37. Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Rain beat down in streams so thick they blinded me as I stared up at the white Renaissance revival where Emmett Graves lived.
The house reminded me of its owner with its broadly arched entrance smiling and welcoming us toward the glass front door.
It was bright, decorative, airy, refusing to be dimmed even by the storm, and I got the creepy impression that it would have extended a handshake, had it had arms to do it.
Rook whistled, and I whipped the water out of my eyes with my fingers before I turned to look at him. “And I thought your place was fancy.”
“You could live somewhere fancy too,” I reminded him. “You choose not to.”
“I’m a simple man.”
“With no taste,” I muttered under my breath. I wasn’t about to start an argument about his general lack of aesthetic in this downpour when we were going inside to prep for a murder.
We circled the building twice, switching directions each time, peering past hedges and a pool that had been closed for months.
The place was pristine—no dead leaves or trash, plants dormant for the season, but the landscaping was clearly cared for.
That meant he had a staff, at least one person keeping up the outside of the house.
“No cameras,” Carter pointed out on our second round. “That’s good.”
“No wards on the fence or the gate,” I added, “but be careful when we get to the door.”
“Backdoor,” he said, motioning for me to follow him. “Less chance anyone will see us.”
We traipsed through the rain that seemed determined to delay us, up a cobblestone path around back, to the door behind the house flanked in proud columns.
I lifted my hands a few inches from the door and expected my fingertips to itch at the wards, but there was no protection on the door.
"That's odd," I said, brows drawing toward one another, but there wasn't time to wonder about our stupendous fortune. I gestured to the doorknob, which was undoubtedly locked. “Your turn.”
Rook produced a small lock-picking kit from his pocket and dropped to one knee as he inserted parts of it into the lock, jabbing and twisting. It was almost graceful the way he coaxed the lock to release and let us in.
He stood as the door swung open and motioned in front of him—after you.
I stepped inside and glanced around in the dim room. It may have been three in the afternoon, but the stormy sky stole too much light. I was hesitant to turn on any overhead lamps and alert the neighborhood that someone was in the house.
“Where do you want to do this?” Rook asked.
“Doesn’t really matter,” I said. “There won’t be a mess to clean up, and I’m planning on leaving the body for the Council to find.”
“Upstairs gives him less chance to run. Catch him by surprise. How long does that power of yours take to work?”
I prowled away from the sunroom we’d stepped into and toward what I thought might have been a kitchen. “Only a minute. It won’t take long.”
“Let’s figure out which bedroom is his. We can wait for him there.
” He followed me into the kitchen—black granite, garish white appliances—and into the living room.
The interior was elegant, but every room was the same—dark wood, light accents, stone that complimented both.
Either Emmett had very specific tastes, or he’d hired a designer with only one vision.
The stairway stood in the living room with polished banisters and a charcoal runner up the middle. I moved toward it until the toe of my shoe hit something just a little off. A wrong texture.
Something wet.
My eyes dropped to my feet and the pool of dark liquid gathered around my shoes. I gasped and Rook squeezed my shoulder.
“Close your eyes,” he said, his other hand rattling his keys. “I’ll see who it is.”
My eyelids slammed shut, even though I could barely make out the blood on the floor. It was always so much worse when I wasn’t expecting it. There was no time to mentally prepare myself for the sight of it.
“Shit.”
“What?”
“It’s the human guy. What the fuck is his name? Andy—”
“Andrew Clark,” I said. “What does he look like?”
“Really not fucking good.” I registered him bending lower, examining the body. The beam of his flashlight lit the insides of my eyelids. “Same as the other ones—no tongue, hands are gone.”
“Is there a note?”
He was quiet for a moment, searching, and then, “Forever. The ‘for’ part is the number four.”
“I really don’t want to open my eyes,” I said, even as the urge to see it for myself prickled under my skin.
“Then don’t. You’re just going to have to trust me. Back up two steps.” I did as I was told and he ripped the handkerchief out of my pocket. “You can’t go stomping around with his blood all over your shoes. Lift your foot.”
“You’re ruining my handkerchief,” I griped as he cleaned my feet and the floor where I’d smeared blood with my footsteps.
“I’m keeping you from becoming a suspect in a murder you didn’t commit. You can thank me later. Lift your arms up.”
“My arms?” He didn’t bother to explain himself any further, just lifted me up like he had before and carried me past the body and up the stairs. A shiver ricocheted through me as I remembered the last time he’d held me like this, buried deep inside me.
“We’re going to check out his room,” he said the second I opened my mouth to ask.
I finally opened my eyes and let them adjust to the darker space upstairs.
There was only one bedroom that looked lived in, and Rook and I rifled through anything that might tell us why there was a dead Council member downstairs.
I sifted through drawers and closets while Rook paged through a filing cabinet in the corner.
“There’s nothing here,” I said, making sure I put all Emmett’s socks back exactly as I’d found them.
“Well, it’s pretty damning that he’s got a body in his house,” he said. The sound of paper on paper whooshed in the corner as he pulled something from a folder. “And there’s this.”
