city of dragons 02 - fire storm (22 page)

Easily snapped.

We did it together, Lachlan and me—we were one mind, one body. I was inside him and he was inside me. I could feel his concern for me, his worry. I could feel how deeply he cared for me. And he was terrified that he would drink too much of my blood.

Before, the red blot of his blood lust had consumed us.

Now I felt that red stain at the edge of our consciousness. I could feel Lachlan’s fear of it, how he shrank from it.

But he didn’t need to worry. We were bigger than that.

I showed him, had us reach out and push against it.

The redness turned white. Turned light blue. Ebbed away like the low tide.

And then he disattached, pulled his teeth out of my neck.

And we were separate again. Penny and Lachlan.

But, somehow, I could still feel the connection there, an undercurrent to everything.

We were both out of breath.

“What the hell?” said Lachlan.

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

He seized my hand and together we went through the door and out of Alastair’s house. We took off running down over the bank, through the tall grasses, until we were out of sight of Alastair.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Lachlan’s mouth on mine. His lips, soft and insistent. His tongue, pressing against me, wanting to penetrate—

I pushed him away.

He looked surprised.

We were standing next to his car. We’d just got there, just gotten away, and he’d thrown his arms around me and kissed me, and—

“You okay?” he said.

“You startled me.” I reached for him. “I’m fine.” I leaned in to kiss him again.

And he kissed me back, but it was different. He was being careful with me. He pulled back. “What did he do to you?”

I shook my head. “It wasn’t that bad. And I… I don’t want to think about it. I just want to pretend it didn’t happen.”

“He abducted you. There’s no pretending it didn’t happen.”

“Don’t start in on filing another report or whatever,” I said. “Alastair’s too powerful. It won’t make any difference.”

Lachlan scuffed his toe against the ground. “We should go to the hospital.”

“What? All I need to do is shift. And I don’t even need to do that right away, because he barely hurt me. I’m a little sore in a few places, but other than that, it’s not a big deal. So, let’s do something. Let’s, um, let’s follow up on some of the suspects. Maybe that slayer. Maybe somebody saw her at Andy’s bar. Let’s go talk to Andy.”

Lachlan took his sunglasses out of his jacket pocket and started playing with the hinges. “You’re really okay?”

“I’m okay.”

“You don’t need…” He let out a breath. “You were with him overnight. He said suggestive things to you, and if there’s evidence, you know, on your body of… of…”

“I’m fine,” I said again. “He touched me, and I was naked, but then he hit the back of my head, and I passed out, and I don’t think he… I think he stopped. I’m fine.” I started for the car.

He caught me by the shoulder. “Stopped?”

I yanked away from him.

“Fuck,” he muttered. He shoved his sunglasses back inside his jacket. “You know, just because you have that bond with him, it doesn’t mean you consented to him. So, it’s a
crime
, Penny, and—”

“Don’t,” I said. I was going to start crying if he kept going, and I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t cry. If I cried, then I might lose it, seriously lose it. “It wasn’t that bad,” I said softly. “It’s been worse before. Much worse. And if they did a test at the hospital, like you’re talking about, they might find…
you
too.”

His face twitched.

“Because it wasn’t like you and I were using condoms or anything, and sperm stays alive for days—”

“I’m a vampire, I don’t have—”

“Well, it’s not like you ejaculated air.” I hugged myself. “Can we stop talking about this please?”

He took a breath. There was a hitch in it.

“Let’s go to Andy’s,” I said. “Let’s ask about the slayer.”

“No. That’s insane. You’re in shock,” he said.

“So? Maybe that can help us. I’ll be really focused and productive, and we’ll find the killer, and then something good will have come out of all of this.”

He scratched the back of his neck. “The last time we talked about the case, you were convinced that Alastair was the killer.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so anymore. When I talked to him about the surf board, he had an explanation for everything. And it just, it would be too convenient. We don’t get that lucky to find a way to lock him up, you know?”

