city of dragons 03 - fire magic (7 page)

“I’m not sure that he was killed by a slayer,” said Detective Dirk.

Yeah, so she was here to try to catch me off guard. She thought I killed Alastair. I had to admit that I had a hell of a motive, didn’t I? But I’d be damned if I was going to let this lady question me in my robe. I smiled over Becky. “Well, detective, now’s not a great time. Maybe give me an hour or two for breakfast and a shower?”

“You want me to come back in a few hours?”

“I’ll meet you at the station if that’s more convenient,” I said in an overly sweet voice. That would give me the chance to find Lachlan and ask him what the hell was going on.

* * *

“She’s from Baltimore,” said Lachlan who was fiddling with a pen at his desk. His desk was generally completely empty. I didn’t even know he had a pen. “Apparently in Baltimore, they have an entire department for magical creatures, and we don’t, even though we’re like the magical-creature capital of the world. So, anyway, it’s no big deal for Baltimore to loan out a magical creature cop. No one told me that they were bringing her in. I got blindsided when she showed up this morning asking for my alibi the night Alastair disappeared.”

“Alibi?” I said. “She suspects you?”

“You gotta admit, I’ve got a hell of a motive.” Lachlan tapped the pen against the desk twice in rapid succession. Then he turned it over and tapped the other end.

“So, we’re both suspects,” I said.

“When I went to the captain,” said Lachlan, “he gave me this bullshit about how you and I have no business investigating the case, because we’re too personally involved.”

“Since when is there a case?” I said. “I thought it was a slayer.”

“I don’t know,” said Lachlan. “I tried to access the files on Alastair, and it’s above my security clearance now.”

“So… what does this mean?”

“Well, it’s probably nothing.” Lachlan tapped the pen against the desk. “It’s a murder investigation, and I guess they have to—”

“Ms. Caspian,” interrupted the smooth voice of Detective Dirk. “You’re here early.”

I stood up and whirled to face her. “Hi there, detective.”

Lachlan stood up too. He nodded at her. “Dirk.”

She gave him a thin-lipped smile. “Flint.”

I took a deep breath. Wow, you could cut the tension here with a knife.

“Well,” said Dirk, “shall we find somewhere more private to chat then?”

“You don’t need to take her to an interrogation room,” said Lachlan.

Dirk raised her eyebrows. “No?”

“No, I’m sure you don’t need to use any kind of intimidation tactics like that,” said Lachlan. His tone was friendly. His expression was ice. “Besides, I’m betting this is just a formality, covering your bases, am I right?”

She narrowed her eyes. “I know we’ve only just met, Flint, so you wouldn’t have any idea what kind of detective I am, but let me assure you that I don’t waste my time on things I consider a formality. I have serious questions for Ms. Caspian about the case.”

“Well, then, ask away,” he said. “You won’t object to my being present, will you?”

Dirk’s face twitched. “You know, everyone around here thinks you’re hot stuff, Flint.”

“Hot stuff?” he said. “Is this 1985?”

“You’re so good at getting those confessions, and you caught the serial killer, and you’ve closed four cases since you got here, and oh, how they do go on.”

Lachlan folded his arms over his chest. “They hate me around here. What are you talking about?”

“I just don’t think anyone’s that good at everything,” she said.

“Except you, of course,” he said.

They stared at each other, neither blinking.

I licked my lips. This wasn’t good. Maybe Lachlan shouldn’t antagonize the person who might be thinking that I was guilty of murder.

Lachlan tapped his fingers against his elbow, keeping his arms crossed. “You ever read
The Great Gatsby
?”

“Sure,” said Dirk.

Lachlan looked taken aback. No one had ever read the books he brought up. “Well, then you know that Jay Gatsby comes waltzing into East Egg, where he doesn’t belong—”

“Gatsby lives in West Egg,” countered Dirk. “It’s a big deal for Daisy and the others to cross over to his big, garish parties. Do you have some sort of point?”

Lachlan’s jaw twitched. He took a deep breath, started to speak.

“Maybe,” cut in Dirk, “you were going to say that Gatsby didn’t belong, no matter how hard he tried, and that I don’t belong here either?”

