The bad joke Embry made. The fight Oakley picked, pushing back. The spin and stomp of the vampire’s first steps. Embry paused the video.
Both Oakley’s arms were bare.
“No corsage! On either wrist.” Embry stabbed the screen. “Look, you can see mine, easy as can be in the torchlight. If she were wearing one, the white would glow like that.”
In answer, Rye hummed, but instead of actually saying anything, he exited out of the video and pulled up digital prints of the photos he’d taken with his real camera that night. There were several of Oakley on the stage and again posing with Alistair. No corsage in any of them. Embry considered going through those pictures more closely for any hints, but right at that moment all she could focus on was this big, glaring white hint that could not be denied.
Unfortunately, Rye’s features weren’t etched with the same excitement Embry knew was written all over hers.
“Why aren’t you thrilled about this?” Even as she asked the question, Embry wasn’t sure whyshewas excited about her find. Probably just because she was right, because if she really thought about it, what was she proving?
And then, when Rye opened his mouth, he said just as much. Quietly. Worried. “Because just like everything else, it makes you look guilty.”
The elation of being right fled. Embry wanted to chuck his phone across the room.
“So, is it mine?” she asked. “Planted by the murderer? Or is it another one? Made to specifically look like something I had that people could trace to me?”
“Or,” Rye countered, “was it a gift from her co-royalty, Balthazar?”
He’d offered one, or so Oakley had said. But Embry barely believed that herself because even now it seemed like an exaggeration to get her off-balance before Oakley told her about wanting to pursue Rye. Embry shook her head.
“We’ve been over this. Do not bring that sorcerer prejudice of yours into this room.”
“Why not?” Despite the playful tone, his eyes were dark and serious. “It’s fully justified in this case. He gave you the corsage. I saw it—several people saw it—and then you wore it around. You even have it on in the video Skye took of you. Oakley doesn’t have one on her wrist—until she’s dead.”
“That’s—”
“That’s what happened.” Rye reached for his phone. “Would you like to watch it again?”
“No!” Embry snapped, much louder and harsher than she’d intended. Her eyes rolled to the ceiling, her ears straining forsigns of movement from Lazarus’s bedroom. After none came and a minute had passed, she said, quietly, “That won’t be necessary. We know there are two—”
“But we don’t know there are two,” Rye argued, much to Embry’s frustration. There he was. The thorn in her side. Always pushing. “Do you have the original with you?”
“I was given minutes to pack. I just grabbed the essentials. So it’s in my dorm room.”
Rye lifted a brow. “Is it?”
“I mean,” she continued, slowly, “I locked the room myself when I was escorted off campus by Martinelli. And I know Daddy has a flotilla of lawyers fighting a search warrant. He would’ve told me if that warrant had been executed. Well, or if he didn’t, I’m sure I would’ve gotten a call from investigators. But I didn’t. So I assume it’s still there.”
Rye considered this, rubbing a hand over the blond stubble on his chin. “I think that perhaps because you are clearly being framed, there is a high possibility that, like the costume, this corsage is yours. It’ll have your DNA on it. They have the video of you wearing it. They have photographic evidence of Oakley wearing it after death.”
Embry turned that over in her mind. “So you think the killer broke into my room after I was asleep, stole my corsage, and planted it on the body as one more finger pointing my way?”
“That’s exactly what I think.” Rye’s shoulders hunched as he shook his head. “I also think it was removed from her body along with her other effects during the autopsy, your fingerprints intact. Another arrow, pointing straight at you.”
Embry hadn’t slept well that night. Had she really lost consciousness deeply enough she wouldn’t have noticed a break-in—magical or otherwise? It would take some skill to bypass the wards and belucky enough to find her conked out on a night she’d tossed and turned. But…
Thinking about how it could be done, Embry’s gaze skated up to the TV screen, where theHome Alonerobbers were in full triage mode as they tried and failed to get past a motivated Kevin McCallister in a nonmagical, non-warded house.
Rye immediately guessed what she was thinking.
“Woodcross, your father made it very clear he doesn’t want me taking you out on another jaunt around town for evidence, and so if you’re thinking about breaking into the Ravenwood PD evidence locker tonight, I’d suggest putting a pin in it.”
Actually, that wasn’t what Embry was thinking at all.
CHAPTER 31
THE WHIMS OF A WITCH’S HEART
