34. DOWN AT THE STATION （ACT 3）
IT WAS NEARLY MIDNIGHT WHEN INSPECTOR brOWN SLUMPED into the seat across from Embry looking like a slice of pizza slipped off the plate and halfway onto the place mat.
“Miss Woodcross, can you give me a detailed description of all of the places you have been since we last spoke?”
That was not the opening gambit Embry expected as she’d waited alone after being unceremoniously handed off by Headmaster Martinelli under the guise of breaking and entering into her own dorm room.
But it also truly didn’t matter what line of questioning the inspector took.
Her policy was the same as it had been the first time they met.
So, Embry shifted her expression from placid to a kind smile.
“Inspector Brown, we’ve been here before.
You know I won’t say a thing without a lawyer present. ”
Brown didn’t smile back. Didn’t even budge. Didn’t blink, didn’t shift his facial features in any way. “We’ve called your people, but they haven’t picked up.”
A pang of panic ignited in Embry’s gut. She hoped no answer meant that Rye had made it out of the dorm and off the grounds to Lazarus, and that they were pulling together her defense.
Yet that drop of panic flickered and grew with worry that Rye hadn’t made it safely out of her dorm room after all.
Or if he had, perhaps the flotilla of lawyers Lazarus had hired in her defense decided she wasn’t worth the effort of the paycheck and dropped her case.
Then that panic flared with the truly terrible idea that the vampires had returned and gone after Daddy. But if they had, Inspector Brown wouldn’t be here, right? Or he’d have told her?
It didn’t matter, even if Embry’s heart started to quicken its pace, rabbiting against her breastbone. Acting skills firmly in place, she shrugged as if she wasn’t flooding with worry.
“I guess we won’t talk for a bit, then.”
Brown just sat there, pale, puffy hands folded atop his belly, and replied, “How about I just talk, then, and you listen.”
It wasn’t a question. Fine. Let the inspector show his cards.
Brown didn’t tell her and Daddy about Alistair’s vision on Saturday, so she didn’t have much faith in him spilling any beans he wasn’t a hundred percent ready to spill, but Embry would take any stray beans he tossed her way just so she could know what he thought about Oakley’s dress, the stain remover, the backpack, the corsage, and anything else.
“It’s my understanding that you, a student currently suspended from Raven’s Head, broke into your assigned dorm room to remove evidence connecting you to the death of Oakley Riddle before the eventual execution of the Table’s search warrant of said room.”
The inspector’s expression may not have changed, or really even his tone of voice, but there was something about the way he said it that made Embry’s gut twist with an unsaid accusation. Still, she didn’t nod him on. Didn’t move a muscle.
“Now, what doesn’t make sense was your scream, which alerted the adults in the building to your presence.”
Embry bit the inside of her cheek—she’d told the headmaster about Balthazar being there, too. Inspector Brown knew that, even if Embry hadn’t personally explained it to him. She had the feeling it wouldn’t matter anyway.
“It could be that you injured yourself while in the room.” Here, he actually moved a muscle, but it was to wave a hand over her visibly uninjured self. “It could be that you believed being caught would provide you with some sort of benefit I haven’t considered.”
Embry waited for the last deduction, hands pressing into her thighs to brace for it under the cover of the table.
“Or,” he continued, “it could be that, as you told Headmaster Martinelli, you were accosted by one Balthazar Hale, who just happened to be inside your locked dorm room at the same time you were there not to hide evidence, per your insistence.”
Embry’s molars ground into her cheek tight enough now to draw blood.
She wanted so badly to tell him that her explanation to Headmaster Martinelli was the truth after that sorry lineup of potential reasoning.
Especially because they were dealing with someone who stopped time in the blink of an eye without seemingly any effort.
“Headmaster Martinelli described you as adamant that you’d been in that room with Balthazar Hale.” He paused, just to make her wait for it. “But here’s the problem I have with that particular turn of events: No one has seen or heard from Mr. Hale since Friday night.”
The metallic tang of blood filled Embry’s mouth.
She didn’t move, even though her brain was shouting I HAVE!
RYE HAS! She wished she hadn’t given Rye her phone, that she could show Brown the texts to prove that he’d been active recently, but she wasn’t sure any of it would help.
