Bonds of Justice (14 page)

“No. I—” She cut herself off as her phone began to beep. “It must be something critical. I ordered no interruptions.” Picking up the handset, she said, “Yes?”

Max glanced at Sophia, caught by the way a sudden sliver of sunlight glimmered off the rich ebony silk of her hair. He could play with the soft strands for hours, intended to do exactly that once he’d coaxed his J into bed.

“Don’t disturb anything. Don’t enter.”

Nikita’s words had his attention whiplashing back to her. “What is it?”

She hung up. “It seems you will no longer have to satisfy yourself with cold case data. My international financial advisor, Edward Chan, has just been found dead.”

 

This time, Max thought, there was no question of it being murder. Either the people behind the acts were getting impatient, or this was a message. “Sophia, you recording?”

“Yes.” She’d clipped a small wireless camera over her ear, curving the lens in front of her left eye. “Go.”

Having barred anyone else from entering, Max took his time looking over the scene, which happened to be on the second-highest floor of the Duncan building, right below Nikita’s penthouse. The murdered man lay on the otherwise undisturbed bed, his legs hanging over the side. His pants were slate gray, his belt sedate black leather, his white shirt stained like a Rorschach painting in red.

“No bruises, no defensive marks on his hands.” The only evidence of violence was the bowie knife thrust hilt deep in his sternum—solid, thick, and Max guessed, with a wicked curved edge. The kind of knife you might use to bring down game or skin the pelt off a downed animal. “Looks like a single blow, directly to the heart.”

Sophia continued to film as they spoke. “Either the victim allowed his attacker close, or the killer used Tk to punch the blade home.”

“Tk—telekinesis?” That would explain how the knife had ended up buried so deep—though a burst of cold rage might well have sufficed to give the killer enough strength.

“Yes. I’ll go through the personnel files”—Sophia moved to his left, capturing images of the body from every angle—“find out how many telekinetics the Councilor has in her organization.”

“Nikita said Chan got in from Cairo last night,” Max murmured, “but that he had a number of informal meetings scheduled here in his home office this morning.” Which meant someone had known his schedule well enough to time the murder when Chan would’ve been alone and vulnerable.

As she shifted position again, the clean purity of Sophia’s scent swept over him, providing a much-needed antidote to the ugliness of death. Psy, human, or changeling, Max thought, murder always had the same putrid stench. And the dead always screamed for the same justice. Edward Chan was one of Max’s now, just like every single one of Bonner’s lost victims.

“It was an individual he trusted,” Sophia said. “That’s the only way a telepath of his strength—8 on the Gradient—could’ve been taken by surprise.”

Raising his gaze from Edward Chan’s cold flesh, Max put his hands on his hips, pushing back his jacket. “One problem though—even the most perfectly aimed stab wound wouldn’t have caused death instantaneously and a telepath could get out an emergency message within seconds, if not less.” Unlike with the Vale scene, everything here suggested a quick, brutal operation. No time to drug the victim into compliance. “Why didn’t he call for help?”

“Turn his head a fraction.”

“What’re you looking for?” He saw nothing remarkable except for a couple of droplets of blood below the—
Damn
. “Telepathic blow.”

“If someone hit him with a hard enough one at the same instant that he was stabbed, while his attention was splintered by shock, it would’ve torn through his shields, destroyed his mind.”

“Cold, calculated.” A one-two hit to ensure success.

“Max.” Sophia’s voice was almost soundless.

Spine prickling with awareness, he followed her gaze to the bathroom mirror—just barely visible through the half-open door on the other side of the bedroom.

The single word was written in blood that had dripped onto the white porcelain of the sink. But the accusation was still very legible.

Nikita handed Max a data crystal as soon as they returned to her office. “I’ve downloaded the security footage for you—it covers the period since Edward’s return from Cairo.”

Max slipped it into his pocket. “Are private comm conversations backed up on your main servers? The killer dropped a corrosive acid in the computronic ‘brain’ of the system in the victim’s room.” And they’d found neither a cell phone, nor an organizer.

