Chapter 23
Morrie
Mina and Quoth join us in the living room.
From the anxious look in Quoth’s eyes and the way he keeps plucking stray feathers from his skin, I can deduce that something transpired between them.
Good. About time the birdie got some. As long as he doesn’t have desires to take my place in Mina’s esteem.
We dive into the pizza while I explain what I learned in the eight minutes it took me to breach security on the bank account and reveal the name of the blackmailer – one Roger Cox.
“I think I know this person, like maybe they were part of Marcus’ Rolodex. Go to this address.” Mina rattles off an Instagram handle. I pull up a page of glittering filtered photographs of Marcus’ office and various fashion events and fancy cocktails.
“Is this your social media influencing?” Heathcliff frowns over my shoulder as he invades my personal territorial bubble with his delightful bulk.
“No, I deleted mine after I lost the internship.” Mina shrugs as if it isn’t a big deal. I almost believe her. Judging by the way Heathcliff’s shoulders stiffen, he almost believes her, too. “I’m not gonna be able to take selfies for much longer, anyway. This is Ashley’s.”
I scroll down the page, which is ninety-five percent selfies of Ashley pouting at the camera in various designer outfits, five percent over-saturated pictures of leaves in Central Park.
I quickly scroll past all her recent pictures where she’s draping herself across various B-level celebrities, hoping Mina doesn’t see them.
Unfortunately, Mina isn’t that blind yet, and we made the lighting in here perfect for her. She turns her head away.
The final image is Ashley sipping a cocktail in an airport lounge. Her final words? “L8rs h8ers. I’m off home for a vacay.”
Profound.
Mina takes the phone and scrolls back, back, back, to some kind of gala dinner.
Mina’s in several pictures, looking completely different – far too thin with thick makeup and a kind of glittery panic in her eyes.
She smushes in next to Ashley for selfies, but you can tell from the way Ashley photographs her that even though she uses hashtag #bestie, she sees Mina as competition.
“There he is.” Mina jabs her finger at the screen.
Ashley had tagged Roger Cox in her picture.
He’s a rotund man in a garish embroidered suit jacket with a lurid lime green pocket square and tie.
“He was definitely there the night of the gala. I remember him now; he’s a British fashion writer, although I believe he’s retired.
Marcus said they were ‘old friends,’ but he didn’t ask me to send Cox a bottle of Champagne, which he’d done for other distinguished guests. ”
A quick search on my phone reveals his address. “Get this, gorgeous. He lives nearby. Do you want to violate a police request for the second day in a row and pay him a visit tomorrow?”
Mina bites down on her pizza. Adorably, she has a piece of cheese on the corner of her lip. I think to kiss it away, but the glower on Heathcliff’s face suggests I’ll be beheaded if I try it. She grins at me, ignorant of my libidinous thoughts. “Hell yeah.”
“I’m not convinced this is the best plan,” Mina says as we regard the garish facade of Roger Cox’s Georgian manor. “This guy is a big deal in fashion circles. He’s not just going to admit to blackmailing Marcus Ribald.”
“Trust me. I’m taking a page out of your book for this one. Cox is going to topple like a house of cards.”
With Quoth’s cage in tow, we’d taken the bus from Argleton out into the Cotswolds, then hiked up the hill from the tiny village of Brayfield to reach Roger Cox’s home, which is a Baroque country estate with far too many turrets and not enough staff cleaning the cow dung off the front path. My brogues are ruined.
Mina mutters something under her breath about Heathcliff being the one to come instead, since he loves drizzly, dirty nature. I decide not to say anything after that.
Quoth laughs inside my head. I glower at him and ring the doorbell. A few moments later, the man from the photograph answers.
“State your business,” he barks. “I’ve already told Vanity Fair I won’t be giving any interviews.”
“Oh no,” I tsk. “We’re not here for an interview; at least, not the sort you want printed anywhere. Good evening, Mr Cox. My name is Professor James Moriarty. I presume you’ve heard of me, being a fine, well-read gentleman such as yourself.”
“James Moriarty, as in the villain from the Sherlock Holmes stories? Is this some kind of joke?” Cox peers around behind me. “Is this one of those stupid telly shows where my brother jumps out from behind the topiary and yells boo?”
“Not at all, sir. No cameras present here, just a friendly chat between gentlemen. Speaking frankly, since I don’t wish to waste your valuable time, my sources have noted you’re doing a spot of blackmailing, and I thought I’d come to offer my expert services.”
“Blackmailing?” Red spots appear on Cox’s cheeks. There’s the righteous anger of a guilty man. “I’m a fashion writer, not a bloody Baker Street crook. Just who do your sources claim I’m blackmailing?”
“The designer Marcus Ribald. That is why I’m here to offer my services as the world’s foremost consulting criminal. I believe you’re being shortchanged by Ribald, and I can secure you additional funds. For a nominal fee, of course.”
“That’s the most preposterous claim I’ve ever heard,” Cox snaps.
