Centaur of the Crime: Book One of 'Fantasy and Forensics' (Fantasy & Forensics 1) (24 page)

“Very well.”

My heart sank as the shadow resolved into the form of Deputy Chief Bob McClatchy. He wore a new gray pinstriped suit over his broad frame, one which made him look like a shark who’d been to the buffet table too many times. His eyes grew wide as he saw me at the side of the body.

“Dayna Chrissie! What in blazes…” he started to say.

“Look, I can explain.”

“Like hell you’d better explain, Chrissie!” McClatchy’s florid face grew a shade redder as he began to work himself into a lather. “I don’t care if you’re a damned private contractor this time, either! I’ve got three whole squads dedicated to finding you, and here you are at work?”

“I guess that shows how good you are at detective work,” I said. “Have you ever considered becoming a beat cop? You have the chops for it.”

“Don’t get smart with me,” McClatchy dug a tissue out of his pocket to shield his nose from the smell of the ripe body in the room. With the tissue held in place, he raised a finger and looked set to continue berating me. Until he noticed Galen at my side. “And who’re you supposed to be?”

“Him?” I said, stepping to Galen’s side. “This is my brother, Galen Chrissie. He’s about the only part of my family I’ve still got left in Chicago.”

“You’ve never said anything about having a brother.”

“That’s because you’ve never asked me about my family,” I said pointedly. “He’s thinking about med school. Maybe following in my footsteps. So I had him join me and Shelly here today.”

“Yeah, the boy’s got potential. Lots of potential,” Shelly added, a touch too eagerly, I thought.

“Never mind that,” McClatchy said dismissively. “How did you shake the two men I had assigned to you?”

“I didn’t do anything special,” I said, lying through my teeth. Hell, in for a penny, in for a pound, I guess. Plus, Bob just plain got on my nerves.

“Nothing gets by the cops from my division!”

“Yeah, nothing gets by your men, Bob. So long as it’s glazed, powdered, or sprinkled.”

McClatchy made a strangled sound and advanced towards me.

“You better watch yourself, Chrissie. Or I could have you out on the street in a snap.” To illustrate the point, Bob actually did snap his fingers, right under my nose. “I could have your state license yanked. Or even worse–”

“Even worse?” Galen’s deep basso voice sounded close to my ear as he leaned over me protectively. “Might I ask what you have in mind?”

McClatchy’s countenance paled as the sound of Galen cracking his knuckles echoed in the room. He pulled his cellphone out, hit a single button for speed dial, and growled a single, terse message.

“Chrissie’s in the chiller room. Get down here, now.” He hung up and glared at me impotently. “I’m putting you under house arrest.”

“On what charge?” I demanded.

“Interfering with a police investigation.”

“Last I checked, that’s a misdemeanor, Bob.” Over his shoulder, I saw Alanzo Esteban come into the room. Esteban’s face lit up when he spotted me, and then darkened as he saw Galen.

“That’s right, Chrissie. Very good. You should go to law school someday,” McClatchy said mirthlessly. “That’s why I’m not showing you the inside of a cell. You’re going to head back home, and you’re staying there until I call for you.”

“Until you can come up with a better charge?”

“I don’t need to charge you with a crime. I’ll just drag you in front of the disciplinary board. Once they hear how you’ve diverted my department’s time and resources from a pending murder case, we’ll see how long you stay with the LAPD.”

“You’re all heart, Bob,” Shelly said, over the rims of her pince-nez glasses.

“So glad you noticed.” With a jerk of his head, he added, “Esteban’s going to keep a close eye on you and your brother until then. As a courtesy, of course.”

And on that pleasant note, McClatchy stomped out of the room. Esteban didn’t come over or say hello. He simply crossed his arms and waited silently in the background as we put the corpse back into storage, de-gowned, and went back upstairs to the main lobby.

“It might be a while before I get back here,” I said to Shelly. “Keep an eye on things for me, would you?”

“Goes without saying,” she replied. With a pointed glance at Esteban, she added, “Don’t let the bastards get you down, no matter how big they might be.”

I hugged her. “Thank you, Shelly.”

She turned to Galen and added, “You keep her safe now, you hear?”

“I shall, Milady,” he said. Shelly gave him a last peck on the cheek. With that, Galen and I exited through security with Esteban in tow.

We drove back home through the rush-hour traffic in silence. As usual, it was bumper-to-bumper along the freeway. Esteban followed our SUV in his own unmarked police cruiser. He didn’t bother with being inconspicuous. I pulled the Expedition into the garage as Esteban took up a parking spot across the street from my front door.

“Galen, wait for me inside,” I instructed. He nodded, and I walked across the green-tinted moonscape I called my front lawn over to Esteban’s car. He didn’t lower his window until I rapped on it. Even then, he only opened it a crack.

“What do you want?” Esteban’s warm Latino accent had turned ice cold. His eyes looked haunted and he’d let his day-old beard stubble get another day’s growth in without shaving.

“What do I want? For starters, some common courtesy,” I shot back. “I’d think that’s the very least I deserve.”

“You’ve got funny notions about what you ‘deserve’, señora del acero. Do you think I’m blind? I see what’s going on here.”

“You do?”

“Yes! You disappear for a day and a half—giving me a wonderfully sleepless night, thank you very much—and you show up with your ‘brother’?”

“Galen’s here for a very special reason.”

“Oh, I’ll bet. You forgot one thing, Dayna. You and me, we’ve been on cases together. We’ve talked about our families. You’ve got a sister, yes. Never a brother mentioned, oh no.”

