city of dragons 02 - fire storm (2 page)

“Lachlan, let’s just talk about the case.”

“Sure,” he said. “So, it’s dragons, and I definitely need you.”

“Dragons?” I sat up straighter in bed.

“Yeah, missing persons, officially,” he said. “But the family is convinced that it’s murder, and since they’re very well off and donate lots of money to the police department, we’re going to go down there and treat their suspicions with respect.”

“Sure,” I said. “Who is it? Who’s missing?”

“Uh…” His voice got distant for a second. Probably taking his phone away from his ear to check his notes. “Fletcher Remington. Ring any bells?”

“Not really,” I said. “I know the Remington name and reputation, but not Fletcher per se.”

“That’s okay,” he said. “I’m heading up to talk to the family now. I’ll pick you up?”

“Oh,” I said. “Okay, sure.” I needed to get in the shower. “When will you be here?”

“Maybe fifteen minutes?”

Crap. “Bring coffee, please,” I told him, and I hung up.

CHAPTER TWO

When Lachlan got there, my hair was still wet from the shower. He strode up the sidewalk to the lobby, holding a cardboard cup of coffee from a convenience store. He was wearing a suit and a silk green tie that fluttered in the ocean breeze. His sunglasses obscured his expression.

Still, seeing him again after so long, I was struck by how attractive he was. He had a dimpled chin and a straight nose. He could have been a male model. He was perfection.

I swallowed.

He held out the coffee like a peace offering.

I took it.

He pulled off his sunglasses.

My breath caught in my throat. His good looks dazzled me.

“I guess I should have called before this,” he said. “I’m sorry. I really am.”

I waved his apology away and took a drink of the coffee. Ooh. Black and bitter. I recoiled.

“Oh!” He felt around in his pockets and yanked out handfuls of creamers and sugar packets.

“Thank you,” I said, snatching them. “You know me so well.”

He smirked.

We gazed at each other for a minute. I remembered the kiss. It hadn’t been the only kiss. There had been more kisses on another night. Lachlan had been drunk, and we had vowed to forget it ever happened. And that was to say nothing of the two times he’d…
bitten
me, which had been an intense and powerful experience, one that I’d actually liked, even though I was ashamed to admit it.

But we didn’t talk about that.

He reached out and tucked a wet strand of hair behind my ear. “You look…”

I peered up at him.

He yanked his hand back and turned away from me.

I bit down on my bottom lip. I looked like a drowned rat. Maybe I should have blow-dried my hair before he got there, but there hadn’t been time.

“Damn it, Penny,” he muttered. And then he started walking for his car, not even looking behind himself to see if I was coming along.

I trailed after him.

He got in the car, and I followed suit.

Once we were on the road, I began adding sugar packets and creamers to my coffee. I watched as the scenery streamed by. On the right hand side, the ocean view was blocked out by huge twenty-story hotels. On the left hand side, there were restaurants and strip malls and gas stations.

“So, this Fletcher Remington person,” I said, sipping my now-delicious coffee. “Does he have a mate?”

“No, he still lives with his parents,” said Lachlan. “I got the impression he was young, but you never know exactly with dragons.”

We dragons had a long life span. We tended to live until we were three hundred or so. Dragons who weren’t mated were all considered young, even if they were nearly a hundred years old.

“So, an unmated dragon is missing and his parents think he’s dead,” I said.

“Yeah, they seem pretty certain of it,” he said. “Can’t figure out why they’d be so sure unless maybe they’re involved.”

“Well,” I said, “in a case like this, the family generally assumes a slayer got the family member if they don’t hear from them in a while and they can’t get in touch with them.” That was what had happened to my parents, near as we knew.

“I suppose I wasn’t taking into consideration how often that happens to dragons.” He glanced at me quickly. “I’m sorry.”

“Slayers aren’t your fault,” I said. “But no one ever catches them either, so people don’t usually bother to call in the police.”

“They’re probably calling us in because of all the publicity around the Dragon Slasher case,” he said.

“I guess we are kind of high profile,” I said. “Maybe the family thinks that the people who caught the serial killer taking out dragon girls will be able to take out a slayer too.” In March, we’d put Anthony Barnes away for killing three young dragon females. He was a drake who’d been using them as meat that regenerated.

