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Nightwing Security, my brother-in-law’s company, would come in quite handy if I managed to persuade him to help me out. That would mean persuading Jessen, too. Quite a feat.
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. Don’t you worry your pretty little cranium.” I pecked a kiss on his cheek. “I have a dinner date at my sister’s tonight. And she owes me about a billion favors in babysitting dues.”
Macon tucked his hands in his pants pockets and watched me go, the winter wind blowing his hair in disarray. I jogged to my car at the curb and zoomed into the city toward Cade Enterprises. I needed to hurry and pay Bennett Cremwell a visit before he disappeared from prying, journalistic eyes.
As I sat at a light, a Morgon woman with slender silver wings stood outside of a shop next to a human girl. The human, a curvy blonde, gestured wildly with expressive eyes and a smile on her face. The delicate-boned Morgon tossed her head back and laughed, wings fluttering, her flaxen hair shimmering in the sunlight like golden silk. Friends. Just a decade ago, this would’ve never happened. Even with desegregation laws, the races merely had tolerated one another for business purposes. But not anymore.
Squeezing into a parking spot on the curb, I stepped out and cinched my coat tight, staring up at the towering skyscraper of Cade Enterprises situated in the center of the human business district. Who was I kidding? It was the center of the human business district. The lighthouse and beacon to which all other businesses aspired from afar, hoping to one day reach if they had a modicum of the success of corporate king, Pritchard Cade. My father.
I stepped through the revolving glass doors onto pristine, white tile and approached the receptionist’s desk, wishing with all my might that I didn’t run into him. I hadn’t visited the premises in a few years, not since my financial separation from my father and an inherent need to avoid his towering kingdom altogether. My sister had cut herself off from him when she had married Lucius. Father was one of the few public figures who had rejected the intermarrying of the races. Of course, after my brother, Demetrius, married Shakara Icewing, my father had mellowed in his anti-Morgon ways. Demetrius had never told me all that had transpired during his courtship to Shakara that somehow softened my father’s resolve. Though the animosity between both my siblings and our father had diminished over the past few years, resentment and old wounds still festered between them.
While my differences with him stemmed from refusing to accept his mandates to climb the corporate ladder he’d put in front of me, we still managed to have a civil relationship. The best way to avoid arguments was to steer clear of anything that might bring up his overbearing dominance and my willful disobedience. This is why I rarely stepped foot in his place of business. But nothing was going to keep me from my goal today.
I stepped up to the lobby receptionist’s desk. “Hi, Cara.”
“Hi.” Her vacant smile told me she didn’t recognize me.
“It’s Moira Cade. I haven’t been here in a while.”
“Oh! Hi, Miss Cade.” She straightened her spine and fiddled with her blouse. “So good to see you. Um, I apologize I didn’t recognize you. Should I buzz your father and let him know you’re here?”
She blinked rapidly. Good. She was nervous. I needed her to be so she wouldn’t question why I needed to visit Mr. Cremwell.
“Actually, no. I need to speak with Bennett Cremwell in Technology. But I’m not sure what floor he’s on. Could you look up his workstation for me?”
“Of course, I can.” Scanning her comm screen, she tapped something onto her keyboard lickety-split. “Yes. He’s on the thirty-fourth floor in Audio-Visual Systems. Room B sixteen. Would you like me to call him down for you?”
“No. Thank you. I don’t want to drag him from his workspace. I’ll just go right up.”
I headed for the elevator before she could ask any more questions. A man in a sleek, navy-blue suit held the elevator door for me.
Early forties, well-groomed, and reeking of money, he turned a confident smile my way. “Floor?”
“Thirty-four, please.” I kept my eyes straight, watching his reflection in the glossy doors when they squeezed shut. Taking in my shabby appearance, he probably thought I was a visiting friend of someone in the building. His eyes wandered the length of my jean-clad legs. I’d grown accustomed to people staring because of my height. What I could never tell by their inspection was whether a man admired a tall woman or thought them freakish. It didn’t really matter. I stood even straighter, drawing his gaze to my eyes. His lips tilted into a wolfish smile. Thankfully, the elevator dinged, and I stepped out before the cradle-robbing businessman could strike up a “casual” conversation.
I strolled down B wing, ignoring glances from workers in their plexiglass cubicles, then stopped in front of room sixteen. The young man hunched over his desk, head in hands and staring at nothing, must be my guy. I knocked three times on the open door before entering and closing the door behind me. With messy brown hair, heavy bags under his eyes, and unkempt clothes, he sat behind the desk, sagging like an empty husk.
“Hi. Mr. Cremwell?”
Glazed, blood-shot eyes stared back, searching me for recognition and finding none. “Do I know you?”
“No.” I extended my hand. “My name is Marina Creed. I have a few questions if you have a moment.” I certainly wasn’t going to use my real name. Hearing the boss’s daughter’s name might undo him altogether. He appeared to be hanging on by a thread. I couldn’t blame him.
He didn’t extend his own hand in greeting. Stress had obviously withered him down, making him fidgety and unfocused. I took a seat. “I wanted to talk to you about Maxine Mendale.”
He flinched. “Maxine?”
I nodded. “I’m a reporter for The Herald at Gladium University. I’ve been following the disappearances and the murders of the three women. The first two were students at GU. Was Maxine a student, too?”
Dazed, he stared at me a moment. “Um, no. Maxine worked at a salon in the Warwick District on Lexington Avenue.”
I flipped open my notebook and started jotting notes. Some of the stores in that area served both Morgon and human clientele. “Did she have Morgon clients at the salon?”
“I’m not sure. She never really said.” He leaned forward, a sad smile creasing his pale face. “We didn’t talk much about work.”
“How did you two meet?”
