by K. J. Emrick
“Like Roderick?” she asked.
“It’s still possible he hit himself on the head. He could have staged the whole scene just to kill Sheila Davenport. But, I didn’t see his name on that list of scam victims Marcelle showed us.”
“Um, yeah. About that?” There it was. Addie couldn’t avoid telling him any longer. Not if she wanted to keep his trust. They had worked on being honest with each other, and respecting each other, and she wasn’t about to sabotage their relationship now. “Yeah. I, um, recognized a name on that list.”
“Did you? I knew a couple. Some of the ones from Birch Hollow, at least, but none of them were here tonight. Who did you know?”
“Her name is Abierta. I haven’t seen her in years, but she’s on that list, and she’s here tonight.”
“Abierta? I don’t remember that name on the list.”
“Well, it was written down under a nickname. Bert Tesoro.”
He blinked. “Now that one I do remember. Addie, you should have told me.”
“You shouldn’t have flirted with an evil witch,” she countered.
“Not the same thing,” he grumbled. “I didn’t leave out information about a murder case.”
“I’m telling you now, Lucian, and believe me it’s as hard for me to consider her a suspect as it was for you to consider Marcelle.”
“Hmm. Hard to argue that one. All right, I won’t call your friend a suspect just yet, but we definitely need to interview her. You said she’s here?”
“Yes. Right over…” Addie craned her neck to see around people, and then pointed. “Right there. The knockout with the dark skin and the smooth scalp.”
“Well, I’d say she’s really pretty, but I don’t want to be accused of flirting again.”
“Ha, ha,” she mocked him. “Very funny. Can we go find Roderick now?”
They got to the foyer to find Roderick the security guard, still sitting with his eyes closed, still leaning back in the chair, recharging his batteries.
The officer at the door looked relieved to see them. “He hasn’t moved from that seat, sir. No one else has come into the museum.”
Roderick stirred, and one eye opened under the line of bandages around his head. “Your man over there’s top notch, Detective Knight. I feel safer already knowing you got people like him, who can guard a door for ten minutes without blinking or needing a potty break.”
Addie knew he was making fun of the officer, but he was doing it in such a good-natured way that it seemed less like an insult and more like friendly banter. He shifted, and the chair creaked under him. With a grunt, he slowly stood up, wincing and holding a hand to the side of his head.
“Are you all right?” Lucian asked him. “You sure you don’t want to go to the hospital?”
“No, sir,” Roderick said. “I took harder knocks than this when I was running with the amateur wrestling federations. Ask me your questions. I’ll tell you whatever you need to know.”
“That sounds like a good plan to me. Can you bring us into the security office? You can show us what happened.”
He shrugged one huge shoulder. “Sure thing.”
Punching the code into the lock with a stubby thumb, he opened the door for them.
“Was the office locked when this happened?” Lucian asked.
“Yup,” was the immediate reply. “Always lock the office. That’s one of the rules they make you memorize on day one. If I’m in here or not, door stays locked. Gotta punch the right code in to get inside.”
They stepped in, and Lucian motioned for them to stand off to the side, away from where a dark red stain had discolored the carpet on the floor. That was where Sheila had died with the knife in her back. A smaller bloodstain was about a foot away, in front of a chair with its back to the door.
Lucian had already taken photographs of everything using his cellphone. He’d taken samples of the blood as well, with the help of officers Chuck Burson and Drake Mulkin after they arrived to assist. For now, there was nothing else they could do but investigate. Especially not until the department managed to get more officers here to help.
Looking down at the floor with a pained expression, Roderick pointed. “That’s where I got hit on the head. I was sitting right there in that chair, talking to that pretty Sheila woman. Heard the door behind me open up and I figured anybody who’s got the code to the lock is somebody who works here so I didn’t even turn around.”
“Someone who knows the code,” Addie repeated. “You mean, like the curator?”
