TWENTY-EIGHT
Aly’s cheeks were pink as she took in the constables that were spreading out, pulling books off shelves and tugging cupboard doors open.
Her fingers were still tangled in Grant’s hair, just as they’d been in Calum’s only three days earlier.
Calum’s gut lurched. He’d seen fear in her eyes, in the way her fingers had crept up the cuff of her shirt when she’d spoken of Grant last night, yet here she was kissing him, as though everything she’d said about Grant, every scared look and seemingly subconscious gesture had been an act.
Perhaps it had been.
He knew she arranged her facial expressions with care to avoid giving away any hint of what lay beneath, not to mention how readily her voice slid between the registers of a wealthy doctor’s daughter and an impoverished thief.
He’d assumed that was how she’d stayed safe and alive with Grant all these years, hiding her true feelings for the man in every word and gesture.
But her thumb slid over his hair in an absent-minded gesture and she pulled away, her fingers trailing along his shoulder to rest on his forearm, and it didn’t look like an act.
She looked comfortable with Grant, showing the kind of familiarity Calum had thought had begun to bloom between them.
The sight pierced through him, tightening his ribs around his lungs.
Aly stepped towards Calum, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes.
“What is the meaning of this?” She had on her best cut-glass accent, so sharp Calum felt the bite at the end of “what.” She glowered at Clare, who was opening the drawers of Grant’s desk, oblivious to Calum’s distress. “You need a warrant.”
Her chest was heaving, and in her low-cut bodice he could see the swell of her bosom rising and falling beneath her thin fichu.
Heat unfurled in Calum’s belly, and he clenched his teeth together, holding up the folded paper in his hand.
“I have one.” But he couldn’t shake the nagging feeling in his stomach that they wouldn’t find anything, that Aly had been playing him all along and had reported to Grant on Calum’s every move.
Grant’s steps were muffled by the carpets as he stalked over and snatched the warrant out of Calum’s hand, turning away and tilting the paper towards the fire to read it. Aly’s eyes flicked to Grant, her lips pale and her shoulders stiff. Something in Calum softened. She was afraid of Grant.
“You’d better have overwhelming evidence, storming in like this,” Aly said, her chin lifted imperiously. “Do you have any idea who this man is?”
Calum’s heart lurched. He understood all too well what she wasn’t saying, what she couldn’t say in front of anyone else. He couldn’t meet her eyes, afraid his gaze would betray the truth.
Clare crossed to Calum, holding out a carved wooden box. “You’ll want to take a look at this.”
Calum took Clare’s elbow, leading her to the corner of the room and lowering his voice. He looked over his shoulder at Grant, still by the fire, but with the noise from the constables and the size of the room even fae ears wouldn’t hear him. “Did you find the seal?”
“Only one with a sheaf of barley.” That would fit with Grant’s work as a brewster.
Calum took the box and opened it, finding the remaining letters between Gibson and Edzan.
He looked at Clare’s furrowed brow, then past her to the other constables as they rifled through Grant’s desk drawers.
None of the others seemed aware of the box.
He could ignore it, and explain to Clare later.
“That looks awfully like the box that burgess reported stolen a few weeks ago, doesn’t it?”
Calum’s head snapped up. Hugh was walking over to him, his eyes on the box in Calum’s hand.
“Does it?” Calum asked.
Hugh nodded. “Aye, I took the report myself, when I did that shift at Station House Seven. I’m sure that’s it.”
“Edzan?” Clare asked. “The letters in there are all between her and Gibson.” She turned to Calum. “What’s our suspect doing with a box of letters from the victim?”
Calum’s fingers tightened on the carved wood. He strode over to Grant, holding the box out so Grant could see it clearly. “Where did you get this?”
Grant shrugged, an insouciant expression on his face. “What’s it to you?”
Calum took a trembling breath, forcing himself to remain calm. “The owner has reported it stolen.”
