around, offering him her wrists. I watched him apply the handcuffs, and then use a finger dipped in black powder to swipe over the notches where the cuffs caught. When I looked closer, I could see some runes etched into it, carefully disguised to look just like random scribbles.
"It binds her magic," he said. "We’d rather her not do anything to us before we can get her back to the station.”
Mocha scratched her ears, one after the other. “I’m out of shape,” she said, clearly irritated. “Took me forever to get that magic off.”
"I didn't kill anybody with magic," Valencia said, sounding annoyed by the idea. "That's the easy way.”
Ethan's eyebrow arched, and I could see him struggling to keep a straight face. "We have a lot to talk about," he said conversationally, leading her outside.
When I followed, there was more hubbub out there than I had been aware of. Apparently now that the adrenaline was wearing off, I could actually hear everything that was going on.
Vance was there, Yanis next to him, and the gaze Vance gave Ethan was affectionate. Yanis just seemed tired, and his arms were crossed over his chest. Miles was there, with Sarai next to him. "She’d escape otherwise," he said, when he caught my eye. Then his gaze shifted in intensity. "Are you okay?" he asked, trying to sound in a way like he didn't care about the answer.
I smiled. "I'm okay," I said. "Little bit banged up." Then Mocha trotted out of the house, and I winced, feeling bad that I hadn't thought about checking on her sooner.
"Mocha," Sarai said, darting forward. She threw her arms around Mocha's neck, and I couldn't help a smile.
“We’re both okay,” I said. Mocha muttered something sarcastically, but it was too fast for me to make out the words. I had a feeling she wasn’t approving of my priorities.
“Everything wrapped up nice and neat?” Miles asked dryly.
“Just like I was on a detective show," I said with a wink. Miles groaned, but I was having fun with the evening of bad puns. It made for comic relief after the stress of the past few hours.
"Anything to make it stop," he said.
Sarai snorted. "You like them.”
Miles looked at her like he'd just been betrayed. "I do not.”
"Then why do you crack so many of them?" she asked.
"They're called dad jokes for reason," I said.
I saw Wren run over, her eyes worried. "Oh good, they got you," she said, throwing her arms around my shoulders and hugging me. I returned the embrace, although I was a bit surprised. “I was worried," she said. "I don’t know how I heard Mocha, but I did, and she mentioned you needed help and you don't really have the best instincts about sticking your face in trouble –"
“Hey," I said, almost indignant.
"Technically, you'd argue that she has a good instinct," Theo said, appearing next to her. "I drove her here," she explained when she caught my expression. "She was freaking out a little bit.”
Wren huffed. "I was not.”
I shook my head. Everything was better than I'd expected, even if it was different. I’d come here not expecting to stay, or to find somebody I cared about, but instead I’d found a family.
They were my family, even though they weren’t my mother. But they’d known my mother, they’d loved my mother. It seemed like they'd even come to like me.
"Thanks," I said, smiling at her.
Even Theo reached out and gave me a hug, and then gently tugged on my hair. "None of this vigilante thing again," she said, her eyes suspicious. "You hear me?"
I held my hands up, grinning. "I hear you, promise.”
Theo did
n’t look convinced. “I’ll hold you to that.”
Yanis came closer, hands in his pockets and eyes steady on me. “I have a surprise for you,” he said.
I was surprised that he wasn’t in handcuffs, but I figured I could ask about that later. “What?” I asked, wary.
“Meet me at the Elder Retirement home tomorrow,” he said. He looked at Vance, who nodded. “Bring as many as you’d like. They won’t be allowed in, but they can be there.”
“What –”
“You’ll want to see.” Yanis turned to walk away, and then he stopped, turning just far enough that I could see his smile. “Your mother would want you to see.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
“I'm afraid you can only take two people with you," the woman at the desk said.
Yanis turned to look at the small crew we had formed. “Ethan and Lou,” he said.
Ethan’s head jerked up from where he was next to Vance. “What?”
"Why them?" Wren asked, suspicious.
“Lou for the obvious, and Ethan to confirm.” Yanis sounded patient. “Ethan can fill Vance in on what few details he doesn’t know.”
Vance chuckled. I could almost see why Ethan liked him so much. Since everything had changed, he’d lightened up, smiled more easily. I didn’t know what had caused him to change, but I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
"All right," the nurse said. “If you’d follow me."
Yanis pushed himself away from the desk and I followed, apprehensive. Yanis’s wife wasn’t dead, despite what everyone had believed. Instead she was living in the nursing home under a new name, her memory scrambled after a bad accident. She'd been so dignified in life, Yanis had known that she wouldn't want everybody to be told about it afterwards. At least that was what he had claimed.
"Are you family?" The nurse asked politely.
I glanced at Yanis, who smiled. "Something like that," he said, cutting me off before I could say otherwise. The nurse just nodded. Whether or not she believed him, she trusted him.
We stopped in front of room 106. He knocked on the door, but let the nurse push it open.
"Fern, honey?" The nurse called out. "We've got some visitors for you today, including your husband."
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