Green-Eyed Envy (25 page)

I didn’t share any of that with Penn. No sense upsetting him even further, and I didn’t want to risk him warning off his aunt before I could confront her myself. So I settled for distracting him instead.

“This cutting-edge security you installed. Can it verify you remained here in the apartment all morning?”

Excitement lit his features and he nodded. “Yes, it can! There’s video surveillance not just in the hallway, but at each of the windows and the common areas as well. The security logs will also show I activated the system and didn’t deactivate it except for when I let you two in.”

Well,
that
was one less thing to worry about. Though Mr. Adonis was exceptionally lucky he’d had the damned security systems installed or he’d be heading back to the PD with me whether I believed in him or not. I couldn’t appear to favor him over other potential suspects just because he was Scott’s cousin.
Especially
because he was Scott’s cousin.

“I’ll need copies of the video and security logs before I go. And, Penn, don’t make me tell you again. Until this case is solved, neither you nor Harper is to be alone for a
moment
. Not to pop downstairs to check the mail. Not to sneak outside for a cigarette. Not even to buy wedding presents for each other. I don’t care how rich or powerful you are, I don’t care how safe you
think
you are, this killer specializes in taking out wealthy arrogant bastards who believe they can handle themselves. Don’t risk your life—and Harper’s—because you think you’re somehow special. The morgue’s full of people who thought that. Are we clear?”

“I—yes, we’re clear. And you’re right. Gods, I’ve been a fool.”

Not to mention ridiculously lucky. I slipped the Ziploc bag into the folder and eyed the nearest clock. Exactly ten minutes had passed since we’d left Trinity, which meant—

Penn’s body stiffened when a soft chime echoed through the apartment. “Someone just stepped off the elevator.” He hurried to a small, discreetly mounted plasma screen on the wall between the living room and kitchen. “It’s just my brother. Oh, and your partner.”

Punctual to a fault. One of the things I loved most about Trinity. Hey,
one
of us had to have that quality.

She also didn’t skip a beat when Scott and I dragged her out of the apartment before she really set foot in it—after one final admonition to Penn to keep his lips zipped and stay with someone else at all times. Of course, I had to tweak her nose on the elevator ride to the lobby.

“Tariq seemed
really
disappointed you left with us so soon.”

Her expression was decidedly smug when she leaned back against the elevator wall and drawled, “Not
too
disappointed, sugar, seeing as how we have a date for the weekend after the wedding.”

I burst into laughter and held my hand out to Scott. After grumbling a bit, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a twenty, and slapped it into my palm. Trinity and I exchanged a grin. “Well, at least you made the
smart
bet, Riss.”

“Actually, we both knew you’d wrap him around your pretty little finger. Scott just figured Tariq would make you as Sierra’s assistant and ask you to be his date for the wedding.”

She thrust her head into the air and
hrmphed
. “As
if
. I’ve not yet blown my cover when on assignment, and I sure don’t plan to start now. Besides, people generally see what they expect to, and he had no cause to think mousy Miss Jones would show up here.”

Oh so true about people seeing what they expect to see. One of the reasons arcanes had been able to hide their presence from the vast majority of mortalkind for so many millennia.

I filled Trinity in on what we’d learned from Penn and my next plan of attack: confronting Aunt Rashida about the parchment paper used for the death threat. Rashida was a smart—and rich—cookie, though, so I wanted to arm myself with as much ammo as possible before skipping into the lion’s den.

“I’m gonna e-mail Mac the list of magazines Mahina’s friend divined from the death threat letters and have him do some digging. If Rashida has subscriptions to most of those magazines . . . ”

A grin spread over Trinity’s face. “Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.” She got that sneaky look I loved so much as another thought occurred to her. “If she’s the one who sent that threat in, she doesn’t know the reporter failed to save the envelope before handing it over to police.”

And
that
was further proof why I kept her around. “Not too shabby yourself, Trin. If she
somehow
gets the impression we retrieved, say, a hair from when she sealed the envelope and can easily make a DNA match once we get a warrant . . . ”

“She may get flustered enough to let something slip.”

