33

  Nairo awoke with a throbbing headache. Pain pulsed just above her left eyebrow. She pulled herself up and blinked. The office had only been partly put back together. They had bad temperedly thrown papers back into drawers and put right some of the furniture before Ridley had produced a bottle of Elvish vodka. After that, they drank until they had fallen asleep. Nairo was on the small crumpled sofa while Ridley had fallen asleep across his desk, bottle still in hand. Nairo yawned and scratched her mop of thick brown curls. She hauled herself out of the depths of the sofa and stretched her back, groaning as several different joints popped simultaneously. Shuffling to the kitchen, Nairo put some water on to boil for coffee, then drank two big cups of water until she felt Human again. She splashed water on her face and then searched for two clean mugs. Giving up after only finding one, she poured Ridley’s into a pint glass, dumped in enough sugar to make a dentist blush, and walked back into the office. Ridley stirred fitfully and then sat bolt upright.

  “The wolves are flying!” he cried out blearily.

  Nairo chuckled and plonked down his pint of coffee.

  “Vampyr Werewolf hybrid nightmare again?” she asked, sitting down behind her desk.

  Ridley groaned and rubbed his sore neck. He sipped at the piping hot coffee and then coughed throatily for a few minutes before lighting a smoke and standing up to stretch.

  “Shit, I thought you would have cleaned this place up before I got up,” he said, looking around the dishevelled office.

  “When did your last maid die?” Nairo said.

  “She hasn’t yet, unfortunately.” Ridley grumbled as he kicked a pile of papers out of his way. “So we know who did this, right?”

  “You think it was Manny?” Nairo asked, blowing on her coffee.

  “Well… it definitely wasn’t him in person,” Ridley said. “No way he’s squeezing through these windows. But yeah, he must have hired someone.”

  Nairo sighed and then Ridley rolled his eyes.

  “Here we go,” he muttered.

  “It just doesn’t quite add up,” Nairo said.

  “Why do you always have to bring up maths?”

  Nairo smirked at him.

  “Okay first, if Manny did hire someone, they would have had to know what to look for, right? I mean, it wasn’t exactly like we just had one neat folder that said Manny Litteragi on it, did we?”

  Ridley yanked open the window, sat on the window sill puffing his smoke, and motioned for her to carry on.

  “Whoever it was got everything. Including Quinn’s datebook. There was nothing in there that said anything about Litteragi.”

  “Could he be he gave the thief instructions of everything he needed to take,” Ridley said.

  “Could be, but he got everything. Every scrap of paper we had on this case, and some of it made no reference to Manny and would have been stuff that Manny wouldn’t even have known about.”

  “Such as?”

  “Like our investigation into Shumacker,” Nairo said. “Why would Manny want that?”

  “We’re not investigating anyone else,” Ridley said. “Manny is the only person in Valderia that would want to block our investigation.”

  “That we know of.”

  “Even worse,” Ridley said. “If it was Manny, that means he knows we were tailing him.”

  “And that means the boring daily routine he went about was for our sakes. He’s been leading us on for days,” Nairo said. “If it was him that stole the documents.”

  “Why wreck the office though?” Ridley said. “I mean, he’s gone out of his way to pull papers and knock things over.”

  “Maybe to hide what he had stolen, throw us off the scent?”

  “Or he’s a dick,” Ridley muttered.

  They looked around the office and fell quiet. Without a word, they stood and began picking up files and tidying up. Nairo didn’t need to look at Ridley to know his mind was whirring; she could practically hear it ticking over. While it didn’t sit right with Nairo, she knew that Manny was the only viable lead they had and was the only person they knew of who had anything to gain by sabotaging their investigation. A knock at the door broke the pensieve silence. Nairo looked at Ridley, who in turn looked at her expectantly. She scowled at him and walked to the door.

  “We’re closed right now!” Nairo shouted through the door. “You can come back later today.”

  “It’s me, Emily! Is Ridley there?”

  Nairo unlocked the door and saw Quinn’s frightened and dishevelled daughter standing in the doorway, looking over her shoulder.

  “Come in,” Nairo said, standing to one side.

  Emily rushed in and made straight for the main office. Nairo looked around outside before closing the door and locking it.

  “Emily?” Ridley said. “What’s happened?”

  Emily looked around the office and then at Ridley.

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  “What happened here?” she asked. “Are you okay?”

  “Oh this… nothing, don’t worry about it. What’s wrong?” Ridley asked, leaning the bat in his hand back against his desk.

  “Here, have a seat,” Nairo said, easing the young woman into a chair.

  She was tense and cold, like she had been outside for hours. She was clutching a paper bag to her chest and looked pale and sleep deprived.

  “Last night,” she began. “Last night there was a… a noise outside. A window was smashed on Frank’s, my husband's, carriage. We thought it was just kids. He went outside to see what had happened, and I was at the door. Anyway, when we came back inside, and this was on the kitchen table.” She reached a quivering hand into bag and pulled out a silver dagger. “It was stabbed onto the table with this note.” She held the note out to Ridley.

  He took it and read it before cursing under his breath and handing it to Nairo. She turned the paper around and read:

  You’re dad’s dead. You and your children aren’t.

  No more investigations. No more questions.

  Or that can change.

  Nairo flipped the paper over and looked at the back before looking at Ridley. His jaw was clenched so hard she could see the muscles twitching in the side of his head, and his eyes radiated vengeance and fury.

