Chapter 20

Chapter20

A nice, shiny gift had been left on the basement conference table back at HQ: Quentin’s laptop, along with a sticky note containing the passwords to his main screen, his email, and his banking info. Although Michael had ordered this case locked down, it was okay to have IT get us into the computer that Ezra had procured at Quentin’s house. They fulfilled so many of these requests that it wouldn’t raise questions, but we couldn’t trust anyone outside the team with our specific searches.

“Oooh.” Sachie dropped into a chair and pulled the high-end laptop toward her. “Pretty.”

“Yeah,” I murmured, studying the murder board. Something on it twigged at a distant thought. It wasn’t the CCTV, the blood, or Calista’s shit list. I paused on the timeline itself.

Dawn Keller, the spa owner, had said that the Prime visited every six months, booking one day in advance and paying handsomely for the last-minute privilege. That tracked for security reasons, so what about this was nagging at me?

The clack of typing pulled me out of my musings. “Want to start with emails or with banking info to find a connection between Quentin and the mastermind?” Sachie said.

I did a double take. “That’s it. The connection.”

“I just said that.”

“No.” I pointed at the board. “Of all the spa joints in all the world, how did a Prime who spent most of her time running a magic gambling club on a megayacht cloaked by demon magic stumble upon a place here in Vancouver? Thermae is nice, but come on.”

The typing stopped. “I asked Dawn when I interviewed her and she said she didn’t know.” Sachie’s eyes had a dangerous gleam. “Methinks I should press her a little harder.”

“Or,” I said, “you stay here and comb through the laptop, and the operative who isn’t reaching for the hidden weapon in her boobs can take a crack at Dawn.”

Sachie dropped her hand with a huff. “If you think that’s best,” she said sulkily.

“I really do.”

She turned back to the screen. “Bring me back a turkey sub from Knuckle Sandwich and I probably won’t stab you.”

“I’ll even get extra cranberry sauce.”

She inclined her head regally. “In that case, you shall live to see another day.”

I bowed and left, driving over to the safe house where the Maccabees had stashed Dawn and her husband until the case was wrapped up. She’d already suffered memory loss; we didn’t want our Yellow Flame perp hurting her more.

Maccabees operated two safe houses in the Metro Vancouver area. They’d installed Dawn in a corner ground floor townhouse in a quiet complex. The neighborhood skewed to a demographic in their forties and fifties. No young children running around, yet not filled with nosy retirees either. It had a private entrance and good visibility to monitor anyone coming or going. There’d be multiple surveillance devices and motion sensors but those wouldn’t be visible.

I parked my car across the street in a small strip mall with a nail salon, a dry cleaner, and a supermarket. I chose a spot away from most of the other cars since it was harder to grab a person when you had nowhere to hide. Not that I expected trouble on this visit, it was simply training and habit.

As I was paying for parking at the machine at the edge of the lot, my phone buzzed with a text from Darsh telling me to come back. I frowned. I was already here, and I really wanted to speak with Dawn, but he was in charge, and I’d return if his decision was final. I asked if I could have twenty minutes with her and was granted that, though he said that he didn’t want me alone in the field right now. He’d send Ezra to meet me.

I sent back a thumbs-up along with a pin for where my car was, though I was worried about his phrasing. He didn’t want me alone right now? Neither he nor Ezra had answered their phones for the last several hours. What happened at the Copper Hell last night?

Instead of crossing the street directly to the townhouse complex, I did a quick circuit of the strip mall, and only once I was positive that I hadn’t been followed and there weren’t any immediate threats in the vicinity did I head over.

I identified myself to the Maccabee who peered through the peephole, requesting privacy to speak to Dawn. He let me inside to a clean yet hopelessly out-of-date kitchen and promised to keep Dawn’s husband in the den.

The heavy curtains were drawn against prying eyes, and even though the lights were on, it was still gloomy and sad in here.

To no one’s shock, Dawn was about as thrilled to see me as a teenager at a family reunion. The fiftysomething woman could hold her own against any adolescent in an eye-rolling competition, though her dark bags weren’t quite as effective as a teen’s emo raccoon eye look in the disdain department.

“If you’re not here to tell me I can open my spa, you can leave.” She glanced back to the game show playing on the small television sitting on the counter. It was so ancient that it was barely one step up from having bunny ears for an antenna.

“That depends on you.” I sat down in the chair at the pitted kitchen table. A thin stream of smoke that smelled like jasmine on a cool night streamed off incense sticks jammed into a blue glass bottle on the counter. It was pleasantly subtle, calming, and totally out of place with the cheap laminate cabinets and yellow appliances. Dawn must have brought the scent diffuser from the spa.

