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“You can report it, within reason,” Rhoan said. “Once the case is solved.”
“That I can agree to.” He eyed Rhoan warily, then added, “Is that deal solid, or is it more a ‘have to check with my superiors first’ arrangement?”
“It’s solid. I’m second in command in the guardian division.”
Jak grunted. “Good.”
A phone rang sharply into the brief silence. I jumped slightly, then reached for my phone—only to discover it was Rhoan’s. He answered it, and his expression got progressively grimmer.
“Get another team out there,” he said eventually, “and tell them to report in as soon as they have prelim results.”
“Oh no,” I breathed. “Don’t tell me—”
“Yeah,” he said, as he shoved his phone away. “Jacinta Nadler is dead.”
“Fuck,” Jak said. “Nadler really is clearing the remnants of the past, isn’t he?”
I closed my eyes and took a slow, deep breath. And wondered if Azriel was right—that Mom’s murder, and these, might be connected. But if Mom had known something about Nadler, how had Nadler known she did? As far as I knew, she’d never met him.
Did that mean Azriel was also right in suspecting there was a rat in the ranks?
It wasn’t a thought I was willing to entertain, yet I couldn’t entirely ignore it, either.
“It would appear that he is,” Rhoan said. “Although she wasn’t murdered like this. It’s been made to look like a home invasion—she was raped, brutalized, and then her throat was cut.”
I closed my eyes. God. We’d done that. We were responsible for that. If we hadn’t talked to her—
“Risa,” Rhoan said gently, obviously guessing the direction of my thoughts. “We’ve also talked to both her and Blake. The only person to blame for these deaths is the monster behind all this.”
He was right. I knew that, but it didn’t make me feel any less responsible. Because they hadn’t died when the Directorate had talked to them; they’d died when I had talked to them. But I didn’t say anything, watching as he ran a gloved finger around the bloody separation wound just below the victim’s belly button. “You know, it’s almost as if someone has thrust a hand into Blake’s stomach and somehow ripped him apart from there.”
“Aedh,” I said, rubbing arms suddenly chilled. “The Aedh can do that.”
“So can demons,” Rhoan said, standing up. “Let’s not discount anything or anyone until we have forensic results.” He glanced at his watch. “They should be here any minute. In the meantime, why don’t we start going through Blake’s belongings and see if we can find anything that relates back to Nadler. Or anything else that seems out of place.”
He must have seen the surprise cross my face, because he added wryly, “I have officially given up trying to keep you out of this investigation, so I might as well make use of you. And I hate paperwork of any kind, even if it is simply going through it to find clues.”
I snorted softly. “Where do you want to start?”
“Let’s start with the first bedroom, and work our way through the house from there.”
Which is precisely what we did. It was a long, boring process and by the time we’d gone through every room—except the kitchen, which now held the cleanup team—I was tired, hungry, and more than a little over it. Which was probably the whole reason Rhoan had agreed to let us help. It wasn’t so much that he hated this sort of paperwork search; it was that he was hoping it would act as a deterrent and stop me from sticking my nose in any further.
There was zero chance of that happening.
I leaned my shoulder against a doorway and averted my gaze from the goings-on in the kitchen. “What about a storage shed? Did you see one outside when you checked the back door?”
Rhoan nodded. “You two can look at that while I get an update from the team. Use the side gate.”
As one, Jak and I spun and headed out. “Phew,” Jak said, “it’s nice to breathe air untainted by blood.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, although in all honesty, I’d stopped smelling it after the first half hour. What did that say about me?
Jak unlatched the side gate and waved me through. I walked down the concrete path, then around the back of the house. Two small garden sheds sat in the far corner.
I opened the door of the first one and looked inside. It was all garden tools and whatnot. “Any luck with that one?” I asked Jak as I relocked the door.
“Yeah,” he said, disappearing inside. “There’s lots of plastic tubs.”
