Читать книгу Masked Desire - Alana Delacroix - Страница 10

Chapter 4

Michaela eyed Cormac with veiled resentment. It had been a long and tiresome day and having Cormac shadow her every move had not helped. True to his promise, he had stayed out of the way, but his obtrusively unobtrusive lurking had been more distracting than if he had taken part in the interrogations. Every time she’d looked up, she’d been confronted by his bright green, then brown, then dark green eyes watching her every move with a disconcerting intensity, as though he was stripping her to her very soul. She’d done her best to ignore it.

Michaela ran her hand quickly over her hair, tucking in loose strands as she glanced down her list and fixed the neatness of one of the lines. The councilor interviews had been frustrating. To her mind, having to waste time discussing their relationships with Hiro was also useless since she was almost certain she was the intended victim. She’d said as much to Madden after the council meeting.

“He was found in my office,” she’d said. “You know what the Dawning has threatened to do to me.”

“You promised me that our security here was tight.”

“It is, but it doesn’t prevent someone on Pharos from acting on their behalf.”

“Yet you are alive and Hiro is dead,” he’d said. “I need to you to focus on the man who’s dead. It may not be about you.”

As if she was such a narcissist. The stress of running Pharos was getting to Madden. His temper had been short for the last few months and although she’d not commented on his new attitude towards her, it had hurt. For years, Madden had been one of the few people she’d regarded as a compass—wise with experience and generous with advice.

She sighed, suspecting she’d outgrown him as a mentor. Perhaps he knew it too.

She thumbed through her notes as Cormac guzzled down water. Every councilor they had spoken to had an alibi, or an alibi of sorts. Cormac had been seen at breakfast. The witches had been at a Zumba class. One of the werewomen had been with her alpha, while the other had a dentist’s appointment.

“This room is grim,” observed Cormac from his seat near the wall as he put down the empty glass. Michaela had commandeered an empty office space for her interviews. “Like tedium came to life with a career in interior decoration.”

“It’s a meeting room. Cover it with one of your fey glamours if it bothers you so much.”

His arched eyebrows rose high. “We usually only glamour ourselves.”

“Like you did to hide from Nadia?” The young vampire had been furious Cormac had hoodwinked her and had blamed everyone and everything except her own inattentiveness.

He leaned back and crossed his arms. Michaela kept her gaze up and away from the very unprofessional observation of noticing how good his biceps looked. For a lean man, Cormac was impressively muscular. “Is that what she told you? Sorry. She was simply unobservant. It would be a crime to glamour myself. How would people admire me?”

“Arrogance.” Not that it wasn’t well-deserved. Cormac was a very striking male, though his appalling personality negated any attraction his tall body and chiseled features might have had. Or his broad shoulders and muscled thighs. She’d noticed, but that was to be expected. As a masquerada, she always closely observed people’s physical appearance; it meant nothing.

“Truth.” He sat down and settled down in the chair, fiddling with a pen. “We aren’t all thieves, you know.” He sounded amused.

She hid her surprise. “I didn’t say you were.”

Cormac snorted. “Right. You looked at my hands and tapped your jacket pocket. Your keys are safe.”

“How do you know I have keys there?”

“They leave a bulge and jangle. Like a dungeon keeper.” He made a gesture of twisting a key. “You know, we still haven’t discussed your alibi.”

No, they hadn’t. She ignored him and checked her watch. “Rendell is on his way.”

“Rendell is always late. Where were you this morning before you arrived here?”

She was the one in charge, thought Michaela furiously. “None of your business. You may have someone to vouch for you, but I still want to know about your dealings with Hiro.”

He leaned forward. “First you. I repeat: Where were you when Hiro died?”

Michaela smiled and looked him in the eye. “This is not your investigation.”

“Nor is it completely yours. No one will be so crude as to say it aloud, but the reason you have a Watcher is because deep inside their nasty little souls, your colleagues all think you did it.”

“At least they have souls,” she snapped. Not the best comeback, especially since the fey absence of soul was still a matter of debate. You’re getting too involved. Step back. It had been a long time since someone had managed to get under her skin the way Cormac could without even trying.