It worked though, because under its spell, some of the leftover stress from Quentin’s house melted out of my body. “I have one question. It could break everything open and get you back to business.”

“I’ve answered a million questions already,” she said frostily. “I don’t know anything else. It’s bad enough that I can’t remember what happened, I’m losing money and clients by staying closed. I need to make a living.”

“Of course you do,” I said gently. “None of this is fair. You’re as much a victim as Emily Astor.” I used the alias that Calista used for her spa visits. “You’ve undergone a horrible, violating experience. Did you make an appointment with the psychiatrist that our healer recommended?”

She turned the volume down with the remote control. “Not yet.”

“Please do. Sarah is kind and patient. I know from personal experience.” Maccabees were required to undergo psych assessments after difficult cases or bad injuries to be cleared to return to work.

Dawn gave me a startled look. “Aren’t Maccabees too tough for that?”

“We can be tough.” I smiled. “But internalizing trauma isn’t being strong. Getting help is. That’s the brave call and I hope you’ll do so.”

She toyed with the remote for a long moment before nodding. “What do you want to know?”

“How did Emily know about your spa?”

Dawn shrugged. “I have no idea.”

She sounded completely truthful. She didn’t make overt eye contact, nor did she look away, or show any sign of tension.

I examined her with my blue flame synesthete vision. There was no pulsing blue dot over her heart or pulse spots indicating a rapid beat, nor were there any dots showing sweat or swathes of tension. A layperson might take that as indication that she really didn’t know, but I was highly trained and highly experienced.

She was lying.

Dawn was a Trad civilian; she didn’t have access to one of those devices that Maud and Henri did, which blocked psychological attacks and prevented me from reading her, and there was no indication she was a psychopath and free from empathy or guilt.

Owning a spa didn’t make her a Zen master, and innocent people had some kind of physiological reaction to being questioned by authority. I should have seen some discernable reaction via my magic vision.

Break her, Cherry coaxed.

Calm your tits, Baroness.

“Okay, well, it was worth asking.” I stood up, then tilted my head. “There haven’t been any adverse effects to your business, have there? Any mention of it on social media? We’ve done our damnedest to ensure no word of the incident got out.”

“Not a peep. I really appreciate that.”

“Good. Obviously, we had to notify Emily’s family, but other than that, you’re good.”

A giant blue dot flared up over Dawn’s heart, pulsing at warp speed. “Fa-family?”

And awaaaay we go, Cherry squealed in excitement.

“Did you not know?” I snapped my fingers. “That’s right. The only info you had on file for Emily was her magic type and contact info. She had a partner.” Not that Delacroix was particularly familial, but he was technically Calista’s partner.

“Really? Oh.” Dawn hurried over to the sink, got herself a drink of water, and shot it back like a teen with their first Jägerbomb.

“They don’t blame you.”

She let out a yelp and almost dropped the glass; I’d snuck up on her. “N-no. Of course not. Why would he? It’s not my fault.”

“I never said it was a he.”

“Sorry,” she said quietly. “I should know better than to make assumptions.” She placed the glass on the counter and tried to ease around me.

I stepped sideways to keep her trapped. “You’re right though. Her partner is male. Oh! I bet he’ll know how Emily found your spa. I didn’t need to bug you after all. Thanks so much for your time.”

Dawn grabbed my sleeve as I turned to leave. “Don’t bother him.”

I glanced back, my eyebrows raised.

She let go of me. “I mean, does it matter one way or the other how Emily found Thermae? It could have been anything. A friend, an online search.”

“Dawn.” I frowned. “Are you scared of Emily’s partner? Do you know him?”

“No,” she said, staring directly into my eyes. Her voice was steady, but she was one massive blue dot.

“Well, good. And for the record, I was only testing you,” I said. “We didn’t tell anyone about Emily.”

A huge swathe of blue in her body immediately disappeared. Yeah, right, she didn’t know about Delacroix.

Finish her, Cherry ordered.

“But she does have a partner, and you know perfectly well who it is, don’t you? You know Emily Astor is an alias and who your client really was.”

She darted a nervous glance into the hallway.

“Your husband is in the den. He can’t hear us, but it’s interesting you’re hiding this conversation from him. You’ve got a choice, Dawn. Answer my question or I’ll go and never come back again. I’ll make sure you leave the safehouse and return to your normal life.”

She leaned back against the counter. “How is that a bad thing?”

“Because the reason we didn’t tell Emily’s partner about her is that we didn’t have to. Delacroix is not a happy demon right now.”

I caught Dawn right after her eyes rolled back but before she hit the ground in a dead faint. Once I’d slapped her cheeks a few times to rouse her, her entire story changed.

And what a story it was.

