The Lady in Pink - Deadly Ever After 2 (19 page)

A
n hour later, exhausted and numb, I watched as Jonas and another security guard marched Alice from Izzy’s office. I felt nothing as I watched the trio disappear into the elevator. Izzy was waiting for me as I stepped out of her office, a crystal tumbler of whiskey in her hands. I took it and swallowed the burning liquor in one gulp.

“Hey,” she complained. “I was drinking that.”

“Not fast enough,” I countered. “Izzy, I think it’s time we—”

Clark popped his head out of his office, cutting me off. “I still can’t believe it,” he said. “Not one, but two employees plotting to kill you. It boggles the mind.”

Izzy smiled. “Not after you spend enough time with Blue. I’m actually surprised it took someone this long.”

“Funny,” I said, thinking it was anything but; in fact, a part of me took my employees’ betrayal very personally. I vowed that the next time we hired anyone, they’d have to sign a waiver promising not to attempt to murder me no matter how much they’d like to. I suspected Izzy might balk at the idea, but I was pretty sure she’d come around.

Eventually.

Which was why I didn’t immediately fill her in on my plan.

I had one. No doubt about it.

Whether it would work was a whole different story.

Izzy snapped her fingers in front of my face to gain my attention. “Blue,” she said sharply, “Clark asked you a question.”

“Oh.” I blinked a few times. “What’s up?”

Ever the gracious gentleman, Clark smiled brightly. His smile had to be fake. His teeth were too straight and white to be anything but veneers. Probably ones he’d had since birth. “I asked if you’d like to join Isabella and myself for dinner.” He paused as his eye roamed over my expensive suit, but it wasn’t nearly as ritzy as his own. “We’ll go somewhere more casual. Unless you’d like to change?”

I shook my head, suddenly beyond tired. “I’ll pass.” Though it killed me, I added, “You two have fun, though.” What I really wanted to say was, I hope you die of food poisoning, Clark. I instantly felt bad for my dark thoughts. Clark was an okay guy.

Hell, I still hoped a mild case of VD on him.

“If you’re sure?” Izzy asked, her eyes filled with concern.

I nodded.

She leaned in, her lips ever so slightly brushing my cheek. A spark shot between us, but she didn’t move away. “Good night, Blue,” she said. “I’ll see you later.”

A chill puckered my flesh like an omen at her softly spoken words.

 

A cold drizzle fell from the sky, soaking through my suit jacket. I shivered, pulling the collar against the back of my neck, both to keep the rain out and to keep Right and Left from realizing they’d been ditched again. Whatever Izzy was paying them was obviously too much if they couldn’t keep their target in sight. I grinned as I slipped past Right without a second glance.

Two blocks up, I searched the shadows for a dark-colored sedan parked at the curb. Peyton had left it for me after I called him a few hours ago. I had no idea where he’d gotten it, nor did I really care. I had more important things on my mind.

I made my way to the car, a smile lining my face when the driver’s side door offered no resistance. I ducked inside, nearly breaking my leg, as the seat was less than a foot from the dashboard. “Damn it,” I yelped, throwing the seat back so it fit my six-foot frame.

Once I was finally settled, I started the engine and pulled into traffic, narrowly avoiding a passing ice cream truck. I slammed on the brakes in time, but my heart continued to pound in my chest for the rest of the trip to Alphabet Soup City.

As I crossed the bridge into the land of Avenues A, B, and C, the gentle aromas of tomatoes and broth tickled my nostrils. Not unpleasant, but it did make me hungry. Over the growling of my stomach, I lit a cigarette, a sad replacement for a four-course meal, but it would have to do. It would be a long time before I enjoyed more than a stale bag of chips.

I thought of Izzy and Clark seated in some fancy restaurant, waiters hovering to anticipate their every need while mounds of delicious food were piled on the table. Tonight Clark would make his move. He’d say something witty and Izzy would laugh, letting her guard down. Clark would press his advantage, pouring her more and more wine, until her defenses were completely down and she was his for the taking.

The very thought killed my growing appetite. My hands tightened on the wheel until the woven pattern on the steering wheel cover was etched into the leather of my gloves. I took a deep breath, relaxing my grip.

Since I didn’t have a license, I stayed well below the speed limit, my phone giving me vague directions to my final destination in a snobby tone. Half an hour later I pulled to the curb and parked. The windshield wipers screeched across the pitted windshield, so I turned them off before the sound drew attention to the guy in the driver’s seat.

I hunkered down in my seat, my breathing the only sound. Apparently people other than old men with large bumps on their heads had a dislike for the soggy weather. The normally packed streets were empty. The red, yellow, and green of the stoplights reflected in the rain puddles, pulling me into a hypnotic trance. I blinked a few times, trying to keep from falling asleep.