“Have they now?” Grant inclined his head towards Aly, who still stood with her arms crossed, her shoulders squared as her eyes flitted back and forth between the constables.
“You’ll have to ask her. She brought it to me.
” He raised his voice a fraction. “Aly, darling, the inspector here has a question for you.”
Aly’s head snapped towards them, her lips parting in surprise. Her eyes widened in recognition as she caught sight of the box in Calum’s hand.
“Where did you get this box?” he asked. “Mr. Mercer tells me that you brought it here. The owner has reported it stolen.”
Aly thrust a hand out, making an impatient noise in the back of her throat. “I want to see the warrant first.” She was trying to buy time, to come up with an answer that didn’t incriminate herself—in the eyes of the law or in Grant’s.
Grant gave a theatrical sigh. “It’s all above board, my dear.
It seems the Wulver has been sneaking around, siphoning my premises for their business, so the judge signed a warrant for the entire property.
The lawyers will sort it out soon enough, but in the meantime you’d best answer the inspector’s question. ”
Aly’s gaze darted between the two of them, her jaw stiff. “I found it.”
“You found it,” Calum repeated. She didn’t really think that would be enough to let her go, did she? Behind him, a constable snorted, muttering, “Aye, right.”
Aly lifted her chin. “Aye, I found it.”
Calum took a step towards her, trying to read her expression.
She was cleverer than this; surely she could come up with a better excuse.
Unless she wanted or expected to be arrested.
He flicked his eyes to Grant, but the crime lord’s face was impassive, and it was impossible to tell if he was angry with Aly or not.
“And did you happen to find it in its owner’s home, by any chance? ”
Aly said nothing.
Calum set the box down on the desk and removed his manacles from his belt. “In that case, I’m placing you under arrest for theft.”
Aly let out a hiss as the manacles closed around her wrists. Grant watched them closely, a wicked gleam in his eye as he said, “You know what to do, Aly. Same as you usually do.”
Aly’s shoulders stiffened. Calum didn’t understand the comment, but it clearly meant something to Aly, and she didn’t like it.
He left Clare in charge of the search, though he wasn’t confident they’d turn anything else up, and led Aly to the gondola waiting in the canal below and to Station House Eight.
The cold iron of the manacles stung Aly’s skin. She resisted the urge to rub her wrists when Calum removed them. He’d taken her to an interview room at the police station, and though there was no fire or any source of heat, the room was stiflingly warm. Or perhaps that was just Aly’s anger.
She shrugged her coat off and flung it across the back of one of the chairs, then whirled on Calum.
“You said you wouldn’t move on him yet.” She’d thought he’d understood.
She’d thought he’d cared, if not about her, then about doing this right and seeing Grant safely put away.
When the constable had found the box, she’d almost given a convincing excuse, but she’d seen the gleam in Grant’s eyes when he’d blamed her for it and recalled his interrogation two days prior.
It would have been suspicious if Calum hadn’t arrested her for it, after he’d barged in like that with a warrant.
And the tosser still wouldn’t look at her, instead speaking to one of the sconces on the wall behind her. “I didn’t have a choice. There was enough evidence for a warrant. If I hadn’t done it my boss would have just sent someone else.”
“Did you at least get the seal?”
Calum shook his head, the white streak in his hair glinting in the light. “It wasn’t there.”
The words knocked the air out of her like a blow. She swore under her breath.
“There are officers looking for the Cailleach. If we can get her to flip—”
Aly shook her head, her hands trembling as she scraped them through her hair.
“You won’t find her. And if you do? She won’t give up Grant, or anyone else who’s commissioned an assassination.
That’s a good way to get herself killed in prison.
” She shook her head again. She’d trusted him.
“Think about it. If it was as easy as getting an accomplice to flip on him, we could have put him away with my testimony. But I rather like being alive so that was always a non-starter.”
Calum looked at her then, his grey eyes as cold as the sea. “What did he mean, when he said you’d know what to do?”
