Pink Princess Fairytini (Fairy Files #2) (17 page)

“I had them installed the last time we had a jealous husband threatening us, even though he didn’t take it all the way to court. I keep everything from up to three months back, just in case. Unless, you think someone might have tampered with the older footage? I keep it in my office, but …”

Frost shrugged. “Maybe, but no one’s good enough to plant images of your employee having sex with the mayor’s wife in the club if it never happened. So, I’m with the lawyer, the mayor’s got nothing.”

“Nothing except an opportunity to smear the reputation of my club. It doesn’t have to be true for people to buy into it.”

“You’re being sued, Chloe?” Buddy asked.

I nodded and used the last three minutes of our cab ride to fill Buddy in as much as I could.

Buddy swore as we stood in front of Bedazzled. “I’d heard your club was closed, but I thought it was some minor issue with the health department. If I’d had any idea—”

“It’s okay,” I said, placing a hand on his arm. “There’s nothing you could have done anyway.”

“We’ll see about that,” Buddy said. “I’ve got friends in all kinds of places.”

“Please,” I said. “I don’t want you to go to any trouble, you’ve got enough on your plate and—”

“Let’s just focus on this case for now,” Frost said, as he led us into the club.

I don’t hate strip clubs. I would never work in one myself, but if you want to work in one or you enjoy being a patron in one, I respect that choice as long as you are respectful to those working there. Still, being a woman, dressed for a party, and walking into the crowd of loud, rough people, all thinking any woman there is theirs to ogle, is not the most comfortable feeling. Luckily, Frost stopped to talk to the bouncer before I had to step farther into the club.

“Yeah,” the big guy, who looked like he should be in a superhero movie, said. “I know Livvy. Good girl. She went home a couple of hours ago.”

“Did she go with anyone?” Frost asked.

The bouncer nodded. “Yeah, she finishes her shift at the same time as Nate. He’s a bouncer, too. He always gives her a lift home.”

“She didn’t make it home,” Frost said. “Can you give me Nate’s information?”

The bouncer nodded and pulled out his phone. He gave Frost what he needed, his concern for Livvy evident.

“Shit,” Frost said. “I’d really hoped we’d find her here working an extra shift. We should call Harvey in case we need back up with this Nate.”

“He said he’s working a major case,” I said.

Frost nodded. “He’ll send us whoever’s available.” He put the phone to his ear and spoke to Harvey.

“Come on,” Frost said. “He’ll meet us there.”

I tried to be glad that I was about to see Harvey and not wonder if he might have lied to me about the seriousness of his case in order to avoid me. I’d given him a lot of new information about me, and I could understand him needing some space to process it. I just wished he’d been honest with me.

Nate’s place was only a few blocks from the apartment Livvy shared with her grandmother, but it was significantly nicer. Nate made decent money as a bouncer, or he had a good second job.

We took the elevator up three floors to Nate’s apartment and met Harvey and a tall, blonde woman in a police uniform. “Ready?” Harvey asked.

Frost nodded, and Harvey banged on the door. “Open up. Police,” he yelled, just like they do on T.V.

When nothing happened, he knocked again. After several long moments, a short guy, as wide with muscles as he was tall, came to the door in only boxers, running a hand through his thick dark hair. “What?” he asked, his face and his voice only half-awake.

“We’re looking for a missing teenager and we heard you were the last person to see her.”

Nate’s eyes popped and he was wide awake. “Who’s missing?”

“Livvy Greenleaves,” Frost said. “She works with you at the club.”

“Shit,” Nate said, nothing but concern on his face. “I dropped her at her place …” he looked at his wrist, realized he wasn’t wearing a watch and looked back over his shoulder to check a clock somewhere in his apartment. “Over two hours ago. I watched her walk into the building. Fuck. I told her to let me walk her to her door, but she said she’d be fine. She swore it was a safe building.”

“Mr. Lager we’re going to have to search your apartment,” Harvey said.

Nate grimaced. “You’re wasting your time, man. You should be out there looking for her.”

“I assure you,” Harvey said. “If we had any idea where to start looking for her, we’d do it. Please, step aside.”

