Sentinel: A Light Mage Wars Novella (The Light Mage Wars) (12 page)

Chapter
Ten

Rick's comment to Caro about honesty haunted him through the night, harder to brush off than the ghoul encounter. When had he started to care what they might have between them?

Now he stood in Jim Todd
's tiny, rustic kitchen while his balding, sixtyish host poured coffee. More than one person had told him Jim might look like a genial elf but he had the brain of a predator. Rick needed to focus.

"
So." Jim handed Rick a cup of black coffee. At odds with his mild tone, his gray eyes were keen. "Why do you think I dropped the Dare story?"

"
The pieces didn't fit." The question was clearly a test. Had Rick passed?

"
Which pieces?" Jim asked.

Rick followed his host into the sunroom, where
early morning light filtered through the trees onto the faded, upholstered chairs and sofa. A laptop lay on a rattan table by a corner hearth. Jim must've been working when Rick arrived.

"
Any of them," he said as he and Jim settled into armchairs by the glass. "They're fine separately, but they don't form a cohesive pattern."

Jim raised his eyebrows, so Rick continued.
"Nothing in Dare's background hints at any dishonorable tendencies. A guy who's greedy doesn't become a deputy reeve or the slightly-better-paid shire reeve. Not when his paintings go for five to ten thousand a pop. Dare didn't need to sell out his deputies to make a cartload of money."

"
And yet," Jim said softly.

"
Yeah." Rick took a sip of the strong, rich coffee and eyed his host. Everyone Rick had asked had described Jim as a man of his word. "Can I trust you with something?"

When
Jim nodded, Rick told him about his conversation with the deputy reeve and shared Jason's info about the burned-out ghoul nests.

Jim rubbed a hand over his jaw.
"Some would say Dare was just a good actor. That those nests, if they're Dare's work–and that's a damned big 'if'–show he and his ghoul allies had a falling out."

"
That's not what you think," Rick said, picking up on the older man's choice of words.

Jim stared at him, his narrowed eyes appraising, for a long moment.
"I'm going tell you something in return, but I need your word we're in a cone of silence."

"
Cone of silence," Rick agreed. His heartbeat kicked up. Did Jim have info that could crack this story? If so, why hadn't he used it?

Jim grabbed the laptop.
When he opened it, the machine whirred to life. The weary, pained face of a fifty-something woman filled the screen.

"
I have this," Jim said, "for safekeeping. This is Muriel Jacobs, the wife of former shire reeve Dan Jacobs."

"
Corin's mother," Rick noted softly. No wonder she looked so distressed. Her son was dead at the hands of a family friend.

With a nod, Jim handed the laptop to Rick.
"She passed away last year. Click
play
."

Rick complied.
Muriel Jacobs's image began to speak, her words heavy with the same grief that lined her face. "My name is Muriel Stanhope Jacobs. I am a licensed forensic psychologist. My husband was Southeast Shire Reeve for seven years. Two years later, he served for another year."

Jim put in,
"Griffin Dare was the reeve in between those stints, then Dan's older son, Corin, until he died."

Rick nodded as Jacobs continued.
"I knew Griffin Dare from boyhood, and I've never seen anybody more dedicated to protecting our kind and the Mundanes from ghouls, from dark magic, from anything vile and dangerous. He and my son Corin were friends. They shared not only a sense of purpose but a devotion to fairness. To honor."

Blinking rapidly, Jacobs looked away from the camera.
Her throat moved in a hard swallow.

"
Shit," Rick breathed. "Jim, why–?"

"
Keep watching." Jim eyed Rick over his coffee mug. "She wrote this all out and read it over Skype so I could record it."

"
Griff and Corin always had each other's backs," Corin's mother added. "Whether it was magical studies, girls, or just stupid teenage boy stuff, they watched out for each other."

Again,
she swallowed hard. "So even though my son's murderer was magically screened and so can't be identified, I absolutely know Griff did not kill Corin. He would've died first."

Corin Jacobs had died from a blast of magic in the back that left a round
–

"
People say," Jacobs noted, scowling now, "the round burn from the fatal blast, the kind a staff weapon leaves, is proof of Griff's guilt. After all, he's the only mage in the southeast who fights with a staff. But every cadet trains with them, so the Collegium armory has a couple dozen that my husband says are easy to access. And these so-called experts rely on the burn evidence to convict him of Corin's death but ignore it in Allie Henderson's."

Dare
's former lover, Rick remembered.

"
That boy adored that girl, and she loved him just as much." Muriel Jacobs's voice shook. Again, she looked away and swallowed.

"
There's no way he would've caused her to have so much as a hangnail, let alone taken her life. Nor was there any way she would've cheated on him with Sykes Mitchell, like the supposed experts claim. Her fatal burn was consistent with a sword like Sykes's, not a staff, yet everyone blames Griff for it. These supposed experts claim he found them together and killed them both in a jealous rage."

The
woman's lip curled. "I can't be the only one who smells bullshit."

Wow.
Rick's brain clicked back through the files he'd read. "Nothing about this is on record, Jim."

"
Just wait."

"
No one will listen to me. They claim I'm a deluded, grieving mother," Jacobs repeated, anger hardening her tone, "but I know sociopaths start early, and there was never any sign of that in Griff. People can brush aside what I have to say. Maybe they're scared. Maybe they're stupid. Or maybe they have an agenda. My husband is torn, doesn't know what to think, and I had to drop this because it was hurting our other son, Mitch, and his chances in the deputy reeves. But I'm making this recording so someone knows. In case it ever matters."

