Chapter 10
Any other time, she would have devoured a Bellamy’s cake with relish.
But right now, she ignored the tiny airy sponge cake sitting on her plate. Her mouth was so dry, the cake would stick in a pasty glob in her mouth.
She sat, balancing the mug and the plate and feeling like she’d just been dropped into a bizarre black comedy.
Focus, Clare.
She’d spent the last half hour arranging pens in her pen holder, shuffling papers with shaking fingers, unable to take anything in. To think she’d taken a pay cut to be here, and now…. fuck.
Look what she’d just landed herself in.
Pull yourself together.
Yep. She could do this, she could be professional.
And then Oliver strode in with that lazy, long-legged glide of his.
Why did he have to look so damn good? The bastard hadn’t aged (durhh, of course not), though maybe he was a tiny bit leaner in the face, a little more shadowed under the eyes, which she wouldn’t have expected, considering he’d had a cushy job in Selig these past three years.
Maybe he’s racked by a guilty conscience.
Yeah, right. Oliver Hale didn’t have a conscience—or, for that matter, a heart behind that silk waistcoat.
And now, she was going to have to work with him on the most complex case she’d ever undertaken.
She had to shut down her emotions. Be more like him.
Cold. Shrewd. Calculating.
At least she wouldn’t be left alone with him. Yet. Not that they exactly had a team. Saul had gathered an admin assistant, a rookie young cop and a griffin who’d retired from forensics and never been replaced.
Clare remembered Beth—she was a very good operator, a gorgon who always wore very nice head pieces to cover her snakes.
She was joined by Sergeant Trent Watts, a fawn with overly large teeth and rather nervous eyes.
And then there was Patrick, an ancient phoenix who’d headed up the forensics team for years but had actually retired a year ago.
The PD had no forensics team anymore, due to lack of funding, so Patrick was only here to advise.
But with zero bodies found, and not even a fingerprint left where the people had gone missing, Patrick was scratching his beak, completely at a loss.
Oliver called them to attention, then put up the pictures of the missing humans. Clare jolted when she saw the smiling photo of Natalie, her neat small features, her dark chestnut hair hiding her face. That slightly anxious expression she always wore.
The other four were all High Tween—two young women, one called Selina, the other Sophie, and two guys.
One, Clare recognized as Edward Bradshaw.
His father was a Council of Towns official, and she’d seen Edward at the occasional social in her teens.
A shy, pleasant enough young guy who, like her, stood on the sidelines at parties, not talking to anyone.
She didn’t recognize the other guy. Paul Bates, a regular young Tween man who’d studied law, like his father.
No doubt he’d thoroughly disappointed his family by working in Motham.
Oliver went through a brief history of what was known. This was his forte. Storyboards that made links between supposedly disparate things. She’d always loved watching him construct these in the past.
“What we know from the meager details we’ve gleaned so far is that these humans were all residents of Tween.
None come from Twill. They’ve all taken professional appointments, which of course, you would expect humans to do.
You don’t see humans in the mines, or docklands.
We’re losing elite humans from Tween here. ”
“We also have two reported sightings of Matteus Kominsky, from staff members of Tower Security. That is of interest, since he was involved in the abduction of human realtor Shona Dove three years ago, and has never been apprehended. Other than that, we have no clues. Do you have anything more to add, Patrick, from a forensic perspective?”
The phoenix shook his head. “We have scoured for fingerprints, scraps of material, blood traces, nothing. Found nothing untoward in their apartments, though we’ve not yet examined Natalie Spriggs’ apartment.”
“Why not?”
“I er, don’t happen to be on the payroll,” the old griffin muttered.
“Truthfully, Hale, we’ve been waiting on your arrival,” Saul added. Yeah, like everything rested on Oliver Hale. Which, Clare conceded silently, it probably fucking did.
“So you have no medical records, no information from the Tween authorities to date?”
Saul shook his head. “Tween has closed ranks on us.”
“As they always do,” Oliver agreed. “But at least we can glean some information about one of the victims from Detective Doyle.”
Clare put her plate down and looked up to find his dark gaze zeroing in on her. “The latest victim, Natalie Spriggs, was your friend, was she not?”
“Yes, sir. From school days. But I hadn’t seen her for several years.”
“How come?”
“I guess you could say we had a disagreement. Not of my making, at least not intentionally.”
“What happened?”
“She got very upset when I took the job with Motham PD. Said she was worried that a monster would—” she faltered for a second, “—harm me in some way.”