Nate moved out of the way, and gestured for them to enter. “By all means, search away. But you should be searching the apartments of the assholes who’ve been hassling her.”

“Her mother said everyone likes her,” I said. The officers and Frost ignored us and walked into the apartment.

“Yeah,” Nate said, his expression softening. “She’s a hard girl not to like. There were a couple of creeps in her building, though, middle-aged guys, who liked her a little too much, if you know what I mean. That’s why I wanted to walk her to her door, but she swore they weren’t anything she couldn’t handle, said the building was safe and all she’d have to do is scream for someone to come running right away. Damn it,” he said, his voice a growl. “I knew it was wrong. I knew I should go with her, but she’d just been complaining about everyone treating her like a kid and I wanted to show her I didn’t see her that way. She’s tough, you know, capable of taking care of herself. I wanted her to know I saw that in her.”

“You like her.”

He met my gaze head on. “Yeah, I do. I’ve been working up the nerve for a while to ask her out. Reggie, that’s the owner of Bedazzled, he doesn’t like staff dating, but I was willing to risk it for her.”

The guy seemed to be genuinely distraught, and I hoped we could get Livvy back to him, so they could have that date. First dates are the best, when everything’s shiny and new and the whole romantic future is before you. Before you get to know the other person’s shortcomings and they start to annoy you, or, worse, the other way around. “We’re doing everything we can to bring her home,” I said.

“I hope so,” Nate said. Frost and Harvey and the blonde police officer pushed past Nate and into the hall.

“Nate says there were a couple of guys in Livvy’s building who’ve been coming on to her.”

“What are their names?” Harvey asked.

Harvey took down what details Nate could provide and thanked him. After Nate shut the door, Harvey turned to face us. “We can’t go waking everyone up in the middle of the night. I’ll go over, talk to the super, and narrow down our possibilities before I start knocking on doors.”

“Do you have time for that?” I asked. “I thought you were in the middle of a case.”

“I’ve got a couple hours,” Harvey said. “I was actually headed to your place when Frost called.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling like an insecure idiot. “What can we do while you’re talking to the super?”

“Go home,” Harvey said. “Get some sleep. If we don’t find anything tonight, we’ll need your help in the morning to canvass the neighborhood.”

“Of course,” I said. Harvey and blondie left, and I stared at Frost and Buddy for a long moment. “I don’t think sleep’s an option.”

Frost clapped me on the shoulder. “You need it. Thanks for your help tonight. I feel like we’re getting closer.”

“Only if these cases are connected,” I said.

“I think they are,” Buddy said, his voice reminding me of how uncharacteristically quiet he’d been until that moment. “If they weren’t, human kids would be going missing, too.”

“Maybe it’s coincidence.”

“Maybe,” Buddy said, but he didn’t look convinced.

Life without surprises would be awfully boring, but I would prefer only good surprises
. –Chloe Frangipani

The only kind of surprises I like are gifts
. –Althea Frangipani

Mercury sat on the couch, the television making his face glow blue, his expression grim, not even a smile to match the canned laugh track. “Hey,” I said, dropping onto the couch next to him. I had no idea what he was watching, it had been so long since I’d sat and watched T.V., but it looked pretty mindless and the acting was terrible. “What’s up?”

He shrugged like a surly teenager.

I patted him on the knee and stood. “Good talk.”

“Vin and I had a fight.”

I sat back down. “You two always fight,” I said. “You told me you loved the make-up sex, and didn’t you guys just get matched yesterday?”

He nodded. “I want her to move in with me, but she says she can’t live with a drug dealer.”

I raised my eyebrows and waited. Mercury was posing as a drug dealer for the rebellion to try and find out why the drugs were still flowing into the Non, even though the Fairy King, who we believed initiated the drug trade, was dead. He also tried to keep stupid humans from taking the drug and getting killed. That was more difficult because there was no way to tell which humans would be killed by the drug, which develop a magical power, and which wouldn’t change at all. Still, he’d managed to keep the people who were obviously already in bad health from taking the drug, and I believed he’d saved some lives.

His shoulders slumped. “That wasn’t what she said exactly. She’s worried that moving in with me might blow my cover, since some people know she’s working for the rebellion.”

