Chapter 17
Heathcliff
While Mina is downstairs talking to Jo, Morrie sits down at his computer and gets to work being useful for once.
Quoth – now back in his raven form – is in a state, so I plonk down the chess set on the coffee table and set up the pieces.
He hops across the board, moving the white pawns with his beak, and although it doesn’t stop his incessant chatter about Mina from echoing inside my skull, he has calmed down a bit.
I saw the way Mina looked at him when he shifted in front of her. She was frightened, yes, but she’s also utterly enchanted by him. She sees Quoth the way we do – as someone special to be cherished. She won’t do anything to hurt him.
I tell my stupid, foolish heart to stop wishing she’d look at me like that.
“The police found a text on Ashley’s phone,” Mina announces as she emerges from the staircase. “Jo seemed to imply it implicated me.”
Then Jo dies, is my immediate thought. Anyone who is a threat to Mina must be eliminated.
Morrie shoots me a look that pulls me back before I hurl myself after the medical examiner to make good on my threat.
He pulls out his phone and taps the screen.
“Correct. They found a message from a burner phone sent thirty-three minutes before we found the body. It reads, ‘Can we meet n person? It safe. No1 watchin shop.’”
Mina leans in close to peer over his shoulder.
I hate how perfect they look together, her long auburn hair falling over his shoulder as she squints at his phone, his tattooed fingers casually circling her wrist and pulling her closer.
Of course, they look perfect – he’s beautiful, and she’s beautiful, and they will make beautiful and slightly evil children together.
And Quoth will remain at Mina’s side whatever she does, happy to be in her orbit, and they’ll all get sick of me and leave, and I’ll be bitterly alone again.
I might as well start getting used to it.
“Anyone who knows me knows I’d never send a text with incorrect spelling or numbers instead of words,” Mina says, instantly making me wish for things that can never be.
“But how did you find that text? Did they release that to the papers? What have they said about me? Did they at least get a picture where I look good?”
“You’re not in the papers yet, gorgeous,” Morrie says.
“Then where’d you get that text?”
“The police file.”
Mina’s eyes widen. “But… police files aren’t public.”
“Nope.” Morrie opens up an app on his phone, his finger poised over a large red button. “Do you want me to corrupt the file, lose all their info?”
“No. I want them to catch Ashley’s killer, and besides, that’ll be even more suspicious. We have to wait and hope they don’t bollocks it all up. But that text means Ashley didn’t just follow me in here. Someone wanted her to come. But why? Who would be meeting Ashley?”
I sigh. “If you’ve got nothing better to do than speculate over the killer, you can at least come here and play chess with me so Morrie can find some information we can actually use.”
“I want to play.” Morrie pouts.
“If you’re playing, I’m out,” I growl.
“Croak,” Quoth adds, hopping up and down in protest.
“Fine.” Morrie slumps down behind his desk, fingers moving frantically over his phone. “But don’t come crying to me because you’re not intellectually challenged by your inferior opponent.”
I’ll give you inferior opponent.
Morrie dives under his desk just in time to avoid Quoth dive-bombing him. Feathers fly everywhere. Quoth yells in frustration before landing back on his chair, distracted by a pile of nuts and dried berries Mina holds out for him.
“Why won’t you play with Morrie?” Mina asks as she lowers herself into her chair, dropping the rest of the nuts onto the table. I’m already starting to think of the chair opposite mine as hers. She looks perfect sitting in it, her hair spilling over the cracked leather. She looks at home.
Well, mostly. She leans forward, squinting at the board. There isn’t a lot of light in this corner of the room. I jerk my thumb at Quoth. He flies up and bats the corner lamp arm so that it points across the table. Mina beams in thanks.
“Morrie cheats,” I growl.
“Being exceptionally good at chess isn’t the same thing as cheating,” Morrie says as he clambers out from beneath his desk. “I’m exceptionally good at many things, gorgeous, just so you’re aware.”
“He cheats,” I reiterate, moving my bishop to take one of Quoth’s pawns from the board.
“Croak!” The birdie responds by tapping his knight into my bishop and kicking it over with his talons. “Croak, croak, croak!”
“You know, I have no idea what’s going on in Ashley’s life,” Mina says as she points to a pawn of mine she thinks Quoth should take.
“We’d been growing apart even back in New York.
She has a whole new friend group – old money fashion influencers who invite her to all the hot shows.
She’s trying to grow her Instagram account.
I think if we want to know why she’s back in Argleton and if it has any bearing on her death, we have to ask someone whom she might’ve confided in. ”
“Croak?” Quoth peers up at her. If not you, then who would that be? Are you going to go back to New York to ask one of her friends?