Scott shook his head, looking torn between admiring and appalled. “Remind me to never get on your dynamic duo’s bad side.”

In unison, she and I replied, “We don’t
have
a bad side.”

To which he rolled his eyes and said, “Of course you don’t.”

Smart man.

 

 

WHEN MY BABY BROTHER CAME THROUGH for me, he really
came through
. Not only did his techno magic prove Rashida Banoub possessed a subscription for
every single one
of the magazines on the diviner’s list, she also paid dues to a radical organization associated with the one political magazine on the list,
Divergence
. The organization, Citizens for Arcane Divergence (the CAD), seemed to have a twofold mission: separation of the arcane races from mortalkind and, still further, separation of the arcane species one from another. The CAD sought to establish an arcane nation here on earth—something that just wasn’t happening without another war—and taught a tenet favored by one of the mundane world’s biggest villains: racial purity. They abhorred intermarriage not just with mortals, but between the arcane races themselves. Finding out that Rashida Banoub was a card-carrying member came as absolutely no surprise after her tirade the night of Harper and her nephew’s engagement party.

Scott and I left the safe house bright and early the next morning for Rashida’s high-rise apartment in one of the oldest, poshest buildings in the Underbelly. Technically, it wasn’t even
in
the Belly—the citizens of this haute couture neighborhood had seceded from the Belly years ago and “modestly” named it Avalon, after the Isle of the Blessed associated with Arthurian legend. Which I’m sure sits really well with the residents of the
true
Avalon, one of the few Otherrealms still alive and kicking.

Rashida’s butler—I kid you not—ushered us into the penthouse suite, down an artwork-bedecked hallway, and into the
salon
where his employer waited for us. That’s what he called it, too, the “saah-lon.” Scott and I pointedly avoided meeting gazes since bursting into laughter would have ruined the grim atmosphere we were going for. Our hostess stood when we entered the room, dismissing the butler with a nod and finally deigning to look directly at us. Scott earned a slightly curled lip before she turned her gaze my way. She recognized me (as myself) right off the bat; but in Boston, most arcanes did.

“To what do I owe this unexpected—pleasure, Chief Holloway?”

Man, she did the ice-queen routine better than Ekaterina—and that was saying something. “I’m sure you’re familiar with the investigation coinciding with your nephew’s upcoming nuptials, Miss Banoub.” I called her “Miss” rather than “Ms.” deliberately—she’d recently gone through a nasty divorce—to see if I could get a rise out of her. Disappointingly, her poker face would have done Lady Gaga proud.

“Of course. Such a horrible thing going on right now. An arcane serial killer.” She shook her head. “You never saw such things before the War.”

Translation: before we high-and-mighty arcanes started mingling with the riffraff mortals. Like immortals didn’t engage in countless bloodthirsty and violent acts long before we started traveling the fairy paths to the mortal realm.

I forced any sign of derision out of my voice while withdrawing the plastic baggie from its folder once more. “The War changed many things for us all, Miss Banoub. Now then, I won’t waste your valuable time by beating around the bush.” She glanced blankly at the bag dangling from my hands until I turned the text in her direction. Recognition sparked in her face for a moment, but she shoved it aside in favor of that winning poker face and met my eyes silently. I gave a small smile. “I must say I’m shocked to learn that a lady of your class and breeding knows some of the filthy language used in this letter.”

Frost painted her words even colder than her pinched face. “I’m sure I don’t know
what
you’re talking about, Chief Holloway.”

Derision dripped from my lips this time. “Of
course
you don’t, Miss Banoub.” I tossed the Ziploc bag to Scott, taking note of the way her eyes warily followed its sharp arc from me to him. Papers rustled as I drew two of them from the folder and let them flutter to the antique table resting between her and me. They landed slightly skewed but face up and clearly legible. The first contained a typewritten account of how we traced the parchment paper from the death threat to her—something that had her lips tightening and her fingers trembling. The second paper was our coup de grâce, however: the diviner’s list of magazines used to spell out the death threat along with the corresponding list of Rashida’s magazine subscriptions—all of which appeared on the first as well.

