AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"I'm sorry to interrupt," Lucas said. "At the risk of offending you, Cassandra, I must ask that you, again, not reveal--"
"I have no intention of letting them know what I am."
"Thank you."
"It might be even better if Cassandra waited here," I said. "Until we start searching."
"Good idea. Cassandra, if you--"
The door banged shut. She was already striding toward the building.
"Or maybe not," I said.
"If we don't impede her involvement, perhaps she'll satisfy her curiosity faster."
"And go home faster?"
He gave a small smile. "That would be the idea."
Troy met us in the parking lot, then escorted us into the hotel, which looked more like a luxury condo complex than any temporary lodgings I'd ever seen.
From the outside of Tyler Boyd's second-floor suite, one would never guess a murder had recently been committed there or that a crime-scene team was ripping the room apart. Only when the door opened did the noise within escape.
Two men were working in the living area, one taking photos and the other running a handheld vacuum over the sofa. A third man appeared from a back room, carrying what looked like a laptop case. He exchanged a hasty hello with Lucas, then hurried out the door.
The murdered half-demon guard lay sprawled across the remains of the coffee table, covered in glass shards and wood splinters. His head was twisted to the side, face fixed in a grimace. I fought the urge to look away from that dead stare. Beside me, Cassandra leaned over the corpse, eyes studying it with detachment. I tried to emulate her, to see this body not as a person but as a piece of evidence.
At first I thought the guard's throat had been cut. Then I saw a length of wire draped over his neck and realized he'd been strangled with it.
"Our coroner believes that was done postmortem."
Benicio's voice came from behind us. He looked at Cassandra. His gaze passed over her with curiosity, and perhaps a little interest, but when we didn't introduce her, he didn't ask. Maybe he trusted Lucas's judgment. Or maybe, knowing his son's eclectic collection of contacts, he didn't want to ask.
"Dennis has already made some preliminary observations." Benicio called the security chief from another room. "Dennis? Would you please share your findings with Lucas and Paige? And answer any questions they might have?"
"Of course, sir." Dennis motioned to the dead guard. "We think he was approached from behind and possibly injected with something. That would explain why he didn't fight back."
"Didn't fight?" I looked at the shattered table. "Oh, I see. The damage is from him falling."
"Falling very hard." Lucas knelt and prodded a black chunk by the guard's hand.
As I crouched I caught a familiar scent, one that brought back memories of Girl Scout summer camp. Burnt firewood. Pieces of charred wood surrounded the guard's clenched hands.
/>
"An Aduro," I said. "He grabbed for the table as he fell and burned it, meaning he wasn't dead when he collapsed."
Cassandra examined the wire embedded in the guard's neck. "No blood."
"Which indicates it was done postmortem," Dennis said. "Plus the fact that it's unlikely anyone could have garroted a man his size, with his powers."
"What about Tyler?" I said. "Did he escape or was he taken?"
Dennis waved us to the bathroom. We stepped inside. Benicio stayed in the doorway, looking on. Across the room, a slight, red-haired man examined the window ledge with some kind of electronic scanner. The window itself was broken. There were a few bits of glass on the inside, but most presumably had fallen out.
Lucas turned around to look at the broken door jamb. "So either Tyler was in here when the killer arrived, or he managed to get in here before being attacked. Then the killer broke into the bathroom, but--" Lucas turned to the window. "Tyler was already gone, out that window. Simon? Any indication that the killer staged the window break?"
The red-haired man shook his head. "No, sir. There are blood smears on one shard. I'll need a sample from the Boyds' lab to match it, but the DNA is definitely from their family, so I'm assuming it's Tyler's. There are no signs of struggle or blood in the bathroom. I found Nike prints on the ground below, imprinted hard, indicating someone jumped from this window."