Lachlan pressed his lips together. He looked down at his feet and started to laugh. “Maybe something like that.”

“That usually work for you? Throwing people off guard that way?”

He raised his gaze to look at her. “Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t.”

“Oh, you’re cool as a cucumber, Flint,” she said. She eyed me. “What about you? You his cool girlfriend?”

“Cool as a cucumber?” I repeated. “Who says that?”

Her lips twisted into a smile. “Alastair Cooper. Where were you the night he went missing?”

I looked at Lachlan.

He put his hands in his pockets, stared at the floor.

“Burning his house down,” I said. “Well, his sister’s house. That was where he had me held captive, see. He had these magical bracelets that kept me in the house, so I burned down the house, and I was free.”

“You filed sexual assault charges against Mr. Cooper?” she asked me.

“You know she did,” Lachlan interjected. “There a reason you’re bringing that up?”

“Why were you in Mr. Cooper’s house if he had assaulted you?”

“I told you,” I said. “He was keeping me captive with magic.”

She nodded.

“You don’t believe me?” I said.

“She’s trying to rile you up,” said Lachlan. “See if your story shifts under pressure.”

Dirk’s smile widened. She stared at Lachlan but addressed her next question to me. “So, while you were burning the house down, what was Mr. Cooper doing?”

“He tried to stop me. He was using magic to get water out of the bay,” I said. “I tackled him. Then the heat in the house made the glass shatter in one of the windows, and he ran from me and dove into the bay. I assumed that he was shifting into a dragon, and that he was going to fight me. But I never saw him again.”

“How convenient,” said Dirk, still eyeing Lachlan.

“That’s definitely one way to look at it,” he said. “It was absolutely convenient that Penny was abducted and raped and beaten, that she got away but was then held captive
again
. Very convenient.”

Dirk squared her shoulders. “I’m not saying that Mr. Cooper was God’s gift to humanity, Flint. But I do know the law, and the law says that he deserved a chance at a trial and punishment by the state, not someone taking the law into his own hands, even if he was trying to avenge his girlfriend.”

Lachlan laughed. “Well, that was very subtly put,” he said sarcastically.

“Wasn’t meant to be subtle,” she said. She looked us both over. “Ms. Caspian, your therapist says you have an unnatural amount of guilt regarding Mr. Cooper.”

“What?” I said. Shirley was always going on about that, wasn’t she? Asking me about guilt, pounding that to death. But I had thought whatever I said to Shirley was confidential. I was never going back to that stupid therapist. “She just volunteered that to you?”

“I have ways of getting information,” said Dirk. “I know about the two of you. I know a lot about both of you.”

Lachlan shook his head. “You’re playing the wrong angles here, Dirk.”

“Am I?” She gave us a smug smile. “Don’t leave town.” She turned and walked away.

Lachlan glowered after her.

I chewed on my lip. I remembered Lachlan, his voice low and serious, standing outside Alastair’s door, promising Alastair that if he had hurt me, Lachlan would kill him.

CHAPTER NINE

“Be honest with me,” I said, staring across the booth at Lachlan. “Did you do it?” We were having lunch together at The Pink Flamingo.

Lachlan set down his blood, which he had in a to-go cup and was sucking through an opaque straw. He had issues with being a vampire. “Did you do it?”

“Me?” I said, pointing at my chest.

He shrugged.

“I asked first,” I said.

“How could I have done it, Penny?” he said. “While you were burning his house down, I was with Felicity and Connor and Jensen. You can check with them if you think I’m lying.”

“I never accused you of lying,” I said.

“And then, I spent every waking second with you for weeks afterward.”

I furrowed my brow. He was right. We were attached at the hip right afterward. It was only when I found out that I was pregnant and he said we should take some healthy space that we’d spent any time away from each other. “Well,” I said, considering. “You could have left while I was sleeping.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You think?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “You said that you were going to kill him. I heard you. You came looking for me, the first time that Alastair captured me, and you stood at the doorway, and you said that if he’d hurt me, you were going to kill him.”

He sucked blood through his straw and didn’t respond.

“And I could tell you were serious,” I said in a quiet voice.

