Chapter 3 #2
I spun on my heel and walked into the master bedroom.
It was opulent and spacious, with glorious views over the river and a bed the size of a boat.
To the right, there was a walk-in wardrobe, but it was empty, which was decidedly odd given the four women had checked in for a week.
Monica didn’t seem the sort to live out of a suitcase.
Next to the wardrobe was a large bathroom decked out in marble, with gold fittings and a huge tub.
Her toothbrush and a small tube of paste sat in the glass to one side of the sink, and there was a smattering of makeup on the other.
There wasn’t, in my opinion, enough of the latter for someone who was notoriously finicky about her appearance.
I left the bathroom and walked across the vast room to the suitcase sitting on the stand near the window.
The case was closed but not locked, so I opened it up and once again found the bare minimum.
Monica had packed for a couple of days, at most, rather than a full week, and that suggested she certainly hadn’t planned to stay here for long—unless, of course, she simply intended to buy what she needed up here. She certainly had the money.
If she had planned to run off with someone, would she also have arranged to have two of her best friends killed in such a brutal manner?
Monica might be a princess, but she wasn’t a murderer.
I continued to search the room but couldn’t find anything that clued me in as to whether she’d simply intended to slip away for a final fling before she got married, or if her disappearance was, in fact, connected to whatever threat had led to us being asked to watch her in the first place.
I hit the earwig again. “Jack, we got an update on Lanie’s current whereabouts?”
“We’ve got the address of the guy she left with, and a team has been sent over there. We’ve also got a second team investigating the area we’d gotten the last ping from her phone from, which was in the opposite direction.”
“Meaning Lowell has pulled everyone from other investigations?”
“All resources have been ordered onto this.”
“By his order or head office?”
“His. We still haven’t received comms from HQ yet.”
Neither had I, but I dared say I soon would once Garrett, our chief of operations, had been apprised of the situation. And Michael would certainly call me, if only to say, “What the fuck?”
In a concerned brotherly manner, of course.
“I’m done searching Monica’s room, Jack, so unless Lowell has left more orders, I’m clocking off and going to bed.”
“You want me to clock you off, save you coming in?”
I hesitated. “Is there anyone currently in the evidence collection area capable of shielding a magical shard to stop it disintegrating?”
“Not right now, but I daresay they can be ordered back in. They don’t live close, though. Why?”
“Because I’ve evidence currently being shielded by my magic, and a witch fully trained in evidence transferring is probably our best bet for doing a safe magical changeover.”
Even then, there was no guarantee of success. My inner darkness sometimes bled through my magic, which often made it difficult for other witches to run their spells through mine. It was the main reason I tended to avoid blending spells with anyone. Too many secrets might be revealed.
But if I released the shard without another witch first weaving their own protective spells through mine, it would likely disintegrate.
“Ask a stupid question,” he said, then added, “I can contact Lowell and ask what he wants you to do.”
“Is he there now or still home?”
“The latter.”
“Then please do ring him.”
Jack snorted, and the line briefly went dead.
“Lowell said if your magic is keeping the evidence viable, it’s probably safer for you to keep hold of it.
That way, you can ensure the spell is maintained until evidence is open in the morning.
He also said there’s a small security safe situated at the back of the master’s ensuite you can use to store it in the meantime. I just sent you the code.”
My phone obediently beeped in receipt. Of course, holding on to evidence like this wasn’t exactly approved procedure, but this was one time I wasn’t about to argue the order. Not if it meant me getting to bed just that little bit sooner.
“Thanks, Jack. Talk again in a few hours.”
“Hopefully not. I’ve a game I’ve got to get back to.”
“What about sleep?”
“It’s only you older folks who need sleep.”
“If I were closer, I’d clip you over the ear for cheek like that.”
“Which is why I said it when you’re far away.”
I laughed, broke the connection, and then let the two women know I was leaving.
“Good,” came the gruff reply.
