Face Off (24 page)

CHAPTER
43

AS SHE STEPPED
out of her SUV, Laura made no effort to hide her annoyance as she adjusted the jacket on her uniform. It was bad enough that the emergency call had come in as soon as she had gone home to bed after leaving the Guildhouse, but Genda didn’t know that an open call to a crime scene was heard by everyone in the city with a gun and a badge. Emergency vehicles and police cars from a number of agencies filled the edge of the park. If Genda had been more low-key, they would have been able to contain notice to the local police and the Guild’s Community Liaison department. Factor in the high-profile players in a town like Washington, and more obscure agencies turned out. Some came out of curiosity or political advantage, but most came for the adrenaline rush of being on scene for a crime with international ramifications.

Walking through a gauntlet of law-enforcement personnel, she held out her InterSec badge. They spent their few moments with her staring at her face. The extra care she had given to making Mariel Tate physically attractive paid off in chaotic situations. No one liked to admit it, but something clicked off in people’s brains around good-looking people. They trusted them more, liked them more, and believed them more. And let them slide through security without much scrutiny if they flashed a badge.

As she entered the grassy area of the scene, she noted that at least someone had had the common sense to isolate the area around the body. A local police officer lifted a long strip of crime-scene tape to let her pass. Up a short rise, people gathered near the edge of a stand of trees. Out of habit, Laura scanned the ground as she approached. The area hadn’t been processed. Someone could have gone across the same grass she was walking on and left a hint of their identity, but she saw nothing out of the ordinary.

Guild security agents and Inverni Guardians stood on opposite sides of another taped-off area. A few human officers hovered on the edges of the group, impotent in jurisdiction against all the high-level agencies on the ground. She made casual note of Sinclair’s presence. He wore his InterSec jacket, the hood pulled up and forward to shadow his face. His height might draw attention, but in a group of fey, that was less likely.

Brinen macCullen crouched by the body of a female Inverni. Alive, fairies resonated with power, their bodies naturally cycling essence out of the air. The energy was always there, to the point where Laura didn’t notice it any more than she would the fact that someone was breathing. Part of being in the presence of a fairy. Dead, that process stopped, leaving the body a shadow of itself, the lack of intense body signature an oddity that was noticeable by its absence.

The woman hadn’t been dead long. Even without sensing her fading essence, Laura knew by the lifeless drape of her wings that death had been within the last few hours. So soft and supple in life, the gossamer appendages shriveled and hardened in death, wrapping the body like a shroud. The woman’s wings lay against the ground, dark but not yet curling.

With one hand, Brinen stroked in the air above the body, shy of physically touching. A faint pool of blue light enveloped his fingers. His attention remained on the body as Laura crouched next to him. “I heard about the hotel. Here to threaten more of our people, Agent Tate?”

She kept her voice cool. “Only the ones who don’t follow orders, Lord Guardian. Who called it in?”

“A human walking his dog,” he said.

Laura spotted a casually dressed older gentleman speaking to a Guild security agent. A small dog on a leash danced around them, excited by all the activity.

Brinen dangled his hands between his knees. “Essence shock.”

Odd, Laura thought. Taking out an Inverni fairy in a fight wasn’t easy, and the sustained burst necessary for essence shock was difficult to maintain on a moving target. She played the beam of her flashlight over the woman’s body. Dark lines crisscrossed her clothing on the sleeves and pants. Burns, the familiar pattern left when someone struggled against a binding spell. Whoever had killed her had bound her before she died. That took ability and power.

Laura recognized the woman’s body signature from the attic where the sniper had fired. She sensed Brinen’s signature, too, from the residue of his scan. Other signatures were whispers on her, which meant she had had only casual contact. They had their second suspect, which meant two dead ends. Literally.

“Uma macGrath?” Laura asked.

“She was on Draigen’s staff,” said Aran.

She pivoted to see Aran standing at the edge of her sensing range. She hadn’t noticed him arrive. “You knew her?”

Aran moved closed, his face troubled and angry. “She was the missing guard from your interview list. She and Sean Carr were lovers. It was an open secret.”

