Page 39 of The Devil's Embrace

Chapter 12:

Calix could recall the last time he’d eaten at the popular local diner, Pen’s. It was kind of hard to forget when a grown man threw a milkshake at your teenage face.

Glass and all.

He parked the hovercar the station had loaned him in the lot behind the diner, taking a moment to just look at it. The gray building with the bright red roof hadn’t changed a bit, and for a moment, he felt a rush of trepidation, as though he were that eighteen-year-old kid again at risk of being booed out of the restaurant if he tried to order a soda.

His thumb pressed against his jeans, right over a spot on his right inner thigh where he’d run a razer blade that morning. It hadn’t been enough to distract him from the fact he was a disgusting person—getting off to thoughts of Aodhan under the influence, getting fucked by Red Mask—but it’d dulled the self-hatred enough he’d been able to get dressed and leave the hotel with a normal expression plastered over his face.

The sharp sting of pain helped to ground him now, and with a defeated sigh, Calix popped open the door and slipped out. Ever since he’d gotten the call, he’d been worried at whathe’d discover once he got there. She’d made it sound like whatever had happened was…weird.

Was it the merman? Had his body been unceremoniously dumped in the diner dumpsters or something? The mutilated and rotting corpse of a species thought to be near extinction was certainly cause for sounding the oddity alarm.

What was he going to do if it was the merman, though? Would he confess? Finally bring it up and just play it off like he’d planned to as soon as he was certain he no longer needed that party crowd for answers? Actually, that could work. It would be believable enough since he’d come away from that night with nothing. Even though he’d had no intention of asking Aodhan to take him to another one, they didn’t have to know that. It wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibility that he would.

It didn’t take him long to find Amory—it helped that she was standing right in the midst of a commotion—and his fears were almost instantly put to bed the moment he did.

Two officers were currently wrestling with Heathe, struggling to keep him locked between them as he tossed himself from side to side in an attempt to get free. His face was pale, and he kept repeating the same thing over and over again in a frantic tone that gave Cal pause as he stopped at Amory’s side.

“I didn’t do it! I didn’t!” Heathe insisted as they dragged him over to a cruiser.

Seeing him again made Calix’s stomach tie into knots, but he kept his composure, forcing himself to sound only somewhat interested when he asked Amory, “What’s going on?”

“He killed his girlfriend,” she told him. “Would you believe it?”

Cal frowned, finally noticing the ambulance nearby and the body stuffed into the back already covered from prying eyes.

A crowd had gathered, probably people who’d been enjoying lunch and those that they’d summoned to come seethe show. Another reason Calix couldn’t wait to get off this damn planet. A part of him almost felt bad for Heathe, having experienced the weight of the townspeople himself, but then he recalled the night of the reunion.

He’d paid his debt then and made them even.

This? He didn’t have to feel shit for the guy now.

“How’d it happen?” Calix crossed his arms.

“Better question is why,” she said. “Turns out the body has been chilling in the walk-in freezer in the basement of Pen’s for at least a couple of days.”

“What?” He’d completely forgotten that Heathe had mentioned his sister buying the place. “He got away with that?”

“He was living down there,” she explained. “Life after high school hasn’t exactly been kind to our old Prom King. Honestly, I’m surprised he even had a girlfriend to kill.”

“That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?” Mitri walked away from the ambulance where he’d been discussing things with the paramedics and smiled politely at Cal. “Afternoon, Detective.”

“Can you figure out a cause of death?” Technically, this wasn’t what he’d been sent here for, but Calix wanted to know what was going on. How a guy who’d drugged and abused him the other day in the name of retribution could be the same one to murder the woman he loved in cold blood.

Well. That wasn’t fair.

He had no way of knowing if the two of them had been in love or not.

And Calix wasn’t really in a place to judge.

Even after spending the past six years trying to atone for what he’d done to his classmate, Cal had still ignored the merman’s cries for help. He didn’t have a right to comment on anyone’s hypocrisy, not when he was still struggling to acknowledge and deal with his own.

“Sure, I can make an assessment right now even,” Mitri replied. “She’s got a caved-in skull. The mark is conducive to being hit on the head with something blunt. Whoever killed her hit her.”

“It was Heathe,” Amory insisted, scowling at the back of the police cruiser as it drove off with a panicked Heathe in the back seat. “He freaked out when she was discovered by the head chef and tried to threaten him into keeping his mouth shut.”

“Isn’t the head chef his uncle?” Cal thought he recalled that detail.

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