Green-Eyed Envy (23 page)

He gave me one of his brotherly
Don’t change the subject
looks. “Don’t think we’re not going to talk more about this later,
big sister
.”

I winced at his tone. “Yeah, I know. Just—not right now, okay? Give it a few days.”

“You have until the wedding ceremony next week. By then, your case should be done one way or another, and we can focus on Mom and—Nan.” He said the name wistfully, since he’d never seen Nan in anything but pictures and home videos. The Oracles who cared for her in the Otherrealms scrutinized each visitor to their hospice carefully. No way they’d miss his blend of Fury and Sidhe abilities when they scanned him, and their ties to the Sisterhood meant they’d have no choice but to report him. Which could well lead to the civil war we were so diligently working to avoid.

Though the crap with Nan might make all that a moot point soon.

“Deal.” He eyed me for another few seconds as if he could see whether I was just humoring him written on my face before heading toward his wife. I brought up the rear but paused in the doorway when the sensation of being watched struck. My eyes scanned the street and buildings around me. Nothing out of the ordinary caught my attention. “Great,” I muttered under my breath. “Now
I’m
becoming paranoid.”

Although, is it really paranoia if people truly
are
out to get you?

 

 

SCOTT’S MOTHER, LIANA, WAITED FOR US IN the elegant office she maintained just off the store’s main showroom. Mac and Elliana bade us farewell and returned to Shadowhound HQ in another part of the building, leaving Scott, Mahina, and me to sit across from the Murphy family matriarch. Having spent so much time in the company of her mother and sisters recently, I couldn’t help noticing she’d gotten her no-nonsense demeanor from those Banoub women, but there the resemblance ended. They tried to demand what they didn’t give and what they most certainly hadn’t worked for. Liana, however, earned respect just by being herself.

Not that I’d ever admit that to her. She
was
her mother’s daughter in some ways, after all. Give her an inch and she’d take a hundred miles.

Liana smiled serenely when we turned down her offer of tea, then she zeroed her gaze in on me. “Scott tells me I may be able to help you with the case you’re working on.”

“Yes, I believe so.” I accepted the Ziploc-encased parchment from Mahina and passed it over the antique Chippendale desk. “This is one of the death threats made against Harper and Pennington, one we feel must be taken seriously and thoroughly investigated. Does anything about it look familiar to you?”

She turned the clear plastic bag over in her hands before giving in to the urge to read the letter. I’d already memorized the filthy, hate-mongering words staring up at her. Her eyes were filled with grim determination when she finished reading and met my gaze. “I may no longer be on speaking terms with the majority of my birth family, but I wish none of them ill will. Especially not Elliana’s brother. My nephew corresponds with me via e-mail regularly. Has done so for years.”

Well, that bumped him up another few notches in my esteem. I’d never realized that. Judging by Scott’s sudden scowl, neither had he.

Liana turned the bag over again and raised it closer to her eyes. She nodded to herself. “This
letter
is attached to a rare brand of spell-worked parchment I import from Egypt.”

I leaned forward and gazed at her intently. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Liana, but why do you sell parchment designed to hide its owners’ identity from magical divination?”

She blinked. “I don’t. The spells worked into this brand of parchment preserve the paper from the degradations of time or messy spills.”

“So whoever purchased this already-expensive parchment from your store spent even more money having it spell-worked even further.”

“They must have.” She narrowed her eyes and flipped open the slim laptop sitting in front of her. “While I don’t remember everyone who purchases this parchment personally, my records will indicate the dates on which we’ve sold packages and—if the purchasers paid with credit, as many people do these days, I may even be able to provide you with names.”

“How far back can you check?”

Liana smiled primly. “As far back as you need me to check, though for now I’ll limit it to the past year. I can go back further should that prove necessary.”

I nodded. Sounded good to me. Her fingers tapped over the keyboard, she clicked the mouse a few times, and the printer behind her spat out the results of her search. She sped-read the paper as she turned. Her face grew pale, and she jerked her gaze toward me. Liana was hard to rattle—I’d only seen her
this
shaken when I revealed that the Amaya being held prisoner by Dre Carrington was actually an amnesiac Sidhe disguised to look like her eldest daughter.

