Inquisitor (Witch & Wolf Book 1) (17 page)

Samantha’s smile was sly, and I shivered. “I would be careful if I were you, Allison Victoria Mayfield Hanover. I think he loves you.”

Laughing, I pulled the car into the lot at the Red Lobster. After I parked, I twisted in my seat to face Samantha. “Look, you. He proposed to me to get his mother to change her mind about a betrothal. That’s not love. He loved the fact I didn’t cheat him out of his money when I easily could have. He didn’t love
me
.”

“I know what I saw,” my friend replied with a dainty sniff.

I wrinkled my nose at her. “And what do you think you saw?”

“I saw a man terrified that he lost something he couldn’t replace.” Samantha opened the door of the Mustang, got out, and leaned down to face me. “I think he’s right, too. You’re one of a kind, and any smart man would be frightened of losing you.”

There wasn’t a whole lot I could say to that, so I kept my mouth shut, and got out of the car. While I couldn’t tell Samantha the truth, I was too old and worn out for love.

Love was for those who didn’t carry the weight of so many years on their shoulders.

I found Samantha a nice condo in one of the best neighborhoods in the city.  The apartment I picked for myself was on the top floor of a rickety building in dire need of demolition. I left My Mustang on the street. It wouldn’t surprise me if it was stolen or vandalized by the end of the week.

Instead of a bed, I made a nest of pillows and blankets, burrowing into it while resting my laptop on a large box. It was like college all over again, but worse. My mouth twisted in a rueful grin. I’d lost count of the number of times I had denned in apartments unfit for habitation while repeating college over and over again.

It would have to do. Marrodin could function without me. Samantha would settle in, doing my work until I found out the truth. I had a killer to hunt, and I couldn’t afford distraction. Within Marrodin, Samantha would be as safe as I could make her.

I stared at the login screen of my new laptop. I didn’t even know where to begin. Old age didn’t mystically grant me detective or forensic skills. After logging in, I hunted down Oleran’s work files, pulling up a complete list of the cases he had worked on since being hired at Smith & Sons. Defense lawyers had fewer enemies than prosecutors, but the bitter truth was that any man or woman on his past docket had far more reason to kill him than I did.

So why did they try to frame me for the murder? Why choose a pretty woman who resembled me? It didn’t make any sense. I replayed the events of Halloween in my head. Most everyone had avoided me except for Mark’s mother, the two-faced Wicked Witch of the West.

“No way,” I muttered, tapping my fingers on the laptop’s monitor frame. Then, the contrast in personalities hadn’t meant much to me. It had been Halloween, and Halloween was a night of masks. His mother was a
witch.
Wearing my face for a while wouldn’t have been much of an issue for her.

Was I such a threat to Mrs. Livingston that she would frame me for murder to get rid of me? If that was the case, why would she have made me so beautiful, when she’d seen me face to face? Had Samantha been right? Had Mark’s feelings for me influenced how his mother perceived me?

If she had murdered Oleran on Halloween during the party, she would’ve had to take a helicopter from New York City to D.C. and fly back again during the party. It could be done, especially by private flight. Mrs. Livingston could have easily killed Caroline and flown to D.C. to continue her grisly work.

My phone rang. “Hanover,” I said, cradling my new cell phone between my ear and shoulder.

“There’s been another one, Ms. Hanover,” Samantha announced.

“Another what, Pet?”

“Murder, ma’am. A secretary from one of banks in Baltimore was sniped this morning.”

“Sniped?” I felt the muscles in my cheek twitch. “Email me with the data,” I ordered.

“It’ll be in your box in five minutes.”

“Good. Transfer me to Anderson.”

Anderson’s secretary put me on hold. While I waited, I checked the news sites. There were a few reports, but all I learned was that the woman had been shot outside of her office.

The killer hadn’t left so much as a single casing, according to most of the outlets. The bullet had also been cut out of her body, too.

Not just a killed by a sniper, then, I decided, staring at the young woman’s face on one of the sites.

“Victoria,” Anderson said, his voice tired. “I don’t suppose you have some magic wisdom to impart, do you?”

“No, but I do have a favor to ask of you,” I replied, wishing to myself I did have some form of useful magic. “Anderson, can you quietly get information on a Mrs. Olivia Livingston? She’s a New York City hotshot, so far as I know.”

“Mrs. Livingston? Yeah, I know of her. She’s been trying to buy up stock for six months, but I was told rather firmly by Eval she wasn’t the type of stockholder we want.”

“Give every member of Eval a raise. How much stock does she have?”

“Give me a second,” he said. I heard him typing away at a keyboard. With every moment I waited, my irritation grew. “Half a percent.”

“I don’t want a single positive increase to her stock figures,” I growled. “Lock down all of our stock if you need to. You’re clever. Find some way to buy her out.”

Anderson made a thoughtful noise in his throat. “That’s not going to be easy. I can try to find out if she’ll sell some of the obscure stocks through a broker, though. Locking down the market would be difficult at best. She has enough money to buy high without worrying about her losses, Victoria.”

“Do whatever you need to, but devalue her.”

“That’s risky.”

“Unless you can get her down to a quarter of a percent, I want her devalued.”

“Give me two days to see what I can do,” he said. “It’s dangerous at best, though. I’ll see what Amelia thinks.”

I wrinkled my nose. The man had a point. “Fine, just make certain she can’t get a hold on the boards of Marrodin or any one of our branch companies.”

“She won’t,” Anderson promised.

“Good. Now, I need another favor from you. About that girl who was sniped in Baltimore, pull her file. I want to know how our two employees were connected. Like with Oleran, extend our sympathies and offer to cover the costs of the funeral.”