“Where were you?” His eyes didn’t leave hers and despite herself, Michaela was impressed. Cormac had a commanding presence that made him an intimidating interviewer. She straightened her back. She had faced worse than an exiled fey.

The heavy silence filled the room and Michaela settled herself to wait him out.

“You could be the killer,” he said. “In fact, you are the most likely killer.”

She yawned and paged through her notes. “Tell me about your deals with Hiro,” she said.

“Of course, whatever alibi you could give would be close to meaningless,” he said thoughtfully. “It could be anyone in your masque.”

“You and Hiro?”

“I’ll tell you about Hiro if you give me your alibi.”

Michaela smiled. “So tell me.”

“I had a meeting with him at ten this morning,” Cormac said promptly. “Or would have.”

“What about?” She had to ask even though she doubted his honesty. Cormac could protest against the fey reputation for thievery all he wanted, but no one in their right mind would believe a word out of one’s mouth. They were golden-tongued, renowned liars and storytellers.

“A forest. I was negotiating for the rights to one of his forests in northern Japan.”

“Why?” The fey had plenty of forest. “What made this one so special?”

He shrugged. “It’s a lovely place, worthy of the queen. I thought she would enjoy it.”

Michaela regarded him. Gratuitous generosity was not a fey trait. “You mean give it to Tismelda so she’ll reverse your exile.”

“That’s one part of it, certainly,” he said smoothly. “Humans are encroaching on the area. All that beauty will be gone in a human generation without protection.”

She had to admit this was reasonable. The fey were fanatical about keeping woodland, even though their primary abodes were in their own realm. If that was true, then it would have been in Cormac’s best interest to keep Hiro alive. If it was true.

“Are you done, Inquisitor?” His gaze was mocking but she noticed that his eyes lingered on her lips. “Ready to keep your end of the bargain?”

“I made no bargain,” she said. “Now be silent. I hear Rendell.”

He sputtered as he realized that she hadn’t committed to the deal he’d offered but took a seat with ill-grace as Rendell thrust the door open and entered with a slow and languid elegance that made her feel lumpy and bumbling. The fey often had this effect on other arcana. As he passed Cormac, she compared the two. There were similarities, to be certain. All fey had a particular puckishness to their features. In Rendell, it came out in a strangely gleeful expression as if laughing at a cruel joke. Cormac had a bit of the same but without the underlying nastiness. On him, it showed in the occasional wicked and knowing smile that swept across his face like a cool wind.

Rendell brushed an imaginary speck of dust off his spotless silver-gray suit. “I keep thinking of Hiro. Poor man. Such pain.”

The words were right, but Rendell’s voice was thick with a horrible excitement. He kept talking. “You saw him. Were the cuts deep? Were the blood drops like rubies on his skin?”

Michaela barely avoided rolling her eyes at his blatant attempt to shock her but Cormac growled. “Why don’t you tell us?” he asked.

“Cormac.” Her voice carried a warning.

Rendell’s eyes flickered over him, deliberately dismissive, before turning back to Michaela. “Should we be frightened? Can you protect us all?” He licked his lips.

It only took her seconds to decide how to deal with him. “You’ve nothing to be afraid of,” she said in her chirpiest voice, patterned after the most irritatingly cheerful barista she knew. “We think the attacker is only targeting important Pharos members.”

Rendell laughed. “Charming, Michaela. You know, of course, that unlike you, I have no reason to kill Hiro. Or any human for that matter, although Oksana is so irritating she should be exterminated on principle.”

She caught Cormac leaning forward as if to say something and shot him such a look that he held up his hands in mock surrender.

“You were seen speaking to him in the library several days ago,” she said to Rendell.

“Perhaps. I speak to many of my colleagues.”

Investigations would go so much better if she only had to deal with things and not people. “What did you discuss?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Let me help jog your memory. You were overheard talking about money. Quite a vast sum.”

Rendell yawned and cast his eyes up to the ceiling in an exaggeratedly theatrical attempt at recollection. “Now it comes back to me. He offered me some land, a forest. I have plenty and declined, but he was extremely pushy. I told him I’d think about it.”

“What land?” asked Michaela. Across the room, Cormac’s eyes were trained on Rendell but he remained silent.