She pulled herself together and handed the paper over. “We’ve sold more than twenty packages of that parchment over the past year, although only half that number were paid for by credit card. You’ll notice that the last two packages were sold to the same person a month ago.” My eyes reached that line the exact moment she said the name out loud. “To my nephew, Pennington Banoub.”

 

 

SCOTT AND I IMMEDIATELY LOOKED STRAIGHT at each other. To my surprise, he appeared troubled by this news, rather than pleased. Then again, resenting your wealthy cousin for how his side of the family treated your mother was a long way from wanting to believe him to be a psychotic serial killer.

I raised a hand. “Hold on a second. Just because Penn bought the parchment—even if it turns out to be from the same batch—doesn’t mean he was the one to send in the threat. Someone could have stolen the paper in order to make it look like he was the guilty party. Or . . . ” My voice grew thoughtful. “He could have bought the parchment for someone close to him.”

Scott’s eyes widened in realization as he no doubt remembered the racist tirade I was currently thinking about. “Like his grandmother, mother, or . . . ”

We finished that thought in unison. “Aunt Rashida.”

Liana flinched at the mention of her sister. Her bitchiest, least favorite sister, I was willing to bet. “I—yes, it’s entirely possible Penn bought the paper for his grandmother or aunt during a visit to Elliana when I wasn’t present. I remember both of them collected stationary like some women collect shoes.”

It went without saying they would collect expensive and/or rare stationary like the heavy, cream-colored parchment the death threat had been “written” on. I let out a breath. “Well, speaking to Penn about this should be nice and fun.”

Scott let out a bark of laughter and shook his head. “You better let me play
bad cop
on this one, Riss. I’m less likely to kill him if he tries to deck me.”

Which was a sentiment I couldn’t really argue with.

I reclaimed the death threat, handing both it and the inventory printout to Mahina. “Liana, I know this goes without saying, but as a police representative, I have to say it out loud anyway. Please don’t mention any of this to anyone. Not even your husband. It could compromise our investigation.”

She nodded, fingers clenched on the desk before her the only sign of her emotional turmoil. “Gods know Morgan has kept his work secret from me more times than I could count. Not knowing this won’t hurt him any.”

Seeing her fight to hold her true feelings inside made me realize that, no matter how long she’d been at odds with her family, she still cared for them. Learning that one of them was, at best, a racist sending death threats against her nephew and, at worst, a psychotic serial killer was eating her up inside. Add all this to the fact that her youngest son was missing, and Liana was in a whole lot of pain.

“It takes a whole heck of a lot to keep a Murphy man down,” I said. “One of their charms.” Or one of their biggest flaws, depending.

She glanced at her son with a fond smile. “Indeed.”

I pushed back my chair to stand. “Thanks so much for your help, Liana. If we need any further information on the parchment paper, I’ll let you know right away.” She nodded and I turned to Mahina. “Why don’t you head back to your place for some sleep? Scott and I can handle the confrontation—I mean conversation—with Penn, and we need you and Kale as fresh as possible to hold down the fort tonight.”

“Sounds good to me, Chief. Mind dropping me off on the way?”

“Not at all.”

We bade Liana farewell before trooping to the undercover van and piling in—after Scott performed a thorough physical check while I scanned it magically. With crazy-ass assassins on the loose (again), better safe than sorry. A half hour later, Scott and I pulled into Harper’s parking garage, although we made a far less impressive appearance in the white whale of a van rather than Scott’s shiny red sports car. Which, of course, was pretty much the point.

According to a text exchange between Scott and Harper, Penn and one of his brothers had dropped her off at work earlier but were supposed to pass time at her place before picking her up later. I was just about to shut the engine off when my cell phone buzzed insistently. Having learned my lesson
not
to ignore the damned thing unless in the middle of a crisis, I flipped it open and said hello.

“Riss.” Trinity’s voice sounded more subdued than usual in my ear. “There’s been another attack.”