“Marcus Ribald is a no-talent hack who’s spent his entire career making a farce of everything haute couture stands for.
I have no reason to blackmail him because any day now, he’ll fall flat on his face from sheer incompetence.
The fact that you dare set foot in my home and accuse me of such an act is ludicrous.
Get out and take your stupid bird with you, before I release the hounds! ”
“Croak!”
The door slams so hard that the frame rattles.
“Ah, well, of course that clears everything up,” I yell at the door as I bundle a startled Mina back down the steps. “We must have the wrong information. Sorry to take up your time, must be getting on, plenty more potential clients to meet, pip pip!”
“Well, that worked super well,” Mina mutters. “I can’t believe you tried to drum up business from our murder suspect, and that he threatened to unleash the hounds on us like some cartoon criminal.”
“Croak,” adds Quoth.
“You all have so little faith in my abilities.” I click on my phone, playing the recording of Roger I just made, playing it through the program I wrote to hack the voice-controlled lock on his underground safe.
“Quickly now, there’s an entrance around the back we can sneak in.
Think of what he could have in that safe.
Counterfeit diamonds! Blackmail ledgers!
The Ark of the Covenant! If we can get evidence to prove Cox is involved in nefarious deeds, we’ll be able to solve this murder mystery before the police think to question your story. ”
“Any evidence we find is going to be tainted by the fact that we broke in to retrieve it,” Mina mutters as I drag her through an overgrown hedgerow with an attitude problem.
“Who said anything about breaking in?” I hold my phone out to Quoth, who grabs it in his talons. “I was simply taking a walk in the country when this raven flew off with my phone. I can’t be responsible for what a bird chooses to do with it.”
Why do I always have to be the one breaking and entering?
“Because it’s not a crime if you’re a bird.” I jiggle the phone at him.
Fine. Quoth bobs his head, and flies off toward the house with my phone dangling beneath him.
“I estimate it will take him fifteen minutes to get inside the vault, provided he isn’t caught.” I rest my hand on Mina’s thigh, sliding my fingers slowly upward. “However shall we pass the time?”
Part of the genius of my plan to catch Roger was about getting Mina alone again.
We’re hiding in these bushes, nestled in soft leaves.
Okay, so it’s more drizzly and less romantic than I pictured, but her skin is so soft and the way she’s biting her lip just now as I stroke my fingertips over the heat between her legs…
She draws away and shakes her head, leaving my hand waving in midair.
Dammit.
“You regret yesterday,” I say. It isn’t a question.
Her cheeks flush adorably. “That’s not true. It’s very much not true. I just… I need to think about some things.”
“What things?” I perk up. “I’m an excellent thinker. Perhaps I can assist?”
I can make you think about all the ways I can make you scream using only two fingers and the next seven minutes.
“Things like the fact that you’re a criminal mastermind who’s committed acts of great evil – not exactly the sort of suitor I had in mind.”
“Only in a book. Since I got out, I’ve reformed.
Somewhat. I’ve only ever stolen from the rich to give to the poor.
Well, the poor and the moderately-wealthy-by-Western-standards.
I do need to keep Heathcliff in fresh toilet paper and adequate wine.
” I pat myself on the shoulder. “I’m basically Mother Teresa. ”
“In that case, you’re definitely out. I don’t date Catholics.” Mina smiles, but I sense her slipping away, the heady lust between us cooling, forming an impassable wall.
“Who said anything about dating?” I have to try one last time, lay all my cards on the table and hope that Mina wishes to continue the game.
I lean in close, pressing my chest against hers, trying not to react to feeling her hard nipples beneath her sodden shirt.
Her eyes flutter closed as I growl against her ear.
“I’m talking about two beautiful people coming together in a rage of lust, swapping bodily fluids in mutual ecstasy, and then going about their business while one of them secretly pines for the tortured bookstore owner. ”
Well, two of us, but she doesn’t need to know that.
“Hah, I knew you had a thing for Heathcliff,” Mina cries, grinning like she’s solved the mystery of the Red-Headed League.
Okay, fine, so she knows. That’s hardly the point.
“Not me, gorgeous, although I admit he’s a fine specimen of a man.” I nibble her earlobe. She sucks in a ragged gasp, and I know she’s forgotten all about her observations of my totally not attraction. “I’m talking about you.”
Oh, how she stiffens beneath me. I catch the flush of red on her cheeks, and I know I’ve hit my mark. “Wait, how did you—”
I pull her against me, pushing my hand back between her legs.
I’m about to tell her exactly how she should handle her attraction to both of us.
(By taking us to bed, together, of course.
And this has nothing to do with what I want.
It’s purely selfless because Mina should be happy.
And if being railed by two fine men makes her happy, it’s the right and just thing to do.
And if my hands should on accident slip around his shaft, then that’s just one of the risks of being the selfless hero I am.) But before I can open my mouth to say any of it, something hard and rectangular drops on my head.