Chapter Nine
GENEVIèVE
I felt sick. “But Henrik and Claudette…”
I trailed off, because it seemed like poor form to say screwed each other senseless for a few days then broke up faster than you can say “get me a clove of garlic.”
“Exactly,” Roux grunted. “He and Claudette.”
I wanted to stomp and say, Just because Henrik spent three nights sucking her blood doesn’t mean he killed her, but I petered out, studying my own words.
But, wait. I’d seen Henrik last night.
“What time did it happen — the murder, I mean?” I forced out that ugly word.
Bene snorted. “Officer Dulaire might be a tight-ass, but he’s a smart tight-ass. He didn’t let any details slip.”
“Well, I saw Henrik in the drawing room at two in the morning.”
“What was he doing in the drawing room at two in the morning?” Roux asked. “Hang on. What were you doing in the drawing room at two in the morning?”
I thought fast, not ready to fess up to the nature of my mission last night.
“I couldn’t sleep. I went to the drawing room for a magazine, and I saw Henrik. He didn’t see me, though.”
They stared at me, then each other.
“Henrik stopped patrolling at around that time, and I took over,” Bene said. “So, that fits.”
Roux rubbed his chin, and Bene looked at the floor.
I cocked my head. “What?”
“Let’s say that’s actually the time of the crime,” Bene ventured slowly.
I waited.
“Then Henrik has an alibi.”
I nodded eagerly.
Bene spent a long time thinking that over, then shook his head. “Okay, I’ll admit it. I’ll shed a lot more tears for Claudette than I ever will over Henrik getting locked up.”
Me too, but—
Then it hit me. “Are you suggesting we let him get locked up?”
The time it took for Bene to reply spoke volumes. “Just wondering if we should let karma run its course.”
I looked at Roux for support, but he was staring into the distance.
I opened my mouth to protest, but Bene spoke quickly. “Nah. Probably not right.”
Still, now that he’d planted the thought…
Bene sighed and rubbed his belly. “Would it be rude and insensitive to suggest getting lunch?”
Roux grimaced, but his stomach rumbled. Up to that point, I’d had zero appetite. But now that Bene had raised the topic…
We waited another half hour, then asked Agent Bear if we could step out.
He snorted. “No one asked you to be here.”
“You know, I’m pretty sure I’ve never met a rude bear — until now,” I told him, point-blank. I was that hangry.
He looked down, a little ashamed, and we stalked out.
We kept our break to a quick half hour, then stomped back in.
“We’re back,” I said, a lot more sweetly now that I’d had lunch.
The agent sighed and went back to his paperwork.
I almost felt bad for not offering to pick up something for him. These agents were doing their best to investigate Claudette’s death, which was the least she deserved.
Then I spotted the last bite of a sandwich on the man’s desk. Peanut butter with honey, judging by the smell. I wondered if he’d packed it himself or whether his mom had. Or maybe there was a nice, comely Mrs. Agent Bear who’d lovingly packed his lunch?
A wave of sorrow hit me so hard, I sat down.
Love. Kindness. Two things Claudette had experienced far too little of in her life.
I clenched my fists and stomped up to the desk, seized by the need to act.
“Uh, Gen?” Roux jumped to his feet to follow.
“When can I talk to Officer Dulaire?” I demanded at the desk.
“Mademoiselle, this is an ongoing investigation. These things take time. If you’d like to leave your number, Officer Dulaire will call in due course.”
“Not sure talking to Clement is a good idea,” Roux whispered, pulling me back.
I pushed his arm away. “Because you don’t trust me not to say something stupid?”
“You, I trust,” he said firmly.
I stopped. Oh. Well, that was refreshing.
Still whispering, Roux jerked a thumb toward the office. “But I don’t trust him.”
“I have to tell him what I saw.” Then I mouthed, No details. No promises.
Roux didn’t look happy, but he stepped back, relenting.
For weeks, everyone had treated me like a child, at least when it came to guarding our supernatural secrets. Now, at least one person respected me. So, doubly refreshing.