Hell, I’d been waiting for only twenty minutes.

With a yawn, I rubbed the growth of blue whiskers on my chin as I counted up to a thousand and back down again, by sevens, to keep awake. A feat a hell of a lot harder than it sounded. The passenger side door of the car opened, sending a swift, cold burst of air around me. I glanced up. “Took you long enough,” I complained to the woman now seated next to me.

Alice pushed the rim of her glasses up her nose with her middle finger but didn’t comment. Instead she tossed a stack of files in my lap. I gazed down at the top file, Izzy’s name emblazoned across the top. “Any trouble getting them?” I asked.

She shook her head, her eyes fixed on the rain-streaked window for a full minute. “I wanted to thank you.”

I frowned. “For what?”

She swallowed. “For believing me this afternoon. Believing I wasn’t in cahoots with James, even though you found that phone in my desk.”

I shrugged. It hadn’t been hard to believe in her innocence. It took me about ten minutes to realize the truth. Alice had been framed. While exceedingly accident-prone, she was far from stupid. So why would she leave evidence of her crimes in her own desk? I suspected someone had planted the burner phone and the blond hair on the pillow at the loft, not to mention the picture of the obscured blonde at the frat house.

Which meant one thing: James did have a partner.

And he or she was just the lead I needed to find my parents.

James’s partner must’ve overheard me tell Izzy about the Ferns’ claim of having seen a woman with hair as blond as spun gold and decided to pin everything on Alice. I had little doubt of her innocence given her IQ, which was why I’d arranged for her very public exit. I wanted whoever had planted the bogus evidence to feel safe.

From the looks on everyone’s faces as Alice was dragged from the building by Jonas and his security guard pal, my plan had worked perfectly. Now it was time to catch a killer, or rather a few killers, two of whom were also known as Mom and Dad.

W
hen we’d found the burner phone in Alice’s drawer, it had taken me less than ten minutes to put two and two together and come up with a few suspects. Considering the only people with access to Alice’s desk were employees of Reynolds & Davis Securities, my suspect pool was fewer than ten people total. I would find James’s partner and that person would pay.

That was how I found myself sitting in a car in Alphabet Soup City with Alice in the passenger seat. I’d had her run the rest of the numbers called from James’s phone, as well as the one we found in her desk this afternoon. She’d agreed to meet me far from the bright lights of our office when she had the information I needed.

According to Alice, the only other number found on James’s burner phone was the Reynolds & Davis switchboard.

James’s cohorts had been smart—never dialing him directly. Given that on an average day, we received and made more than five hundred phone calls at the office, tracking each call felt like an impossible task. And the killer knew it, too.

With that information swirling around my head, I had Alice pull every single employee’s record, from the janitor to my partner. Somewhere there had to be some evidence of whom James had partnered with. An idea that quickly faded in the face of one fact—whoever had been working with James likely held a wee bit of a grudge after his death. I doubted they’d admit to anything, let alone starting two fires and murdering an old woman.

“The files have everything I could find on each name,” Alice was saying. “Some more than others.” She tapped Clark Boyer’s file folder, which was as thick as a book, while her own was much slimmer. “I hope this helps.”

I nodded, not quite sure what I expected to find. Picking up the first file, I ran my finger over Izzy’s name. As much as I hated what I was about to do, I couldn’t stop. Izzy had a secret, one she wasn’t willing to share. And that put her in danger, especially if said secret had something to do with my past. As I flipped through the file, one piece of paper caught my eye. It was a list of computer searches, some seemingly innocent enough, but when they were viewed as a whole, a pattern emerged. I showed the list to Alice. “These are all from Izzy’s computer?” I asked, the paper shaking along with my hand.

She nodded. “Mostly from three weeks ago. Nothing in the last week.”

I closed my eyes, fear growing as the full weight of what I had read filled me.

I now knew what case Izzy had been working without me.

I just hoped it wouldn’t take her from me too.

W
hile I waited for Izzy to arrive back at my apartment from her “date,” I flipped through Clark’s file without much interest. On paper Clark was the same as in person—completely vanilla—boring to the very end. The Boyer clan was a bit more interesting. Not enough to keep my mind from wandering, though.

I thought of what I would say to Izzy when she arrived home, if she came home tonight. That thought left me electrified with anger. I planned on slowly twisting the screws until she finally came clean, offering up all of her secrets like thousands had done for her with their molars. I blew on my heated fingertips as my attention returned to the Boyer file. The first family of New Never City. Hell, Clark’s relatives had come over on the
Fairyflower
. Not a hint of scandal, let alone a gaggle full of murderous relations like yours bluely. The Boyers were New Never City élite, just as my former Tooth Fairy cohort was in Fairyland.

