Page 23 of Veiled Justice
I couldn’t deny it anymore; Houston, we had definite flirtation.
Chapter 13
After Krieg and I had eaten our fill, Mum made tea with milk for me and black coffee for Krieg. ‘So,’ I said as I held my steaming cup and eyeballed Rupe and Ava, ‘do either of you remember anything else from last night?’
‘Stacy—’ Mum started reprovingly.
‘It’s fine,’ Rupert insisted. ‘It’s why she’s here.’
I blinked. ‘It’s not theonlyreason I’m here,’ I objected.
He frowned. ‘What other reason is there?’
‘I was hungry,’ I said blandly. When Mum shot me a glare, I sighed and relented. ‘I was checking on you, dummy. It’s not every day someone finds a dead body.’
‘It is for you.’
‘Yeah, but that’s different. It’s my job. And it’s noteveryday.’ Maybe once or twice a week.
Rupert gave me a half-smile. ‘Aw, you care about me.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘Notthatmuch.’
Rupert’s smile widened but then faded as he turned his mind to the business of murder and corpses. ‘I’ve been wracking my brains, really I have, but I can’t remember anything I haven’t already told you.’
Ava interjected, ‘I’ve been thinking too. I definitely saw Helga at the start of the fireworks and I remember thinking that maybe she’d been drinking on the job. She was staggering a bit.’ Her frown deepened. ‘I think she was leaning on someone, a taller guy, but I couldn’t see who he was. I don’t remember seeing her after that.’
I felt a fizz of excitement. This was new. Helga had been over six feet tall so if the man she’d been leaning on was taller, that certainly narrowed the suspect field. ‘How much taller was he?’
She frowned. ‘I don’t recall. Sorry – I just remember he was taller than her.’
Damn. ‘Was the other guy in a suit or a tux?’
Ava shook her head slowly. ‘No – I assumed he was staff because he was dressed casually. I think he was wearing a hoodie but the hood was up and I couldn’t see his face. Like I said, he was tall.’
‘And she was staggering?’ Krieg pressed.
‘Not loads, just like … I saw her stumble.’ She wrung her hands. ‘I’m sorry, I should have mentioned it earlier. Was that tall guy her killer?’ she asked anxiously. ‘If I’d said something at the time, gone over and checked on her … ’
‘You couldn’t have known!’ Rupert said instantly. ‘How often do you see someone staggering at a party after too much drink? All the time. You didn’t give it a second thought because it’snormal.Don’t go down the shoulda, woulda, coulda route, baby. It won’t do anything but upset you.’
‘I agree,’ Krieg rumbled. ‘Don’t blame yourself. Her death is firmly at the hands of her killer.’
But Ava was right: a hooded man walking away with a staggering Helga? She’d seen the killer all right, and now we had a little more to go on. The new lead revitalised me almost as much as the food and drink.
‘Thank you, Ava, this will really help. The ME will give us a more precise time of death but I think it’ll be around then. In all of the statements, no one mentioned seeing Helga after the fireworks.’ I leaned forward. ‘Do you recall anyone being missing during or after the fireworks?’
We had asked Louisa the same question but she hadn’t been able to pinpoint anyone in particular. It would have been all too easy for one of the male guests to chuck on a hoodie, though I hadn’t seen one in the bins. Then again, neither had I found the murder weapon or the severed finger.
Quintos was pretty tall and so were Katz and Squiggins; one of the vampyrs I’d spoken to had been tall, too. There would be other tall guests, ones that I hadn’t interviewed personally.
Rupert shrugged. ‘I didn’t know the guests well enough to know if someone was missing.’
I looked at Ava: she knew the scene. She pressed her lips together for a moment. ‘This is awkward,’ she said finally. ‘I know all these people – most of them very well. I can’t believe any ofthemwould be the killer. It must be someone that wandered in.’
‘Either way, a young woman is dead,’ I said softly.
Loki let out a trilling noise and flew to Ava’s shoulder. He nuzzled her neck and she gave his breast an absent-minded stroke. ‘Be yourself,’ he advised. ‘Everyone else taken.’
