Laura smiled. “Thanks. That was the point. You watch. Terryn will get a call from the Guild’s Community Liaison Department before we get back. They’ll take the case now.”
“It was kind of hot, too,” Sinclair said, as they got in the car.
“Feel free to turn up the air-conditioning,” she said. She enjoyed teasing him. He did, too. She knew she might be pushing it too far, though. Despite his persistence, even Sinclair had limits to his patience. She had almost invited him on vacation with her but panicked at the last moment, pretending to have miscommunicated. They had dinner before she left and a few times after she returned. Terryn decided to try Sinclair undercover with Legacy, and they didn’t have time to see each other then.
Sinclair chuckled as she tossed the evidence envelope on the dashboard. It was an honest chuckle. He was still patient.
CHAPTER 5
BACK AT THE Guildhouse, they rode an elevator up to the InterSec unit. Laura caught curious stares from the other passengers. Although she and Sinclair hadn’t been at the crime scene long, enough airborne particulate had settled on their clothing that a fey with mild sensitivity could sense smoke, maybe the C-4. If she could smell it on Sinclair, other fey could smell it on her. If they hadn’t been wearing InterSec jumpsuits, no doubt someone would have called security.
Reaching their floor, Sinclair went off to the conference room while Laura trailed down the hallway in the opposite direction. She found Cress sorting through labeled glass jars filled with what looked like dried herbs. Laura paused in the door and watched her work.
She marveled at how such a small person could be so dangerous. Essence manipulation was not dictated by a person’s size, but the frail Cress hardly seemed like anyone’s worst nightmare. Leanansidhe were rare among the solitary fey, but not so obscure that people didn’t know what they looked like. And they all looked similar. On the occasion when Cress talked about the leanansidhe, she referred to them as her sisters, which made sense from a physical standpoint. They did have a familial resemblance, at least among the ones in the archive pictures Laura had seen. Cress was the only one she had met in person, but they were all short, with thick black hair falling in rippled waves to their shoulders. Their heart-shaped faces, with their delicate features, had lured more than one person to their deaths. Their eyes truly set them apart, though. Deepest black with no whites. Laura found that aspect disconcerting at times.
Cress smiled without looking up from her work. “If you’re spying on me, you’re not doing a very good job.”
Laura chuckled as she stepped into the room. “I’m sorry. I was woolgathering. What are you working on?”
Cress held up a vial with something green floating in a clear fluid. “Today, I am a botanist. We’re trying to figure out where that panel truck from your morning mission has been, so I’m looking at the junk in the tire treads.”
Cress worked a dual-function job with InterSec. Her primary role as a forensic investigator drew on decades of knowledge. In fact, it was her species that made her particularly adept when dealing with fey crime. Her acute sensitivity to essence allowed her to see things a druid might miss. But that responsibility had evolved out of an earlier fascination: medicine. As she made her way in the Convergent world, Cress had focused her attention on healing and became a doctor, one of the first fey to have been graduated from an American medical school. Her achievement caused a sensation in both the human and fey worlds. Humans feared the fey, and Cress’s securing a spot in a human program caused all kinds of xenophobic reactions. As she was a leanansidhe, one of the most feared beings of Faerie, the fey treated her no better.
As Laura drew closer, Cress wrinkled her nose. “C-4?” she said.
If there was one thing Laura had learned about leanansidhe , it was that their abilities made them more sensitive to everything, not only essence. She dropped the evidence envelope on the desk. “Exactly what I thought. I tried to get some sample without the D.C.P.D. realizing it. Can you run these gloves and see if it has any taggant?”
Legal manufacturers of C-4 embedded idiosyncratic chemicals that served as identification markers. The taggants provided clues as to who manufactured a particular explosive as well as who the intended customer was. From there, following the chain of custody to determine where it got loose in the world would be a matter of running down paperwork. If they were lucky. Making C-4 wasn’t a mystery. It could be done illegally if someone had the right connections to buy the materials. That would be a lead since the raw materials were tracked, too.
Cress moved the envelope to a tray. “Of course. Is this from the bomb that went off this evening?”
“Yes. Terryn’s not happy at how it’s being handled.”
“Are you taking the case?” Cress asked.
She shook her head. “Not directly. We’re looking at all the attacks from a broader perspective. A number of small connections to the Legacy case we’re working on have cropped up, but we’re not running the investigations on the individual crimes. I’m not thrilled that there’s C-4 floating around out there. If Terryn doesn’t push them, I’m going to make Com-Lie take it whether they want it or not.”
The Community Liaison Department was the Guildhouse’s local law-enforcement arm, notorious for ignoring crimes that had no political benefit to the Seelie Court. “I’m sure they’ll do the right thing,” Cress said, a smile threatening the corner of her mouth.
Her words dripped with doubt, and she knew Laura would sense it. Laura responded with equal insincerity. “Now, now, Cress, we’re all allies here.”
The abrupt vanishing of the smile surprised Laura. “Yes, well, so we all hope,” Cress said.
The nuances of truth were muddled, something that happened when Laura couldn’t sort the difference between hope and belief—both of which someone might hold as true. She wondered if Cress had heard about Rhys’s displeasure about her but hesitated starting what might be a larger conversation than a simple how-are-you.
“Everything okay?” Laura asked.
With no whites in Cress’s eyes, Laura found it hard to read her expression, but there was no mistaking the sadness that came over her. “Did you hear the news about Ian Whiting?”
Ian Whiting’s car had been found on the Key Bridge that morning. All his personal effects were piled neatly on the passenger seat. He’d left his shoes and a note on the railing of the bridge. The scholar from the Druidic College had apparently committed suicide. “Yes, I saw. I had a class with him a long time ago. Did you know him?”
She closed her eyes. “He saved my life. No, that’s not true. He gave me a life. Before I met Terryn, Ian helped stabilize my abilities. I can’t imagine the man I remember killing himself.”
Laura rested a comforting hand on her shoulder. “That was a long time ago, Cress. People change. Not always for the good.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think he’s dead. I think he walked away from his life. Too many people wanted too many things from him. That was true back when I met him. The man lived for research. He valued life. Until they find his body, that’s what I think.”
Laura hugged her. Cress didn’t respond—she wasn’t physically comfortable with people—but she did allow herself to hold Laura’s arm. “I’m sorry.”
“Me, too,” she said softly.
On the counter behind Cress, Laura caught sight of a clear evidence bag with a handheld stun gun inside. She held the bag up for a closer look. “What’s this?”
Cress returned her attention to her test tubes. “A fortunately malfunctioning liquid stun gun. I was almost mugged this morning.”
Laura gaped. “Mugged? Are you all right?”
Cress looked more amused than anything. “I’m fine. Two guys came at me. One of them fired the stunner, but the liquid didn’t release correctly, and he ended up stunning himself. The other guy ran off. It was rather amusing, actually.”