city of dragons 03 - fire magic (16 page)

* * *

“He knows how to shoot a bow and arrows,” I said into the phone.

“Penny?” said Lachlan.

“Richard Remington,” I said.

“You’re calling me about Richard Remington?”

“I found a newspaper. There’s a picture. He won a tournament. It’s him. You were right. Get over here now. Pick me up. We have to go see him and put the screws to him about this.”

“Get over there? I thought you wanted me to go far, far away,” he said.

For a minute, I was confused. Then I remembered our argument. “Oh, that. Look, I’m sorry. You take all the time you need to adjust to the possibility of maybe being the father of the baby. But let’s focus on the case, or it won’t matter, because I’ll have the baby in Roxbone, and they’ll take it away from me, and I’ll lose my maternal rights and neither of us will ever see it again.”

He didn’t respond.

“Listen, Lachlan, I’m hormonal—”

“Fine,” he said brusquely. “Let’s focus on the case.”

“Okay,” I said. “Well, Richard Remington is a champion archer. So, considering he’s our only suspect right now—unless Bertram’s alibi didn’t check out again?”

“No,” said Lachlan. “His lover confirmed his whereabouts. Unless he’s lying, that is.”

“So, we’re basically down to Richard Remington, then.”

“And the sister. Elizabeth.”

“I don’t think it’s her.”

“Well, you didn’t think it was Anthony Barnes, either, and it was.”

I couldn’t believe he’d just brought that up. “You coming to get me or what?”

He sighed. “Yeah, I’ll be there in fifteen minutes or so.”

“Good.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“I cannot believe that you two are back here,” said Richard, who hadn’t even let us get up to the front door this time. He had seen us coming, and headed us off at the edge of his property line. “I’m beginning to think this is harassment. Now, near as I can tell, you’re not actually working with the authorities, so—”

I held up the newspaper and pointed at it. “You’re an archery champion.”

Richard sputtered. “So? What does that have to do with anything?”

“Alastair was killed with an arrow,” said Lachlan.

“So, you said, and I said that it was the work of a slayer, and then you said—”

“Do you really expect us to believe that you did not know that Alastair was dead?” said Lachlan.

“I
didn’t
know,” said Richard. “The last time I saw him he was alive and well. Oh, all right, maybe not so much well, because his house was on fire, but he was walking.”

“Walking?” I said. “What are you talking about?”

Richard sighed. “Listen, I’ll admit that when I heard the news that Alastair was responsible for the death of my boy, I… I lost my head a little bit. I don’t know what I intended to do, but I got in my car, and I drove over to the house where he was staying. I didn’t intend to kill him, but maybe I wanted to slug him. Or scream at him. Maybe I wouldn’t have done anything. Anyway, it didn’t matter, because the house was burning, and I saw him climbing up out of the bay, dripping water, and…”

“You saw him climb out of the bay?” I said. “In human form?”

“Yes,” said Richard. “He was wearing sopping pajamas, and he looked like a drowned rat, and I didn’t want it to be like that. If I’d gone and hit him then, it would have been kicking him when he was down. I wanted to be the one to take him down a peg or two, I didn’t want to beat up some pathetic, wet sad sack whose house was burning.”

“He wasn’t in dragon form?” I said. “He was walking?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Well,” said Lachlan, “then where did he go? What happened to him?”

“I don’t know,” said Richard. “I got in my car and left. I went home, and I found my wife, and we held each other and cried over our son, and I figured he got away scot-free. That is, until you came by to tell me he was dead.” He looked us both over. “Was he found in dragon form?”

“I can’t tell you that, sir,” said Lachlan.

“And you still don’t believe it was a slayer?”

Lachlan blew out an audible breath. “Thank you very much for your time, Mr. Remington.”

“Oh, fuck you very much as well,” said Richard, turning on his heel and heading back for his house.

* * *

“If he’s telling the truth, that throws everything off,” I said from the passenger’s seat of the car.

Lachlan was driving, staring straight ahead and barely acknowledging me. “I guess.”

“It does,” I said. “Because we’ve been assuming that Alastair shifted into a dragon and was killed by an arrow, and that’s why he never came after me. It’s the only thing that made any sense. But if what Richard is saying is true, then he didn’t even shift. What the hell? Why not?”