The worry in his voice would almost be endearing if I didn’t share it. What if Mina decided having three fictional villains in her life was too much and left? I was certain we could trust her with our secret, but I’m not certain I can survive not having her around now that I’m used to her.
“I don’t think she has that kind of friendship with anyone else.
Her mum lives in the village, and she and Ashley are close.
Ashley’s mum knows me well, too – I used to stay at their house a lot when I needed a break from my mother.
” Mina reaches for her coat. “I’m going to go over there and ask her. ”
“Croak.” Quoth drops his rook and swoops up to perch on her shoulder. I’m going, too.
Mina pats the bird on his head. “I’m never going to get used to hearing your voice inside my head like that.”
Sorry.
“You never say sorry to us.” I glare at Quoth.
You don’t keep your pockets full of nuts for me.
He greedily accepts more treats from Mina’s hand, then the two of them head off. As soon as the door shuts, Morrie slides into the chair opposite me, gleefully resetting the pieces on the board.
“I’m not playing with you.”
“Pity. Because I’m playing with you.” Morrie lines up the white pieces and makes one of his classic opening moves. His long legs jut out from the sides of the coffee table, his knees pressing against mine. The places where our skin touches feel like they’re made of bees. “In more ways than one.”
I let his flirtation slide without reprisal. I’m too raw for this shit. It has been a day, what with Mina discovering our secret and this whole murder business and the crowd outside that will not go away, no matter how many things I throw at them.
Instead, I rise from my chair, ignoring the way my body aches where it no longer touches Morrie, and set about moving the heavy standing lamp behind Mina’s chair, so she can have more light.
“Mina’s taking the news well.” Morrie steeples his fingers.
“Mmmm.” I adjust the arm so the light will shine over Mina’s shoulder. I click it on and off in Morrie’s face a few times.
“She doesn’t seem to mind sticking around the bookshop, even knowing that it’s staffed entirely by infamous fictional villains. Which means our challenge to see who can bed her first is still going on.”
“There’s no challenge,” I growl, stomping on the dimmer switch so hard that I send the whole lamp toppling into the side of Morrie’s head.
“I have no intention of thrusting myself onto Mina like a walrus on cocaine just to prove I’m desirable.
And you shouldn’t either. We both ruin whatever we touch, Moriarty.
Leave her for Quoth. He adores her. Let him have this one thing. ”
“I would, but it’s not really my decision, is it?” Morrie grins, rubbing the side of his head. “I think our Mina is having trouble deciding who she wants for herself. She’s enchanted by the birdie, but she is very definitely into me. And as for you, Lord Grumperton—”
“—she’s not mine to have.”
“She could be. She’s into you. You’re just too jaded to see it.” Morrie winks. “You are quite attractive in that dark, brooding, dangerous, he’s-going-to-break-my-heart-into-a-million-pieces-but-won’t-it-be-fun way.”
Why does he have to say that in his sinister voice, the one that promises all kinds of mischief?
I grunt again.
“I’m toying with the idea of proposing that she doesn’t need to choose, that maybe we could share her…
” Morrie tips his sharp chin toward me, studying my features as the meaning of his words sinks in.
“What do you think about that? The three of us kissing her, undressing her, making her scream. Maybe she’d allow me to tie her to my bed and you and I could each take one—”
“Don’t talk like that about Mina.” My growl comes out deeper, more ragged.
I slam my eyes shut to block out his cocky smirk.
Now he’s put the image in my head, and as much as I try to banish it, all I can see behind my eyelids is Mina spread out across his bed, her hands and ankles tied, her green eyes regarding me with trust and desire as Morrie slides naked beneath her…
Morrie’s hand falls on my shoulder. I cry out and swing at him.
He pins both my hands to the arm of the chair.
For someone so tall and lanky, James Moriarty has unnatural strength.
Yet another thing about him that both enraptures and infuriates me – he’s one of the few people I know who could – if he so desired – overpower me.
“Mmmmm, yes,” he purrs against my ear. I snarl at him to cover up the tremble of want that courses through me. “I think I’ll make this suggestion to Mina. We’ll see what she says.”
“Don’t you dare—”
“We have another problem.” He sits back abruptly, dropping me so that I have to save myself from face-planting by grabbing his thighs. Bastard. He grins innocently up at me. “Well, I’m not so sure if it is a problem.”
“What?”
Morrie hands me his phone. I stand up, dragging my hands from him as I scroll through the article titled VATICAN POLICE CHASE AWAY WOULD-BE THIEF IN MEDIEVAL CHAINMAIL. A blurry photograph shows a large man on horseback galloping through the galleries with the police in hot pursuit.
This is bad.
Morrie takes his phone back. “Our Knight of the Round Table has found his way to Italy. He must believe the grail is somewhere in the Vatican. Let’s hope that he doesn’t decide to skewer the pope.”