I laughed again and headed out of the apartment. When I walked out of the lift on the ground floor, I spotted the manager standing behind the desk. I walked over and said, “Can I get access to the security tapes? I just need a quick look at the two men who came in with Francesca and Marnee.”
The older man hesitated. “A copy has already been requested by your division. They’ll be here in an hour or so—”
I gave him my most engaging smile. “Perfect—it means you’ve time to show me the originals before they get here.”
He sniffed, obviously unconvinced by the smile, but nevertheless motioned me to follow and led me into the office behind the counter.
He got onto the computer and, after a few quick keystrokes, brought up the security files and fast forwarded for a few minutes.
Francesca appeared on the screen with Marnee and the two men flanking her.
Once she’d scanned her keycard, the four entered and made their way toward the lift.
The two men were nigh on identical—tall and well built, with pale skin and eyes. No tattoos, no chunky knuckles.
Were we dealing with four men? Or concealment magic? Though, if it were the latter, why wouldn’t the two women have sensed its presence and shown at least some concern? Unless this was all part of whatever game Monica was playing.
Of course, if that were true, then either something had gone seriously wrong or neither of these two women had been aware of the extent of it. Otherwise, why would they so blithely head upstairs to their deaths?
As the four waited for the lift, the two men half turned, looked directly at the camera, and smiled in a way that suggested that they knew the cameras were there and didn’t care—and that, in turn, suggested an identity check would not lead us to them.
I pointed at the two men on the screen. “Did those two come back down at all?”
The manager shrugged and fast-forwarded the tape. Five minutes later, the two men reappeared, striding out of the lift toward the exit without acknowledging the guard. But as the door opened, the tape glitched, and their outlines appeared to waver slightly.
“Freeze the tape,” I said instantly.
He did so. I leaned forward, eyes narrowing as I studied the image on the screen.
It wasn’t the tape that had glitched—it was them.
As the night air swept in, their bodies visually distorted.
It reminded me of a computer glitch, where for one brief second, static ran through whatever image or item was on the screen.
I knew it was possible for some witches to cast their “being” forward as a distraction to make it look like they were going somewhere they were not, but such projections were generally incapable of interacting with the world.
They certainly wouldn’t be able to operate a lift.
Of course, the camera wasn’t pointed at the lift, so it was possible one or both men hadn’t been inside of it.
I asked the manager to print a pic of the two men, then thanked him and walked out. As I made my way back to my car, I contacted Jack yet again.
“I thought you’d quit for the night,” he said, amused.
“I have, but I just wondered—I know we’ve been monitoring Monica’s calls, but were we also monitoring the others?”
“I haven’t been, but I can certainly contact my counterparts in Canberra and ask them. Why?”
“Because I suspect we may find contact between them and the two men they were with tonight. I need you to put in an urgent request for those files, if they exist, covering the last month or so.”
“That could be a whole lot of data.”
“Undoubtedly,” I said with a grin, “but Ginny’s got nothing to do today.”
He laughed. “I shall send them to the cloud as soon as I have them. Anything else?”
“Actually, yes. Have we got anyone who specializes in runes up here? I might also need a spell tracer.”
“The RWA has the latter, but I’m not sure we’ve anyone on tap who does runes. I can enquire, if you like.”
The Regional Witch Association was a government body charged with dealing with any witch-related situation in the more remote areas of Australia, but they generally had offices in all major cities as well as most major regional centers.
It was only when there was a high-profile witch involved that they called the High Council Investigators in.
“It’s urgent, of course.”
He laughed. “Of course. We’ll message once we get anything.”
I hung up again and jumped into my car. Like most sub-offices, Brisbane owned a number of apartments for interstate investigators and officials to use, some of them fancier than others.
The one we’d been allocated was one of the latter, but it was in a quiet area close to a park, with a small mall nearby that had a good range of decent eateries.
There were no parking spots outside the apartment block, and there was no way known I was going to park underground—it was small, dark, and infested with roaches as big as my fist—so I circled around and parked in the next street.
After catching the lift up to our second-floor apartment, I keyed in the security code and pushed the door open.
“Ginny? You here?”