She glanced up to see his jaw tighten beneath his beard.
“So you broke off contact with her because of that?”
“No, she did. I kept trying to get in touch, but she never returned my calls. She was… kind of phobic about monsters when we were at school.”
“And yet, she took a job in Motham City?”
Clare rubbed at the frown line between her eyes.
“That is the part I don’t understand. I had no contact with her for six years, so obviously her views must have changed in that time.
Her mom told me she talked about wanting to work here often in recent months.
And then… she suddenly upped and took a job with Slither and Scales accounting. ”
“Why do you think that might be?”
“I have no idea, except Jo—Natalie’s mom—told me she envied me working here.”
Oliver turned back to the whiteboard and put a big question mark over the photo of Natalie. “We have to ask ourselves, how did Natalie Spriggs go from having a morbid fear of monsters to working among them? Did someone or something persuade her? Coerce her, even?”
The room remained silent.
“C’mon, guys, when I combed through the humans’ files, the one thing that stood out was that we’re missing crucial backstory.
” He circled around all the photos. “Detective Doyle’s information leaves more questions than answers.
And as for the other four, we have no idea what drew them to Motham, no idea who they interacted with before and after they got here.
And the companies they work for in Motham are being infuriatingly vague.
Maybe they’re not involved in the disappearances, but we need to dig deeper. ”
“It’s proven very difficult.” Saul sounded a bit sheepish, but the poor guy was busy running an understaffed department, Clare knew, and wouldn’t have had the resources to chase up the information. “And with Tween officials ignoring us…”
Oliver stroked his jaw. “Which is interesting, since it’s their own who are disappearing.”
“They should be falling over themselves to help,” Beth grumbled, sticking an escaped snake behind her ear.
Saul snorted. “There has never been an instance where the Council of Towns fell over themselves to help Motham City.”
Oliver’s dark gaze landed on Clare. “Let’s ask the human member of our team. Why wouldn’t they be willing to assist in the case, Clare?”
She gave a little shrug. “Maybe because they see anyone who associates with monsters as fallen. Beyond redemption. Not worth saving.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “You believe that?”
“Of course not,” she retorted.
“Or perhaps the humans know more than they’re prepared to divulge. I guess we’ll have to rely on you to persuade them to come to the table, won’t we, Detective Doyle?” Oliver’s tone was silken as his gaze bore into her.
She set her jaw and stared straight back at him.
“Yes sir. We will.”
Clare slammed down the phone and huffed a sigh.
She wasn’t getting far with contacting the families.
And worse, her immediate line of vision was through the open door of the office where Oliver was pacing up and down, talking on his cell phone.
He’d removed his jacket and was walking around in his embroidered silver waistcoat with his shirt sleeves rolled up, occasionally rifling a hand through his hair.
Did he have to? It was so gods damn sexy. Angrily, she returned to her task and opened another file.
Honestly, she was thankful he’d given her this job to get on with. At least that meant she didn’t have to partner with him on any investigations in Motham.
Well, fucking yippee. Because the last thing she wanted was to be anywhere near the guy.
A shadow suddenly fell over her desk. Glancing up, her pulse raced when she saw him standing right there. How the hell… A mere moment ago he was in his office. Shit, he moved fast.
“Any luck with contacting the families?” he rapped out.
“Sophie Hamilton’s mom said their daughter is dead to them since she went to Motham, then slammed the phone down on me.
The other two haven’t answered my calls—maybe they can see it’s a Motham number.
Jo, that’s Natalie’s mom, wants to see me, but she has already told me a fair bit about what she knows. ”
“What about Edward Bradshaw’s family?”
“I’m about to call his mom, but who knows if she’ll speak to me.” She picked up the phone again, willing her hand not to shake.
“Leave it. We’re going to investigate Natalie Sprigg’s apartment.”
“But… you told me to contact the families.”
“I did. But now I want you to come with me.”
“You mean stop in the middle of my calls?”
“They can wait.”
She set her lips into a hard line, and didn’t budge.
“That’s an order, Doyle.”
Fuck. How she hated him right now. But the truth was, the pull of going to Natalie’s apartment was powerful.
And so was the pull of him. She got up from her desk, grabbed her jacket and purse and followed him out, scowling at the back of his perfectly fitted suit jacket, trying to ignore the thick silver waves that almost touched his collar.
In a minute they’d be in the police vehicle together. And even worse, she’d have to ignore those arms as he held the steering wheel—and gods forbid, those long fingers, maneuvering the gear stick!