Conversely, she knew that if she had pointed to information on her phone and willingly unlocked it, everything else on there would be subject to investigation without a warrant per the laws of the Table.
“In fact,” Brown went on, “the Hale family has filed a missing person’s report.”
Confirmation that Balthazar was the missing student was helpful and Embry’s speeding heart backed off on the gas, but only for a moment.
“Considering that newly active case, I would’ve been pleased as punch to have found a fingerprint, a hair, any sign of Mr. Hale in that room.
” Embry got the sense that this man had never been pleased as punch in his life—and the casual language set her to bracing her palms against her thighs again.
He was trying to draw her off her game. “Heck, I’d love proof that he’s been waltzing around, framing you since Friday night.
That would mean killing two birds with one stone, and there’s no feeling better than that in my line of work, Miss Woodcross. ”
Even if his tone was more sarcastic than she thought him capable of, Embry believed Inspector Brown. Mostly because her stomach sank at the coming turn back to her. Embry’s gut inched closer to her running shoes.
“Yet”—there it was—“all we’ve found, Miss Woodcross, are your prints, not to mention your person in a room containing evidence flecked with the DNA of the deceased Miss Riddle—her dress, her blood.
” So there was a bloodstain on the dress after all—one Balthazar had left for them to find.
“We also have a corsage found on Miss Riddle’s person that matches the one you were seen wearing the night of her death.
It’s currently being tested to see if it was the means of injection for the magical poison that killed her. ”
Embry knew the corsage in her room was gone.
Meaning the one on the body was going to look as if it could be hers—simply because it was the only one.
If it was the injection site for the poison, it would be traced back to her.
She’d bet anything there was some sort of needle or thorn or something similar hidden in the intricately arranged circlet of orchid petals.
“As I said, no one has seen or heard of Mr. Hale in days. Furthermore, he isn’t the only one missing.”
A cold shot of fear trickled down Embry’s spine.
Had something happened to Alistair? Had he gone missing since formally dropping out? Or was he actually in on this with Balthazar, their testy relationship a ruse? Embry’s gut felt as if it’d lodged itself under the station floorboards.
“I believe you were present on Sunday evening, when the Woodcross coven had a visit from the family members of Miss Riddle?” Inspector Brown asked, knowing he wouldn’t get a reply.
“I believe several members of your coven, including your father, were injured?” Embry didn’t give him anything, even as her heart twanged for Daddy.
“After that event, the Riddle family relieved the morgue of their daughter and went home.”
Embry shifted her expression in the direction of surprise that she didn’t feel. It must have worked because Brown nodded, as if confirming that, yes, they did steal a body.
“Except,” he said, “they didn’t all make it home.”
Embry’s stomach bottomed out. What?
“In the past forty-eight hours, at least ten members of the Riddle family have been reported missing, many of those have been found murdered in a similar manner to Miss Riddle, and the remaining members have filed a grievance with the Table alleging illegal, organized vampire hunting by the Woodcross coven.”
Embry’s breath caught, her heart paused, her mind whirred. “Inspector, I assure you members of the Woodcross coven would never hunt vampires.”
Now Brown’s dull face rose in a cat-caught-the-canary grin. Given his endless litany of muted expressions, this was a terrifying development. Most especially because she had no idea why he appeared to think he’d baited her…
Embry chomped down on her cheeks anew. She shouldn’t have blurted out that answer, even if it was in defense of the coven.
When it was clear she’d reverted to the quiet game, Brown dropped that smile and leaned forward onto his elbows.
The basic scent of antibacterial soap wafted her way.
As if he used the stuff head to toe. Embry’s drooping stomach roiled.
“The grievance against the Woodcross coven has been accepted by the Table, and an investigation parallel yet related to this one has been opened.”
It couldn’t be—this was so outrageous and wrong. Yet the man kept talking with big, official-sounding words, his faux folksy demeanor stripped away.
“The Table is concerned the Woodcross coven has become a radicalized group—this is based not only on the concerns of the Riddle vampires, but from others as well who have noted the absolute power of the Woodcross coven within Ravenwood.”
Embry fought to keep from gaping.