Dawn not only knew exactly who and what Calista was, the Prime had funded her spa. See, Dawn came from a long line of people who’d worked for the vampire over hundreds of years. None of them were ever employed at the Copper Hell—those were always vampires—but Calista wanted non-magic humans to see to any earthly needs, like lawyers, bankers, and yes, spa owners.

They had no magic to pose a threat, and Calista paid them very well to ensure their loyalty. Obviously, there were always the stupid ones who were convinced they could fuck over a Prime and get away with it. Dawn wouldn’t say what had happened to the few examples she knew of who had tried, but she almost fainted again bringing it up. She hadn’t betrayed Calista.

“My mistress trusted me and I let her down.” Dawn buried her head in her hands. “She’s gone and it’s my fault.”

I refrained from telling her that Calista was still alive because I was scared news of her exceedingly displeased mistress waking up would give the poor human a fatal heart attack.

“Why every six months?” I said.

She fiddled with the hem of her sweater. “I can’t tell you. I’m sworn to secrecy, and I won’t break that promise, even if Calista is dead.”

I leaned in so we were practically nose to nose. “Either you tell me exactly why she came to see you like clockwork, or I will bring you to the Copper Hell right now and deliver you to Delacroix myself.” My growled statement was decidedly demonic sounding.

Cherry Bomb approved.

Dawn trembled, her eyes pooling with tears.

What was I doing? I softened my voice, taking pity on her—and taking a giant step out of her personal space. “Help me. Please. Do it for Calista.”

“The—the Copper Hell is protected by demon magic.” She paused.

“I know. Go on.” It took all my restraint not to shake the information out of the woman.

“Delacroix set it up, but Calista controlled it.”

I crossed my arms. “Controlled it as in she decided who’s allowed to enter?”

Dawn nodded. “That and the glamors. Only demons were allowed to have them. Calista would rather no one did, but Delacroix was adamant otherwise. He insisted that all shedim be able to enjoy the club, and if they had to glamor to do that, then so be it.”

How kind of him. Well, it explained why my Arjun glamor didn’t stick, and, if Dawn was correct, meant Calista controlled the presence in the portal that unearthed Cherry. Sure, Delacroix created that magic, but he wasn’t monitoring it. She was.

Had Calista been there during my visit, she probably would have learned I was a half shedim. With Delacroix’s rule in place about demons looking human, she may not have forced my hand, but she would have had a dangerous Maccabee secret.

Not that I’d have been there in the first place, but still. She had bigger problems, and I doubted she was aware of who was crossing into the Copper Hell anymore.

The important part was that Delacroix truly didn’t know about me.

A knot I’d been carrying in my gut unwound.

“Okay, Calista ran the portal,” I said. “How was that tied to her spa visits?”

“It took its toll on her. The treatment I provided was specifically taught to me by her to allow her to rejuvenate and carry the magic load.”

I grabbed her shoulders. “Had you done that treatment already?”

“I—I don’t remember for sure, but if she was in the bathing pool, then not yet.”

Son of a bitch. Calista was keyed to the shedim magic and her strength had been waning before she’d been abducted. Who knew how low her strength was now—if it existed at all? Anyone could get through the portal.

“If someone wanted to change the settings, how would they do it?” I said.

“I don’t know, I swear. But part of the treatment involved eye drops she’d bring with her.”

It involved a retinal scan at the bare minimum. Our perp had captured Calista to change the portal settings and allow them to go in glamored. As for whom and to what end, I didn’t know yet, but I was revved up to find out.

I sprinted back to my car, firing a text reading BREAKTHROUGH to Sachie, Darsh, and Ezra. I wasn’t paying attention when I dug my keys out of my pocket and ran across the street, and I bumped into some dude with the hood of his sweatshirt up. “Sorry.”

He shrugged it off with a “No problem,” and hurried on his way.

I stopped. I’d caught only a brief flash of his face, but there was something familiar about him. “Hey!”

He broke into a run.

I sprinted after him.

A thunderous BOOM tore through the air. I was blown off my feet, the shock wave sending me sailing. The explosion punched into my back and head like I’d been whacked with a shovel, and reverberated through my body, which had gone numb and tingly.

I hit the concrete with my left hip, and the lash of pain radiating out stole the breath from my lungs. Heat from the blast had seared a strip down my spine, and pops of hot metal shards from my fireball of a hatchback burned through my clothing.

My car insurance is not going to cover that.

The acrid taste of oil and burning rubber made my throat ache, a high-pitched ringing in my ears blocked out all sound, and stars danced in my vision. I was hypnotized by the sight of flames and paralyzed by the blazing bonfire of pain inside me.

“Help,” I whispered, then the world went black.