Lachlan didn’t speak.

I clenched my hands in fists. “Why didn’t Alastair come after me, then? Was he waiting to regroup? He wouldn’t have just run off without doing something to me. It makes no sense.”

Lachlan was still quiet.

“Do you think Richard’s lying? Maybe he’s making this all up. Maybe he
is
the one who killed Alastair, and that’s why he’s saying it.” I considered. “But if he killed Alastair, then how did Alastair end up in that dealer’s cooler?”

Still nothing from Lachlan.

I turned to look at him.

His profile was perfect and gorgeous. He was so attractive.

“Are you not speaking to me or something?” I said.

He sighed. “You want me to act as if the last conversation we had didn’t happen?”

“Well, I certainly don’t want to rehash all that again,” I said.

He let out a derisive snort.

“Look, let’s just put it all on hold, okay?” I said. “We don’t know who the father of the baby is. We’ll wait until the DNA test comes back, which will only be a couple weeks, and then we can revisit all of it then.”

“That part doesn’t really matter, though, does it?” he said. “Because no matter what, I don’t think I can do it. I don’t think I can be a father to anyone ever again.”

“Fine,” I said. “You’re not anyone’s father. Forget it. I won’t even do the test.”

“No, do it,” he said. “Of course you have to do it.”

I felt strongly like crying again. Sometimes Lachlan was sort of horrible. I got that he’d been through a lot and everything, but he acted like a complete bastard on occasion.

I didn’t cry. I took deep breaths and tried to redirect myself to the case. The case was what was important. Get ourselves out of jail. Find Alastair’s killer. That was all I’d think about. And I needed Lachlan’s help for that, so even if he was being awful, I’d have to put up with him.

Lachlan put on his blinker and pulled into a turning lane.

“Hey,” I said. “Where are we going?”

“To see Elizabeth Cooper,” he said. “If we’re on the road anyway, we might as well check her out.”

* * *

“I can’t believe you would ask me such a thing,” said Elizabeth, perched on the pastel blue couch of her new house. Actually, it was Alastair’s house, the one that had been unfinished the last time I’d been here, back when I suspected Alastair of the Dragon Slasher killings. Apparently, in the ensuing months, Elizabeth’d had this house finished and furnished.

“Because you don’t have a good answer?” I said, my voice caustic.

“Because I was driving,” she said. “You know very well that I had a very disturbing call from Alastair that night. I was worried, so I got in my car, and I drove here as fast as I could. But when I got here, my house was on fire and Alastair was gone. I never heard from him again.”

I did remember the call, because I was actually the one who’d called her.

“It doesn’t matter, anyway,” said Lachlan. “There’s a possibility he wasn’t killed that night.”

“Well, that was the last time I spoke to him,” said Elizabeth, glaring at me. “Really, Penny, I can’t understand why you had to do what you did.”

“You think I killed him?” I said. “Because I didn’t.”

“No, I know you didn’t,” she said, scoffing. “As if a woman could kill her own mate, no matter how badly they were fighting. Impossible.”

“Right,” I deadpanned. “That’s exactly it. I was still desperately in love with him.”

She sighed. “Oh, I’m not saying the two of you didn’t have problems. No, I know that it isn’t easy to be married.”

“Yes,” I said. “You have so much experience.”

Elizabeth flinched. The fact that she had yet to find her own mate was a touchy subject. All her friends were off and married by now. She considered herself too old to be running around partying, but there were unmated dragons of a hundred and twenty snorting cocaine off the stomachs of strippers, enjoying their freedom. She was simply too proper to let loose. She gave me a look that would curdle milk. “I would have handled it better than you.”

“Yes, I’m sure you would have.” I glared at her.

Lachlan cleared his throat. “Maybe we could get back on track.”

Elizabeth turned on him. “You. You’re the magic-mutt that stole my brother’s mate.”

It was Lachlan’s turn to get sarcastic. “Yes, that’s me. Dragged her off by her hair.”

Elizabeth pressed her lips together. She didn’t appreciate that.