Aly tensed, flexing her fingers. “He was reminding me that he’s not going to send an advocate or pull any strings to get me out of here.
” She shifted her weight from foot to foot, full of nervous energy.
“He meant that it’s up to me to get myself out of here.
And if not . . .” She’d explained to him before what Grant did to those no longer useful to him who got caught by the police.
“If not, he’ll send someone to kill you, is that it?”
Aly nodded. She’d been trying to untangle it in her mind the entire gondola ride to the police station.
He’d always left her to sort herself out when she’d been arrested in the past, but when she’d failed, he’d had a backup plan.
Was he telling her that there was no backup, that she was no longer useful enough to him to get her out? Her skin suddenly felt cold.
“I don’t like you going back there,” Calum said. “To him.”
Aly scoffed. “Do you think I do?”
“You seemed rather cosy with him when I arrived,” Calum snarled, his upper lip curling into a sneer.
Aly stepped back as though he’d slapped her. It took a moment for her to find her voice, made mute by the venom in his tone. “What else was I to do?” Her voice was shrill, bouncing off the stone walls. “It would have been awfully suspicious if I suddenly started rejecting him.”
Calum crossed his arms. “Is that what you were doing?” His voice was quiet. “Just maintaining your cover?” He let out a mirthless laugh. “Because you looked like you were rather enjoying yourself to me.”
“That is rather the point of maintaining a cover,” Aly said, acid creeping into her tone. “Besides, what if I was enjoying myself? What’s it to you if I manage to eke a little bit of fun out of a rotten situation?”
“‘A little bit of fun?’” Calum snapped. “He’s dangerous, Aly.”
“You think I don’t know that?” She felt like her mind was unravelling, threads of thought pulling away in different directions and falling into oblivion. “He almost killed me the other day.”
Calum opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again and said, “And you’re still shagging him?”
Aly rolled her eyes, covering her anger and fear with disdain. “He’s not going to kill me with his cock.”
Calum went pale, his face turning a sickly colour in the lamplight. “What if—what if he gets you pregnant?”
“Then I’ll do the same thing I did last time that happened and deal with it.” She sighed, tangling her fingers in her hair. “I take precautions. I’m not completely irresponsible.”
“Just mostly,” Calum spat.
“Are you going to charge me, or just berate me about whom I fuck?”
Calum’s jaw went slack. The words hung between them and for a moment Aly wanted to take them back, but her rage still simmered in her veins.
Only the previous evening Calum had told her not to torment herself with the things she had done on Grant’s behalf, and now it was as though he’d only said that so he could throw her deeds back in her face.
And she hadn’t even done anything wrong.
She wasn’t hurting anyone. On the scale of things she had done with Grant, shagging him barely even ranked.
Calum passed a hand over his face. “I’m not going to charge you. I’ll not have your blood on my hands because Grant is afraid of you going to trial.” He levelled his gaze at her, his voice soft. “No matter what I say, you’re going to go back there, aren’t you?”
They’d been over this. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
“I’ve told you, you could—”
“No.” He already felt entitled to make judgements about whom she shared her bed with; he could only be worse if she was financially dependent on him.
Calum threw up his hands. “Fine. But don’t expect me to help you destroy yourself.” He gestured between them. “This arrangement is over. I don’t care what evidence you find; I’m not interested in it.”
Aly reeled back, her heartbeat pounding in her ears.
Without him . . . she wasn’t sure how she’d ever get away from Grant.
“You’re all the same, you coppers,” she snarled.
“All more interested in yourselves than in justice. I’d thought you were different, but in the end you’d rather spite me than do your fucking job. ”
She turned and wrenched open the door, storming past the row of desks. The dark-haired constable who had found the box of letters looked up as she passed, eyes narrowed. Aly ignored her.
It wasn’t until she reached the street that she realised she’d forgotten her coat, but it was too late to turn back. A pang of regret shot through her. She wrapped her arms around herself as the snowflakes gathered on her clothes and she trudged back to the only place she had left to go.