“Lucky?” He pointed at me. “What he did to you, he can get locked up for
that
, but you don’t want to provide evidence for it.”

“I…” I dragged a hand over my face. “I think maybe he stopped. So there’s nothing there. And if the police department knows you and I are having sex, then will they let us keep working together?”

“Whether or not he…” His face twisted. He turned away from me. “You were assaulted, regardless of the extent of it. If you were… close to him, there could be DNA,” he said in a hoarse voice.

“Let’s go to Andy’s,” I said. “Please. And then, afterward, maybe I can think about this again.”

He glanced at me. “You really think I could pretend like this didn’t happen?”

I clenched my hands into fists. “You can’t force me to go to the hospital, Lachlan.”

He held up both his hands in surrender. “Yeah, okay. We’ll go to Andy’s.” And his voice was constricted.

* * *

“This woman,” I said, showing Andy a picture. “Clarke Gannon.”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” said Andy. “Clarke.”

Lachlan hung back behind me, staring at his shoes. He’d refused to say a word since we’d come into Andy’s, so I’d been forced to take control of the interview. Luckily, I was prepared. I’d hunted this picture of Clarke down on social media and everything.

“You know her?” I said.

“She comes in a lot,” said Andy. “Usually wrangling her sister. She’s a wild one, that sister.”

“How do you mean?” I said.

“Oh, you know, she’s just always causing trouble. Always doing something. I think that night, the night Fletcher disappeared, her sister was dancing on the tables. I couldn’t get her down, get her to stop. Only person Gina ever listens to is Clarke.”

“Wait,” said Lachlan.

We both turned to look at him.

“Gina Gannon,” he said. “Of course.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Of course?”

He shook his head.

I waited, but when it became clear that Lachlan wasn’t going to say anything else, I turned back to Andy. “So, was she here that night, then? Clarke?”

“I can’t say I remember seeing her specifically, but I do know that someone got Gina down off those tables, so I’d say it’s a good bet that Clarke was here at some point.”

* * *

“Gina Gannon’s kind of a joke at the station,” said Lachlan, sitting inside his car, turning the keys over in his hands. “She’s always getting arrested for things. Everything from prostitution to drug dealing to drunk driving. You name it, Gina Gannon does it. It’s a name all the cops know. She’s part of the system, if you know what I mean.”

“So, does that mean anything?” I said.

He sighed. “Well, she’s a drake.”

“That’s motive,” I said. “Clarke Gannon kills dragons to feed her sister and keep her from going nuts. I bet she has her hands full, if that girl is as strung out as you say. Gina probably forgets to eat all the time.”

“Is that true?” said Lachlan. “If drakes don’t eat meat, do they really rage out and start ripping people to shreds?”

“I don’t know, to be honest,” I said. “But I don’t think Clarke would want to find out, either. Maybe Clarke thought Gina was on the edge that night. Maybe she thought Gina was nearly to whatever the rage-out point is. And so maybe Clarke followed Alastair and Fletcher home from Andy’s. And since Fletcher was the weaker of the two, she killed him.”

“It’s a theory,” said Lachlan, nodding. “But let’s get back to going to the hospital.”

“You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

He swallowed. “You might not know how it works, so I want to explain it to you.”

“I know how it works,” I said.

“If you go to the hospital and request a…” He fiddled with the keys. “A rape kit, then—”

“Lachlan, why don’t we go and see if we can track down Clarke at Happy Harry’s or something. Corner her on this.”

“I know where she lives, actually,” he said. “I got her address after the first time we spoke to her. But you’re trying to avoid talking about this. Because you’re in denial about what happened to you, and… God help me, Penny, I almost want to just ignore it too. Because thinking about him and you…”

“You have her address? So, let’s go there. Let’s talk to her. Maybe we could lean on her, get her to confess—”

“Penny, please.” He tightened his fist around the keys. “Listen to me. You go and request the kit. And they do the examination. But that doesn’t mean you have to press charges. It only means that you have the evidence on file if you choose to. You may want to forget it now, because you’re in shock, but this man abducted you from your home and kept you somewhere forcefully. You couldn’t leave. He bruised you. He did God-knows-what to you. When you can think clearly, you’re going to remember all that, and you’re going to want him locked up. And you will not have the chance to collect that evidence again.”