“A Japanese mountain, or some such thing.”

Japan. Michaela kept her focus on Rendell. “Northern Japan?”

“Now that you mention it, yes.” He smirked. “Did he offer it to you, too?”

“I don’t need a forest.”

“Oksana says Hiro’s death is a violation of the Law, you know.” Rendell cocked his head to the side, then crossed his legs. “Is she right?”

“Human councilors are outside the Law,” she said. “Obviously, since they need to know of arcane existence.”

“The Law and the peace it brought hangs by a thread.” Rendell’s comment made Michaela wonder how much of his attitude was simply show. The Law that governed all arcana and hid them from human view had worked for the last seven hundred years and, on the surface, still seemed to be working. Rendell was one of the first Michaela had heard openly admit to the potentially devastating cracks that were forming underneath.

“Why do you say that?”

“Hiro is one of only two humans on the council. If I were Oksana, I would be very worried indeed.”

“An interesting theory.” She had an inkling of where this was going but would let him say it.

“Didn’t the masquerada have a little problem with humans recently? Franz Iverson?”

She didn’t bite. “All the arcane groups have a love-hate relationship with humans, not only the masquerada.”

Rendell gave her a nasty smile. “Last time I checked, the fey weren’t the ones trying to, oh, dominate the world and subjugate humanity.”

Deep breath. “That was one twisted man’s thinking.” Franz Iverson had not made them many friends by declaring humans were at the bottom of a pyramid of worth that placed the masquerada alone at the top. While most arcana would agree with humans at the base, they disagreed vehemently about having masquerada at the apex.

“One?” Rendell examined Michaela with his pale blue eyes. “We all know how hard it’s been for you to take control of your insubordinate groups. I doubt he was the only believer.”

He winked at her and swept out of the room, a king ending an audience with a supplicant.

Once he was gone, Cormac scowled, his jaw tense. “Does that worm bother you?”

“I’m not interested in your petty rivalry.”

“Petty? No. Rendell is one of the queen’s pets and he has even less morality than most fey. Stay clear of him.”

“It’s my investi—”

He smiled at her, the corners of his eyes crinkling in a way that made her heart beat faster. Attracted to Cormac? Impossible. “Michaela. I know you can take care of yourself. I give you only a warning about an individual of whom I have more experience than you.”

She listened now. It was difficult to find accurate information about the fey. “What do you mean?”

“Rendell is the queen’s master torturer. He enjoys his work.”

She blanched. “That’s barbaric.” The masquerada had abandoned torture decades ago. Arcane groups didn’t interfere in each other’s internal discipline, but such practices still came in for a good amount of superior tut-tutting.

“That is how the fey court works.” Cormac yawned as if this was normal. “He did bring up a good point, however.”

“I don’t recall asking your opinion.”

“I know. That’s why I’m giving it unsolicited.”

“What exactly are you blaming on us?” Her day with Cormac had caused a headache that had settled directly behind her eyes.

He gave a languid shrug. “Not Hiro’s death, necessarily. The tension between arcane groups, yes.”

“This is not our fault.” Why was it her job to defend her race against the stupidity of a single bigoted man who the Hierarch had killed in combat? Hadn’t she spent the last half year fighting death threats to make sure masquerada with such heinous beliefs were taken into custody?

It must have been chilly in the room, because she shivered as he moved by her to flick open the window curtain and check outside. “No need to get high and mighty. Perhaps if you treated the rest of the arcane world with the respect you demand, it would be easier to work with you.”

True enough for some of her compatriots, but no need to get into it. The other groups were no better. She refused to get defensive.

Cormac pushed on. “Iverson might be dead, but can you tell me that what he believed died with him? Obviously not, with the amount of work you’ve been doing to crush his supporters.”

It wasn’t surprising others knew of her role in clearing Iverson’s poison out of the masquerada. Franz Iverson had been vile and Eric had killed him and then systematically destroyed his networks. Most of his lackeys were either dead or imprisoned—thanks in a large part to her.

“Rumor has it that you let Iverson’s deputy escape,” he said. “You can’t even find her.”

Time to end this conversation. “Frieda is of no concern to me.” Michaela glanced down at her notebook. Right now she had a murder to solve.