Page 67 of The Dark Hiss of Magic
Perhaps not, but Knox had been badly beaten before he died. He would have been prepared to say anything. I came to a halt and Thane stopped next to me. I glanced at him. ‘You said you trusted me.’
‘I do.’
‘Fetch Daniel Jackson didn’t kill Knox Thunderstick. I can’t tell you how I know, I just know. I need you to believe me so we can move on.’
His green eyes looked into mine. ‘Okay, Kit.’ He put his hands in his pockets and started walking again.
Wait. That was it? I stared after him then shook myself and caught up. ‘You don’t want to discuss it anymore?’
‘You’ve asked me to trust you. I trust you. Jackson didn’t kill Knox.’
I didn’t know what to say. Hell, I didn’t know what tothink.
‘Yeah, it’s weird for me too,’ Thane said gently and grinned. ‘Come on. We need to get back to Adrienne’s place.’ His smile disappeared. ‘Because one thing is for certain – her life is still in danger and we’re not finished playing heroes yet.’
Unfortunately, I was no longer feeling heroic in the slightest. But I was even more determined to get to the bottom of all this shit.
Chapter
Twenty-Four
I’d half-expected Adrienne’s nosy neighbour to appear as soon as we passed her house but no curtains twitched and her door remained closed. Maybe we’d finally got lucky and she was out. I certainly hoped so.
Thane used the door knocker as he had the previous day and, like the previous day, there was no answer. I checked through the window: Adrienne’s front room remained untouched.
‘Maybe Adrienne’s behind all of this,’ Thane offered. ‘She found out that her friends had a mystical plant worth gazillions and she killed them so she could steal it for herself.’
‘And she’s not been at work all night at all,’ I said. ‘She’s been breaking into the MET and murdering a Fetch in cold blood because he was getting too close to the truth.’
He scratched his chin. ‘He almost caught her at Knox’s house.’
‘She was in the middle of torturing Knox to find out where he’d hidden the silphium when Jackson appeared.’
‘Jackson realised that nobody would believe a sweet nymph could be capable of that and he’d get the blame for it.’
‘He tried to shoot her but she escaped out of the window.’
He clicked his fingers. ‘That was the gunshot we heard.’
‘And to give himself time, he used a blast of kinetic magic to move the wardrobe against the door.’
‘He ran in one direction, stopping at the hammam to clean himself up while she ran the other way.’
‘You didn’t pick up her scent or another bloody trail because…’ I squinted. ‘Er…’
‘She’d already killed Knox and cleaned herself up when Fetch Jackson arrived.’
We gazed at each other. It was a theory, a convoluted theory but a theory nonetheless.
A small nervous voice trembled from behind me. ‘Somebody has killed Knox?’
I turned. Adrienne was standing in the middle of the cold street, her luminous eyes shining in horror. Oh. She swallowed and stared at us. ‘Who are you?’ she whispered. ‘And what the fuck has happened to my friend?’
I damned myself for being so careless. Thankfully, Thane took charge of the situation. ‘My name is Thane Barrow and this is Kit McCafferty. We should talk inside, Adrienne.’
She shook her head. ‘No. Tell me what happened. Tell me where Knox is.’
To be fair, I wouldn’t have let the likes of us into my house either, but this wasn’t the sort of conversation to have on a dark street – and it was one of those few occasions when Thane’s charm wouldn’t be enough.