When, much to my disgust, my mind inadvertently pictured Izzy in Clark’s arms, I tried to fight the feeling of inevitability. Two people of and from the same circles. Izzy might dabble on the dark side, but the cream always rose to the top.

And one day she’d leave me for, if not Clark, then someone very much like him.

The thought turned my stomach.

Suffice it to say I had worked myself into quite the rotten mood by the time Izzy arrived back at my place. I was half in the bag to boot. Whiskey had tasted a whole lot better than the half-eaten bag of chips I’d had for dinner when I returned home.

I sat in the dark, a half full bottle of whiskey in my hand, when Izzy unlocked my front door. I heard her say good night to Clark, thankful when she stepped inside alone a few seconds later. Keeping the lights off, she hurried by on her way to my bedroom. To my bed.

My grip tightened on the bottle, the cold smoothness doing nothing to ease the burning inside me. “Have a nice evening?” I asked from the shadows.

She gasped, dropping her purse. It hit the floor without a sound, the contents slipping out between us. A small, clear vial of dentin rolled in a circle, finally settling a few inches from my boot. My gaze stayed locked on the vial, too afraid to glance up at my partner. I was half afraid of what I might do when I did, but even more scared of what would happen if I chickened out and said nothing.

“Blue,” Izzy said, a slight tremor in her tone. She took a small step forward, as if nothing was wrong when in truth everything we had was crashing in around us. “Is everything all right?”

Finally I glanced up, searching her beautiful yet treacherous face. She looked unsure and even a little afraid. “Don’t lie to me.” I slowly rose to face her, my legs as unsteady as my voice. “Not anymore, Izzy.”

“I don’t—”

“Yeah, you do, sweetheart.” I licked my dry lips. “You’ve been investigating me for the past month.”

“I
wanted to tell you,” Izzy was saying as we stared at each other from what was only a few feet apart but might as well have been the length of an unspooled roll of floss. I lifted the whiskey bottle to my lips, drinking deeply to squelch the current threatening to rise. “But . . .” She trailed off.

“But what?” I swallowed past the lump of bitterness choking me. “You were what? Afraid of what I might do?”

She nodded slowly.

I laughed, loud and hollow. “You’re lying, like you did every time I asked you about your case. How you must’ve laughed when I offered to help.” Her lips thinned, but she didn’t argue, though I wanted nothing more than a fight. “All this time my past was your super-secret case. To what end?”

She turned, giving me her back. “I never meant to hurt you. I was trying . . . I
am
trying to protect you.”

“From what, Izzy? The truth? From freedom from this?” Electricity bolted from my fingers as my laughter grew darker. “Let me thank you for that. Really.”

For the first time since she entered my apartment, genuine emotion showed through her façade, like ice cracking when electricity was applied. “You don’t understand, Blue. There are things ... secrets ... about your parents.”

I grabbed her arm, shocking us both literally and figuratively. I let go when sparks shot from my hand, burning her delicate skin. “You know where they are.” I shoved my hands in my pockets to keep from throttling her. Didn’t she see how dangerous the people who birthed me were? They’d already killed one person, and probably more, in hopes of hiding the very secrets Izzy now held. The thought of anyone, let alone the people who’d abandoned me, harming Izzy nearly drove me mad.

She took a few steps away, her eyes steady on the night sky beyond the grimy windows of my apartment. “Two months ago, completely by accident, mind you, I read the file you kept on your birth.”

I snorted. “Considering it was locked in the bottom of my desk, I’m guessing the accident part is”—I paused—“like most of the things you say, a lie.”

Her soft gasp told me I’d hit the mark. “Anyway,” she said coldly, “I decided, as a friend, to do a little investigating on my own.” I chuckled at her use of the word “friend,” but let her continue her fairytale. “I didn’t know what I would find, but I wanted to . . . thank you for giving me a chance to be something other than the expected.” She emphasized her point by flapping her wings. A small cloud of fairy dust filled the air, taking some of the edge off my anger.

I inhaled deeply, hoping to ease the rest, including the gnawing fear churning in my gut. “I take it this is where I beg your forgiveness and tell you just how damn much I appreciate your attempt to help poor Little Boy Blue?”

Anger flashed across her face. “No need to be snarky. I admit my actions weren’t the best, but my intentions were and are pure. I thought I was doing the right thing.”

I gave a bitter laugh. “You want to do right by me? Then tell me where I can find them.”

She closed her eyes. “I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“You don’t know what you’re asking, Blue.” A single tear slid down her cheek. “Please. Just let it go.”

“Tell me,” I barked. “Where are they?”

“The New Never City Cemetery.”