I bit my tongue. “Maybe I forgot–”

“You don’t forget things like that,” he said with a pained expression. “Look, if you want to be with him, you do that without playing make-believe.”

That’s when it hit me like an effing thunderclap.

“Esteban? You’re
jealous!
”

“Why would I be? I’m only the man who saved your life, that’s all.”

I pondered that for a moment. Damn it, I did like him. Given the circumstances, I didn’t even know if I’d be alive in the next day or two. And I didn’t have time right now to protest my innocence.

Luckily, one thing spoke louder than words.

“Esteban,” I said, rapping the glass, “lower the damned window, please.”

He did so.

I leaned inside, grabbed the back of his head, and drew him in. His lips, warm and wet, met mine in a kiss that rocked me to my core. It took a while—a nice, long while—before I released him and stood next to his car, appraising his expression. Somewhere east of poetry and west of horny, to my guess. I put my hands on my hips and addressed him one final time.

“For the record,” I stated, “Galen doesn’t get that.”

Esteban’s smile looked blissful. I winked at him and left him to watch over the house. Nice to know I could still make a man’s toes curl, and more.

I went through the garage, closing the door as I did so. Made my way through the house to the back and joined Galen as he searched the horizon to the north. The puffball clouds above turned bright pink as the sun set.

“Here he comes,” Galen said. I was about to ask which ‘he’ Galen meant, when with a near-silent swoosh of wings, Shaw came in at a low bank to land just upslope of the house.

When I said a ‘low’ bank, that’s just what I meant, too. The griffin had come in from the uninhabited side of the park, skimmed at treetop level, and then dropped down into the yard with scarcely a sound. Shaw’s move must’ve worked, too. I didn’t hear Esteban banging on the front door, demanding to know why an eagle-headed lion had landed in my back yard.

I made a low whistle in appreciation. Without armor or riders to burden them, griffins were a lot stealthier and more maneuverable than I’d thought. In fact, the ruffling sound of the vinyl banner as it fluttered to earth behind the griffin made more noise than he did on touchdown. He folded his wings and raised his head, looking every inch the majestic creature he was.

“Shaw!” I said, and I came up to throw my arms around his neck. He let out a
churr
of appreciation. “Guess I was more worried about you than I thought.”

“Nay, there was no need,” the griffin said. “T’was an uneventful day. Unless thy wizard’s charm proved off, I got no signal.”

“I doubt my magic would fail at such a mundane task,” Galen said, amused. “And I was likewise concerned for you.”

“Thou shouldst reserve concern for our Fayleene friend,” Shaw said. “Should danger arise, I am able to fight my way through.”

“Liam’s capable in his own way,” I said, craning my neck to look at my neighbor’s yards. I had a pretty big slice of property, with trees and high wooden fencing, but it was still pretty light out. “We’d better get you inside, Shaw.”

The griffin squeezed through my back door, sniffing with his beak as he did so. “Have my senses gone tricksy? Doth that be pork I smell?”

“It is,” I called inside. “It’s in the kitchen sink. Try not to get it on the carpet or anything, okay?”

I think I heard an answer in the affirmative. Right before the homey sound of meat being ripped from bone came from the kitchen. Actually, judging by the noise, I hoped that Shaw wasn’t tearing up the kitchen floor. Or eating the linoleum, for that matter.

“Where is Liam?” I said impatiently. I began to pace as the sky went from salmon pink to blood red. Any appetite I had vanished as my stomach rumbled out of sheer nervousness.

“Be still! I hear something,” Galen said. I heard it too, a moment later. The sound of some animal blundering through the tall grass at the edge of the slope.

“That can’t be him, Galen. Fayleene move too silently for that.”

I had to eat my words. Liam stumbled from the underbrush and into my yard, tottering back and forth on his skinny deer legs. He staggered forward, trying to reach the house. The fading sunset turned the white spots on his side arterial red.

“Liam!” I ran to him, Galen at my side. I knelt in front of the little Fayleene, who shook his head side to side, as if he were drunk. “Liam, what’s wrong?”

I ran my hands over his flanks, his legs. I couldn’t find a wound. He seemed whole enough. Then he turned his head, and I saw the deer tag that had been punched through his ear.

“What’s wrong?” The Fayleene prince’s words were clear, even through a hurt-sounding snuffle. “You would not
believe
the day I’ve had!”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Something had gone wrong.

I knew it from the moment that Liam staggered out from the underbrush, tottering into my back yard like the newborn fawn he resembled. As I knelt before him, the Fayleene prince sank to his knees. He turned his head so that his antlers faced away from me, and lay down with his head in my lap.

I felt myself melt at the sight of Liam’s emerald-green eye as he looked up at me. He let out a snuffle as I gently brushed his ear. A yellow tag labeled
CA Dpt. F & G
hung on a little plastic circlet that had been punched through the lower part of the lobe.

“It’s okay, you’re safe now,” I said, soothing him. I felt a nudge at my shoulder. Galen handed me a pair of metallic clippers he’d pulled from a jacket pocket. “Tell us what happened while I get this off you, okay?”

“I was just minding my own business,” Liam began. “I stayed off the roads and paths, like you said to, Dayna. I’d found a nice high spot up on the ridge and all of a sudden, I felt pain. Like a bee sting, on my shoulder.”

I got the blade of the clipper around the circle of clear, hard plastic. It had a couple splotches of Liam’s blood on it, the color of dried berries.

Chokeberries, maybe. I shuddered at that and pushed the image aside. I wanted to tell Liam about what had happened all those years ago, but now was definitely not the time or place for it.