“She was a single mother, no other immediate family.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“I wish I were, Victoria.”

“Don’t let that child get into the state system,” I whispered. “If you can’t find someone to take her kid—”

“Kids.”

I struggled with the desire to smash my laptop, throw my phone, and scream. “How many?”

“Two. The girl is six, the boy is eight. Their… their father died last month. Hit-and-run.”

“Oh hell. Okay. Find someone who can take them in for three or four days, and get Amelia on their case as soon as possible.”

“Victoria?”

“What?” I snapped.

“What do I do with them after that?”

I closed my eyes and drew several deep breaths until I could speak without losing my temper. “You don’t do anything. They’ll come with me until we can find them good parents.”

“Oh.”

I opened my eyes and stared at my laptop, meeting the relentless gaze of the dead mother of two. “I’ll call you in a few hours.”

“Okay,” Anderson whispered.

I hung up, pretending I didn’t hear the tears in his voice. Deep within me, my wolf raged, howling in the silence of my mind for blood and vengeance.

~*~

I couldn’t keep two kids in the ratty apartment I’d chosen. It wouldn’t work. A house was best for kids, a quiet little place on the outskirts of the city, where they could run outside, play, and get in trouble. Part of me wanted them to have access to the wild things in the world, but I squashed the wants of my wolf for the reality of the modern era.

For all I had played the roles of many women in my life, I’d never tried to be a mother. Death followed me around, and the thought of bringing children into it sickened me more than the deaths of any number of adults.

What was I going to do with two kids?

My wolf was ready with answers, but I tried my best to ignore the beast within. The edge of anger was still there, but it was morphing, changing into a protective fury I didn’t want to encourage. I managed to pull up the numbers of a few real estate agents without throwing my laptop across the room. After several hours of talking to potential agents, I ended up picking a young woman who hadn’t been a real estate agent for very long, but was game for the challenge I presented her.

Cash sales, at least, could be processed quickly. I gave the startled girl the phone number for a Smith & Sons notary and a time limit of two days. It was all I could do. In the worst case scenario, I’d impose on Samantha for a few days until I could get a house situated for them. I dialed Samantha’s new number from memory.

“Samantha speaking.”

“Pet, I’ll be taking care of two kids in the next few days. I may need to impose on your condo until I can find a place appropriate for them,” I said.

“You? Kids? Oh my god. What happened?”

“They’re the murdered secretary’s kids. I can’t just throw them in the state system.” I rubbed at my temples, trying to will away the starts of a headache. “I’m hoping the real estate agent I just hired can work some magic and find something unoccupied that I can fast track.”

“You’re insane.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Pet,” I muttered.

“Of course you can bring the kids to the condo. You didn’t even need to ask.”

I sighed, long and gusty. “This is such a mess.”

“No kidding.”

“Let me know if you find out anything more about the murders,” I demanded before hanging up.

Once again, the pretty face of a young mother stared at me. Her hazel eyes were as close to a wolf’s as a human could get, but there wasn’t any wildness in her as far as I could tell from the photo. Her smile was pretty, revealing a hint of white teeth.

To me, she seemed like the kind of quiet person who did what she needed to for her children, including showing up to work at five in the morning. Why had she been killed? Why snipe her in front of a bank so early in the day?

What was the killer’s goal? Or was it killers? I opened up one of the more accurate reports on Oleran’s death. Both deaths were brutal, but quick. Oleran had enough time to be surprised, but I doubted he had lived long enough to feel much in the way of pain. If the article was right, the young secretary had died before she realized she’d been hit.

But how had the killer managed to cut out the bullet without being seen? In a sick way, the killer’s actions made some sense to me. With the bullet gone and the wound mutilated, I doubted the police would even be able to get the caliber of the weapon accurately. It wasn’t something an amateur would do. Oleran’s death could’ve been a crime of passion, unplanned. The secretary’s had been meticulously planned.

A cold shiver ran through me. If the secretary’s death had been planned, had the death of her husband been more than just a hit-and-run? I doubted I’d find anything on the internet, but I searched anyway.

I suspected I’d spend the next few days running down rabbit holes without seeing a single bunny.

Two days after I decided I would adopt two children, my cell phone woke me up a little after seven in the morning. “Hello?” I mumbled.

“Ms. Hanover, it’s Dawn Uthrick. I have found a property meeting your requirements, and I took the liberty of preparing the paperwork. I need your signature to submit the offer to the owners. Can we meet?”

“How much and where?” I asked, jerking upright in my nest of pillows and blankets.

“The house will cost you nine-fifty, and is located in Buckhead. It has six beds, four baths, and a double garage. It’s been unoccupied for three months but has had a caretaker. The owners have already agreed verbally to the price and can sign off on the offer today. Inspection is done, and I have the results for your review. If I have all of the documentation in from you by noon, I can hand it over to your notary for completion. I have also taken the liberty of arranging a temporary lease to allow you to move into the property until the notary can confirm and complete the paperwork.”

I felt both of my brows rise. “That’s really nice work.” Buckhead wasn’t near the forests, but it would ensure I could get whatever I needed for the children. At least the area did have trees, though I considered most of the parks as little more than over-glorified groves rather than forests. At least Atlanta liked wooded parks versus open lawns. It was also the type of place Ms. Hanover would buy as a very, very expensive whim. “Pick a cafe. I need coffee.”

Dawn gave me an address in Buckhead. I told her I’d meet her in an hour. I hung up and dashed for the bathroom. I wouldn’t have time to tame my rat’s nest, but I could at least show up for the appointment nice and clean.