Chapter 5 #2
Two fuckups in as many days were not going to go down well with anyone.
I pushed to my feet, hissing softly against the renewal of pain in my head. Janice frowned up at me. “Should you be moving?”
“Probably not, but the bastards took my keys, and I need to know if the USB I left in the console is still there.”
“It can’t wait?”
“No, it can’t.”
“Then sit back down, and I’ll grab someone to check for you.” She looked around and spotted the woman who’d come in with Tony. “Leonie, can you check Agent Kang’s car for a USB? If there’re keys there, don’t touch them, as they’re likely to have been handled by our murderers.”
The agent glanced at me. “Where’s your car?”
“It’s the white Toyota sitting on Tanglewood between this court and the next one down. Thanks.”
As she left, the ambulance officers came in.
They gave me a thorough check and declared I needed to go to the hospital to ensure the crack on the head hadn’t also cracked my skull and caused more serious damage.
I didn’t argue the point; my son might have reached adulthood, but I sure as hell wanted to be around to celebrate his many, many years of other milestones.
Leonie came back into the room. “This what you’re looking for?”
She held up a USB, and relief stirred through me. “And the car?”
“Thoroughly searched and the keys left on the front seat. Can’t say if they’ve taken anything else, of course, and the ladies will have to fingerprint it before you get it back.”
I accepted with a nod of thanks. “It’s a hire, so I’ll just grab another.”
Janice shoved all the scattered bits and pieces into my handbag, then handed it to me. “Stay in overnight if they insist. You look like shit.”
“Thanks,” I said wryly.
“Hey, Sienna isn’t the only one capable of telling it like it is.” She smiled, grabbed her bag, and headed down to the other end of the room.
The medics bundled me onto a stretcher and wheeled me out of the house.
The nearest hospital had ambulances ramped up, so we were redirected to another.
All in all, it was a good couple of hours before I got to see a doctor, let alone had all the necessary scans.
They declared me free of brain and skull damage, but confirmed concussion and said I needed to stay overnight for observation.
I’d been expecting it, so it was no real surprise.
A few minutes after they’d wheeled me into a private room—I did have full insurance, but the Society would be covering all costs for this stay simply because it was a workplace incident—Ginny appeared, carrying a large green shopping bag in one hand and my reusable coffee cup in the other.
“If that contains what I think it contains, I will kiss you.”
“It does, but no kisses required. Consider it more a case of nurse protection, given I know how feral you can get if you’ve not had a coffee hit for a while.”
She handed me the cup. The delicious scent of roasted beans rose, and I sighed in happiness. “How’d you know I was here?”
“Lowell told me—comms were tracking the ambulance, so they knew where you’d been taken.”
“And what’s in that bag?”
“A care package.” She dumped the bag on my bed and opened it up. “First, and most vital, a new phone, courtesy of the Society.”
“Oh, thank god. I said I’d ring Joseph later.”
She placed the still packaged phone next to my hip. “Second most important, a sandwich and a range of snacks, because we both know they only do main meals in hospitals, and you will never survive overnight without at least some Snakes to munch on.”
“I am not addicted to Snakes, no matter what you think.”
“You have them stashed in your car, your desk drawer at the office, your home office, and god only knows where else.”
I grinned. “Okay, I concede I love the things, but addiction that does not make.”
She snorted, put the sandwich and the addiction onto the nearby rolling table, then dug back into the bag. “And finally, we have fresh clothes for the morning, and a brand-new laptop. I figured you could run through those USBs while you’re stuck here in bed.”
“Me? You’re not staying to help?”
She snorted again. “You know that paperwork you volunteered me for? It arrived.”
“Ah. Damn.”
“I’ll be saying a whole lot more than that by the time I’ve finished going through it all. You want me to pick you up once they release you?”
“Probably best. If one or both of us find something, we can head out directly from here to investigate.”
She nodded, caught my hand, and squeezed it lightly. “Glad you’re okay.”
“Safe to say, I am too.”
She chuckled. “Any idea who or what thumped you?”
I shook my head. “All I saw was a blur of motion. I had no sense of life or energy until it was all too late.”
“Well, Lowell is still going to want a statement.”
“Undoubtedly, but that can wait.”
“I’m not sure he thinks it can, but that’s your battle, not mine.” She released me. “I better get going and start in on those stupid files.”