“Edward’s entire file was wiped using his own security override,” Nikita said, the words succinct. “The murderer must’ve torn it from his mind.”

The callous nature of it all might’ve shocked other men, but Max knew that no matter the race, some were always born with a capacity for evil. “We thought we might have a pattern of deaths—each of your other advisors was hit before a major deal. Does Chan fit?”

Nikita was shaking her head before he finished speaking. “Edward had a lot of things in play but nothing close to completion.”

Frustrated at the sudden end to that line of inquiry, Max focused on another. “Sophia says the victim was high profile enough that he was known outside business circles?”

A quick nod that sent her glossy hair swinging. “It was part of his job description to wine and dine human and changeling businessmen and women. As a result, he occasionally found himself in the society pages.”

Max felt Sophia glance at him with those amazing, perceptive eyes, knew she’d made the same cognitive leap he had. “Would it be fair to say he’d made some personal connections within those groups?”

Nikita took a moment to think about it. “Not in the human or changeling sense. However, certain individuals had come to have a measure of trust in him because of a shared history of successful deals.”

“An unquantifiable loss,” Sophia said. “One that you will feel the effect of for some time.”

“Yes.” Nikita looked at Sophia for a long, quiet moment before returning her attention to Max. “I’m beginning to see the pattern it appears you already have, Detective.”

“So my next question won’t come as a surprise—who doesn’t like you getting into bed with the other races?” Edward Chan, Max was certain, had only been considered a traitor by association. It was Councilor Nikita Duncan who was the key.

“That,” Nikita said, “is something I’ll have to think about.”

Sophia spoke into the small pause. “I’ve heard rumors of a group called Pure Psy—the members seem to believe that contact with the other races is tainting the purity of our Silence.”

“Yes. They’ve begun to gain a measure of support in the Net.” Nikita returned to her desk. “I have some additional data on them that I’m sending you now—please brief the detective, Ms. Russo.”

It was a dismissal from a woman who was used to obedience, but Max wasn’t finished. “Whoever’s behind this, he or she is getting bolder—they’re going to come directly after you sooner rather than later.”

“I’m protected. That’s why Edward and the others are dead—the assassin went for the next best thing.” A razor of a glance. “You’d do well to protect yourself. You are, after all, only human.”

 

Sophia didn’t say anything to Max until they were in the car heading out from the Duncan building. “Does it bother you?”

“What?”

“Being thought of as less because of your humanity?” It bothered her a great deal. Max was worth far more than any other man she’d ever met.

But he shook his head, his lips curved in a distinctly satisfied smile. “Nikita felt the need to point out my humanity because she’s been forced into a position where she has to rely on a measly human. That has to bite.”

“It’s an irony, is it not?” Sophia murmured, thinking of connections, of mothers and fathers. “She’s one of the most powerful people in the world, her net worth in the billions—and yet she doesn’t have a single person in her life whom she can trust not to thrust a knife into her back.”

“She made her choices.” Max had no sympathy for a woman who’d disowned her child. He knew exactly how bad that had to have hurt Sascha.

When Sophia didn’t say anything, he glanced at her. “What about you, Sophie? Who do you trust?”

Her answer rocked through him. “You’re the only person I’ve ever told of my parents’ rejection of me.”

“Strange, isn’t it?” His voice came out harsh, raw with emotion.

“What?”

“That the two people Nikita chose to work this case are both people whose mothers threw them away.” It couldn’t be a coincidence, not with the resources Nikita had at her disposal.

Sophia’s organizer flashed at that moment. “Nikita’s lab techs have done a first-look analysis of the forensic data—the blood on the mirror was the victim’s, the DNA and prints in the public areas belong to either Chan or Nikita’s other employees, all of which can be explained by the meetings he held in his home office. No unexplained or suspicious DNA in the bedroom.”

“That was fast.”

