Glimmer of Hope, page 9
‘That’s right.’
‘The Connection thinks his death is related to the sale of a new drug called Boost.’
Elvira was here investigating for the Connection. Steve hadn’t seen her files but his own files had been locked and he was told they were above his pay grade. It wouldn’t surprise me that Elvira had made the link between Reggie and the dealers. Her access to Steve’s files would suggest that she had. I wasn’t the woman’s biggest fan but she wasn’t stupid.
‘How do you know that?’ I asked. ‘I thought dragons weren’t part of the Connection.’
‘We’re not, but I have my sources.’
That didn’t surprise me. Stone had told me that Emory was the leader of all of the British dragons so it made sense he would have his own assets, especially if he felt confident rejecting the Connection’s resources. ‘I’m investigating the drug angle,’ I confirmed.
‘Good. There’s been a spate of drug-related deaths. Overdoses.’
‘So I heard.’
‘I just got a call that one of mine has died. Yesterday.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘I want to hire you to look into it.’
I wasn’t expecting that, but the truth was that my gut was telling me that the drug angle was at the root of Reggie’s death. I didn’t think it would represent a conflict for me to accept this new case, though I’d have to make sure I didn’t look at with blinders on. ‘Okay,’ I said slowly. ‘What information can you give me?’
‘I’m heading down shortly. I’ll meet you at the victim’s residence. Late afternoon, say 4p.m.’
‘What’s the address?’
‘You know it,’ he said flatly. ‘It’s the house in Maidenhead where you stole the vase for Samuel.’ He hung up.
Oh shit.
About a year and a half ago, Lord Samuel had hired me to reappropriate a priceless vase. He’d gambled it away in a poker game and wanted me to retrieve it. He’d paid me an exorbitant sum, so off I’d gone with Gato and a bag of sausages to feed to the house owner’s pack of attack dogs. It had been a quick job with no real complications, or so I’d thought. If Emory knew about it, then there were complications – I just hadn’t known about them. I wondered if I was about to become the victim of blackmail.
I blew out a breath and gathered my thoughts. No point worrying about ifs, buts and maybes. I needed to get moving if I was going to keep my appointment with Amber DeLea. I had the impression she was not a person to be kept waiting.
I may have sped a little on the way to Rosie’s – it happens sometimes – and I made it in the nick of time. Amber was already waiting when I walked in. I gave her a smile, which she didn’t return, and asked if she wanted anything. She requested a cappuccino. She looked around me and I couldn’t help but think she was checking to see if Gato was with me.
I joined the queue and ordered for us both. The café was quiet and Maxwell was flying solo. ‘Hey, Jinx. Chai latte?’ he asked.
I grinned. ‘You already know my order. You’re a superstar. Can I have a sausage sandwich too, and a cappuccino for Miss Frosty over there.’ I pointed to Amber.
Maxwell winced and dropped his voice. ‘She’s the head of the local coven and she’s tipped to be the next symposium member when the current witch stands down. Don’t piss her off. The last person to do that got shipped off to Alaska.’
I blinked. ‘Ten-four. I’ll be nice.’
‘Super nice,’ he advised.
‘I’d better get her a muffin too,’ I muttered.
Maxwell grinned and gave me a thumbs-up. ‘Blueberry is her favourite.’ He made her cappuccino in a takeaway cup. When I raised an eyebrow, he explained, ‘She won’t stay long.’
I paid and carted the food over to the booth where I’d once met Lord Samuel. I passed Amber her cappuccino and muffin. She didn’t thank me. All righty.
‘Thanks for agreeing to meet with me,’ I started. ‘Hopefully I won’t need to take up too much of your time.’
‘Take as much as you want,’ she said, sipping her drink. ‘I’ll be invoicing for it.’
I didn’t take offence; I ran my own business and I charged for my services too. ‘Fair enough. What’s your rate?’
She quoted an hourly rate which made me wince internally, but I agreed to it without flinching. Since this was business rather than a favour, I got straight to it. ‘I’m assuming you’re not squeamish. Can I show you some photos of dead bodies?’
She raised one perfectly manicured eyebrow but nodded.