“Sure. I thought of that too, and I don’t much like Mister LeBlanc, but I don’t like to point fingers.”
Lucian frowned. “Could someone else have the code to the locks?”
“I guess,” Roderick said, scratching at the bandages on his head. “I mean, somebody could have seen me punch in the code sometime, I guess. We never change the code.”
Addie frowned along with Lucian. That meant the killer could still be Marcelle. No one else but he and Roderick knew the code. She’d just watched Roderick put the code in but if she hadn’t been standing right next to him she wouldn’t have seen what the combination had been. Even then, she’d missed a couple of the numbers because his hand was so big it blocked what he was doing.
So far, Roderick had been very unhelpful.
“Go on,” Lucian told him. “You were sitting in the chair, and someone came in… then what?”
“Well, like I said, I figured it was somebody I could trust. Wasn’t until I saw the fear in Sheila’s eyes that I realized the guy behind me wasn’t a friend. By then it was too late. Got beaned before I could do anything about it.”
Addie figured that must be more words than Roderick had ever said all at the same time in his whole life. Some men could convey everything with a glance and a little flex from their bulging biceps. Roderick was one of those guys.
Lucian pursed his lips, unable to hide his disappointment. “So you didn’t even get a glimpse of who did this to you?”
“No, sir. Never saw a thing. Sure did feel it, but I never saw it. When I came to, Sheila was dead. That’s when you saw me stumbling out there like a drunk sailor.”
“Right, I understand that but… wait, what did you say about Sheila?”
Roderick blinked at him. “Well, I said she was pretty.”
“No, not that. The other thing. You said she was afraid when she saw the person who entered the room?”
“Uh, yeah. Her eyes got real big and then she kind of gasped, I guess. Everything went black for me after that. I know that look, though. Seen it on lots of people I wrestled. That’s the look of somebody who’s scared to death. I, uh, kind of inspire fear in people. At least, that’s why my momma always said. Whoever hit me on the back of the head, they had Sheila plenty worried.”
Addie traded a look with Lucian. Sheila had plenty of reason to be afraid of Marcelle after that scene in the hallway earlier. Especially if he was armed…
Careful of where she stepped, she looked all around the security office. It didn’t take long in a room this size. If the killer had left behind the weapon he used to knock Roderick unconscious, she couldn’t see it. There was nothing in here heavy and portable enough to fit the bill.
The timeframe for the murder was very tight. It must have happened not long before she and Lucian and Belladonna had been talking out in the foyer. It was right after that when they saw Roderick leaving the security office. That meant the killer drove the knife into Sheila and ran out… to stash his weapon somewhere.
In the museum.
But then why leave the knife sticking in Sheila’s back?
A good question, but the answer wasn’t going to be found here.
Lucian stood up, still looking disappointed that Roderick hadn’t been more help. “Okay. I’ll send an officer in to take your statement in a few minutes. Stay here, all right? Once we’ve got your statement you can go home if you want, or to the hospital. You’ve probably had the worst day of your life.”
/> “Nah. Had worse times than this. Buy me a beer sometime, I’ll tell you all about it.”
Lucian gave him a smile. “All right. When this is over, I’ll look you up again.”
“So… you don’t think I did this?” the big man asked, sounding like a little child who had been left out of a game of dodgeball. “I’m not on your suspect list?”
“Not at the moment,” Lucian told him. “Unless you want to confess to something?”
“No, sir.” Roderick held up both palms. “Uh-uh. My momma always taught me never to say I did something, unless I did it. This thing here… I don’t kill people. That ain’t right.”
“I agree,” Lucian told him. “All right, Roderick. We’ve got other suspects on our list. Just wait here and someone will come and talk to you, okay?”
They left him there, waiting for someone to come and take his statement. Out in the foyer, Drake was still guarding the door. Lucian asked him to run and get Alex Candor from the dining room while they watched things here.
“It could still be Belladonna,” Addie said when they were alone again. “She could have murdered Sheila.”