Sophia’s answer was practical—and said a thousand things. “She’s a Councilor.”

“Hmm.” Pulling to a stop in front of a small, bustling restaurant, he turned off the engine. “It’s almost half past two. You can tell me about Pure Psy over lunch.” From what he’d heard so far, the group sat in diametric opposition to Nikita’s growing business alliances with the other races—but he needed to know more about their tactics to judge whether murder might be part of their arsenal.

Sophia didn’t move to step out of the car. “We can’t risk being overheard.”

“Takeout it is, then.” He wanted nothing more than to be alone with her, to take the next step in this strange courtship of theirs. “What do you want?”

“It matters little to me.”

Max had already slid back his door, but now he paused and looked at her, realizing how far she’d retreated within herself, her expression so remote he knew it was a front, meant to hide the vulnerable truth. “Damn. I’m sorry.” Every protective instinct he had, awakened to quiet, intense life. “I didn’t think about it.”

“It’s alright.” Those night-violet eyes held a surprise that rubbed those same instincts very much the wrong way. “It’s not something you need to think about.”

That she’d say that after the unspoken depth of this connection between them made him want to reach forward and tug her into a hard, hot kiss—remind her of the truth in a way she couldn’t ignore. But he couldn’t touch her, not yet. “Yeah,” he said, “I do.” Because slowly, inexorably, she was becoming his . . . to watch over, to know.

A wash of shadows in that stunning gaze, a silent indication that she’d heard the message behind the words. “Thank you.”

Such a polite statement hiding so much emotion. “Don’t worry,” he said with a slow smile that made the polite mask slip, her expression flickering with suspicion, “I intend to take my payment in kisses.”

Exiting the car to her sharply indrawn breath, he headed into the restaurant. The buzz of human and changeling energy surrounded him from every side—voices rose and fell in animated conversation, the odd burst of laughter punctuating the hum. A woman brushed by him as she left, throwing him an apologetic glance over her shoulder. Another patron almost ran into him as he got off a stool around the island that surrounded the chefs in their open-air kitchen.

Ignoring what for him were distractions, but would for Sophia be a small slice of hell, Max placed his order using the built-in pad on the counter.

The waitress put the order in front of him less than five minutes later. “You look like a cop.”

He raised an eyebrow as he scanned his debit card over the reader.

Laughing, she leaned forward, her cleavage displayed to cheerful advantage. “We get a lot in here—there’s an Enforcement station two blocks over.”

“You’ve developed excellent radar.”

“You’re not from around here—I can hear the accent.” Taking something from her pocket, she slid it across the counter with a smile. “For you.”

Picking it up when she turned to deliver another order, he saw that it was a small personal card made out of Japanese
washi
, bearing the name Keiko Nakamura and a cell phone code.

“Lucky man,” a morose male said from his left. “I’ve been trying to get her to go out for a coffee for months.” Envy was a thorny vine around every word.

“I’m off the market.” It had been true since the instant he first laid eyes on Sophia Russo, whether he’d known it at the time or not.

A gleam of interest. “Can I have the card then?”

“Sorry.” Max dropped it into the takeout bag. “Keep trying.”

Keiko’s rejected suitor scowled into his udon soup as Max walked away, his mind already on a woman with eyes full of secrets dark and painful.
My Sophia
, he thought, and it was a vow.

 

Sophia lifted the takeout containers from the bag as Max went to grab the plates from his kitchen area. When she saw the small white card, she assumed it held the number of the restaurant. Then her eye fell on the text. “Who’s Keiko Nakamura?”

“What?” Max walked out with the plates. “Oh, don’t worry about that. It’s going in the recycling.” Putting down the plates on the table, he plucked the card out of her hand and placed it in the bin marked for the recycling chute.

But Sophia couldn’t let the point go. “You met her at the restaurant?”

“Yes.” Placing two glasses of water on the table, he pulled out a chair with a spare efficiency that struck her as quintessentially male. “Waitress.”