I turned back to the agent and gestured to Bene and Roux. “Officer Dulaire took their statements. Doesn’t he want one from me?”
“No.”
One little word, but I might as well have been slapped.
“No? No?” My voice rose. “He doesn’t want to hear what I have to say?”
“Now, don’t get excited, miss,” the bear tried.
“Oh, I’m not excited. I’m pissed off.”
With that, I started hammering on Clement’s door.
“Now, wait a second,” the bear said.
“Clement!” I hollered. “Open up right now! I want to make a statement.”
The longer I knocked, the madder I became. It was one thing for Clem to ignore me for most of my life. It was another for him to ignore me now, when Claudette’s killer was on the loose.
Finally, he opened the door — so suddenly, I nearly smacked his face. I caught myself just in time and used the momentum to stumble in.
“Finally,” I muttered, taking the chair facing the desk.
Clem closed the door and sat down wearily.
“I appreciate your concern, but—”
I snorted. The man appreciated nothing about me, but that wasn’t the point now.
I tapped his notepad. “Just take my statement already.”
He kept his hands folded. “I believe I have all the information I need.”
“Claudette is dead, and you’re refusing to hear a witness?”
“A witness?” he asked in the same bored, disbelieving tone he’d used when I was six.
A rock? Uh, nice, I remembered him saying. Or, A drawing, for me? Thanks, he’d said before turning his full attention back to my sister — and leaving the drawing behind, forgotten, when he’d left.
For years, I’d secretly loved Clement. Only now did I recognize it for what it was: my first toxic relationship.
“Yes. A witness,” I growled.
“You witnessed the murder?”
“No. I witnessed Henrik. He was at the chateau in the middle of the night. Is that when the murder occurred?”
“What would he have been doing in the chateau?” Clem asked. “He lives in the caretaker’s cottage, correct?”
I nearly smacked my hand on his desk. “He was reading in the drawing room. I saw him.”
“You saw him,” he said flatly.
I barely bit back a scream. “You don’t believe me?”
“Well, it is quite the coincidence — you wander off to lunch with your friends, come back, and suddenly the vampire has an alibi.”
If my heart were a castle tower, it would have wobbled, then crumbled into ruins. The man I’d secretly loved for years thought I wasn’t trustworthy?
If I ever needed evidence of my own poor judgment, there it was.
I trust you, Roux’s words echoed in my mind, offering some comfort. A lot more than Clement’s hard expression, that was for sure.
“I left because you didn’t call me in for questioning,” I snipped. “You didn’t even think to ask.”
He jutted his jaw, clearly impatient to get on with his day, his week, his life. A life I had never really factored into and never would.
“Claudette was killed by a vampire,” he said, as if that explained everything.
“How do you know?” I demanded.
He gave me a hard look. “I’ll spare you the crime scene photos, shall I?” He touched the veins of his wrist. “She had puncture marks here…”
His voice cracked a little, reminding me he cared about Claudette too.
He motioned to the other wrist, then his neck. “And here, and here.”
The taste of bile filled my mouth.
Finally, he drew a finger across his neck. “Then she was slashed, here. Which ought to have left a bloodbath, but she was sucked dry by then.”
I stared at the desk.
“No one does that, Geneviève. No one but a vampire,” he finished more gently.
But I didn’t want gentle, dammit. I was an intelligent adult, not a child.
“When?” I demanded.
He frowned. “What?”
“What time did it happen? Do you have an estimate?”
He smirked. “How about you tell me when you claim to have seen him.”
“I’m not claiming anything. I saw Henrik. Are you saying you don’t believe me?”
He let a few seconds tick by, probably to let me cool off.
Well, he’d be waiting a long time, dammit.
Finally, he replied. “I’m saying I have a chance to put away a vampire with a criminal record longer than the Loire. One who could turn on you or your sister at any time,” he added.
I sucked in a sharp breath. Maybe Clem was right. Maybe I should use my chance to rid us all of Henrik. No more serving huge amounts of red meat at every meal. No more snide remarks. More importantly, no fear for our lives.
