Fire Song (City of Dragons) (30 page)

“Well, it would have walls if you hadn’t left him,” she said. “He was building this place for you.”

“Yeah right,” I said. “Alastair never built anything for me. And he hates it here. He hates the ocean.”

She lifted her chin.

“You’re the one who likes it here,” I said. “You’re the one who convinced him to come here this spring. I bet you didn’t like it when he started taking up with those underage dragon girls, did you?”

“Oh, believe me, I did not,” she said. “And that’s your fault too. If you would just come home and stop acting like a spoiled brat—”

“What did you do about it? Did you bring them out here under some kind of pretense? Maybe you told them that this house would be theirs someday. Where’s the knife?’

“What are you talking about?” She looked truly puzzled.

“You’re good,” I said. “But I see through you. And I found the blood stain on the floor in the back room. Once they test that, they’ll know everything, and you’ll go to jail.” Except I shouldn’t have said that, should I have? Because now Elizabeth was going to come for me, and she was going to hit me over the head and kill me just the way she’d killed all the other girls, and no one would ever find out what I knew.

“Blood stain?” She furrowed her brow. “You were always melodramatic, Penny. Just like you were always claiming that Alastair hurt you, but there were never any bruises.”

“Because I shifted to heal myself,” I said. “I’m not being melodramatic. You killed Sophia Ward and the others.”

“
What?
” She took a step backward. “No, I didn’t. Why would I do that?”

“Because Alastair was sleeping with them.”

Her eyes widened. “I knew about Sophia, but
all
of them? Really?”

“Well…” I chewed on my bottom lip. This wasn’t going well.

“I didn’t kill anyone,” she said. “And I’m not going to listen to this. I don’t have time for this.” She rolled her eyes and strode back to her car. She got inside and tore back up the driveway.

I breathed a sigh of relief. Oh, thank God. She hadn’t killed me.

Maybe she hadn’t killed anybody?

I called Lachlan.

“So help me, Penny, if you tell me that you went to Alastair’s house anyway—”

“I did,” I said.

He groaned. “I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

“Well, it’s not actually even finished. It’s just all framed out. But I think I might have found a blood stain.”

“You kidding me?”

“I took a picture. Should I send it to you?”

“Okay.”

I sent the picture. I waited.

“Got it,” he said finally. “I don’t know, Penny. That might not even be blood.”

“I know,” I said. “I started realizing that by walking all over the place in there, I might be leaving my own DNA at the scene, which would be stupid.”

“Incredibly stupid,” he said. “Look, I’m almost out to Anthony Barnes’s house. I’m going to poke around, and then I’ll call you back if I see anything here, okay? Just let the Alastair thing go for now. We’ll turn our evidence over to someone less biased, and then maybe they’ll be able to figure it out.”

I sighed. “Um, I ran into his sister up here. Which is weird, right, for her to drive all the way out to a house with no walls?”

“Might be,” he said.

“And she never did tell me why she was out here in the first place. I know that she wouldn’t have liked Alastair having an affair with a dragon that wasn’t his mate. She would have thought he was being improper. It would have made her furious.”

“Okay, so…?”

“Well, maybe she should be a suspect.”

“You think she killed girls because they were sleeping with Alastair and being improper?”

“And making her entire family look bad,” I said.

“Uh huh.” He didn’t sound very convinced.

It sounded kind of stupid now. Maybe I hadn’t been thinking clearly because of being so surprised to see her out here. “Okay,” I said. “Well, I guess call me after you take a look at Anthony’s house.”

“Will do.” He hung up.

I got back in my car, feeling sheepish. I drove the forty-five minutes back home.

*

Lachlan never called me back. I thought back over the conversation, and I couldn’t remember if he’d said he was definitely going to call me after looking over Anthony’s place or if he was just going to call me if he found anything suspicious.

I called him again.

It went straight to voicemail. I wondered if he was still out there, if Anthony’s house was so remote that he couldn’t get a signal or something.

I was kind of bored, and there was nothing to do at the hotel. Connor was asleep for the day. Felicity wasn’t around. She must have been with Jensen somewhere. I hung out in my office, paying some bills and doing paperwork.

I tried to call Lachlan again.

Nothing.

Huh.

Well, maybe I could just go out there and meet him.

Only problem was that I didn’t know where the place was.

I went to the police station and went to his desk, thinking I could find it on his computer somehow. But I couldn’t even log on to his computer, because I needed a network password.

If I was really a consultant, then I should have a network password, at least I thought so.

I really should just go back to the hotel and wait. This was a bust. Maybe I should go out and buy a new TV, because I had promised Connor that I would get one.

But there was a Wal-mart out pretty close to the shelter where Anthony worked. And maybe I’d just go by there on my way…

And do what? Ask him where his old, abandoned family house was?

That wasn’t cool. Lachlan didn’t even have permission to be there.

But maybe I could figure out some way to find out the location, just bring it up in passing or something, and maybe he’d give me a clue about where it was. If I could get an address, I could find directions on my phone…

I
did
need to get that TV, and this was right on the way.

But when I got to the Wal-mart, I decided I’d get the TV after.

I went inside the shelter.

There was a pretty girl sitting at the desk. She was wearing several different magical charms on chains around her neck. She had a piercing in her nose that connected to a piercing in her ear. Both of them were charms as well. She was a mage.