Lucian pursed his lips as he shook his head. “I don’t know as much about being a witch as you do, I admit that, but this doesn’t seem like the way witches kill people. Hitting someone on the head? Stabbing the victim with a knife? Is that how you would do it. I mean, if you were going to kill someone?”
Addie had to admit, he was right. Witches very rarely killed people. Most of them were about harmony with the world, respect for life, belief in a higher power. All of that. But when one of them did kill then magic was almost always the weapon of choice. Not a knife.
“Okay, but she still could have orchestrated this whole thing.”
“But why?” Lucian asked her. “I get that she’s evil and she enjoys giving people grief but everything she’s ever done to you or your family in the past has been for a reason. What would the reason be here?”
“I haven’t got the faintest idea.” Addie threw her hands in the air. “Just like I have no idea why Sheila is dead, and Roderick was left alive. None of this is making any sense. That doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”
“I agree,” he sounded annoyed, actually. Maybe the stress of everything was getting to him. “All right. We need to talk to your friend, that Abierta woman, and then we need to get a look at the statements my officers are taking. Alex might have something for us.”
Addie wasn’t thrilled with that idea. “I know we have to interview Abierta and ask her about her name on that list, but can I be the one to do it? She knows me. She’ll trust me.”
“Because I’m a cop?”
She blinked at him. “That’s not what I meant at all, Lucian. Look, you have to read the statements and such, I could talk to Abierta while you’re doing that.”
“I’ve got it covered, Addie. It’s just going to take a while, that’s all.”
Now that really was disappointing. “I was hoping to get you home tonight,” she said. “Reading through all those statements is going to take hours.”
“Longer, probably.” He shrugged. “There’s no other way. This is what real police work is about. I have to use my wits and my brain. I can’t just snap my fingers to make something happen. I’ll talk to Abierta. If she’s guilty, I’ll arrest her.”
“Lucian, I…”
“That’s the way it is, Addie.”
Something passed over his eyes, a shadow or maybe a muscle twitch, and his gaze went flat. Worse than that, the bond that she always felt with him, the connection they shared, went silent. It was like she couldn’t feel him standing in front of her anymore. It had connected the two of them for so long now that she had forgotten what it felt like without it. She didn’t like it. He was standing right there, and she could only see him with her eyes. It felt wrong.
Almost as strange as him accusing her of relying on her magic for everything she did. How could he say that?
“That’s not fair, Lucian. I’m standing right here with you, helping to solve this mystery. I’m doing everything I can to help and I’ve hardly used any magic at all. Haven’t we had this discussion before, several times in fact? You know me better than this.”
“You’ve used your magic plenty,” he said. “Some of us don’t have that luxury.”
“I don’t just snap my fingers and fix everything in my life, Lucian, you know that. I’m here, and I’m helping. Can we just go do this? We’ll talk about whatever this is that’s going on with you after.”
She shivered, the lack of connection between them starting to feel like a hole in her heart.
“There’s nothing going on with me,” he told her. “I’m the same as I ever was. Why don’t you stay here and let me go do my job? I’m the one who they gave the award to, remember? Not you.”
“Lucian, I’m helping you!”
“Then why didn’t you tell me about your friend, this Abierta woman?”
“Seriously?” Addie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “I told you about her as soon as I could. I’m not trying to hide anything. Why would I?”
“Because you’re not that different from Belladonna Nightshade after all, that’s why.”
She felt her jaw drop. She heard his words, but she could not believe he was saying them. This swing in his attitude, the way their connection had disappeared, him flirting with Belladonna… not to mention how he had completely forgotten about getting an arrest warrant for the evil witch like he’d promised. Something was going on with him. What was it?
He put his face close to hers, and said, “Well? Are you going to let me be, so I can work, or not?”
On his breath, there was the slightest scent of something bitter. Something she recognized all too well.
Dark magic.
