Page 12 of Fortune's Ashes
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‘Isit that trouble finds you, or do you find trouble all your own?’ DS Grace enquired when he found me in the waiting room at the nearest accident and emergency unit.
He wasn’t expecting an answer but, even so, his question sent flares of horror through my body. I must have looked stricken because he patted my shoulder and offered a sympathetic smile. ‘It wasn’t your fault, Emma.’
He didn’t know that. It might well have been my fault – it probably was. No, strike that; it definitely was. My presence in Baker Street had involved the tour guide. My request to Lukas to call off the vampires who were following me had meant that I was alone. And because of my pregnancy, I’d pulled away and given the attacker enough time to stab the tour guide in the chest. It was all my fucking fault.
‘The good thing,’ Grace said with forced cheeriness, ‘is that you get the rest of the week off.’
My eyes widened in alarm. Oh no. Absolutely not. I rose to my feet. ‘I’m not taking any time off.’
‘I appreciate that you’ve been given the all-clear by the doctor, but you’ve been through a traumatic experience.’
‘I’m not the one who was stabbed,’ I said through gritted teeth. ‘I’ve given my statement and the attacker is in custody. I’m told the victim is in a stable condition and will probably recover. I don’t need a holiday.’
The last thing I wanted to do was go back to Laura’s house and spend the next minutes, hours and days alone with my damned thoughts. I needed to keep busy. I needed todosomething.
‘You’ve been on edge for days, Emma. Some time off will do you good.’ What Grace left unspoken was that it would probably do everyone in the Supe Squad office some good too if I was away for a while. I guessed I wasn’t doing as good a job at maintaining my smiley, everything-is-fine face as I’d thought.
‘Owen,’ I said softly, ‘I need to work. Put me on desk duty. I’ll keep away from people – I’ll file papers or something.Anything. I want to keep busy.’
He gave me a long look then he sighed. ‘There are those cold cases that we’ve been meaning to look into.’
I nodded vigorously. ‘Yes. Yes! I’ll look at those. Thank you.’ I smiled as brilliantly as I could. When Grace pulled back and frowned slightly instead of returning my smile, I realised that I probably looked more scary than reassuring.
I stood up and removed my forced expression. ‘I’ll retrieve Tallulah and meet you back at the office.’
He peered at me. ‘You’re okay to drive?’
‘I am.’ I met his eyes. ‘I’m not going to do anything, or risk anything or anyone else. Truly.’ My fingers lightly brushed against my stomach. I couldn’t risk myself, either.
Grace finally looked convinced. ‘Alright. I’ll see you shortly.’
I straightened my clothes and started to follow him out of the hospital. Before I reached the sliding glass doors, my gaze snagged on a newspaper on a chair beside a waiting patient. I swallowed. ‘Excuse me?’
The patient looked up at me. From his black eye and the way he was cradling his arm, he’d obviously been having some trouble of his own.
I pointed at the paper. ‘Are you finished with that? Do you mind if I have a look?’
He shrugged. ‘It’s all yours, love.’
‘Thanks.’ I picked up the paper and unfolded it so I could read the story emblazoned on the front page. The photograph showed a grim-faced man standing next to a blank gravestone. I scanned the headline and the story. Great: Alan Cobain – ‘the one and only phoenix’ as he was calling himself – was now giving press interviews.
ChapterFive
Iparked Tallulah in front of the Supe Squad building and patted her purple bonnet as I left her. I nodded at Max Vargman, the friendly bellman at the hotel next door, and he grinned at me. ‘I hear you’ve had a busy morning, DC Bellamy.’
‘Good news gets around,’ I muttered sarcastically under my breath before remembering to play nice. I waved at him in my best friendly fashion. ‘You have a good day, Max.’
He saluted. ‘Always.’
Stepping into Supe Squad, I took a moment to breathe in the scent of verbena and wolfsbane. It was one of the few Supe Squad traditions that hadn’t fallen by the wayside in recent months. We used the herbs in miniscule quantities as a test for the unwary. Only supes could smell them, so it was an easy way of telling worried members of the public, who thought they might be turning furry or growing fangs, that if they couldn’t smell anything they were still human.
The smell had seemed strange when I first started working here, but now it enveloped me like a warm hug; it always put me at ease and made me feel at home. The tension stretching across my shoulders started to dissipate. At least here, in this building, I could forget my woes for a short time. Fred and Liza also helped.
I knew that my Supe Squad colleagues were worried about me but I didn’t appreciate quite how much until I opened the door. Fred leapt to his feet, abandoned his beloved sofa and gave me a tight hug, and Liza wasted no time in going to the fridge to get me a slice of her finest chocolate cake.
‘Thanks, guys,’ I murmured and smiled at them. This time my smile was genuine. I shrugged off my coat, reached for the hairbrush on my desk and pulled it through my windswept locks, grimacing at the clump of hair that came out. Pregnant, prophetic and balding. Brilliant.