Annoyed, Laura stood. “Why didn’t you mention that earlier? We wasted manpower looking for two people when she was the obvious suspect.”

“I didn’t know. No one told me the other name until after Rory Dawson was caught.”

She glanced at Brinen, who remained intent on the body. For all his attitude, he wasn’t as thorough as he liked to imply. She sighed. “What’s done is done. There’s no telling if we would have found her sooner anyway.”

Brinen joined them. “I suggest we start interviewing their associates.”

Aran cocked his head. “I was under the impression Agent Tate had done that already.”

Brinen glowered at his brother. “Yes, but two people from the same subclan bear investigating. We should check their bloodlines as well as their colleagues.”

Color rose in Aran’s cheeks. He stalked away. Laura noticed that Brinen didn’t appear fazed. “What was that about?” she asked.

“An old family disagreement,” he said. Without another word, he walked off, too.

Sinclair sidled in closer. “Looks like the macCullens aren’t as chummy as they appear.”

For once, Laura didn’t bristle at one of Sinclair’s digs. He was right. Friction among the siblings was apparent. Still, there was enough stress going on to trigger it.

“Did you notice the burns?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“She was silenced,” he said.

“Someone has a lot to lose,” Laura said.

“Like an underKing’s realm?”

She compressed her lips. “I don’t think Terryn had anything to do with this.”

Sinclair shrugged. “I’m looking at all contingencies until they’re discredited. Someone told me that’s the way we do things at InterSec.”

“I trust him, Jono,” she said.

“This is older than us, Cuddles. It has nothing to do with you,” he said.

They waited as the medical examiner staff gathered around the body. Laura couldn’t dismiss what Sinclair said. When Terryn had realized that the Treaty of London made his people an internal class of enemies, he had reacted like a different person, not the man she knew. Whatever was at stake, it was more than the murder of two renegade Inverni.

“I hate fairy politics,” she said.

Sinclair murmured agreement. “Now you know why I pretend I’m human.”

CHAPTER 44

DAWN BROUGHT LAURA
back to her public-relations desk. In the last few days, the Guild work had grown to beyond neglect. Rhys was writing in a flurry of activity she hadn’t seen in years—memos, white papers, and speeches—all of which had to be revised and polished. Whenever the subject of Cress—and her species—came up, the Guildmaster found a negative way to associate Terryn with her. Since politically he couldn’t outright attack Draigen, smearing Terryn maintained his image as a defender of the Seelie Court. Laura understood the logic of it. That didn’t mean she liked it, even had her friends not been involved.

Saffin arrived with more files flagged with her color-coding system for order of importance. The number of blue tags amused Laura. Blue rhymed with boo-hoo, which was Saffin’s way of describing minor problems. Without being asked, Saffin straightened up the paperwork on the edge of Laura’s desk. Laura pulled the black-tagged—critical priority—and red-tagged—going critical—folders and set them aside. The rest joined the pile of untouched matters. She noticed the untouched stacks remained suspiciously the same height, and suspected Saffin was handling issues she ignored.

“You’ve been falling behind a lot lately,” Saffin said.

“I’m being pulled in too many directions,” she said.

Saffin continued organizing without looking up. “You need to say no more often. You can’t be everything to everyone.”

Startled, Laura snapped her head up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

With a defiant look, Saffin crossed her arms. “Permission to speak freely?”

“Of course,” Laura said.

Without looking, Saffin flexed a leg back and kicked the door shut. “I saw you on the news last night.”

She thought about the previous night, remembering her movements in relation to the news crews that had shown up at the Uma macGrath crime scene. She had stayed away from cameras. “Saffin, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“The murder in the park. You were in the background of a news shot. Well, Mariel was.”

Laura placed her hands on the desk, staring down at them. “Saf, I can’t talk about that.”

Saffin waved her hand over the stacks of folders. “I know. I’m not asking about that. What I am asking is, how can you deal with all this and a murder investigation? That’s two full-time jobs. Hell, this desk is more than a full-time job. The Guildmaster uses you like his personal laptop, for Danu’s sake.”

Laura slumped back in her chair. “It’s . . . my life.”

