Fire Song (City of Dragons) (24 page)

“What?” Alastair turned to Lachlan, angry and confused. “What are you talking about?”

“Sophia was the first,” Lachlan said. “We found her body second, but she’d been in the water longer. Chronologically, she was killed first. So, here’s what I think. I think that something happened that ticked you off. Sophia screwed up, didn’t she?”

Alastair’s face twitched.

“Am I right?” Lachlan’s voice lowered. “She made you crazy angry, because of something she did. If she wouldn’t have done it, you wouldn’t have gotten so angry. You controlled yourself as best you could, but in the end, you couldn’t help yourself. She deserved it.”

Alastair swallowed.

“You ever have to hit Sophia?” said Lachlan. “Just to teach her a lesson?”

“I’m not saying a word to you,” said Alastair, his voice barely controlled.

“Oh, come on,” said Lachlan. “We both know how it is. Women sometimes do things that make you insane. And she can get in your face. She can slap you. But if you slap her back, well, that’s not allowed. How is that fair?”

“Whatever I did,” said Alastair. “I didn’t kill her.”

“I don’t think you meant to,” said Lachlan. “You only meant to show her that what she’d done was serious, so she’d never do it again. You just went too far.”

“No,” said Alastair.

“You lost control,” hissed Lachlan.

Alastair shook his head. “I don’t lose control.”

“You did,” Lachlan said. “And then once Sophia was dead, you needed a replacement. A younger, more malleable replacement. Elena Watson.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“But she needed to be taught a lesson too, and then you needed another girl. This one would work out, would be exactly what you needed. But Dahlia wasn’t right either, was she?”

“I never even met those other girls.”

“We both know what you did,” said Lachlan. “It’s just a matter of proving it. And believe me, Mr. Cooper, I will find the proof. And I’ll take great pleasure in putting you away.”

“There’s no proof to find, because I didn’t do it.” Alastair’s face was red. He was starting to shake. “I think you need to leave, detective.”

“I’m onto you.” Lachlan pointed at him.

“Get out,” said Alastair. Then he turned to me. “Penny, you stay.”

“No,” I whispered.

“Stay,” he said. “You know you miss me. You’re even jealous. That means there’s still something between us. I still love you. You still love me.”

“No.” I shook my head. But part of me wanted to stay. Wanted my hands on him, my lips on him, our bodies pressed close together. And that part of myself frightened me. I knew I was stronger than that part, but I just wanted it to go away. As long as it was still there, I had to fight it, and as long as I had to fight, there was always a chance I would lose the fight.

“Penny.” He reached out a hand for me.

I turned and fled, running out of the room.

And I didn’t stop running until I was out of the house and inside Lachlan’s car.

I slammed the door and locked it, and I sat there shaking until Lachlan came back.

When he did, he got in and took his sunglasses out of his jacket. “You okay?”

I didn’t say anything.

He paused, midway into putting his sunglasses on his face. He lowered them and surveyed me. “I thought you said you could handle it.”

“I can,” I said. “But it’s hard is all. I thought it would be like other hard things, where it’s hard at first, but then after you conquer it a few times, it gets easier. But it’s not like that at all. It’s not easier.”

He sat back in his seat, sucking in a slow breath. “I’m sorry.”

I didn’t say anything.

He put on his sunglasses. He started the car.

We pulled away from Alastair’s house, and the more distance we put between him and me, the better I felt.

*

Lachlan surveyed his beer.

We were sitting next to each other at the bar in Duffy’s Pub and Grill, because I’d decided to use my gift card. I didn’t think Connor would approve, considering that Lachlan and I were just talking about work, but it was kind of like having a social life. Anyway, I didn’t know who else I would have taken out for a drink.

Maybe, back before Jensen entered the picture, I might have brought Felicity, but not these days. She was always busy.

“So, Alastair’s still at the top of my list,” said Lachlan.

“It sure sounded like it,” I said. “You lit into him like he did it.”

“I thought maybe it might make him crack,” said Lachlan. “But it didn’t. Guy’s too smart for that kind of thing.”

“What did you say to him after I left?” I said.

“Not much,” said Lachlan. “More of the same, really. Just trying to get him to give me something. But he just kept insisting that he didn’t even know the other girls, and that he didn’t want Sophia dead. He said he liked her a lot.”

“But you were right that he was hitting her. The way he reacted—”

“There’s no way to prove that either, though,” said Lachlan.

“Maybe she told someone. Maybe we go back to that friend—”

“She wouldn’t have,” said Lachlan. “Women don’t talk about it to friends.” He took a drink of beer. “You didn’t, did you?”

He was right. I’d been embarrassed, and I’d been too far under Alastair’s thumb. He had convinced me that all of it was my fault, and the last thing I wanted was to be berated by my friends. Not only that, he hadn’t liked any of my friends. He’d tried to keep me away from them, and he’d mostly succeeded. With the exception of Felicity, of course. No one could separate me from Felicity.

“Besides,” said Lachlan. “It wouldn’t matter, because the fact that he beat her wouldn’t prove that he killed her.”

“No, but it would suggest that he was capable, don’t you think?”

“That’s why we’re looking into him,” said Lachlan. “No, we need something tangible. We need to find the kill site. We need the murder weapon. So, where would he be doing this? In that house we’ve visited?”

“Seems too conspicuous,” I said. “There are so many houses nearby. And apparently his sister’s living there with him. How would he hide the girls there?”

“We should look into other properties, then,” said Lachlan. “Does he have another house in the area?”

“No, he hates it here. He hates the beach. I don’t even know why he came here.”