Drakes were people who’d ingested dragon flesh—a popular street drug that conveyed magical powers and a feeling of invincibility on the user—and then died with it in their system. They turned into half-dragon, half-human hybrids, sporting scales and claws, and they had an insatiable desire for meat. Many were addicted to dragon flesh and would go to extremes to get more.

My best friend Felicity was a drake, but she never ate dragon, only animal meat. She liked it rare.

Lachlan groaned. “I doubt it.”

“Doubt what?”

“If this is a slayer, we’re never going to crack the case.”

“No?”

“They never leave any evidence,” he said. “They cut up the dragon’s body and sell it.”

Vampires would pay for the blood. Drakes for the flesh. Mages would take the scales, bones, and claws to make talismans.

I grimaced, feeling itchy under my skin. My kind was hunted. It made me feel like less than a person sometimes.

“We can do it,” I said. “We can catch this killer.”

“Maybe he’s not even dead,” said Lachlan. “Maybe he ran away from home, and we’ll hunt him down, and that will be that.”

* * *

We arrived at the summer home of the Remington family, which was tucked into a beautifully landscaped corner of a tasteful housing development to the north of Sea City. All the dragons lived up north here, near the border of Delaware. The south part of the city was where the drakes, vampires, and mages concentrated. Sea City had a reputation as a place friendly to magical creatures.

The house was covered in wooden siding that had been stained dark brown. It managed to looked subdued, almost cozy, even though it was practically the size of my hotel. That display of tasteful extravagance was typical amongst dragons.

Once, it had been my world, but now I didn’t fit in here at all.

Lachlan knocked on the door.

It was answered by a woman in a maid’s uniform. She took us around the house and out back, where there was an oval-shaped pool flanked by bamboo-slat chairs.

There was a pavilion set up next to the pool, and Fletcher’s parents, Viola and Richard Remington, sat beneath it, a breakfast spread set out on a rustic-looking wicker table.

“The detectives are here,” said the maid.

Both Richard and Viola stood up, wiping their mouths with snowy white cloth napkins.

They shook our hands.

“So good of you to come,” said Richard.

“We’ve heard all about the good work you did with the tragic case earlier this spring,” said Viola.

Guessed Lachlan was right, then.

“Won’t you sit down?” said Richard, gesturing to two seats opposite their table.

We sat.

Lachlan took off his sunglasses, tucked them inside his suit jacket, and lounged in the chair. He gazed over the Remingtons’ heads, at the ocean in the distance. “So, this son of yours who’s missing. Is he in trouble a lot?”

I was surprised by the way he’d brought up such a painful subject, and by his casual demeanor. But I figured it was calculated. Lachlan was good at getting people to spill their secrets. It wasn’t any magical ability, just an uncanny effect he had on other people. He was a good detective.

Viola clutched her napkin. “Excuse me?” She was obviously offended.

Lachlan sat up in his chair and gazed into her eyes. “You know, I’ve taken parents to identify the bodies of their children before,” he said softly. “More times than I can count.”

Viola drew back. “Listen, we were under the impression that—”

“You know how many of them come back for a second look? How many of them ask the attendant to pull the sheet back one more time, so that they can look at that face again?” he said.

“We obviously don’t,” said Richard in a tight voice.

Viola’s face was ashen.

“Almost all of them,” Lachlan said, focusing on the ocean again. “It’s not because it’s the last time they’re going to see their baby’s face again, it’s because they’re hoping that if they look again, that it won’t be true, that they won’t see their child lying there, they’ll see some stranger. They want—even in the face of damning evidence—for it not to be true.”

Viola put a hand over her mouth. “I don’t understand why we’re—”

“Let me be clear then, Mrs. Remington.” Lachlan turned back to her. “Your son is only missing. There’s no body been found. There’s no evidence at all that he’s dead. And yet you called the station because your boy was murdered. That reads oddly to me. I can’t think of one parent who’d be convinced that her son was dead without evidence. Unless, of course, she had some sort of inside knowledge of what happened to him.”