I reached into my handbag and pulled out the three files. The first was Miller’s. I passed it to her, and she opened the cover. At the front was the photograph of the scene of his death. I didn’t really think she’d have anything to add, but it was best to check. ‘Does anything strike you as unusual here?’ I asked.
She pored over the picture. ‘Well, for starters,’ she said, ‘this is a car accident scene. But this,’ she pointed to the metal projectile in his chest, ‘is a tree. Well, a branch to be exact.’ She murmured some words and her eyes flashed.
I blinked. ‘Excuse me? I could have sworn it was metal.’ I looked at the picture again; now it was quite clearly a tree branch, a straight piece of wood – it even had bark on it. How had I ever thought it was metal?
‘It was enchanted,’ she confirmed darkly. ‘A witch enchanted the wood to make it look like it was metal, possibly at the scene. It would appear to be metal both on examination and in any visual representation. The latter is a tricky piece of magic.’ She frowned and checked the address of the scene. ‘Local,’ she muttered to herself, her frown deepening.
She got out her phone and took a few photos. I didn’t object; Miller wasn’t my client, and Maxwell had said not to piss her off.
She set the photo aside and looked at me expectantly. I put away Miller’s file and pulled out Reggie’s. She flicked through the gory pictures. ‘Griffin,’ she said, passing them back to me.
It was my turn to raise an eyebrow. ‘Are you sure?’ I asked.
She gave me an icy glare. ‘Yes.’ True.
I packed away Reggie’s file and passed her the one for my parents. She took it and flicked through it, pausing at the first picture. ‘Ah,’ she said slowly. ‘You’re the Sharps’ daughter. I knew there was something familiar about you – and, of course, there was their hell hound, Isaac. I should have realised.’
‘You knew my parents?’ I said it with some surprise. She didn’t look much older than me, perhaps in her early thirties.
She nodded, easily reading the confusion on my face. ‘I’m older than I look.’
‘What can you tell me about them?’ I asked eagerly.
‘Nothing that you want to hear,’ she responded slowly. True. She turned back to the crime-scene photos. ‘Griffin,’ she said again with certainty.
Everything in me stilled. I knew it wasn’t a home invasion. ‘Do you know why my parents left the Other realm?’ I tried to keep the hope out of my voice.
‘Presumably to avoid this.’ She tapped the photo. Lie. She stood and picked up her bag. ‘No charge, and I owe you one boon since you brought the Miller issue to my attention. Good day, Miss Sharp.’ She grabbed her cappuccino and muffin and left.
I ate my sausage sandwich. The meeting had been helpful on lots of levels. I knew I should be more focused on Reggie, but I was conflicted by the need to find out about my parents. A huge part of me was relieved to find out that their deaths had been Other, not a home invasion gone wrong. I felt vindicated. For all these years I hadn’t found a trace of their killer, but I’d been looking in the wrong realm. And Amber knew why my parents had left the Other. I didn’t get a chance to dig into it today but I would – and soon.
I took my empty plate and cup up to the counter. ‘She said she wouldn’t charge me,’ I commented to Maxwell. ‘How come?’
‘Did you help her?’
‘She seemed to think so. She was suggesting a witch was involved in covering up a local crime scene.’
He nodded. ‘That’d do it. As head of the coven, all witches answer to her. All work is vetted and allocated though her. If someone has done a job without her knowledge, then she has a rogue witch. If the Connection found out, it would put her back years politically. If she can’t control her own coven, how can she seek to control all witches as the symposium member?’
‘Huh. Politics in the Other seem a little harsh.’
‘They need to be because all of us are dangerous. Take me and Roscoe: if we went rogue, we could burn down half of London before we were stopped. It would threaten the Verdict and threaten the Common’s ideas about the Other. Our symposium member is a fire elemental called Benedict. Believe me, if you put a toe out of line he’ll visit you and make sure you regret it. Each member of the symposium must be seen as strong. If we lose that, we’ll have chaos.’ He dropped his voice low when he spoke about Benedict and his fear was palpable.
‘You’re scared of your leader?’