“You’ll ring me if you find anything?”
“As long as they didn’t damage the SIM when they smashed your phone, yes.”
She waggled a goodbye with her fingers and left. I opened the bag of Snakes and inhaled two, then dragged the smashed remnants of my phone out. Thankfully, the SIM didn’t appear damaged, but I wouldn’t know for sure until I’d put it into the new phone.
It took me longer than it should have to peel away the packaging and set up the new phone, so by the time I’d set the thing up and downloaded all the important stuff from the cloud, dinner had arrived.
It was a fairly decent shepherd’s pie, accompanied by jelly and ice cream, and I felt a whole lot better by the time I’d finished.
Once the drinks cart had come around with a substance that vaguely resembled coffee, I rang Joseph.
“Hey, Mom,” he said after a few rings. “How’s it going up there?”
“Same old,” I said. “How’d you go on your tests today?”
“Okay, I think.”
Okay generally meant he’d aced it. He was a great one for understating things. “Anything planned for the weekend?”
“Nah. Might go over to Noah’s and game, but that’s about it.” He paused. “Dad said you’d come across a demon—that true?”
I smiled at the sudden interest in his voice. “It is indeed.”
“Know what kind?”
“It was called a comp demon, and it had black claws and feet, but that’s really all I know.”
“I’ve got a demonology class tomorrow—you want me to ask the prof?”
“That would be good.”
“Cool. I’ll let you know what he says.” He paused. “Atticus is at my feet and asking if you need help.”
“He’s a damn cat. He can’t get up here—not alone, anyway.”
There was another pause, then, “He wishes to remind you that he is unfettered.”
I rubbed my head wearily. It wasn’t so much being unfettered that gave him the freedom to do what he wished, but the fact he was also a yōkai.
In Japanese legends, they were generally supernatural cat entities who could attain human form.
In the witch world, they were familiars who were supposed to die with their witches but didn’t, and therefore retained a presence in both worlds.
Basically, he had both a flesh and a spirit form, and could flit between the two as he desired.
It was damnably hard to stop a regular cat from doing what it wanted, let alone one who could literally walk through walls or transport itself across vast distances as if they were only meters.
“Tell him I am not going to carry his sorry ass around crime scenes with me.”
“To which he says, his sorry ass doesn’t need carrying, but yours certainly needs his help.”
“Tell him I’m fine.”
He did so, then added, “He made a face and has now stomped away, tail flicking in contempt.”
I laughed. That was Atticus’s general reaction to any conversation that didn’t go his way.
Joseph and I continued to talk for a few more minutes, then I let him go.
After taking a sip of the watery substance that passed as coffee in this place, I grabbed the computer and booted it up.
Thankfully, Ginny had already set it all up, saving me the hassle.
I grabbed the USB I’d gotten from Viceroy, attached it, and played the file.
As he’d noted, there wasn’t much that happened in the first fifteen minutes of the tape.
Then, from the stairs, René emerged, striding purposefully down the hall, his movement echoing with grace and power.
I was tempted to pause and simply admire, but resisted, if only because I might well be teasing hormones that would never find satisfaction, at least when it came to the hands of this man.
I did have to note that he had mighty fine hands.
He reached Ashworth’s door and rang the bell. After a second attempt, he touched the door briefly with splayed fingers. A heartbeat later, the door opened. As Viceroy had said, he didn’t go in, but he did glance briefly sideways.
Someone was with him. Someone who was invisible to the camera’s eye.
I swore and rubbed a hand across my eyes. Damn it, I really hadn’t wanted to believe he could be a bad guy, and maybe he wasn’t, but he certainly wasn’t telling me the truth.
I rewound the tape a few seconds, then increased the zoom percentage until the door all but filled the screen and let it play again. The door opened and, just for a second, the air shimmered as someone moved between him and the door and entered the apartment.
Had that someone been our telepath or the person who’d raided the safe?
Were they one and the same? A telepath could certainly have forced Tane to open the safe so he or she could grab the jewels and whatever else they’d been after, but there really hadn’t been enough time between their entry point and mine.
Controlling someone to that degree was no easy task, and generally took a good ten minutes or so, at the very least, for such complete control to be achieved.
But if our telepath hadn’t raided the safe, then either Tane was lying about what was missing or our thief had come in before he’d arrived in the apartment.