Viola’s eyes widened. “You can’t be saying that you think…” She looked at her husband. “That you suspect…?”

“I think maybe you should leave,” said Richard, and his voice had a dragon-y rumble to it.

Lachlan didn’t look afraid. He didn’t make any move to get up. “Why are you so sure he’s dead?”

“We aren’t sure,” said Viola. “But we can’t find him anywhere, not since last weekend. And it isn’t like him, not to come home. He might sometimes leave for a few nights, but he always calls to say he won’t be back. We can’t get in touch with him.”

“And his cell phone,” said Richard. “We tried to trace it, but it’s nowhere to be found.” He still seemed angry. “Honestly, we came to you for help, not to be accused of—”

“I’m sorry, sir,” said Lachlan, “but I wouldn’t be any kind of detective if I wasn’t thorough.”

“That’s true, I suppose,” said Viola. She reached over for her husband’s hand. “We just want him back. Do you really think he might be alive?”

“I think that until we can find any evidence of his death, we should think positively,” said Lachlan.

“But there won’t be evidence,” said Richard. “This is obviously a slayer. What else could it have been?”

“A kidnapping?” said Lachlan. “You have some accumulated assets.” He gestured. “Perhaps someone wants a payoff.”

“They’d have contacted us by now,” said Richard. “Now, if you aren’t going to search for this slayer—”

“Maybe he’s right,” said Viola, looking hopeful. “Maybe Fletcher is alive.”

“Do you have a recent photograph of him?” said Lachlan. “Something we could use to show people during our inquiries?”

Richard and Viola looked at each other. “Maybe inside, there might be something,” she said.

“On my phone,” said Richard. “I don’t know about any physical photographs.

“Digital is fine,” said Lachlan. “You can text it to me. Could we look at his room?”

* * *

Fletcher’s bed wasn’t made. The covers were in a ball in the center of the bed, tangled up with the wiring from some video game controllers. The bed faced an enormous flat screen television that seemed to take up the entire wall it hung on.

The room was relatively clean and nondescript except for the bed. There were some surfing posters on the wall. A bookshelf filled with video games. A desk with a closed laptop sitting on it.

Lachlan was looking at his phone screen. He handed it to me.

I looked at a picture of a good-looking man with blond hair in a wet suit. He was holding onto a surfboard made from light wood with a tribal pattern decorating it.

“I was under the impression you couldn’t really surf on the Atlantic Ocean,” said Lachlan, raising an eyebrow.

“I think sometimes before storms the waves get big enough,” I said, shrugging.

Lachlan took the phone back. “So that’s Fletcher. God, I hope it’s not a slayer killing.”

I went over to the laptop and opened it. I touched the mouse pad.

“It’s not like I don’t know that there are slayers in town,” said Lachlan. “Hell, I know the bars they hang out in. I know who’s a slayer and who isn’t, and I’d arrest them all if I had a shred of evidence. They kill people to sell their corpses, and I can’t think of anything more despicable.” His nostrils flared.

The laptop screen came to life.
Enter password,
it said.

“But there’s no evidence at all,” he said. “Worst I can do sometimes is bust them for illegal firearms, but that’s not always the case. Lots of them have permits to carry guns. And then there’s all the ones using arrows and stuff. What am I supposed to do about that? So, if it’s a slayer, I don’t know how I’m going to find the killer.”

I was still staring at the computer. “I thought we were supposed to think positive.”

“No,” he said. “They’re probably right. He’s probably dead. It’s been over a week. Unless he ran off on his own somewhere, and what kid leaves all this money behind?”

“The laptop’s password protected.”

“Try ‘surf,’” said Lachlan.

“That’s not going to work,” I said, but I tried it. No dice. The password was also not “wave” or “breaker” or “surfinUSA.” After exhausting my surf lingo, I shut the lid.

“This is crap,” said Lachlan. “The captain is going to hand me my ass, because I’ll never close this case.”

“You don’t know that,” I said. “Maybe he had enemies. Maybe he was cheating on his girlfriend and she got angry and killed him and hid the body.”

“I thought you said that dragons don’t take the relationships they have before they find their mates very seriously.”