Saffin tapped her index finger on the desk. “I don’t know everything, but I do know one thing. This isn’t your life, Laura. None of this is. Your life is what you do outside of all this. When’s the last time you went on a date with tall and humpy?”

She lifted her chin in timid defiance. “Night before last.”

Saffin’s eyes sparkled as she leaned on the desk. “Really? Where’d you go?”

“Dinner.”

Saffin pursed her lips. “And . . . ?”

“Then home.” Saffin squealed.

“Saf!”

She laughed. “Okay. Over the line. None of my business. But if your idea of a date is standing over a dead body and whispering, I know a good therapist.”

“There were no dead bodies.”

“I was talking about the tall guy with the hoodie on the news standing behind you in the park last night. I thought he was a cop, not InterSec. When did that happen? Oh, wait! Has he been InterSec all along and went undercover as a cop? I just thought of that.”

Dumbfounded, Laura stared. “You recognized Jono from a simple flash on the screen?”

Saffin rolled her eyes. “Hello? I watch the news on the Internet. I paused the shot. I couldn’t see the dead body very well, though. She looked like she was executed, poor thing.”

“What do you mean?”

Saffin shrugged. “She was on her side, and it looked like her arms were bound. Whoever killed her was a coward who she trusted to get that close. If you’re going to kill someone, at least have the decency to let them fight back.”

“She was bound. You frighten me sometimes, Saffin.”

“Me? You’re the secret agent.”

Laura chuckled. “Not a very good one if you can figure out my personal life from a long shot on the news.”

Saffin waved her hand dismissively. “I notice things. You know that. Is the murder related to the assassination attempt on Draigen macCullen? I’m pretty sure it was Brinen macCullen squatting by the body.”

Laura put her face into her hands. “Terryn would kill me if he heard this conversation.”

Saffin’s eyes went wide. “Really?”

Laura dropped her head back on the chair. “Any other time, I would say I’m joking, but lately his patience has been stretched pretty thin.”

Saffin held her hands up. “Not another word from me. You’re the greatest boss I’ve ever had. If you think I’d jeopardize that, you’re crazy.”

She smiled. “I
am
joking, Saf. I can’t stress enough how serious we take secrecy. If Terryn knew that you know about me, he’d . . .” She paused, thinking. “I’m not sure what he would do.”

She thought about the corner Terryn had backed Jono into. What would Terryn say about Saffin? She wasn’t trained in law enforcement, physical combat, or weapons.

“Well, you have my word not to say anything. I always look at part of my job as making you look good, boss. Is there anything you want me to take off your hands?” Saffin said.

Laura gazed at the paperwork on the desk. A red-tabbed folder caught her eye, and she handed it back to Saffin. “Can you categorize the guest list for Draigen’s reception? Resha doesn’t think about balance, and I want to make sure that he invited enough people from competing parties so no one will feels isolated. I can’t get my head around it right now.”

Saffin took the folder. “Do you want me to order lunch in?”

“No. I’ll get something myself.”

Saffin opened the door. “I’ll keep everyone out for about an hour so you can focus.”

Laura stared out the window. She made a mental note, the same mental note she had made before, never to underestimate Saffin Corrill. The brownie knack for detail impressed most people, but Saffin was special.

As she slipped papers out of a folder, she paused. Saffin’s comment about a fair fight tickled at her. Uma macGrath had been in the attic with Sean Carr. She escaped only to be murdered. Silenced. She thought of the report on Sean Carr’s death. He had been killed in self-defense according to the report. The dead woman gave her pause, though. If she had been silenced—murdered—maybe there was more to what had happened in that attic than the report said.

She gathered her purse and keys and went out to Saffin’s desk. “I have an appointment I forgot about. I don’t know how long I’ll be. Can you cover for me?”

Saffin kept typing. “Leave your PDA on vibe.”

She paused at the door to the hallway. “And, Saf? So you know, you’re more than the best assistant I’ve ever had. I couldn’t have done this work all this time without you.”

Flattered, Saffin ducked her head and grinned. “And you wonder why I put up with you.”