The screen returned to the beginning.
Rick handed the laptop back to Jim. "Holy crap," he muttered.

"
Yeah." Jim set the computer back on the table. "It doesn't meet the standard for evidence under the
Caudex Magi
, but she did the best she could."

"
You think somebody leaned on her and her husband?"

"
Subtly, but yeah. The MageWire official position is, and always has been, the same as the Collegium's, that Dare is guilty of all of it."

"
But you had doubts."

Jim nodded.
"How did Stan pull you back into all this, anyway? I heard you'd scaled back, mostly doing novels and your column. No investigative work."

Rick hesitated.
The family disaster wasn't something he liked to share. "It's a long story."

"
Okay." After a moment, Jim said, "Look, Rick, you want to be careful how much you trust Stan."

What the hell?
"He's always treated me well," Rick replied. "He trained me."

"
Yeah, but that was when he was the Georgia desk chief. Since he moved up in management, about the time you pulled back, he's all about the big score."

Brain like a predator
, Rick remembered. If Jim saw smoke, there might be flame, though Rick couldn't imagine what it would be. "Okay," he said. "Thanks."

Jim took another sip of coffee.
"Anyway, after seeing that, hearing from everybody what a straight arrow Dare was, I couldn't write a story that followed the official line."

Neither could Rick.
Damn it. What was he going to do now?

#

As Rick walked into Caro's building and up the stairs to her loft, the question gnawed at him. Everything he'd heard and seen placed a big, fat, gray zone around her brother's guilt.

There was no question he
'd killed Althor or that four deputies had died in the ensuing firefight, but why hadn't the guy gone through the system? All this tragedy, these deaths, could've been avoided if he'd worked within the system he'd sworn to uphold.

And where the hell did that leave Rick?
Could he write a feature based on what he'd learned about Caro, incorporate things he'd learned that made her brother look better? If he did, would Stan consider that good enough? Or would Rick shatter her tentative trust for nothing?

What was he going to do about her, anyway
? He'd meant what he said to her about being honest last night, just as he'd meant his statement that he wanted to see what they could have together.

Yet
he wasn't being honest with her. Somehow, he had to come clean about wanting to do a story on Griffin without making her run for the hills. Without hurting her.

She wasn
't at all how Stan had depicted her. Rich and connected, sure, but she was aware that she'd started life with advantages. She was determined to stand on her own. To her credit, she'd understood his family's struggles, even admired what they'd done.

A good PR piece could work on her brother
's behalf someday. Could he get her to cooperate with one?

He knocked on the door.
From beyond it came the faint sound of her footfalls as she approached. A Mundane probably wouldn't have heard them.

She opened the door smiling, but her eyes
were bleary, with dark circles under them. She hadn't slept any better than he had. Had she spent the night reliving the attack and jumping at every sound? The thought kicked Rick in the gut, hard.

"
Good morning, Sunshine." He kissed her, savoring the return pressure of her lips. Gently, he stroked his thumb under her left eye. "Rough night?"

"
I've had better, but, hey, we're both still alive and whole, right?" The bright tone in her voice didn't hide a note of strain.

"
Right." Did she realize how much grit she truly possessed? Or was she only now discovering it? She had too much backbone to hide from the world the way she apparently had been. "You ready?"

"
All set." She grabbed her purse from a table by the door, sliding the strap onto her shoulder, and picked up her cane.

When she
'd locked the door, they walked down the stairs together. He would wait until they'd eaten to broach the difficult subject of Griffin.

When they reached the sidewalk, Caro tippe
d her face up to the sky. "What a beautiful day," she said.

As she drew in the sunlight
, his magical senses picked up on her recharging. He hardly noticed, though, because he was focused on the slender column of her neck, remembering its softness and the rose petal scent of her skin.

"
Caroline Dare," a woman's voice behind him said.

Rick
and Caro turned together. A tall, tawny-haired woman strode toward them, hazel eyes intent. She was out of uniform, in a green shirt with tan slacks and a matching, boxy jacket, but he needed only a moment to recognize the Southeast Shire Reeve, Valeria Banning.

This could not be good.

Rick touched Caro's arm. "Good morning, shire reeve," he said.

Banning acknowledged him with a nod.
At twenty-four, she was young for a shire reeve. She had a girl-next-door appeal, with attractive, classical features and an athletic but curvy frame. His tastes, though, ran more to willowy brunettes these days.

Caro tensed.
Her walls slammed up. "I'm Caroline Dare."

A moment later, Banning reached them.
Had she seen Caro's defensive response?

"
I need a few minutes of your time," the shire reeve said.

Rick
replied, "We're on our way out for lunch." Banning wouldn't postpone, but he wanted to buy Caro time to compose herself.

Had the reeves caught Griffin?
If Rick wondered, Caro surely must not only wonder but fear.

"
I'm sorry to interrupt," Banning said, "but this won't take long."

Caro gave her a cool nod.
"Let's go inside, then."

Home field advantage to Caro.
Good choice.

The trio
returned to her apartment. Closing the door, she said, "Please sit down. Can I offer you something to drink? Lemonade, coffee, water?"

Smart
. Civilized and yet buying more time.

"
Lemonade would be good, thanks."