Page 73 of Suspicions on the Stage
Morgana beams at him proudly, but stays quiet. We don’t want this goon sniffing around us and finding out about our relationships. He’d leak it to the press, and we have enough bad PR for the time being.
“I’m not implying,” the detective says. “I’m stating. As of right now, you two—” he gestures at Lucas and Slade, “—are officially persons of interest.”
“I’d give anything to sit,” Lucas mutters as he rolls his eyes.
Morgana rubs her temples as she watches the big man trundle across the stage. “Detective, we’ve agreed to cooperate. However, these students have a lawyer, and you can’t keep them here indefinitely without cause. Right, Jackson?”
The leonine lawyer smiles, but it feels vicious as he watches the walrus lumber toward us. “He has cause—for now, Morgana. But I’m not going anywhere while he examines this scene. If Lucas and Slade are bound to stay, then you all get to experience my shining personality as well.”
Kowalski shrugs as if this is the highlight of his week. “Get the teams here, Sanders. Double-time.”
The sergeant walks away to make the call, and I wait until everyone is distracted again. I’d really like to get closer to the stage and use a few spells to see what cluesIcan find before some clumsy, half-baked lab techs destroy everything.
“Is it really necessary to have your unit all over this historic room?” Channing asks, but Kowalski’s already lurching toward the auditorium doors. She sighs and looks at Morgana. “They’re going to make a giant mess, leave it for us to cleanup, and the restoration afterward will be astronomical. Not that I don’t want the boys cleared, but… Ching Ching.”
Groaning to herself, Morgana pinches the bridge of her nose again. Once she’s collected herself, she rounds on us. “Jax, Eli needs to be on that Serpent thing now. And… where the hell did Kendrick and Rainier go?”
Thorne smirks again. “They’ll be using all theirtalentsto gather our own evidence to be analyzed and staying out of sight. Rain knows what needs to be done in a situation like this, trust me. Being invisible is an asset, I promise.”
“Are we sure it’s not overkill to have some magical special ops guys slinking around? What if the cops or the CSIs run into them?” Liam folds his arms over his chest, looking unsure.
Kaspar snorts. “The detective is drooling over the chance to lock up the Wolfenberg heiragain,and once he figures out who Slade is tied to, it will be even worse. Plus, as far as all you people say, we have incoming issues with a nasty, wealthy relative of the deceased. I think the fucking army wouldn’t be overkill.”
“We’re so fucked,” Lucas groans as he shifts from foot to foot. “That guy thinks I’m his ticket to a desk job and stars on his shoulders or some shit.”
“You’re not fucked,” I say irritably. “We just have to get ahead of the narrative. Once we find out the time of death, you can produce alibis. We know where you were, and we have the ability to prove it through tech and witnesses.”
Morgana steps between us and the gaping auditorium. “Iggy’s right. You can’t let that jackass see you squirm. It’s what he wants because he thinks once you’re emotional, you’ll break. They sure as hell tried it with me during my interrogation.”
“I thought you confessed when they caught you,” Kaspar says. He looks confused, but Jackson does not.
“I did, but they wanted to know all the reasonswhy. Since I figured they’d execute me anyway, I made them work for those answers—very hard.”
The auditorium goes silent except for the soft hum of the stage lights. I think Thorne knew they basically tortured her to find out, but the rest of us did not. She doesn’t have a mark on her, which likely means she shifted back and forth a lot to keep scars or injuries from forming. I don’t even want to imagine what she went through, to be honest; the Society has damn near every terrifying supernatural available at their disposal—even the onesthey keep locked up in places like Blackwater Supe Max out by Bay City.
Our mate is even tougher than I thought, and I think all of us just realized that.
Giving her a tight nod, I break away from the group while the cops are outside waiting for their teams. I can’t focus on what Morgana experienced without being furious, and I’m more useful if I go use my magic to help Lucas and Slade. Taking a seat in the front row, I look at the scene with a critical eye. Rialto Beauregard’s body is sprawled across the stage right apron, face-up, eyes staring at the lighting grid now that the cloth has been removed. He looks bored, as if death itself is an inconvenience.
He probably was or is—the rumors about his erratic behavior reached even the staff lounges.
I scan the shadows above the stage. “There’s something on the grid up there,” I murmur to myself. I’ll have to point it out to Thorne and, hopefully, his secret operative, whatever guys will check it out.
The doors at the top of the aisle bang open. I turn, watching the forensics techs arrive, knowing that every minute we wait, things are degrading that could help our friends.
Quietly, I whisper, “Veritatem revela et viam monstra.?1”
The bloodstains glow with my magic, and I tilt my head. I don’t know shit about this other than what I’ve seen on TV, but it appears that whoever killed Beauregard had him pinned when they started stabbing. The guy isn’t tiny or big, so that means the killer is likely at least average-sized. Obviously, supernatural powers will play into this because no one has seen a knife.Something that left with the person—like claws or fangs—was used.
And that’s about as far as Masterpiece is going to get me, unfortunately.
If you’ve never felta banshee float by, you don’t know the meaning of death crossing your doorstep. The coroner passes me, making me shiver as I note the hellhound shifter that must be her assistant tugging a rolling suitcase of diagnostic gear. As she moves through the space, the temperature drops three degrees, and Slade’s glasses fog up.
An appropriate job for her kind, I suppose.
Her badge says Dr. Balor. The hellhound isn’t wearing one, but he has fiery eyes that seem to dissect everything around him as he opens their cases and starts taking pictures. Neither of them speaks to any of us, and I grin to myself as I keep my seat close enough to observe their work.
I hear Thorne whisper, “Don’t look her in the eye. She’ll know how you die.”
