Page 65 of Death is Familiar

The elfish woman who’d accosted me at the gathering, straightened her posture as she checked out her own appearance in the one-way glass. And it angered me. There was no way it was her. I was more than confident that she—the woman who had clung to me, professing her love for all things vamp, her enthusiasm for being a part of vamp life, wanting nothing more than to be let into the inner sanctum—had zero to do with the case.

“That woman did not kill the familiars.” I ground the words out through my teeth. Somehow, in light of five peoples’ deaths, seven if we counted Lexington, this woman had made the case about her. What she wanted. And she wasn’t afraid to let the murders go unsolved in order to put attention on herself.

This, this, was what I was worried about. Once people knew what the agents and I were looking into, someone would involve themselves in the case. They’d make things murky. Lead us down the wrong path. But the question was, how did the elfish woman know what had happened? She wasn’t a vamp, wasn’t part of the inner circle. So, who told her?

Jack slanted his head towards the woman on the other side of the glass. “She’s claiming she did it single-handed.”

I scoffed. Even Todd couldn’t have taken on five people by himself, never mind doing it all without leaving any evidence.

“There’s no way she subdued five people by herself.” Oh, thank Todd. He saw it too. “No way she carried them from the mausoleum to the lawn without leaving evidence.”

“Claims she drugged them and brought a dolly. Carted them over.” At least from Jack’s tone, I knew he wasn’t buying it either. And we’d driven all the way back to Huntington for a red herring.

“If that was the case, forensics should have found wheel tracks, drugs, something.” I folded my arms across my chest. I needed to reign in the anger flaring within my ribcage before it became red-hot and blinding.

“Do you think her confession was made under duress?”

“There are a lot of inconsistencies. Could be that she’s covering for someone else, or taking the fall for a larger team. Duress, although plausible, seems unlikely.”

“I spoke to her at the gathering.” The agents shifted their gaze to me. “She only made it into the inner sanctum twice. When Todd and I were there the other night she never made it past the waiting room. It doesn’t add up.”

Silence from the agents, as they awaited more of an explanation.

“I did tell you about her during the debrief. She’s the one who thought I was a vamp and asked me to take a bite out of her neck.”

“That eager, hmm?” Jack flashed his attention over the hickey I’d given up concealing on my neck.

“Practically, offered it to me on a platter.” Though I was tempted, I refused to continue covering the mark on my neck. I would not be ashamed. I had enough scars as it was, this was just something else for people to stare at until it faded. “How soon can we get her out of here?” She’d taken up enough focus and resources from the case already.

“We have to see it out.”

“See it out? What the hell does that mean?” My fiery hot rage slammed against my hold.

Jack did a scan of our surroundings, no doubt noticing the security cameras I’d marked on our way in, before walking me back against the wall. His broad shoulders obscuring my view from the camera, he lowered his voice, “Now it’s time to play politics. We got grieving families who want justice. We have seven deaths. A confession. And a police force that wants to keep matters from escalating in the public eye. There are a lot of people we need to placate. If we keep digging, there will continue to be open wounds.”

“But—”

“But we can still dig,” Todd corrected as he came to stand shoulder to shoulder with Jack.

Jack nodded. “I’m not saying we leave it. I’m saying we need to be careful. What we can do is ensure that the trial is pushed out. She…” He gestured to the woman over his shoulder. “…confessed. Though she may be innocent, she had her reasons for confessing, and we can’t on good conscience let her free. Not yet.”

“You have to be kidding me.” The looks offered from the obscenely large agents crowding my space told me otherwise. “I won’t let someone else fall victim to process.”

Like I did with Lawrence’s death.

Fuck, all this was hitting too close to home. I needed the agents to understand the implications of ‘seeing it out’. “If this somehow goes through, she will be in prison for life. Whatever the hell is going through her mind now, won’t matter when she’s been looking at the inside of her cell for ten years, and realizes they’re the only four walls she’ll see for the rest of her life. Even if her false confession is going to screw things up, royally, she should…” Wait. “Couldn’t she be charged with obstruction of justice?”

“For that, we’d first need to prove she is not guilty.”

I was backed against a wall. Literally and figuratively. The elfish woman’s confession wreaked all sorts of havoc on the vamp case, providing a distraction which kept attention away from finding the real killers.

Standing in the observation room wasn’t going to achieve anything. Not for the investigation. Not for myself. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to ask ‘what do we do now?’ I needed to think. I needed action. And being stuck on the vamp case made me… okay, fine, it made me want to act out. Again.

Sitting around twiddling my thumbs while the intricacies of justice were figured out behind closed doors was not my style. And with the place my mind was in, I was in a headspace where I’d do something I’d regret.

“There are enough inconsistencies to bring the validity of her confession into question. We won’t let her go to prison for a crime she didn’t commit.” Jack’s words should have reassured me, they really should’ve, but they had the opposite effect.

In part due to the fact that Jack and his team had been following my case prior to my arrest.