‘Shitless,’ Maxwell declared. ‘Before Roscoe rode to your rescue a few weeks ago, he had to get it cleared by Benedict. Benedict lives to make Roscoe’s life difficult because he hates same-sex couples – apparently we’re failing our species by not procreating. Roscoe only got clearance to help you because you’d been introduced in his hall, and even Benedict couldn’t ignore that obligation.’
I blinked. ‘Hall?’ I asked.
‘It’s what we call portal locations,’ Maxwell explained. ‘Roscoe is the guardian of this hall. I’m just the back up.’
‘Does it bother you to pose as a café worker just to look after the portal?’
Maxwell grinned. ‘Oh no. The portal was here first and Roscoe was allocated to be its guardian. He chose to make it a café as our cover and we love it. We import all of the cakes and sandwiches rather than making them ourselves, but we love making coffee and chatting with people. It’s a great way to get intel.’
He was right: I’d just told him all about Amber having a rogue witch. Oops. Thankfully, I hadn’t told him anything about Emory. I’d have to be careful what I said when I was in here in the future. But at least Maxwell had given me the heads up. And it had made me remember that just because I liked someone, it didn’t mean that they were trustworthy. Like Stone.
I gave Maxwell a finger wave and headed out. It was too early to drive to Maidenhead, but I’d make a few calls.
First I called Mo to check on his progress. He confirmed that Reggie’s laptop was next on his list; he’d get it to me by tomorrow. The delay chafed but it couldn’t be helped. Next I tugged out my own laptop and sent emails to a few clients, noting down the time I spent so I could invoice for it.
I gave Hes a call and was relieved when she sounded upbeat and cheerful. We discussed a couple of accounts that she was going to bill for me, then she told me she’d had a call from a Mr Emory and she’d given him my mobile number. I commented dryly that a heads up would have been nice – perhaps then I wouldn’t have made the idiotic comment about dragon claws and phones.
With Emory fresh in my mind, I plugged in the Maidenhead address and set off. I tried to tell myself that the curling in my gut wasn’t caused by excitement. Yeah, right.
Chapter 12
We were in the depths of winter, only a few weeks away from Christmas, so meeting Emory at 4p.m. meant that the sun was just dipping below the horizon. Last time I’d been here it had been at 9p.m. on the summer solstice, and the sun had been in much the same position.
This time, however, I drove up the gravel pathway rather than approaching by boat. The white, castellated house looked much the same, except now it was a hive of activity. A number of large vans were being loaded up. As I drew up, I saw several bubble-wrapped portraits being carried onto them, followed by a chaise longue. The dragon had barely been dead a day and the vultures had already descended. I tried not to be too judgemental but a part of me was shocked; Conrad’s body was barely cold.
As I climbed out and beeped my car locked, I looked around for the vicious attack dogs that I remembered from my last visit. Instead, I saw three unicorns corralled on the front lawn. I frowned. That didn’t make any sense. I had first-hand experience of how vicious they could be; if they’d been here when I last visited, how had I got past them? Maybe the dragon had upgraded his security following my visit – it had been pretty lax.
The double wooden doors into the house were flung open. I hadn’t used the front door last time I was here, I’d slunk in the back way like a thief in the night because – well, I was a thief in the night. This time I used the front door.
As I walked in, I surveyed the scene. There were probably ten removal men, all dressed from head to toe in black. They looked more like thieves than I did. They were carting objects away from each room, some packed in boxes, some bubble wrapped. Everything was being taken.
At the bottom of the wide staircase a man was directing the operation. He was tall, broad and muscular. His black hair had a side parting and his dark eyebrows framed emerald-green eyes. A five o’clock shadow whiskered his chiselled chin. There were no triangles adorning his forehead. He wasn’t in dragon form, but I recognised the unforgettable eyes: it was Emory. He was dressed in corporate smart, and his black shirt and suit looked like they’d cost more than my car. My suit trousers and white shirt were off the rack but I refused to feel self-conscious about it.
‘Jinx,’ he greeted me. It was hard to reconcile the man before me with the eighteen-foot-tall ruby-red dragon I’d seen before. Gone were the spikes and the teeth that could rip you in half. I had to work at reminding myself that he was far more than just the handsome man before me.
