Page 6 of Tragic Ink
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Istood alonein the dining room until a noise behind me made me turn. Rhys leaned against the doorframe, watchingme.
“What?” I asked, but it lacked venom. I was exhausted, and the grief was starting to cloud out the shock that had been fueling me until now. I considered taking a shot from the espresso tattooed on my left forearm, but I didn’t want to risk being seen. All I wanted was solitude—so I could fallapart.
“They’ll find who did this,” hesaid.
I turned back to the window, watching as a two-man crew loaded my mother’s body into the back of a transport vehicle bound for the medical examiner’s office intown.
“How?” I askedfinally.
Rhys took a stepforward.
I turned to glare at him, my face already hot with the words on my tongue. “How in the hell will they find her killer? They have no leads, and they didn’t even send someone out to check the perimeter of theproperty?”
“Sheriff Kasun promised me he already has a team on it,” hesaid.
“Whatever,” I muttered. So far, Ethan hadn’t been impressed by the wolves he’d seen investigating the propertyline.
“Gwen—”
“They don’t believe me that someone was outthere.”
He took another step. “Ido.”
I looked away, back to the window where I saw the paramedics finishing up. The doors were closing now. The engines were turning over. This was it. After tonight, I would never see my mother again. This house would never feel the same. An irrational panic rose, clogging the back of my throat. A part of me wanted to fling open the front door and race out there to stop them. To keep my mother—or what was left of her—here. Even if it didn’t makesense.
I forced my feet to remain where they were. “You believe me,” I said dully. “What good does that dome?”
“A lot, if you’ll let mehelp.”
I turned to study him, unwilling to watch my mother be carted away from the only home I’d ever known with her. Instead, I put all of my attention and focus on the words Rhys had just spoken. And the ones he hadn’t said outloud.
“Help with what?” I asked, wary and curious as I remembered Aelwyn’s last words. The promise I’d made rang in my ears. I couldn’t go back on that, but damn it, I couldn’t ask Rhys foranything.
“We both know what,” he said and then snorted. “The only mother either of us has ever known was murdered,” he went on, and I flinched but didn’t contradict him. Better to face the truth, no matter how hard, than live in denial. “And I know you’re not going to rest until you figure out who killed her. I think you know that I won’t either. And I can help you. If you letme.”
“I thought that’s what the police are for,” Ichallenged.
Rhys sighed. “I heard Kasun speculating it could be related to the Bennett girl’s disappearance lastyear.”
“It could,” I argued, with no real idea why I was suddenly sticking up for that asshat—except that I didn’t want to side withRhys.
He pinned me with a look, and in the dim lamplight, his eyes flashed. “You don’t believe that for a second. Neither doI.”
“I don’tknow—”
“Those woods—out there where I found you earlier—have traces of fae all over them, but it’s unreadable. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s just... a ghost. The only real signature that’s even remotely detectable out there is yours. Whoever was here used a glamour to cover histracks.”
That silenced me. I thought it had just been me. My own signature. Or Ethan was losing his touch,but...
“Does the sheriff know that?” I askedquietly.
“Yes.”
“Does he also know that Aelwyn didn’t let fae come to the house?” I asked, a strange sort of uncertainty sending a tingling down my spine. It had been a strange thing, Aelwyn’s rule. She’d never explained it either, but it had been ironclad. No fae on her land. Period. If I hadn’t known her so well, I’d have wondered if she was prejudiced or maybe bitter about something in her past, but she’d been friendly enough with everyone in town, faeincluded.
I’d never really thought about how strange her rule was until now. Or her unyielding routine of warding the house with fresh herbs and magic every month on the fullmoon.
