Page 76 of The Paranormal Investigation Bureau
“That’s where my Uncle Angelo comes in,” Nicolai said. “He’s who you call when you need to find someone who doesn’t want to be found. He has a good working relationship with every criminal organization in the world. He’s trying to find Santiago for us, and promises not to cut off his thumbs when he does.
“My Uncle Angelolovesballet. He’s front and center on every opening night when I’m dancing, just like his grandfather. He was really into the art scene and made several substantial donations. He’s always told me it was destiny I got accepted intoThe P,because his grandfather was a patron and attended every gala.
“That would have been around the time Santiago was artistic director. He owned a camera, and loved taking photos. Uncle Angelo has boxes and boxes of them in his basement. He’s going to dig them up and have them shipped here. We just need to go through them.”
Nyx raised her wine glass.
“May we all have shady, thumb stealing uncles like that!”
“Uncle Angelo scares the shit out of me, but he always comes through in a bind,” Merlin said. “He’s super supportive of Nicolai, so I ignore the whole thumb thing.”
“He just says that to mess with you,” Nicolai said. “You aren’t a job. He’s notreallygoing to cut off any of your body parts. You just get all squirmy.”
“Yeah, because you’re fond of him. If he comes at me, I’ll fight him, and you’ll be pissed when I kill him.”
“Just because he’s five foot nothing and a buck twenty-five doesn’t mean he’s easy to kill. Uncle Angelo has skills.”
Just then, Bevan slammed his fist down on the table, and we all jumped. I didn’t know why he was angry. But, this was a good thing, and I didn’t really care the lead came from Nicolai’s criminal uncle as long as he didn’t do anything illegal on my assignment.
“That necklace! I got vibes off it that it was very old. I haven’t seen craftsmanship like that in alongtime. Like,one hundred and fiftyyears old. What if Bellatrix knows Santiago? No one is going to produce an evil eye of that quality if they are selling them on the street, to people who don’t know better.”
I saw where he was going with that. Mine was inherited. My parents got rid of most of their witchy things when they decided to raise me human, but I got a lot of their jewelry, and there was one in there. Selena would have had one. Santiago would have had no use for it, but I could see where he would have held onto it for sentimental reasons.
“If Bellatrix doesn’t know the history of this ballet, and Santiago gave Selena’s old pendant to her along with the story that it’d protected the original lead in the ballet, then of course she’d accept it. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Marsden would have to have called a witch to undo my spell that was binding her. Anyone who knows how to undo that spell wouldn’t have given her an evil eye pendant and lied about it.”
“It doesn’t make sense, though, does it?” Nyx said. “Bellatrix is Marsden’s lover. She can’t curse him like Selena did Santiago, because she’s not a witch. All this is happening because Selena was benched, and they gave Tabitha her part. Santiago and Marsden went througha lotof trouble to manipulate the lead and the understudy this time. How does getting Bellatrix to this point and giving her Selena’s old pendant break this curse? That’s their end goal, and what you are trying to do. We’re trying so hard to find Santiago Suarez, but Bellatrix is getting more and more dangerous. Eventually, Suarez will start getting stabby with the leads. We need to figure out what they are thinking.”
That was a damn good idea, but none of us knew Santiago, and I couldn’t even begin to figure Marsden out. I had my file from the bureau, so there were some things I knew for certain, but everything else was just guesswork.
“He needs the cast to survive in order to pull this off,” I said. “All this boils down to Selena getting angry when she was replaced. I’d say that means he needs to keep his cast alive and make sure Bellatrix dances Damita. If he truly wanted that, he wouldn’t be trying to pit me against her. There was no reason to have her watch me do her solo… except to rub it in her face that she’s miscast in this role.”
The entire table got quiet.
“Selena killed her understudy,” Arden said. “Not directly, but she was responsible. We don’t know all the different ways they’ve tried to break this curse before. Maybe they think if Bellatrix kills you herself, instead of Santiago doing it, it’ll break the curse?”
“No,” Merlin growled. “You’re here to break this thing, but you aren’t dying for it. We won’t allow it.”
That was close, but I didn’t think it was accurate. If Bellatrix was wearing Selena’s old pendant, then I had a feeling Santiago knew exactly what it was going to do on her neck.
“I’m not sure if that’s it. Sure, that might be how he’s killing cast members without getting caught. But, on the other hand, it could be part of his curse. If Bevan and I use magic against her, it could kill everyone in the room. I’m sure there have been other witches and warlocks as leads. Maybe Santiago has never been the one murdering people. It would be tough to cover up that many murders over the years, but a magical accident caused by a known scam wouldn’t be noticed… not unless it happened multiple times, and all pretty close together. If it’s been stretched out over one hundred and fifty years, a pattern probably hasn’t been identified yet.”
“Could be,” Nicolai said. “He could have given it to her because he was cursed to do so, or because he’s up to something. We’re never going to figure out the motivations of two Unseelie. We need to find Santiago. I can ask Uncle Angelo to have my cousin shadow Bellatrix to see if it leads us to him. She could have been meeting with him tonight. Bellatrix is a lot of things, super smart is not one of them, but she is very cunning. She’s not going to be scoring her blow on a street corner, or in a club. She probably had a backup dealer, or at least someone she was using before Julian.”
“Your cousin doesn’t have a thing with thumbs, does he?” I asked.
“Nope. His signature trophy is ears, but my family only does that when they try to make a point and leave a calling card. Uncle Angelo and Damien aren’t going to touch them unless I say so.”
Nicolai and his shady family… I should probably be digging into them more, since I’m a federal agent, but I knew CIs were a thing. I had a feeling his cousin and uncle would have reservations about helping if they found out I was an undercover agent. On the other hand, maybe they wouldn’t mind if Nicolai vouched for me. Either way, I was pretty attached to my ears and thumbs.
“How soon will the boxes of photos get here?” I asked.
“He said tomorrow. He’s already digging into where Santiago might be. My cousin can be on the next red-eye as soon as I call.”
“Thanks, Nicolai. But can you promise no body parts are going to get cut off if we bring them in?”
“That’s just business. This is a family favor. My family is tight. We will avenge our own if needed, but we make damn sure it’s owed and wanted first. All I need to say is to find them or watch them, do nothing, and report back to me and it will happen.”
Nicolai was a lot of things, and his family was clearly criminal, but I trusted him. I knew he was a lothario, but he wasn’t like that with me. He wasn’t doing any of this because he thought it meant I would sleep with him. Merlin wasn’t either. They were doing it because they gave a shit, and I was glad they let me see this side of them.