I licked my lips. I didn’t respond.

“Now, if you don’t want me to be there, I’ll call Felicity,” he said. “But I think you owe yourself the option of pressing charges.”

I sucked in a breath. I was starting to shake.

“We need to go there now,” he said.

“I think he stopped,” I said in a tiny voice.

“So?” said Lachlan. “So what? You said he had his hands on you, that you weren’t wearing clothes, and you think it makes it better if he didn’t… God
damn
it.” He threw open the door to the car and got out.

I scrunched down in the passenger’s seat while he swore and kicked gravel, sending it spraying into the road.

He got back inside. “On second thought,” he said in an even voice, “we’ll just go back to his house. I’m going to put a bullet between his eyes.” He fitted the keys into the ignition.

I put a hand on his arm. “We can go to the hospital.”

“No, it doesn’t matter. I’m going to kill him. I promised him I would kill him—”

“I don’t know if there’s anything there, but if you think that I should go, then I will.” I touched his face. “I don’t think you could kill him. He’s got crazy magic right now, and I don’t know why, but—”

“So not only did he do this to you, but now you’re telling me I’m not
man
enough to stop him?” Lachlan’s voice cracked.

And then I did start crying. The sobs just washed over me. I reached for him.

He pulled me close, his strong arms wrapping around me. He just held me.

And I cried and cried and cried.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The examination helped somehow. It was clinical, and it was done by a doctor, and it made me feel less like I’d been damaged deep inside somewhere and more like I’d been wounded and that it could all be treated with the proper application of cotton swabs.

The doctor was professional, but she was also gentle and kind to me, and that made it easier.

She asked me questions about my recent sexual history and about what I remembered Alastair doing, and she said she couldn’t make any conclusive statements about penetration, so we’d have to rely on the results of the samples she took to know for sure.

Even if there was nothing there, she said that finding hair or skin cells on other parts of my body would be effective. Any fibers from things in Alastair’s house—like sheets or carpets or things like that—could be helpful. She also insisted on collecting samples from under my nails, though, even though I told her I hadn’t scratched him. I had been compelled not to fight, so I hadn’t.

She said it was okay not to have fought. “You did exactly the right thing. The most important thing in an assault situation is to get out alive.”

I tried to tell her it wasn’t like that. This wasn’t some stranger who’d broken into my apartment. It was my ex-husband. And he’d done things like this before, but I’d never reported them.

And she only said. “Good for you for doing it this time. I know this isn’t easy, but you’re doing a great job, and it’s almost over.”

And it was.

Afterward, I found Lachlan, who was pacing in the waiting room. I’d had the option of allowing him to be with me during the procedure, but I’d opted against it, only because I thought it would be too hard on him.

I’d had to speak in some detail about things that Alastair had done, and I remembered the way Lachlan had reacted earlier, kicking the gravel and talking about killing Alastair. I didn’t want to make things harder on Lachlan than they already were.

Honestly, I didn’t know how to act around him. I wanted to pull our typical camaraderie over us like a blanket. Just wrap us up in solving this case and pretend like nothing was wrong.

But I’d tried that earlier, and while it might work for me, it wasn’t going to work for him.

So, I came out into the waiting room and took his hand and smiled at him. “Do we go to the station and report this now?”

“How are you?” he said.

“Okay,” I said, smiling at him. “It wasn’t as bad as I thought. Honestly, when I was pregnant, I had more invasive exams.”

He cringed.

“Sorry,” I said. “Too much information?”

“You know you can tell me anything.”

I looked around the waiting room. “Let’s not talk here.”

He nodded.

We went back to his car, but we didn’t get inside. We stood in the parking lot. We were still surrounded by cars and people moving around, but it felt more private here. Maybe it was because we were outside.