My fingers clenched around the phone. “Attack—not murder?”

“Yeah. Paramedics just rushed Meritton to Mass General.”

Relief that Meritton had been attacked rather than one of Harper’s more sympathetic exes morphed into guilt—though at least the obnoxious executive hadn’t been declared DOA. He still had a fighting chance, unlike Ward Rockefeller.

I checked the dashboard clock—3:12. “Give us ten minutes.”

Scott grabbed on to his
oh shit
handle when I reached over him to flip on the LED visor light and turned on the van’s police siren. “Who?”

“Meritton.” I reversed sharply and exited the garage, tightening my fingers around the steering wheel. “He’s alive but that’s all I know.”

He sensed the frustration in my voice. “Meritton may have the voice of a chipmunk, but he’s smart, Riss. He’ll be able to give you details about the attack.”

“Yeah, if he makes it.” For once, civilian vehicles got out of the way promptly as I sped toward nearby Massachusetts General Hospital, one of the first facilities in the country to develop separate arcane emergency facilities.

Which did not go unremarked upon by Scott. “They get him to Mass General breathing, and he’ll make it.”

“I’ve never had a case like this where the perp continues murdering victims right under my freaking nose. It’s like he’s taunting me to stop him and I can’t.”

“We’ll catch him, baby. We will.”

I forced myself to take several calming breaths, focusing again on his use of the word
we
. With Scott beside me, I felt like I
could
do anything. I’d always felt that way—the main reason I’d gone to him for his help with Vanessa even after I’d broken things off with him and had no right to expect it. It also helped to remind myself that this jackass killer was the one thing standing between me and helping my mother in the Otherrealms. We had leads pouring in now, and with a potential witness to question, things were looking up. They had to be. Believing anything else would paralyze me with self-doubt, and that wouldn’t help anyone.

Trinity met us near the nurses’ station in the Arcane Trauma Unit, an unexpectedly chipper expression on her face. “He’s gonna make it. The paramedics said he’s out of it and has superficial wounds on his arms and torso, but nothing life-threatening.”

“Thank the gods. I’m assuming the ‘out of it’ means he was drugged like the others.”

She nodded. “ Yep. They pointed out a puncture wound on the side of his neck that could be the injection site.”

I tilted my head. “Side of the neck as opposed to the back like the others. Could be Meritton heard the perp and turned just enough that he didn’t get a full dose of the drug. Probably didn’t hit the intended vein, either.”

Scott whistled. “Lucky bastard.”

Trinity nodded. “There’s a mundane unit securing the crime scene for us. I spoke to the senior officer, and he said that, unlike with the other attacks, this time the victim put up a fight, lending credence to a decreased drug dosage. Hopefully the perp will have left behind some DNA to make tracking his ass down easier.”

“So when do we get to talk to Meritton?”

An unfamiliar voice sounded from behind. “He’s asking for you now, Chief.” We whirled and caught sight of a beefy, middle-aged doctor handing a medical chart to a nurse. “You
are
Chief Magical Investigator Holloway?”

Some people recognized me more easily in Fury form than mortal—obviously this doctor didn’t have that problem. “Yes, I am.”

The doctor—Cyrus Gideon, according to his name tag—nodded at Trinity. “Inspector LaRue explained that Mr. Meritton may have been attacked by the same person responsible for the serial killings going on in our city. Normally I would advise against a victim under the influence of an unknown substance speaking with police, but he’s becoming more lucid already and is adamant he see you now. If you’ll both follow me?”

I asked Scott to keep an eye on the entrance to the arcane unit, and he agreed, leaving Trinity and me to troop after Dr. Gideon. It was a short walk to a brightly lit room featuring two emergency gurneys, one of which held a thrashing, cursing Paul Meritton. Several exasperated medical personnel—mostly arcanes—were in the process of trying to calm him down with very limited success. Only when his gaze fell upon me did he finally settle down.

“Chief Holloway, told you that we’d meet again.” His eyes seemed glassy, but he didn’t slur any of his words. “Luckily for you it happened sooner than expected.”