“A separate team of investigators is working to construct a plausible case against members of your family and coven, alleging the purposeful eradication of the vampires within the Riddle aegis,” Brown said.
“Starting with Miss Riddle and continuing with the other unfortunate members of her family. As I’m sure the books in your extensive family conservatory will attest, it is a common strategy to use one known vampire to draw out the rest of the nest for extermination—a tactic that is as old as vampire hunting itself.
Because they are such a territorial and familial group, it is extremely common for them to fall prey to this tactic, even though they are very aware of the dangers. ”
A chill spread through her disjointed body as she sat there, disbelieving how wrong everything had become. Embry thought she might pass out.
“The good news for you is that I don’t believe you’re the ringleader.
No, I think you’re a good little soldier, who does what you’re told.
” He shrugged and made it look exactly like the one she’d given him at the beginning of this train wreck of a one-way conversation.
“Which means there are bigger fish to fry here.”
Again, the casual language was so out of place. It was meant to stun Embry—and it did. Her mind spun with the big fish he seemed to think he could catch if he baited her just right.
Rye, Daddy, Merle. Or worse—maybe everyone age eighteen and over in the coven.
Now Inspector Brown tapped off the order of events on his pale, doughy fingers.
“You killed your friend, stole her magic, drew out her family, and then the Woodcross coven attacked them on your land, where wards obscure the noise level and sight line of outsiders on the nights of your coven meetings, which was when this occurred.” Here, he paused, taking the time to look her straight in the eye.
“And when they got away, the coven members followed them, finished off the ones they could catch, and stole their magic.”
Oakley had gone to school, ended up murdered, and then several members of her family had died, too? And this man thought she did it? That her daddy and coven would do such a thing?
Embry didn’t say a word, but she shook her head. A firm no.
“Deny all you want, Miss Woodcross, but there’s a reason that Hiram Woodcross snuck out of Salem ahead of the witch trials.” Brown watched her with hangdog, waiting eyes. “It wasn’t just that he was a witch; it’s that he was caught hunting vampires for their magic.”
Was that true? That couldn’t be true! Embry knew everything there was to know about Hiram Woodcross and the founding of the coven. No way—
“Yes, the Table knows all about Hiram’s transgressions. It’s not a secret.”
It… had been kept secret from her—if it was true.
Embry racked her brain for anything she’d ever heard about Hiram Woodcross stealing magic, but unlike the false conclusions Brown had come to regarding her and her family, this statement had the air of backup material being easily accessible.
The inspector watched Embry fight to keep her confusion from clouding her features. He scanned her face, the set of her shoulders, the tenseness in her arms giving away the way she’d braced them on her thighs. Embry was hiding nothing. Embry knew nothing.
Again, the inspector smiled. This time, it was just the upturn of his lips.
“It is my hypothesis that the coven bearing Hiram Woodcross’s name—your name—has kept up his practices for the past four centuries, and they just finally got caught. We could be talking about hundreds of victims here, dating back to the time of Salem.”
That would easily be the biggest case ever brought by the Table’s criminal arm, Embry was sure. It would make Inspector Brown famous—and the Woodcross coven infamous.
Even if none of it was true. None.
If Lazarus Woodcross was stealing vampires’ magic, Embry would’ve known about it. She was observant enough to know when Ames switched her brand of foundation based on smell alone, for Goddess’s sake. The coven was not doing this. They had never done it.
Smug, Inspector Brown stood and took a meaningful step toward the door.
“Honestly, if I were you, Miss Woodcross, I’d hope I’m able to prove you were the coven’s pawn in all this. Because otherwise you’re the fall guy.”
Embry shook her head again, unable to stop herself.
The man’s bland expression shifted again, this time to straight pity and a scoff. “Your father and his lawyers aren’t answering my calls. They aren’t answering the door at the mansion, either—I tried that, too. And yet here you sit.”
Inspector Brown took a few more steps and placed a hand on the doorknob. Embry made a point to glance away as he assessed her from over one cold shoulder.
“Miss Woodcross, it is my job to deal in facts and evidence—I have for thirty years. And at this very moment I can tell you that all the facts and evidence I have in this case currently point to you.”