  “He was in my home, Ridley!” Emily said, her eyes welling with tears. “The kids were asleep upstairs.” She then looked around the office. “Was he here too?”

  “Maybe,” Nairo answered. “Whoever it was stole all the documentation we had on the case.”

  Emily sank into her chair and buried her face in her hands.

  “Son of bitch!” Ridley snarled and kicked the desk. “Listen Emily, I know you’re scared but we can’t stop now…”

  “Ridley!” Nairo snapped at him. “She’s frightened. This isn’t the time.”

  Emily looked up between her fingers and her eyes were hard.

  “Stop?” she repeated. “This is proof! Someone murdered my father and now they want to scare me off finding them? Whatever you have been doing, it’s working. They must feel trapped, like you’re getting too close and they’re trying to scare us off!”

  Nairo, who was reaching out a comforting hand, pulled it back, looking at Ridley in surprise.

  “There’s Quinn’s daughter,” Ridley said with a wolfish grin on his face. “We think we know the bastard that did it…”

  “Ridley,” Nairo said sharply. “We have a lead and we are investigating, but we don’t have any solid evidence that he killed your father or Lana LaRue.”

  “Lana LaRue?” Emily said. “That starlet that died? What does she have to do with my dad?”

  Ridley sighed and sat down behind his desk, rubbing his eyes.

  “We think Quinn had some sort of contact with her before she died and that he was killed to cover up her murder,” Ridley explained.

  “What?”

  “We think your father was trying to help Ms. LaRue. That her life was in danger, and Quinn found out somehow, and he tried to warn her. They were both killed in identical ways.”

  Emily pressed her clenched fist against her heart and closed her eyes, nodding slowly.

  “That sounds like dad. He couldn’t ever bear to see a young girl in trouble. He would go and put himself in harm’s way, wouldn’t he?”

  “Quinn was a tough old bastard, but he definitely had a soft spot,” Ridley said.

  “So my dad was killed to cover up another murder?” Emily asked.

  “We think. That’s the best theory we have right now.” Nairo said.

  “Problem is, we can’t put a timeline on Quinn. Whoever killed him stole the last two months of his datebook. We have no idea what he was doing in the two months prior to his or Lana’s death.” Ridley said.

  “The last two months?” Emily repeated.

  “Yeah, why do you know something?” Ridley asked.

  Emily shook her head.

  “I hadn’t seen him, remember. But his estate and will finally cleared and he left us a lot of gold.” Emily said. “He gave me direct access to all of his accounts. I was just at a meeting with the bank two days ago.”

  “How much gold?” Ridley asked.

  “Too much,” Emily said. “Way too much for my dad’s normal rates.”

  “Maybe he had been saving up?” Nairo said, and Emily shook her head.

  “Quinn spent gold like it was water,” Ridley said.

  “He always said hordes of gold were for Owners and Dragons,” Emily said with a watery smile on her face. “But the bank manager explained all of this gold had come into his account in the last two months.”

  “I didn’t even know Quinn had a bank account,” Ridley said. “He usually worked coin in hand.”

  “He didn’t,” Emily said. “That’s why it was so odd when it was left in his will. It was also why the bank manager had to meet with me personally. Dad only opened the account two months ago.”

  “Did they say where the payments came from?” Nairo asked.

  “No,” Emily replied. “All of the payments were made in coin at different branches of the bank with no record of who paid it in.”

  “Shit!” Ridley growled, banging his fist on his desk.

  “But I do have this,” Emily produced a folded piece of paper from her handbag. “It’s a record of all the payments.”

  She handed it to Ridley, who’s eyes lit up immediately.

  “Where’s my coat!” he shouted, standing up and running around the desk, tripping on a stack of papers and dissapearing a cloud of paperwork.

  “Over there, on the floor,” Nairo said as Ridley cursed and dragged himself up.

  Ridley stumbled over to it, picked it up, and rifled through the inside pockets until he pulled out the folded papers they had found hidden at Quinn’s. He ran back to his desk and laid them out flat.

  “Look!” he said excitedly to Nairo.

  “What?”

  “The dates! They match up! This is a record of his meetings with a client! They must have paid him every time they met up! Quinn was working a case before he died!”

  Nairo looked at the dates and they did match, every single one of them.

  “And that is a lot of gold,” Nairo said, looking at the number at the bottom of the bank letter.

  “So whoever it was is loaded,” Ridley said. “And they must have had Quinn working something real dirty if they were willing to pay him that much!”

  “Do you think whoever my dad was working for was involved in his death?” Emily asked.

  “It makes sense,” Ridley said, looking up at Nairo.

  “Some of it does,” Nairo conceded.

  “It had to be Manny,” Ridley growled.

  “Not necessarily,” Nairo said. “He was broke, remember?”

  “No,” Ridley said. “He’s always flush with other people’s gold. He’s only broke now because they want it back.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “I do,” Ridley growled. “He’s broken in here and he’s threatened Emily. We can’t wait, Sarge. We move on this scumbag today.”

  “And do what?” Nairo said. “I can’t take him in and interrogate him.”

  “I can though.” Ridley pulled on his coat. “Thank you, Emily. I’d get your family somewhere safe for a couple of days. Stay at relatives or something until we clear this up.”

  Emily stood up and nodded.

  “Frank’s got an aunt on the other side of the city we could stay with.”

  “Good, go there now and don’t pack too heavy.” Ridley said. “We’re catching this bastard today!”