I wanted to give her a piece of my mind about using dead dragons to fuel her own magical skills, but I kept my mouth shut.

“Can I help you?” she said.

“Is Mr. Barnes available?” I said.

“Let me check. I’ll call him. Who should I say is asking after him?”

“Penny Caspian. I’m with the Sea City Police Department.”

The girl raised her eyebrows.

And then I caught sight of the earrings in her earlobes. They weren’t charms. They were rubies in the shape of flames. They were Sophia’s earrings. I remembered seeing them in the picture on Facebook, noting that they were one of a kind. “Where did you get those earrings?”

She touched one. “Oh these? Actually, Mr. Barnes gave them to me.”

“He did?”

“Yeah, sometimes he’s so sweet. It was my birthday, and he said he saw these and thought of me.”

“Did he say where he got them?”

She shook her head. “Nope.” She picked up her phone. “Hold on, I’ll call him.”

“Actually,” I said. “Never mind. I don’t need to talk to him after all. I just remembered that I have an, um, appointment right now. Really important. So, I’ll just have to come back another time.” I was backing away from her.

“Oh,” she said. “Okay. Well, should I have him call you?”

“No, no, that’s fine,” I said. I hurried out of the shelter as quickly as I could.

Shit, shit, shit. Lachlan had been right about Anthony Barnes this whole time. He was inserting himself into the investigation. The only way he could have gotten those earrings is if he had taken them from the victim. And to have the gall to give them as a present to a girl that worked his front desk? He really wasn’t worried about getting caught, was he?

And Lachlan was out there at that house, and he wasn’t answering his phone, and—
Damn it.

I dialed him again. My palms were starting to sweat. He was probably in danger. Anthony Barnes probably had him and was—
But no, because Anthony Barnes was here. His assistant had been about to call back to his office.

“Hello?” said Lachlan.

“Oh, thank God,” I said. “You’re okay.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because… oh, I don’t know, I thought maybe—it’s not important. Anthony Barnes is the killer.”

“What? Why are you saying that?”

“You remember that picture of Sophia Ward that we looked at? She was wearing a pair of ruby earrings. They looked like flames. I recognized the work, because I had a piece made by that artist. The artist never makes duplicates. Those earrings are one of a kind.”

“I take it you just saw these earrings?”

“Yeah, on a girl working at the shelter. She said that Anthony gave them to her.”

Lachlan was quiet.

“You were right all along,” I said. “He’s some creepy person who’s inserting himself into the investigation, and he’s the murderer.”

“Didn’t Barnes come in to tell us that Sophia stayed at the shelter one night?”

“Well, yeah, but you said he might just be making that up to cast suspicion elsewhere.”

“But if he was telling the truth, then maybe she left the earrings there, and that’s how he got them.”

“Maybe,” I said. “I guess that could be it, but… Why are you saying this? Is there no way that the house could be used for the murders?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. I got lost out here. I was following my GPS, but then I lost my cell signal, and I’ve been driving around forever trying to find myself.”

“So, you haven’t even seen the house?”

“No, not yet. And I got your call, but my data connection is crap. Look, if I give you the address, can you plug it into your maps program and get me the directions?”

“Yeah, no problem,” I said.

“Great.” He gave me the address.

I put it into my phone, and the directions popped up. “This doesn’t look that difficult.”

“Just tell me what to do from Route 50,” he said.

I relayed the directions to him.

“Okay,” he said. “And that last part again?”

I repeated it.

He didn’t respond.

“Lachlan?” I said. I took the phone away from my ear.
Call ended
, it said. Damn it. I dialed Lachlan again.

Voicemail.

Jesus Christ.

“I’m just going to go out there,” I said out loud, as if I was trying to convince myself it was a good idea. I looked around the parking lot of the shelter, at the rows of cars. Did one of them belong to Anthony Barnes?

Or had he left the office, unbeknownst to his assistant? Maybe he was lurking out there near his house, and maybe Lachlan’s phone had cut off because—
I tried to call Lachlan again.

No dice.

Forget it. I was going after him.

It didn’t take me that long to follow the directions and get out to Barnes’s house. I didn’t even understand why Lachlan had gotten lost. Of course, maybe it was because he wasn’t from around here. I’d been to Texas once on a vacation with my grandparents, and I remembered that all the roads out there were interstates or big four-lane highways. Even out in the middle of nowhere, they had good roads. I figured it was because Texas hadn’t been settled in the 1600s by people riding horses like in New England.

Anyway, Lachlan’s inability to follow directions and to get lost in Maryland was neither here nor there.

He’d apparently figured it out anyway, because his car was parked in front when I arrived.

Anthony’s house was definitely old and definitely in disrepair, but it was standing and solid. It was swathed in tall trees, but none of them had started to bud yet, so their branches were bare, crisscrossing the sky.

The house had a high roof and a porch that wrapped around the entire place.

There was nothing on the front porch, though. It was empty. The windows were boarded up.

I parked my car next to Lachlan’s and got out. “Lachlan!” I called. I got out my phone and tried calling him again. I still had service, but his phone went directly to voicemail again.

I felt nervous. Something just seemed a little off to me. Maybe I should call the police for back-up.

But then I thought about being convinced, just an hour ago, that Elizabeth was the killer, and now I was sure I’d been wrong about that. I was probably overreacting.

Squaring my shoulders, I climbed up onto the porch. The wood creaked under my feet. “Lachlan!” I called again.