“How do you know I haven’t already met my soul mate?” Damon asked gently. “How do you know I haven’t already walked away from her?”
Because you wouldn’t be responding to me the way you are if you’d already met your soul mate. But I kept the words inside, and simply said, “If you have, then you are a fool. And I don’t believe you are.”
His smile was wry. “That’s another of your snap judgments.”
“But it’s true, isn’t it?”
“Only partially.”
I raised an eyebrow. “So you’re admitting to being a fool?”
“No.”
“Then what are you admitting?”
He glanced at me, his face like granite. It’d be easier to read a rock than try to catch this man’s thoughts and emotions. “Right now?” he said. “Nothing.”
“Yeah, believing that,” I muttered.
“Let’s just enjoy what we have, Mercy, and be grateful for it.”
Grateful could take a long, flying leap off the nearest cliff, I thought, but I was saved from actually having to say anything by the ringing of my phone.
“Well, I found the owner of Deca Dent for you,” Leith said, the minute I hit the receive button. I didn’t bother putting it on speaker—Damon had already proven that he could hear the other side of a phone conversation. “And it’s owned by Hannish Valorn. I’ve e-mailed you some pics and the file with the information, but there’s not a lot.”
“Why not?”
“Because dragons are notoriously closed-mouthed when it comes to talking about their own. I can tell you he only got back into the country a few months ago, and took over ownership of the club almost immediately.”
“So he owns it legally?”
“Yep. I had one of the boys track down the paperwork. The club itself is a known haunt for lowlifes, which makes it a rather odd acquisition for the only son of a dragon king. I tried to find out more about Hannish,” Leith said, “but the grapevine is amazingly quiet. We’re doing an overseas search to see if we can find anything there, but it’s probably going to take time.”
Everything about this case seemed to. “But there’s nothing you can uncover to suggest he’s involved in anything nefarious?”
“No. But that also means there’s nothing to say he’s not, as well.” He paused, and tapped some keys, meaning he was still at the office, because he generally refused to work at home. “The club isn’t run by Hannish, though. It appears he has a manager—a fellow by the name of Franco Harkin, a draman from your clique. There’s also a Jake Whilde working there. I can’t find a picture or very much information about Harkin, but both men appear to have come into the country with Hannish.”
“If they came into the country with Hannish, then they have to have passports.”
“Obviously, but they’re either overseas ones or they have them under other names.”
“Is that even possible in this day and age?”
“Anything is possible if you know the right people, Mercy.”
I guess so.
Leith continued, “About the only bit of gossip I could gather was the fact that Hannish and his dad had a serious falling-out about ten years ago, and they haven’t seen each other since. Oh, and one guy commented that Hannish was out to get his dad.”
“ ‘Get’ as in kill?”
“I’m not sure. When I asked him to clarify, he just shrugged. I think he was too scared to admit anything more.”
“Well, if Hannish is behind the cleansings, then he had a right to be wary.” I shivered as the memories of the truck hitting us rose again, but shoved them aside and said, “Is that all?”
“Yes. But I’m digging into the council’s records to see if I can find anything there.”
Surprise rippled across Damon’s features. “How are you accessing the council’s records? The security around them is supposedly watertight.”
“Nothing is watertight where a sea dragon is concerned.” Leith’s voice was amused. “Especially when the security involved is over a year old. Your council needs a serious update.”
“I’ll tell them.” Damon’s voice was grim.
“Please do,” Leith commented cheerfully. “And if you want a recommendation, I can give you several names.”
“No doubt friends of yours who can be pressured for passwords.”
“I don’t need passwords, my friend.”
Damon snorted softly, but it was an amused sound. “You think you’re good enough to find, and then get into, Hannish’s bank accounts?”
“Yes. Although it might take a little while unless you can give me the bank and account number.”
“If I start asking for that sort of information, I might just stir up interest in the wrong places. I’d rather not warn anyone we’re suspicious at the moment.”
“Why do you want to investigate his bank records?” I asked, a little confused by the sudden request.
“Because,” Damon said, “Marcus cut his son off financially when they argued ten years ago, and Hannish was left with little more than the clothes on his back and a few thousand dollars in the bank. It’ll be interesting to see where he got the money to buy Deca Dent.”
“Maybe he has investment partners,” I said.
“He owns the club directly,” Leith commented. “And if his dad did cut him off, then tracking down the source of his wealth just might expose a clue or two.”
I frowned. “Dragons are notorious thieves, so sudden influxes of wealth come with the territory.”
Damon was shaking his head even before I’d finished. “Most dragons are very judicious with their thieving these days. They have to be—not only because human security techniques are getting better, but because stealing too much in their own territory could bring the wrong sort of attention.”
Meaning the council as well as the humans. “Yeah, but Hannish has been overseas, and I doubt he would give a crap about his clique anyway.” And anyone involved in the slaughter of two whole towns wasn’t ever likely to care about that sort of stuff. “And it still doesn’t explain the destruction of the draman towns.”
“Maybe the draman were in the way,” Leith said.
“How?” I asked. “The towns weren’t on dragon land and were in the middle of goddamn nowhere. How on earth could they be a threat to whomever is behind the destruction?”
“Maybe they weren’t a threat,” Damon said slowly. “Maybe they were simply, as Leith said, in the way.”
“What?” I said, frowning at him. Why did it suddenly feel that these two men had gone to a whole other place from me? “What do you mean?”
“I mean, aside from the town that was destroyed when Angus was young, the two towns were in the same state, and both were close to the borders of the Nevada clique.”
“And it would be interesting,” Leith mused, “to see what happened to the land those towns were sitting on, wouldn’t it?”
“Most definitely,” Damon agreed. “And it might also be worth checking whether the land between the clique and the towns has recently been sold—and to whom. You think you can get that information without setting off any alarms?”
“If the council hasn’t caught me yet, I doubt the real estate people will,” Leith said, voice dry. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I find anything. In the meantime, play it safe, you two.”
He hung up. I pushed up from the chair and walked across to the bench, grabbing my bag and dragging out the netbook. “Maybe I’m a little thick, but why would the land the towns are sitting on be so important that they’d kill for it?”
“It’s not just land, its territory. Unclaimed territory, technically.”