“Lucian, I think there’s something wrong…”
“Like what?” He smiled when he said it, as if he was enjoying this. “Come on, little girl. You had to know this would never be easy with me around.”
Addie took a step back from him. Her mind was screaming. This couldn’t be happening.
‘Little girl,’ he called her. That was not his nickname for her. That was what Belladonna called her.
It couldn’t be.
A flash of light filled her peripheral vision. A golden blaze flared brighter than the sun for one brief instant. A magical portal opened up inside the light, spinning and snapping into existence. Someone walked through it, and into the museum. As the light faded, and her eyes focused again, Addie saw who it was. She’d been waiting for him to show up. Now, here he was.
He was tall and lean, with caramel colored skin and exotic features and eyes that were such an intense blue that they seemed to shine from within. His face was all strong lines and smooth skin. The white shirt under his tuxedo jacket was open at the neck and it formed to his physique in a way that would put any Greek sculpture of male perfection to shame.
The light from his magical entrance faded into a halo around his golden hair.
Fallen angels had a flair for the dramatic. Mephistopheles Smith had more flair than most.
Before his entrance, there had been a quiet sort of background noise all through the museum. The distant clamor of the people in the multipurpose room. The building settling around them in the cold December night. Heated air circulating through vents in the ceiling. That sort of thing.
When Mephistopheles arrived, all of that stopped. Dead silence fell all around them. Everything had stopped moving, even time itself.
Lucian sneered at the angel in his fine clothes. “Neat trick. We know you, and we aren’t impressed.”
Addie stared at him. Now he was calling himself ‘we’ as if it was more than just him talking… which was exactly what was happening.
Curse her Irish eyes!
Mephistopheles put it into words for both of them. “Your boyfriend is acting like this because Belladonna got to him. Guess I got here just in time, Addie.”
His ha
nd shot out faster than thought and took ahold of Lucian’s wrist, twisting it palm up. As he did, red snaps of electric light danced across Lucian’s fingertips.
Magic, but of a very bad kind.
“Your boyfriend,” Mephistopheles said, holding tight to Lucian as he started to struggle, “has been put under a spell.”
CHAPTER 6
“L et go!” Lucian hollered. “Let me go!”
Mephistopheles’ grip was hard as steel, and where it touched Lucian…
His skin began to smoke.
In his eyes a red light streaked from corner to corner, an angry lightning storm of evil power. Thankfully the fallen angel had cast a spell to freeze time around them, and no one else in the museum would hear any of this.
A solid knot of cold fear twisted inside Addie’s guts. This was Lucian. This was her boyfriend, standing right here in front of her spouting off an endless stream of profanities as he struggled against Mephistopheles’ grip. She knew Lucian. She loved Lucian.
Only, it wasn’t him. Not completely. She could smell the stink of dark magic on him. Before this moment, here in the museum, she hadn’t noticed it. There was no mistaking it now.
Under a spell, Mephistopheles had said. Lucian was under a spell.
Why hadn’t she noticed it before?
Addie came back to her senses with a jolt. She couldn’t just stand here and let this happen… whatever ‘this’ was. She had to save Lucian, whatever it took. “Don’t hurt him,” she told Mephistopheles. If he ripped Lucian’s arm off, it would kill him. There wouldn’t be any saving him then.
“I’m being careful,” the fallen angel promised. “When he calms down, we’ll proceed.”
“Okay, but… Mephistopheles, what are you doing here?”
“Uh, uh, uh,” he tutted. “I thought we agreed that you would call me Philly, just like I call you Addie instead of Adair.”
Addie pressed her lips tight together. She hadn’t actually agreed to let him call her by the familiar form of her name. She usually only let friends call her Addie, and whatever she and Mephistopheles—Philly—were to each other, they certainly weren’t friends. It just wasn’t an argument she wanted to have with him. Not when he was powerful enough to literally freeze time in its tracks all around them, like he was doing right now.