“Well, that’s something to look into,” said Lachlan. “Actually, it might help us eliminate other suspects. If we can discover that any one of them doesn’t have a place to use to keep the girls captive and kill them, then we’d cross that suspect off. And if I go to my captain with only a few suspects instead of four, that might be progress enough for him to have faith in my capabilities to solve this case.”

“Makes sense,” I said.

He sighed. “As much as I hate to say it, that might be the best we can do for now. I’d love to find some way to nail Alastair to the wall. But maybe we just eliminate everyone else first. Maybe in that time away, we’ll think of something we haven’t. Some way to prove he’s guilty.”

I took a drink of my cranberry and vodka. “We will. We’ll think of something.”

Lachlan drained the rest of his beer.

We were quiet.

“Uh, thanks for the drink,” he said.

“I had the gift card,” I said. “So, it’s not a a big deal.”

“Well, you used it on me,” he said. “I appreciate it. I haven’t… I’ve been focusing on work since I moved here. I haven’t really made much time to do anything, uh, social.”

“Yeah, well, I guess this is kind of work related, anyway,” I said.

“Right,” he said. He fiddled with this empty bottle. “Anyway, I’m finished, so I guess I’ll head out.”

“No, stay! You should get another beer,” I said. “My treat, of course.”

“I can afford to buy myself another beer,” he said.

“No, of course you can,” I said. “It’s only that if I’m insisting you stay, then I feel like I should pay.”

“You’re insisting, hmm?” He grinned at me.

I looked into my drink, feeling myself blush for some reason. What was that about? This wasn’t anything like the way I felt for Alastair. It wasn’t all-encompassing and intense. So, that meant that it couldn’t be… What was even the word? Romantic? It
definitely
wasn’t that.

He signaled the bartender and ordered another drink.

I finished mine and got one too.

“So,” he said, “if we were to talk about something that wasn’t work related, something social, what would it be?”

“Um…” I had no idea. Why had he asked me that? “Well, I guess we would talk about our interests or something.”

“Like hobbies? You have hobbies? Macrame, maybe? Personally, I build model trains.”

“Really?” I said, taken aback.

“No, not really,” he said.

“Oh,” I said. “You were making a joke.”

“Trying to,” he said. “Failing, by the sounds of it.”

I smiled.

“Little rusty at that.” He took a drink of his beer.

“I don’t really have hobbies,” I said. “Even when I was a dragon—”

“You’re still a dragon.”

I blushed again. “I know that. I guess I just… sometimes I don’t feel like I am. It’s like I’m a different person than I used to be.”

“I know that feeling,” he said. “Have you ever read Kafka’s
The Metamorphosis
?”

“No,” I said. “But that’s that book about the guy who turns into a cockroach, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” he said. “His life is horrible, and then he descends into—”

“Just because I don’t feel like a dragon doesn’t mean I turned into a cockroach.”

“I wasn’t saying that. I wasn’t talking about you.”

“You think you’re a cockroach?”

“Maybe more like a mosquito,” he said. “Mosquitoes drink blood.”

“Oh, right,” I said. “You do drink blood, then? I never see you do it. But I guess you must, or else you’d just…” Die. But I found I didn’t want to say that aloud.

He looked up at the ceiling. “Sometimes I wonder why I don’t stop drinking it. Just fade away.”

“Lachlan—”

“Partly it’s because it wouldn’t be fading away,” he said. “It’s not like that. If I don’t drink the blood, the gunshot wound that killed me reopens. It’s painful.”

“I don’t think you should be thinking about killing yourself.”

“No?” He took another drink and smiled at me with mock brightness. “I have so much to live for, after all.”

“That’s not…” I drew in breath. “That’s not the reason we keep on going. Because of having things to live for.”

“You don’t think so?” he said.

“No. Even if things feel terrible, even if you think you have no one who cares about you—”

“That’s not what makes me feel I have nothing to live for,” he said. “It’s having no one to care
about
. No one to care
for
. There’s a difference. When there are people depending on you, no matter how rough things are, you keep going for those people. That’s probably why you collect strays.”

“I wish you wouldn’t call them that.” I pressed my lips together in a firm line.

He laughed a little. “I don’t know what it is you think of me. Maybe you think that because you know all my secrets, you’ve uncovered some ooey gooey layer deep inside, and that now I’m sweet and cuddly like a stuffed animal with fangs. But you’re wrong. I don’t know why I get up in the morning, why I keep going, but it’s something to do with solving murders. I’m good at it, and it takes up a lot of my time, and that way I don’t have to think…” He stood up. “Never mind.” He picked up his beer and gulped it down. “I don’t think I’m the kind of person who can be social, Penny. Sorry.” He dug out a few crumpled dollar bills and set them on the bar.

“Wait,” I said. “I shouldn’t have brought up—”

“It’s not your fault,” he said. “It’s mine. You…” He shook his head again. His voice lowered so that it was soft and lilting. “I admire you. You’ve been through hell—”

“Nothing like what you went through.”

“What?” He laughed brusquely. “
Worse
than what I went through. But there’s still a… a
light
in you. A fire in you.” He leaned close. “It’s in your blood. And when your blood was in
me
…”

A slow, sweet ache started to travel over my core. I remembered the way it had felt when he had his mouth on my wrist. My mouth felt dry.

He blinked, shaking himself. “I’m leaving,” he said, and his voice was ragged. “I think it’s better if I stay away from you if we’re not working.” He started for the door.

I got up and I stopped him, taking him by the arm. “Lachlan, wait.”

He gazed into my eyes.

I gazed back, searching in them for that hollow look I’d seen before. But it had been replaced with something else. Hunger. It frightened me. It sent thrills through me.