I slid the drawer closed and stood next to him, peering over his shoulder.
The Hubris of Magic
1 evil with 7 faces
wait 4 your demise, 5alvation denied
And 1nce the sword of justice appears
8e 8roken
“It’s a bunch of gibberish,” I said.
“Look here.” Rook pointed to the last line. “We read it too fast before. They’re not b’s. They’re eights. Do you think it’s some kind of code?”
“I don’t know. Bring it with us. We should leave.” Something about this felt off and spooky in a way that rattled me. I suddenly wanted to be far away from whatever this was.
Carter pulled the whole manila folder from the cabinet and closed it. He waved his hand in a peculiar motion and said, “Clearing our fingerprints. Up.” He opened his arms to me.
“You don’t have to carry me like I’m a bloody infant.”
“I’m going to carry you so you don’t track evidence all over the place and lead them straight back to us.
Can you not fucking argue with me this once?
” He hoisted me up without ever giving me the chance to fight back and didn’t let me down until we were back outside.
We faced the rain again all the way to my car.
The leather seat squeaked as my wet arse hit it and I buckled my seatbelt.
“Penthouse is closer,” he said, already glancing at what was in the folder. “Let’s go dry off and read through this.”
***
I sneered at the puddles we left in the lift. We dripped the entire way into the living room until I flicked on a light and Rook laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing, it’s just so you to dress up for breaking into a house.
” He gestured to my drenched suit, which I thought looked quite handsome a few hours ago.
My shirt was so wet and plastered to my chest that it was see-through, which seemed to be doing it for him, if the dark hue of his eyes said anything.
The next laugh that sneaked past his lips was lower, darker, and hit me somewhere in my groin I didn’t want to be thinking about while I dripped through my house.
“Are you wearing a pocket watch?” he asked.
“Some of us care about the time.”
“That’s why you have a phone. I think it’s cute when you’re all fancy though.” He booped my nose and I snapped my teeth at his finger, causing a grin to widen across his face. “Careful, Austin. Don’t bite off more than you can chew.”
“I won’t be doing anything with my mouth until we’re out of these wet clothes and we’ve looked at the documents in that folder,” I said. I reached to unhook my pocket watch.
“That’s actually pretty cool,” he said, peeling off his shirt.
“This?” I cradled it in my hand. “Take it. I’ve got like ten of them.
” I placed it in his palm and he set it aside on an end table until we got the rest of our clothes off and he changed into something dry.
I breathed through the arousal that hit me at the sight of him in my clothes, especially my shirt that was a bit tight on him.
I tossed our wet clothes in the dryer and sat down next to him on the couch, the folder open and spread halfway between our laps.
“What do you think it means?” I asked as we observed the killer’s message.
“Well, it’s six messages, counting the ‘4 ever’ that we found on Clark. Emmett got away or faked his attack to cover his tracks. Six messages—there were supposed to be six bodies.”
“And me,” I said. “Perhaps I won’t merit a message.”
He leaned forward to grab a pen from my coffee table. On the edge of the paper he scribbled 17451884.
“It’s just a random number. It probably means nothing,” I said. I looked over the paper again, searching for meaning in the mess. “Wait, why are these letters capitalized and the rest aren’t? THMA. Put the letters and numbers together in order.”
“THM1745-A1884,” he read aloud.
“Bloody hell,” I muttered.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s not a message, it’s a Council law.”
He squinted at it. “What kind of law?”
“I don’t know, but it’s old. The numbers are years—it was passed in 1745 and amended in 1884. I’ll have to do some digging to find out what it pertains to.”
“Maybe it’s something Emmett wanted to repeal,” Rook said. He set the sheet aside on my lap and flipped through the next few pages in the folder. “These are all autopsy reports, like the one we found at the morgue.” He piled the pages on top of my lap with the other one. “What the fuck?”
“What?”
He jabbed his finger at a paper with a single sentence typed out on it.
All victims had heroin in their system; cause of death was overdose.
“That wasn’t in the other autopsy report.” I glanced over the ones in front of me. “It’s not in any of these autopsy reports. Why drug them instead of using a sedation spell?”
“It would mess with their magic. They couldn’t fight back.” He hummed, gears turning in his head. “That’s why there were no traces of magic on the bodies.”
“Either the Council is covering it up or Emmett was investigating this on his own.”
“Or he’s got a stash of heroin somewhere in that house,” he said.
I stood to pace the room, reaching for something to tie it all together, but I needed to find out what that law was. That had to be the key. I stared idly out the window at equipment left behind by a company in the process of cleaning the graffiti off the building’s windows.
“What about that thing on that lady’s arm? Kathy, or whatever her name was.”
“I doubt it was anything,” I said, but I pulled it up on my phone anyway and bent to show him.
do sso
no no gar
lat extra am
“Probably nothing,” he agreed. “Text me that picture, anyway.”
I did, and his phone vibrated somewhere in the room. He stayed another hour, curled up on the couch with me, warming the chill in my body and talking about idle nothingness. Then he left to prep for the weekend at his club, and I was left with more questions than I’d started the day with.