I had to give her credit. Despite growing noticeably pale after skimming the second paper, she showed little other emotion; she simply raised her gaze to defiantly meet mine.

“The jury will find your subscription to
Divergence
and your membership in the CAD
most
incriminating, Miss Banoub.”

Her body jerked as her ice-queen façade cracked ever so slightly. “Jury? What in Anubis’s name are you talking about?”

“The jury for your trial, of course.” I dropped all pretense of courtesy, letting the crackle of Rage color my voice. “You see,
Rashida
, my partner is applying for a search warrant right now based on the evidence in front of you. A warrant for your DNA. Once we link your DNA to a hair found on the envelope that threat was sent in, the DA will have
no
trouble indicting you for terroristic threats against a protected class. From there, it will be a short hop, skip, and jump to linking you to whatever goons you hired to carry out the killings. Cue the second jury for your murder trial.”

“M-murder?” She sagged onto the sofa behind her much the way her nephew did just the day before. Her hand settled atop her chest as she fought for breath, seemingly on the verge of a breakdown. “I—you—no, you don’t understand!”

“Understand what, Rashida? Why you murdered those poor, upstanding males whose only crime was to be from a different race than your own?”

“No!” she shouted, cheeks flushing with sudden color. “I would
never
murder anyone, much less good boys like those who—who . . . ” Her voice trailed away.

I blinked as comprehension flooded my brain. “Who date within their own species as the gods intended?”

She either failed to catch or didn’t care about the sarcasm in my voice on the last few words. “Exactly.
If
I were going to hurt anyone in this unsavory situation, it would be that feline bitch, not one of her unfortunate ex-lovers.”

My lips twitched at the juxtaposition of “feline bitch,” though I managed to fight back an outright chuckle. “So you expect me to believe you
aren’t
against the other arcane races as a whole?”

“I’m not!” she insisted, sweeping a hand toward the list of magazines in front of her. “
Divergence
caters to arcane races of
every
stripe, Chief Holloway, and the CAD boasts members of every species as well. We stand for racial pride and purity, not hatred or genocide.”

Scott spoke up for the first time, waving the note. “It doesn’t get much more hate-filled than this nasty piece of work right here.”

Rashida refused to glance his way or acknowledge him directly, simply locking her gaze on mine and launching into another theoretical. “
If
I admitted to sending that death threat—which I am most certainly not doing at this point—my motive would have been passionate conviction in my beliefs. A far cry from the jealous rage necessary to systematically butcher Cat after Cat.”

She
did
have a point. Her ice-queen persona seemed to suggest someone far more inclined to sending in vitriolic—but supposedly anonymous—death threats rather than engaging in torture and murder. Even if one degree removed through a hired assassin. Not that I’d say that to her.

My lips twisted in a saccharine smile. “It doesn’t take jealous rage to hire a psychopath who delights in his bloody work,
Ms.
Banoub.” I pretended to consult my notes. “Or should I call you Mrs. Nassar?”

Her fingers twitched on the desk before her, but she managed to keep her face remarkably composed. “As I’m sure you’re perfectly aware,
Chief
Holloway, my divorce was finalized just last month.”

I affected a surprised expression. “Oh, I do beg your pardon. I hadn’t realized your fourth marriage ended so soon.”

“Fifth,” she gritted out. “Which I’m sure you are equally aware of.” Her fingers continued trembling as she removed them from the desk and crossed her arms over her chest. “Since you’ve brought up such a distasteful subject, let me point out the flaw in your theory that I hired some sort of assassin simply to come between my nephew and his . . . fiancée.”

“Oh? What would that be?”

“I couldn’t afford to hire a nickel-and-dime hit man from the dregs of the Belly, much less the sort it would take to pull off a series of perfectly executed murders, Inspector.”

Scott and I shared disbelieving looks before I turned mine back on her. “Excuse me if I find that impossibly hard to believe, considering our current surroundings. Considering the family you come from.”