“I think that ship sailed when you two got matched.”

“That’s what I said, but she keeps insisting it isn’t safe.”

“And you think she’s got some other reason for not agreeing to move in?”

His grip on the remote tightened so that his knuckles went white, and I was afraid he’d crush the small plastic device. “She still doesn’t trust me. Hell, I don’t trust me. And I’m sick of selling this disgusting drug. I’m sick of living in this limbo. I want an honest job. I want to start a life with her.”

“I thought the rebellion was your life.”

“Yeah, sure,” he said. “When there was a genocidal king on the throne of the fairy kingdom. Now that he’s gone, what the hell are we doing? Missella can’t even explain why the rebellion is still going, why you’re still being groomed as a figurehead.”

“In case my mother and grandfather go to war?” I shared his doubts, but I wanted to play devil’s advocate and see if he could come up some answers I couldn’t.

“And what will the rebels do?” he asked. “I agree that the drug needs to be stopped and its source found, but everything else I just don’t get. If these shadows are really from the nightmare realm, we all need to band together to fight them, not work against each other.”

“And does Vin know how you feel?”

He nodded. “She just gets all defensive and says we should trust Missella. It’s like she’s not even thinking for herself anymore.”

“That doesn’t sound like Vin,” I said. “Are you sure there isn’t something else going on?”

“I’m certain there
is
something else going on. But she still doesn’t really trust me, so she won’t tell me.”

I studied his hurt expression and the weariness in his eyes in the blue light of the screen. He and Vin had weathered a lot, but she was going to lose him if she kept pushing him away. Eventually, he’d say enough is enough, just like she had when he’d refused to take a single night off from the rebellion to take her on a date. “Then you wait until she does. Don’t give up on her.”

He scowled up at me. “It’s not like I have a choice. We’re matched.”

I clasped my hands together in front of my heart. “That is the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Yeah, well, I’m saving the romance for her.”

I laughed at the grumpy expression on his face, confident that he would wait for her and work it out. I headed back to my bedroom and pulled on a pair of comfy PJ pants and a backless sleep top. Then I released my wings. It felt so good to stretch them out, like they’d been cramped under my skin all day. Now that I knew about the wings, it was hard not to think about them, to sense them there under my skin, throbbing to be free.

I admired the wings in my three-way mirror, they sparkled and shimmered under the lights in my closet. They were the most beautiful part of me, and I hated that I had to hide them for so much of the day. With a sigh, I turned off the lights and crawled into bed.

“There is no record of any middle-aged men living in the apartment building where Sunny lived,” Harvey said to me and Frost, the next day in Frost’s office.

“Really?” I asked. “No middle-aged men in the whole building? How is that possible?”

Harvey shrugged. “There are only ten units and the super prefers to rent to elderly people, figures they’ll be less trouble.”

“Okay, so is it possible the men were older and Nate misunderstood?” I asked.

“We can go talk to the folks in the building, talk to Livvy’s friends, but I doubt Livvy would make a mistake like that, or that Nate would misunderstand. He seems pretty smitten with her.”

I couldn’t help but smile at his use of the word smitten. “So let’s go talk to some people.”

“Actually,” Frost said. “I’ve got an address for your cousin. The sooner we track her down, the sooner we can get some answers from the gatekeeper.”

“The gatekeeper?” Harvey asked, looking confused. Behind the confusion was anger, and I knew he felt like he’d been left out again.

I explained the gatekeeper and what he wanted.

“Are you talking about Benny the Dragon?” he asked.

I looked at Frost. “You’re kidding, right?”

Frost shook his head, rubbing his jaw in thought. “Nope, that’s what the humans call him. I’m pretty sure he gave himself that name because he thought it would get him more respect. I don’t like involving him, but middle-aged men who don’t actually live where they pretend they do, shadows changing people, kids vanishing into thin air…it all reeks of Rubalia, and I have a gut feeling it’s all connected back to this nightmare realm. We need answers from the gatekeeper. He’s got a finger in everything. Which means we need to find your cousin.”

“I’ve let headquarters know what Nate told us,” Harvey said. “They’ll get some people out canvassing the building and the street, but they won’t know to ask the right questions.”