Staying Dead - Laura Anne Gilman [112]
“I hate wearing that,” she complained. “I feel like a cripple.”
“You’re not going to be doing any work until that heals,” he told her. “So deal with it.”
She grumbled, but indicated the storage area under the sink. He opened the door and rummaged past boxes of tampons and unopened bottles of mouthwash and shampoo until he found the triangle of mesh and cloth, and had her arm adjusted to his satisfaction within it. Then he escorted her to the kitchen, and set about boiling water for tea.
“I don’t want any,” she told him petulantly.
“Tough. You’re not Bogey, you’re not going to drown the pain with booze.”
“Spoilsport,” she said in accusation.
“Guilty as charged. There’s more, which is why I think something hinky is going on with the situation. Prevost’s dead.”
That stopped her mid-complaint. “How?”
“A rather pretty slash across the throat, followed by arson to take care of the house itself. Since several items were noted to be missing from displays in the rubble, based on the display stands still intact, the local police are assuming that the thief killed him, then set the fire to cover his tracks.”
Wren muttered something unpleasant under her breath that he pretended not to hear. “Theft and arson…you think the client—I’m being set up for murder?” Fire would destroy magical traces better than anything except being dropped to the bottom of an ocean for a hundred years or so. Current came from nature, and so nature took it back into herself.
Sergei shook his head. “If so, he still wouldn’t have a reason to kill you—he’d want you alive to take the fall.”
“Yeah, unless it’s still two different players? Damn! No, then they’d kill me, so I couldn’t go to trial. The ghost remains at large, Frants is left to swing in the breeze, unprotected, and nobody ever gets called to account for anything. Y’know, between this, your Silence…teaching school’s starting to sound like a better career choice all the time.”
He started to pace, two steps into the kitchen, turn, another three to take him into the hallway, then back again. She watched him move, fascinated enough that the pain in her arm began to recede. They really had taken on each other’s habits. That was scary. “It’s too messy,” he said as he paused in front of her. “Too many strings and unknown players. Murder’s usually much simpler than all this. Passion, greed…”
“I had been thinking…could it be that Frants has just decided that the sooner everyone who knows about the murder which caused the ghost is silenced, the safer he will be?”
“The client wasn’t even born when the ghost died,” he reminded her. “He can’t be held responsible, can he?”
Wren tried to shrug, then winced as the pain came back with a sharp blast to her shoulder. “Legally? None of this holds up legally. But I don’t think the ghost, for one, much cares,” she said, jumping a little when the kettle began to whistle. Another wince.
Sergei got two oversized mugs down out of the cabinet, two herbal teabags from the jar on the counter, and poured the water with the concentration of a sommelier at a four-star restaurant. He’d rather have had caffeine, but that was the last thing either of them needed right now. His brain already felt as if it was vibrating at too high a speed.
“And you know damn well the cops won’t care,” she continued. “But there was murder committed, in his grandfather’s name, if not his. It’s not exactly habeas corpus, but the rumors are more dangerous to a businessman than an NYPD investigation. Especially a businessman who has traffic with the Cosa.”
Since he was the one who had taught her that, back in the early days of their working arrangement, he couldn’t argue the point. Handing her one mug, he got the sugar out and carefully measured three teaspoons into his cup, stirring until it was mixed to his satisfaction.
Her mug was white, with small red paw prints along the side. A Cheshire grin stared back at you when the cup was empty. His mug was blue, with the Chinese symbols for warmth and comfort stamped in white on the surface. An entire cupboard filled