Page 3 of Mystic Justice
The grandson answered. ‘We were here early to get the prime spots. I picked Grandad up at 7.30am, and we arrived at 8am on the dot. I guess we reached the lake at 8.05, and we immediately saw the willow tree like that.’
He looked at me with haunted eyes. ‘I peered in. But … her skin isgreen.Like the Hulk.’ He shook his head disbelievingly. Sometimes the Other realm couldn’t hide itself, not completely. The horror of the victim’s death had bled through the Verdict, the magic that protected our secrecy, letting the human see the dryad’s true form. That was something we couldn’t allow; just like that, Kai had sealed his fate and his mind would be wiped.
‘Drowning can result in skin discolouration,’ I explained easily, because it was true.
‘Yeah,’ Kai said, ‘but that willow tree isn’t usually there.’ He pointed at the churned-up earth along the path. ‘It’s like itmoved.’His eyes were wide, his tone a shade away from hysteria.
‘Come now,’ Fred croaked. ‘Let’s not be fanciful.’ But his eyes were wild, too.
‘I’m not. Grandad, you know as well as I do, that tree wasn’t in the lake last week.’
Fred frowned. ‘Well no, it wasn’t, but perhaps management moved it. Trees can be moved, roots dug up and replanted.’
Kai stared at him. ‘Why the hell would they do that?’
‘Language!’ Fred chastised him, but his frown deepened.
Yep, we needed Dwayne. It chafed because if I’d been alone I could have slipped into their minds and fixed the problem in a moment. It would have been risky because I was an unregistered subterfuge wizard, but I’d done it before. However, with Channing shadowing my every move, opportunities to smooth things over were rare, and the additional red tape and delays annoyed me. Plus, I trusted myself not to take liberties with their thoughts and memories, and I couldn’t say the same about Witterhall. I didn’t trust him an inch.
We took further details from the Cornels, including their contact information. Once we had their statements, Frost led them a little way from the scene and stayed with them; we couldn’t let them go until SOCO had arrived and processed them. We’d need their fingerprints and shoeprints to eliminate them as suspects.
There were some clear footprints by the water’s edge, one set small and narrow –probably a woman’s – and the other set larger and deeper like those of a heavy-set male. There were also some tracks that suggested the victim had dug in her heels as she’d been dragged forward. I pushed down a twinge of sympathy. Emotion only served to muddy my clarity of thought.
I studied the marks dispassionately. It felt rather like a pub joke, only no one was laughing. How many people does it take to drown a dryad? Just two: one to tie her down, one to make sure.
Dryads werebuoyant, so it had taken some strength to force the deceased under the water and hold her there. They were part human, part plant, and therefore a hundred percent creature.In the Other realm divide, they fell on the same side as Krieg. Hard to imagine that huge hulking ogre as ever being a victim, though. He was all predator.
Irritated with myself, I pushed Krieg out of my mind. He had no place here, any more than my empathy did. I knew all too well what it felt like to be tied down, restrained against your will, and I could picture the victim’s struggles and her fear. In the depths of my mind, I silently vowed to bring her killers to justice.
One way or another.
Chapter Two
While I was determinedlynotthinking about Robert Krieg, the High King of the Ogres, the same could not be said of him. My phone blared and lit up with his name:Krieg calling.
I bit my lip. Until the sub-wizard was here to wipe the wits’ minds and the SOCO and ME arrived, I had time to take the call. I moved a few steps away from the others –then a few more for good measure – and swiped up to answer. ‘Wise,’ I said briskly in case the others could still hear me.
‘Krieg,’ he responded, tongue-in-cheek humour laced through his tone. It made my lips twitch despite myself.
‘How are you doing?’ I asked, turning my back so no one would see the smile that had somehow appeared on my face at the sound of his voice.
‘You work even harder than I do,’ he said. ‘When can we go on our date?’
Only two weeks earlier we’d shut down an elitist circle of murderers, people so rich they didn’t think the rules applied to them. Since then our schedules just hadn’t aligned. We’d spoken on the phone surprisingly frequently but I hadn’t seen him inthe flesh since the day he’d bowed low and kissed the back of my hand. I still tingled in interesting places at the thought, which was absurd.
Six hundred and eighty-two days celibate and ruefully counting.
‘I just caught a case,’ I admitted reluctantly. ‘It’s going to be hectic over the next few days. Sorry.’
He let out a rumbling sigh. ‘Between both our schedules, it’s like trying to get the stars to align.’
‘Yeah,’ I agreed. ‘It’s not ideal.’
‘You’re not avoiding me, are you, Inspector? Because if you don’t want to see me, you only have to say and I’ll—’
‘Of course not!’ The words burst out of me. I could hear the hint of insecurity in his voice and it made him worm even deeper under my skin. He was a king, and he was beginning to think I didn’t want him. And boy, did I want him.
Dating Kriegwouldbe a complication, I knew that, but something drew me to him, something I couldn’t ignore. Something I didn’twantto ignore. And yes, I was pretty sure that he thought I was his mate, which didn’t seem possible since I was human, but a very small part of me couldn’t help but wonder… What if he was right?
