A curl of sadness rose within Embry. “You shouldn’t have left the house at all.”
As the pair approached the counter, Van waved her off—perhaps purposefully—with the hand in question. “I can’t feel sorry for myself if I’m moving. Now, do you want your usuals or something more?” The striking brown eyes behind the cat’s-eye glasses narrowed, her small mouth twisting curiously. “You look like you’ve been up all night.”
“That’s because we have been,” Rye answered. “We’ll take our usual drinks, plus a couple of breakfast burritos with fruit on the side.”
Embry’s mouth dropped open to protest him ordering for her… except that was exactly what she wanted. Still, she had every right to be annoyed. As such, Embry was going to make sure he paid for it—and check out how haggard she looked in the mirror because it must be bad if Van would comment on it. “Grab the booth in the corner,” she told Rye. “I’ll be back.”
Inside the all-gender bathroom, Embry splashed water on her face, touched up the dark circles under her eyes with a quick little spell, and executed a few other necessary bits of magic. By thetime she arrived at the table, Rye was already arranging their food and drinks—putting them side by side, perhaps so they could whisper without concern.
But after those thirty minutes in forced proximity, Embry felt as if she needed at least an equal amount of time, if not double or triple,awayfrom Rye. So she swept her coffee and breakfast to the other side of the table and slid in across from him. Rye didn’t comment.
Embry crossed her legs, attempting to settle in for a chance to properly disseminate what they’d learned without the distraction oftouching, when her foot grazed his shin.
“Footsie, Knighton? At a time like this?”
“You kicked me.”
“Because you’re in my space. Please put your legs elsewhere.”
Rye simply unfolded his napkin with a sigh. “Eat something, Woodcross. You’re hangry and running on empty.”
He was right, but Embry wasn’t interested in admitting it. Instead, she stabbed a few magically juicy Maine blueberries with her fork, enjoyed a glorious bite of her fluffy, cheesy burrito, and downed a long drag of her latte, even though it was earlier than her usual daily hit of caffeine.
The combination was so fantastic Embry nearly moaned. Immediately, she felt the jitters in her veins calm, her riled stomach lose its ache, her blood sugar level out.
“So,” Rye said, sitting back against the booth while swallowing his own sustenance, “who do we think the dropout is?”
Embry took another sip of her iced coffee, the lavender heady but not herbal enough to completely blot the scent of rosemary that somehow still clung to her, even after she’d washed her face. It had to be in her hair now, too. Not a bad thing, but… did Rye know how distractingly lovely the scent was? He had to know.It completely fit with his melancholic, sonnet-snorting image. Smelling good and looking like the personification of I-can-fix-him-no-really-I-can was in the dictionary definition of broody, rich-boy orphan.
She cleared her throat. “Don’t worry about that one—I’m on it and we’ll have our answer in a few minutes. I want to talk about how we didn’t find anything in the dressing room.”
Once it had been clear Jonesy wasn’t returning, they’d quickly run through all the spaces they hadn’t had time to check—the closet they were in, plus all the others along the wall. They’d tried the larger drawers in Jonesy’s desk, too, but they’d been locked.
“What does it mean?” Rye asked, relishing a sip of his flat white. “Perhaps it’s as straightforward as our killer just took the dress and that’s it.”
“But what did they do with her original gown?”
He shrugged. “This person was careful and apparently, they weren’t in a hurry enough to leave that piece of evidence somewhere obvious. As you said, it’s bloodred. All the investigators would need is eyes on a scrap of it and they’d have another piece for their puzzle.” He sighed, thinly. “And, presumably, another piece that would not tie the murder to you. It’s in this person’s best interest to keep it hidden, change the color via magic like you did to your Pepto costume, or just plain destroy it, I suppose.”
Embry chewed on this and then a thoughtful bite of her delicious burrito. Van really had created the perfect ratio of eggs, cheese, peppers, and free-range chicken sausage. She was suddenly feeling more human than she had since going to bed in tears Friday night.
They could focus on the keys—they now knew Heston had one, after all, or, well, did at the time of the murder—but something about that line of investigation felt like a dead end to Embry. So, she took another bite of her very delicious burrito, swallowed, andlooked Rye in the eye. “Perhaps instead of focusing on the evidence, let’s think about the victim. Why Oakley?”
Rye’s brain had clearly been churning on this for a while. His answer was immediate.
“Well, it could be many things. It could be that this person is simply a psychopath who wanted to kill someone, and they came across an opportunity not only for a murder but for a convenient scapegoat after your public fight. It wasn’t about Oakley as much as it was about relieving a need.”
“Gross.”
“Yes, but possible.”
“But isn’t random crime extremely rare?” Embry wasn’t a lawyer yet, and Rye was no closer, but living in proximity to Lazarus Woodcross had armed them both with tidbits related to the line of work, even if he mostly did estate stuff. “Like, you’ve got a better chance of getting hit by lightning than murdered at random, right?”
“True. It does happen, but… given Oakley’s magical status, it’s not likely. The fact that someone would choose a vampire—already rare and also illegal to hunt and kill in the magical world—as a victim is almost jumping the shark.” He shifted, his knee bumping into Embry’s, but she didn’t complain, watching him think as she finished her fruit. “It could be that her win upset someone with a jealous streak—may I remind you of our initial suspects list? All of those people were members of the court.”
Embry scrunched her nose. “Yeah, but what’s the motive? Jealousy only goes so far.”
“Jealousy is part of why you’re suspect number one.”