“I was,” he said. “I would have killed him if I had the chance. But I didn’t get the chance, and some slayer got him instead.”

“So, you didn’t do it? You’re denying it?”

“I’m denying it.” He fiddled with his straw. “Are you denying it?”

“Would I be asking you if you killed him if I killed him?”

He leaned back in the booth. “That’s a good point.”

I unwrapped my silverware and smoothed out the napkin they’d been rolled in. It wouldn’t lie flat.

“But maybe you’re just asking me that to throw me off suspecting you.”

“Lachlan!” I made a face at him. “I didn’t kill him.”

“No one can verify your story about Alastair jumping into the bay, you know. You could have killed him in that house.”

“I didn’t,” I said. “Don’t you think I would have told you if he was dead?”

“Probably,” he said. “But you know how I’ve reacted in the past when you’ve killed in self-defense, and maybe you decided that it was better if you didn’t tell me.”

“Oh, geez, be serious.”

“I am,” he said. “You would know that it would put me in an awkward situation, knowing that you killed him, what with the fact that I’m a police detective. So, you kept it from me for my own good.”

“Lachlan, I told you about both of the vampires I had to kill, and you didn’t rat me out either time—”

“They weren’t particularly high profile,” he said. “Not like Alastair.”

“Well, if you’re theory was right, then killing him would have been self-defense, so why would I hide it?”

He pressed his lips together.

“I didn’t kill him,” I said. “You believe me, right?”

He surveyed me for several seconds. “Yeah, I believe you. If he was dead, you wouldn’t have been such a mess afterward. You were genuinely worried he was coming back at any minute.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I wouldn’t keep something like that from you, Lachlan.”

He let out a little laugh. It had a harsh edge. “Oh, yeah, you’d never hide anything important from me.”

I swallowed. Why had he said that?

“There is something you’re not telling me, isn’t there, Penny?” He leaned forward. “If it’s not about that night, then what is it?”

I went back to my napkin, trying vainly to press it flat. “You’re being silly. There’s nothing that I’m hiding.”

He didn’t respond.

I looked up at him.

He was giving me a stony look. He picked up his cup and sucked through his straw, still staring at me.

“Lachlan,” I said. “You have to believe me.”

He set down his cup. “Okay. Sure.”

“Good.”

“And you believe me too, right? You don’t think I killed Alastair?”

“Of course not,” I said.

* * *

“Penny!” called a voice.

I turned. Lachlan and I were leaving the restaurant, halfway out the door, and the hot, muggy July air was pumping itself into the air conditioning.

Ophelia was coming for me, waving.

Lachlan let the door shut, closing out the heat. He gave her a half-wave.

She stopped in front of us, giving him a once-over that wasn’t exactly approving. “Hello, detective.”

“Good afternoon, Ophelia,” said Lachlan. “So nice to see you again.”

She just pressed her lips together. “Can I talk to you, Penny?”

“Sure,” I said, waiting.

She eyed Lachlan. “You told him about those Order people?”

Lachlan raised his eyebrows. “What?”

“Oh,” I said, turning to him. “Um, so there are these weird people out there who might be interested in our blood bond, or they might have just had a drake problem that I took care of, I don’t know.”

“A drake problem? That you ‘took care of’?”

I nodded.

He folded his arms over his chest. “Were we or were we not just having a conversation about you keeping things from me?”

I cringed. “Well, I just… it never really came up, and…”

He shook his head.

Ophelia raised her eyebrows at me. “You two want a moment alone?”

“Did you find something out?” I asked her.

She shook her head. “Not really. Some people in my order have heard of them, and they say that they do imprison dangerous magical creatures, but that they’re very private. They said that they weren’t the kind of people you’d want to be on the wrong side of.”

“Great,” I muttered. “Well, I don’t think I’m on their bad side. I think they really did need my help.”

“What was it you helped them do?” said Lachlan.

“Feral drakes,” I said.

“Killing,” he said. “It was killing.”

“The drakes were brain damaged,” I said. “If you could have seen them, you wouldn’t call it that. It was like putting down rabid beasts.”

Lachlan fished his sunglasses out of his jacket and slammed them on his face. “I’m going back to work.”

“Lachlan, wait,” I said.