‘Emory,’ I responded. He hadn’t done the whole ‘my honour to meet you’ routine, so I cut it too. Technically we’d met a few times before, albeit in passing. And, of course, there was the time we’d worked together to get to Mrs H before she murdered Nate and Hes. Good times.
‘Follow me,’ he ordered brusquely. Despite his tone, I followed; well, he was the client.
He led me upstairs into one of the rooms. I was sure it would be Bedroom Seven. Bingo. Behind the ordinary-looking door was a huge floor-to-ceiling vault. It was open and more men were removing the contents. One of them was sitting at the security console. He was a huge hulking man, all muscle and bulk, and I wouldn’t have wanted to meet him in a dark alley. He was ginger; I wondered if playground bullying had contributed to his desire to develop a stacked physique.
‘Tom, leave us,’ Emory directed.
‘Yes, Prime,’ the man at the desk responded. He gave a sharp whistle and the others followed him out.
The security console had a number of screens, each showing four camera angles. There were a lot of cameras. Huh: I hadn’t spotted any cameras when I was here last time.
Emory read my thoughts. ‘The cameras are enchanted so they’re not usually seen,’ he explained. He pulled out a DVD labelled Incident 2019. I winced. I knew what I was going to see next.
He put the disk into a slot on the computer hard drive and pressed play. He moved the footage forward and clicked on one of the camera angles; he was clearly familiar with the footage. The screen showed the lawn outside. The images were grainy, but I could clearly see Gato stalking forward in full Battle Cat mode. He had a bunch of sausages in his mouth, which he laid down at the unicorns’ clawed feet.
As the unicorns turned their backs towards me, I raced across the lawn to the kitchen door. What on earth? I vividly remembered a pack of vicious dogs, not unicorns. I guessed that my mind, then still in the Common, had substituted something that made sense.
Emory clicked onto another camera angle and I watched as I entered the kitchen and carefully closed the door. I leaned against it, closed my eyes in relief and then… I disappeared.
‘What?’ I exclaimed involuntarily, moving forwards to examine the screen. I frowned and turned to Emory, ‘Someone’s tampered with the disc,’ I accused.
He looked at me with interest. ‘No, they haven’t.’ He fast-forwarded the footage and took us to another room. A vase lifted off the table it was standing on and then winked out of existence. He changed camera angles again and I watched, gaping with shock, as a figurine tumbled off a table of its own volition before it was swept under a side table.
‘Huh,’ I said intelligently. I blinked several times.
‘You’re invisible,’ Emory explained.
‘It does look that way,’ I agreed reluctantly. ‘But how?’
He shrugged. ‘With the IR, I imagine.’
I shook my head. ‘I was only introduced about eight weeks ago. This was nearly two years ago.’
Emory dragged the footage back to the opening sequence and paused it as I leaned against the inside of the kitchen door. He dragged the mouse up to the triangle in the middle of my forehead. ‘And how do you explain that, Miss Sharp?’
I sat down. There it was, in black and white. I’d been in the Other before I’d been introduced, and I had no memory of it. Someone had cleared my mind.
Suddenly I remembered Wilf’s odd appearance at my house that night, and something clicked into place. I hauled out my phone and rang him.
‘Jinx!’ he greeted me happily. ‘How is the calf?’
‘You cleared my mind!’ I snapped accusingly.
There was a beat of silence. ‘Not me,’ Wilf said softly. ‘You called me after the Maidenhead job, Gato had portalled you to protect you, as I’d hoped he would.’
‘That’s why you insisted I take Gato?’
‘Yes. I knew Gato was a hell hound and I suspected he’d bonded with you. That could only happen if you were Other. Despite all the indications, you didn’t seem to have been introduced, and you were oblivious to our realm. I set about trying to get you into the Other realm, but only a Connection inspector or detective could introduce you and I didn’t have one to hand. You could also be introduced if your life was in danger. So, I needed to put you in danger. I lost the vase to Conrad and sent you on a retrieval job.’
