Pure Blood_ A Nocturne City Novel - Caitlin Kittredge [55]
“Bryan Howard was a fucking test,” I muttered. “They dosed him to perfect their working. Edward, that fucking jerk, they must have paid him off…”
“Do I want to be privy to what you’re theorizing, Detective?” said Kronen.
I was angry, so angry I could have kicked a hole in a steel wall. A man died for nothing—a fucking academic experiment. An innocent man, for all intents and purposes. A sacrifice. “No,” I said finally. “No, you don’t, Doc.”
I thrust the report back at him. “For now, keep this under your hat. Can you rule Vincent’s death as a murder without the report?”
Kronen stroked his chin. “I have a feeling showing this to anyone else will merely prove unwise. Am I correct?”
I thought of the mass of officers who had responded to Patrick O’Halloran’s bombing, versus the dozen or so who had shown up when I’d found Vincent’s body. Would Matilda Morgan believe for one second that a pillar of the community had offed a drug dealer because of a magickal rivalry?
Of course not. She’d have me fired. Or committed.
“You’re absolutely correct. Thanks, Bart,” I said. He gave me a nod and shuffled the report to the bottom of the listing pile on his desk. I figured it was as safe there as anywhere else.
“Be careful,” I told him in parting. Not that I could do anything against the financial pull and good name of the O’Hallorans. When I tangle with magickal entities like Alistair Duncan, I at least know I’m on reasonably equal ground. When it came to attacking people so powerful in both the shadow and light aspects of the world, I was as helpless as the next pavement-pounder with a badge.
I didn’t like that, not one bit. People who kill because they think they can fire my rage like no other. I decided then and there that the O’Hallorans were going to answer for starting this domino-fall of deaths. How I’d do it would be another issue altogether. But then again, I never let the little things bother me. That’s probably why I spend so much of my life in trouble.
When you have a break in a case, the truth is it usually births more questions than it answers. Sure, a caster witch had killed Vincent Blackburn, but any lawyer would point out it didn’t have to be one of the O’Hallorans.
Besides, if the O’Hallorans had instigated this war, what could they possibly have to gain? The Blackburns were dying out, and Vincent hadn’t been hurting anyone. Shelby would explain it away with “live by the sword, die by the sword” but I knew it wasn’t that simple. The Blackburns were the wronged party here.
Something was missing from this pat little scenario, a thread of connection between Vincent and his killer that I was betting the O’Hallorans hoped I wouldn’t find. They could preach wrongs and counterwrongs all they wanted, but the fact remained that restarting a war that had been dormant for as long as I’d been alive was bad business, as well as just plain stupid.
I had one solid lead in this increasingly weird case—Benny Joubert, the other principal in Bete Noire, the were privy to Vincent’s dealing.
I got in my car and thought about that for a few minutes. Joubert was a male were, a pack member if he was pushing drugs on the streets of Nocturne City. Weres controlled most of the drug and skin trade, and the gods help you if you forgot that fact. He was also a violent, repeat offender and I was one lone Insoli female.
Only one person sprang to mind as a potential partner in this venture, and it made my chest tighten so much I thought all the breath would be forced out of me. The idea of seeing Dmitri again, with Irina, happy? I couldn’t stomach it.
On the other hand, if I wanted to keep working the case and not end up raped and mutilated in Joubert’s Dumpster, he was the only person I could ask to help me. I vowed that I wouldn’t kill or maim him, no matter how maddening he got, and headed for downtown.
Irina opened the apartment door, the skin between her eyes creasing when she saw me. She was going to need Botox in a few years. “What are you doing here? You trespass.