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“I do care about Leonie,” she said in a shrill voice.
“Then tell us who paid you off!” I snapped. “Which of the Ronins was it?”
“I don’t know,” she snarled. “It some man who came to me with the deal. I only knew his name. Nothing else.”
She told us a name which neither Storm nor I recognized, And then she gave us his description. And I knew exactly who she was talking about. Because there couldn’t possibly be enough room in London for two cowboys who drove a pink Cadillac.
Chapter 23
DIANA
The cowboy had vanished.
It was 8:00 pm in the evening by the time Storm and I finished combing over Constance Ashbeck’s house again in hopes of finding some evidence that would lead to DCK. She had said that she had come home with some groceries and found him waiting for her inside. She hadn’t actually seen him. She had gone straight to her kitchen to put away her shopping, and he had hit her over the head. She had woken to find her face and her arm and her stomach slashed up, And the massive clawed pawprint mark of DCK on her kitchen wall, printed there in her own blood. Terrified, she had called the police.
The state of her apartment corroborated her statement. The Devil Claw mark was on her kitchen wall and there was blood all over her kitchen floor. The killer had used her own knives to cut her up with. But he hadn’t savaged her in his usual signature style. He had made every effort to leave her alive. In fact, the only reason why we believed it had been DCK for sure was that his mark was authentic. It was the right size and shape and the claw marks were gouged deeply into the wall, as if some sort of monstrous sized beast had dipped its paw in her blood and then slashed the wall.
But as usual, DCK had left behind not a single piece of evidence to link back to who he really was. There was no other sign that he had been there. While Storm had combed through the crime scene and all of the other rooms, I had wondered around observing and touching things, hoping that something might spark a psychic vision. My hopes had been futile. I had found nothing.
All I saw was the signs of a lonely existence, a bit like mine, but in much more lavish surroundings. Constance had been as alone in the world as Darya Palmer, or worse, because at least Darya had her dog Scoot. Constance Ashbeck had nothing. The only hint of her past in her house was a small framed portrait of Gaius Ronin, tucked face down inside her bedside drawer. The portrait gave me no visions.
Giving up, Storm and I returned together to the hotel that we were staying in that night in Edinburgh. Storm drove us there in his hire car, and our fifteen minute drive took place entirely in silence. I tried to think of things to say to him, but nothing sounded right. He seemed to be perfectly content with the silence, not attempting to say a word. I couldn’t tell if it was because he had other things on his mind or because he had simply decided that he no longer had anything to say to me. In the past our silences had never felt this uncomfortable.
I wanted to ask him what was going on with him. The psychic music coming from him had intensified since yesterday, and I knew that it wasn’t really anything to do with this case; it was whatever was going on in his personal life. I was worried. It felt like something was coming to a head, something that might change Storm’s life forever. And I didn’t like that idea.
What was it, and was it going to take him away from us? I felt like I wanted to do something about it, but I didn’t even know what the problem was. I knew that if I tried to probe, Storm would not take it well. He would tell me it was none of my business. He would clam up even more.
I was relieved when we arrived at the hotel, and made our way together to Storm’s bedroom. As Storm slid his key card into the slot of the door handle, I quickly knocked loudly on the door. Storm gave me a querying look. I merely raised my eyebrows at him.
Remi and Monroe were in his room still trying to track down the whereabouts of my cowboy in a pink Cadillac, and I was fully aware that they might have drifted on to doing other things in a bedroom. They might appreciate a warning of our arrival. It was amusing that their attraction to each other had seemed to pass Storm by.
But I’d had nothing to worry about. Remi was sitting cross-legged on Storm’s bed with her laptop computer balanced on her thighs, and Monroe was sitting on one of the small armchairs, his head bowed over his own screen as he tapped away rapidly at his keyboard. The hotel did not have any meeting rooms, so we had been forced to use Storm’s room as a makeshift office.
Remi looked up at us eagerly as we entered. “Anything?” she asked hopefully.
She was looking at me, and not at Storm. She was fully aware that it had been highly unlikely that Storm would find any new evidence at the crime scene, given that everyone had already gone over it with a fine toothed comb earlier in the morning. She knew DCK had not left any evidence behind. It was me that she hoped might have some fresh psychic insights. Remi had always had far too much faith in my abilities. I shook my head, and she looked disappointed.
“You?” I asked her.
It was Monroe who answered. “We found out that your cowboy got papers for passage through an Otherworld portal earlier on in the week. As far as we can tell, he’s gone there.”
I looked hopefully at Storm. “What will it take to get him back? Are you allowed to ask to extradite people?” I had no idea
how it worked.
Remi and Monroe were looking miserable. Storm shook his head. “We would have to track him down ourselves over there, and there is no way we are going to be able to do that in the time that we have.”
“But we could try!” I said hopefully, insisting on remaining positive. “If you guys are allowed to travel into Otherworld, isn’t it worth heading over there right now? Is there a portal in Edinburgh?”
“It’s not so simple,” said Storm. “And the boss is back on Monday. He’s going to have to file our suspension paperwork when he returns. He made it very clear that we needed to close the case by then or it would be out of his hands.”
With a heavy sigh, Storm sat down on his bed. He didn’t look hopeless because he was not one to give up easily. He looked like his brain was ticking over, trying to think of a way out of this and failing to find one.
The cowboy was our only lead. The cowboy was the only one who knew who had paid off Constance Ashbeck to lie to the jury. That person had to have something to do with Leonie’s death. We still had no explanation for how anyone but Steffane could have killed her in that sealed off room, but the fact that somebody had paid to help get Steffane convicted meant that somebody had something to hide. I just wasn’t seeing the whole picture yet.
And I was angry at myself. Why had I never questioned the cowboy? Why had I taken it for granted that he was Steffane’s loyal lackey? I’d even asked myself if Steffane had been the one who made the cowboy pay off Constance. Which made absolutely no sense whatsoever. This case was making less sense as time went by. The only thing I was sure of was that Steffane Ronin, stuck in that torture device of a chair, wanted to get out of prison desperately that he was prepared to make an enemy of the Devil Claw Killer.
Steffane knew who the killer was. I was so close. The answer was just out of my reach, if only I knew how to get it.
