Chapter 12
Twelve
T he smell of fish was suffocating.
Quinn and her three friends were knee-deep in mud by the docks, trying to find clues. It was where Jane’s body had been found. So, it was the best place to start an investigation.
Action kept them all from breaking down. If they kept moving, maybe they wouldn’t have to acknowledge the truth of Jane’s death.
“Why is it so cold?” Giselle shivered and rubbed her arms to try to keep warm. “It’s only autumn.”
“Because a New Swansea City autumn is winter everywhere else.” Constance folded her arms and glared at the mud as if it might physically harm her. She did not shiver. Constance never appeared to be cold, despite never wearing any overcoats.
Jevon moaned. “The cold is not doing good things for my temperament.”
Quinn laughed. His silent fidgeting, brooding temperament?
The wind howled a cruel song, and fog hung over the Marina District like toxic gas, invading the grimy streets and clinging to Quinn’s pores. But beyond being irritating, it was also contaminating and possibly washing trace evidence away. Not to mention, high tide was inching closer and closer .
Sea lions barked at the frigid air, creating a symphony of ear-grating annoyance. Quinn huffed. This was a forensic nightmare.
With every gust of wind, Quinn cringed a little, not only because evidence was drifting away but also because if she didn’t solve this murder, she might be the next victim.
She would have solved the murder anyway, but now she couldn’t afford not to. Nine days. It wasn’t enough.
Quinn inhaled sharply and caught Giselle staring at Pelican Isle, the small island prison in the middle of the bay that held her father captive. The place was impossible to escape.
Sometimes, Quinn wondered if her friend wanted to break her father out.
A shiver ran down her spine. Quinn hated breaking rules because she couldn’t control the consequences. If there was one lesson she learned from watching her parents die, it was that Quinn never wanted to be powerless again.
Which was precisely why she needed to get this investigation under control.
Quinn rubbed her necklace, asking it for support. It was a portal to a Mirror-God, and somehow, despite everything, she still wanted it near.
Sailboat rigging clinked against masts, each ding sending a jolt through her. The sun grew tired and slipped closer to bed, night beckoning. Seagulls flew over the brick-and-mortar shops as fish vendors started to pack up for the day. The ferry building, normally bustling with patrons and boats, also began to clear. The marina at night was not a safe place to be, and no one wanted to stay past sunset.
“Look what I found.” Jevon held up a piece of a purple peacock feather that possibly matched the fragment found on the corpse.
Quinn swallowed and closed her eyes before whispering, “Don’t touch it with your bare hands.” She didn’t want to reprimand Jevon, but he’d put his fingerprints all over it and possibly contaminated the evidence. “Here, place it in this bag.” She waded over to him and hoped for the best.
“What are you doing down there?” a man called from the street above. Jevon jumped and nearly dropped the feather back into the dirt, Giselle cursed under her breath, Constance narrowed her eyes like a tiger measuring its prey, and Quinn jolted.
Shooting a glance at each of her friends, Quinn climbed up the hill. The man had salt and pepper hair, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and leathery, beige skin from staying out in the sun for prolonged periods. He wore an apron covered in what Quinn could only assume were fish guts. He was most likely a seafood vendor, which meant he spent a good deal of time on this street and around the waterline. It was also possible that he lived in the fish merchant row houses nearby.
Quinn straightened her shoulders and tried to look both older and more trustworthy. She needed this man to comply and not dismiss her. “We are investigating the murder. I am with the medical examiner’s office.” Quinn’s tone was both clinical and authoritative. It was the voice she practiced every time she had to present her findings on an autopsy to the police.
The man’s brows creased. “But I heard it’s a gang murder.”
How had that news already made it out to the public? Was it Jane’s tattoo? Was it seen by onlookers before the body was brought to the morgue? “Perhaps, but we have reasons to believe this case is not that simple.” Quinn sucked in a breath, and she tried to keep her hands from trembling.
“Oh, I see.” The man grunted as his eyes raked over her friends. “And you’re all with the medical examiner’s office?”
“Yes,” Quinn lied. “Do you know if anyone saw something out of the ordinary yesterday?”
The man contemplated her question for a moment, his eyes tracing all of them again. He seemed to be weighing their validity, concluding that it would be worse to hinder them because he turned and called down the street. “Johnny, come over here. ”
A boy roughly three years younger than them lifted his gaze and stopped working. He’d been packing up a roadside stand. Slowly, he walked over and met the merchant and Quinn.
“Tell this young lady what you saw last night before discovering the body,” the older man said.
“I saw a star, miss.” The boy averted his eyes. He was either scared or trying to be respectful to his superior. The latter thought made Quinn’s skin crawl. She was no better than this boy. She was probably far poorer in all the ways that counted.
“A shooting star?” Quinn asked. “Like in the sky?”
“No,” he said, roses blossoming on his cheeks. “On the ground. I saw a fast-moving, shining object that looked like a shooting star. It lit up the night, and then it was gone. I am betting the killer was Mirror-Blessed, ma’am.”
“It was on fire?” Quinn asked tentatively.
“No.” He shook his head. “It was simmering like glitter caught in the light of a chandelier.”
Shimmering like glitter?
It could be a Mirror-Blessed persona with a magical power. Or a person who made a bad bargain and ended up with sparkling skin, but—and this was incredibly unlikely but considering the puncture wounds on Jane’s body—it could have also been a vampire moving at super speed with reflective clothing. But that last possibility was incredibly far-fetched. Quinn still didn’t want to believe that vampires were back, but it was a distinct possibility. Most likely, the murderer wore sequins or something else of that nature.
It seemed to be a big possibility because Jane was most likely killed at the Viridian nightclub.
“Did you see anything else?”
The boy sneezed and flicked out of existence for a moment. Disappearing and reappearing in an instance.
A mirror consequence? Or a mirror cost?
Many vendors in the Marina made deals with mirrors, mostly for things like a never-ending supply of fish or food that would not spoil. It was possible that he traded for something practical but settled for a terrible consequence.
But he barely looked of age. Maybe twenty-three at the oldest.
“No, ma’am, I promise that is all I saw.” He winced, and his shoulders sagged.
“Thank you for your time.” Quinn nodded to each of them in turn before rotating back to the crime scene.
Once they were gone, Constance said with her usual sarcastic jubilance, “So a shooting star killed Jane?”
“Let me add that to my list of ways humans can murder each other.” Giselle grimaced as she tried to lighten the mood.
“Or to the list of ways vampires can.” Quinn’s voice hung on the frigid air.
At her words, Jevon gulped, Constance paled, and Giselle pinched her lips together in deep thought. None of them wanted to believe vampires could be back. But Jane had vampire-shaped puncture wounds in her neck.
“So, what do we do now?” Jevon asked.
It was the question of the hour. So far, their only evidence was puncture wounds, glitter, a fingerprint, and now a feather. But they had no suspects.
“I think we should look into Jane’s past,” Quinn said. “We need to pay a visit to the Fant?mes.”