Then I caught myself. That was so, so wrong. Henrik should be accused of any crimes he’d committed if evidence sufficed. But bending the law was a dangerous game.
“He was in the drawing room at two a.m. When was Claudette killed?” I barked.
Clement glanced down at what I assumed was the coroner’s preliminary report.
I watched his eyes move over the text, then snag. The storm in his eyes raged, and I could practically hear thunder clap.
Estimated time of death, two a.m. I would bet good money those words appeared in the report.
He stared at the report for a long time, then leveled a hard gaze at me. “Why are you so eager to protect him?”
I thumped both my hands on the desk and raised my voice — enough that even Officer Dulaire couldn’t forget I existed.
“Because he’s innocent!” I gestured angrily at the door. “Because another vampire is roaming free right now. The one who killed Claudette.”
I’d grown loud enough to make the ensuing silence deafening, but I refused to release Clement’s hard stare.
Let him look at me. Let him take notice. Just this one time, if nothing else.
A muscle in his cheek twitched. A moment later, his eyes dropped back to the report.
“Thank you for the information, Mademoiselle Durand. That will be all.” He motioned to the door.
I glared for another ten seconds — the slowest of my life — then stomped out.
Bang! I slammed the door, making Agent Bear jump.
I stalked over to Roux and Bene and sat with my arms crossed. Neither said a word, nor did I — until an hour later, when my sister and Marius charged through the door. Then there were lots of words, not all of them polite.
“Fucking Clement,” Marius muttered exactly as Clement opened the office door.
Their eyes locked, and the tension in the room skyrocketed.
Handy rule of thumb: never put a dragon and a wolf shifter in a small space with the woman one had stolen from the other.
Mina put her hand on Marius’s arm and shot his nemesis a weak smile. “Hello, Clement.”
Shakespeare could have written a tragedy on the expression that drifted over Clem’s face.
“Hello, Mina,” he whispered, gazing at her for a little too long. Then he motioned to Agent Bear. “Report the following to HQ. New evidence has arisen that may exonerate the initial suspect.”
The bear typed a few letters, then stopped and went back several spaces.
Clement huffed. “Ex-on-er-ate.”
The agent typed slowly along.
“Suspect will be held for additional questioning, but is expected to be released shortly,” Clem said, then paused for the bear shifter to catch up.
I was tempted to shove the guy aside and go for the keyboard myself, just to speed things along.
“However, Monsieur Velchynsky remains a person of interest and can expect to be contacted again as the investigation progresses.”
Clement leaned in to check the message, then nodded to his colleague to hit send. After a glance at his watch, he turned to us with a sour expression. His eyes wandered slowly from Mina to Marius, to Roux, then Bene…
I shuffled, expecting them to return to Mina from there.
But they didn’t. They continued over to me and stayed there when he spoke.
“Monsieur Velchynsky will be available in approximately two hours. Then he will be free…for the time being.”
I gritted my teeth at the not-so-subtle warning. A warning with several layers of meaning, I realized, because any crime Henrik committed in the future would be on me.
My knees wobbled, and I looked around for a chair. But a strong hand gripped my shoulder, guiding me to the door.
It was Roux, of course. The man specialized in saving me from myself.
I shot him a grateful look, and warm amber eyes told me, You did good.
God, I hoped so. But Henrik plus Claudette’s murderer added up to two vampires — two more than I wanted lurking around my neighborhood, not to mention those three nagas.
I stepped out into the night and shivered in the cool fall air.
“Mina,” Clement called urgently.
She hesitated, then stepped back inside, listening intently.
I didn’t catch what he said, but she nodded hesitantly, then rejoined us. Marius shot Clement the evil eye and slung an arm around her shoulders.
Bene was the last to leave, having held the door for Mina.
“We’ll be back,” he called, Terminator-style, to Clement and his fellow agents.
I grimaced. Something told me the opposite was more likely.