“We’re here,” said Lachlan, “because we’re trying to figure out who murdered your brother.”

“But a slayer killed him, right?” said Elizabeth.

“Did someone contact you to tell you that your brother was dead?” said Lachlan. “Someone from the police department?”

“They did,” she said. “Given the scandal surrounding him, I did my best to keep it all quiet.”

“Keep it quiet?” I said. “Keep it from the Remington family?”

“Well, them most of all,” she said. “After all, it’s absolutely ludicrous to think that Alastair actually killed that boy—”

“He admitted it to me,” I said. “He bragged about it.”

“He wouldn’t do such a thing.” She shook her head.

Well, at least now we had confirmation that Richard Remington hadn’t actually known about his son’s death. He was looking less and less likely to be the murderer.

Elizabeth picked up a pillow off the couch and began squeezing it with both hands. “You had him terrified. Alastair was going to have to leave the country because of your stupid accusations. He was going to have to go on the run. And it was all false accusations. And then you come here, and you accuse
me
of killing him, well… I don’t believe it. I would never hurt my own brother. I loved him. No matter what he did, I loved him, and to even
think
I could hurt him is absolutely ridiculous.”

Lachlan leaned forward. “To be clear, you don’t have anyone who can confirm your whereabouts the night that Alastair disappeared?”

“I don’t need that,” she said. “Because I didn’t hurt him. And you’re lucky.” She pointed at me. “The insurance picked up the tab for that house you burned to the ground, or I would have sued the hell out of you.”

“That how you financed this place?” I gestured around. “I thought this was Alastair’s.”

“Oh, he gave it to me,” she said. “After he lost interest in trying to win you back, he didn’t need the house to woo you with, so he let me have it. He was just going to take you by force, he said, and spirit you back to Connecticut until you came to your senses.”

A tremor went through me. “And you were okay with that? He told you he was going to abduct me, going to… to rape me, and you didn’t even—”

“He was your mate,” she snarled. “You belonged with him. Ask any dragon and they’ll tell you the same thing.”

I was shaking all over. I got to my feet. “Fuck you, Elizabeth,” I whispered. And then I turned on my heel and stalked out.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I walked out of the house, and I walked past Lachlan’s car, and I walked all the way to the end of the driveway. There was a stream across the road from the house. It wound underneath the road, through a pipe, and next to Alastair’s house. But I didn’t want to be near his stupid house. So I walked across the road and over to the stream. I waded into it.

It wasn’t very deep, but I could see that it widened up ahead.

I splashed through the water, yanking off my clothes until I could dive under the water. And then I shifted into a dragon.

I rose from the water, spreading my wings, flapping hard and taking to the air.

I soared into the clouds.

Below me, the city looked small and crowded, a cluster of gleaming metal and wood jutting up against the ocean, which gleamed even brighter, grey-blue and reflecting the sunlight.

I flew around for a long time. In dragon form, I felt strong and free. None of the other stuff mattered. I could simply stay in my dragon form and escape everything.

Up here, I hadn’t been abused or violated by Alastair, and my baby wasn’t some strange hybrid, and Lachlan wasn’t acting like an asshole, and Elizabeth wasn’t throwing it all in my face. Up here, everything was better.

But eventually, as the sun began to sink in the horizon, I grew tired.

I knew I couldn’t stay in the sky forever.

I flew back over my hotel and plunged into the surf behind it, shifting back into human form. I trudged naked back up the back stairs of my apartment. Some people saw me, but the beach was mostly empty at that point. It was nearly dark, after all.

When I opened my back door, I heard something from the front of the apartment.

I tensed, filling myself up with magic that I was ready to throw at whoever might want to hurt me. I remembered that this had all started when I’d come back from a shift, that I’d found Alastair in my kitchen, waiting for me.

Alastair is dead,
I reminded myself.

And then Lachlan was hurrying down the hallway, pulling me into his arms. “Penny,” he muttered into my hair. “Penny, Jesus, I didn’t know what happened to you.”

I almost pushed him away, but there was something about being close to him that felt right. I was exhausted, I realized. The flight had taken a lot out of me. Instead, I wrapped my arms around his waist, and I leaned into him.