“Another one?” Niol drawled, breaking across his words. “You boys at the Atlanta PD sure do keep busy.”
“The victim looks a hell of a lot like one of your singers, Cara Maloan.”
Not so much as a flicker of his expression. “Really.”
“Yeah, really.” He clenched his hands. “I’ve got reason,” damn good reason, “to believe the victim managed to injure her attacker before he killed her.”
“He? You’re sure the killer is a man?”
No, he just had the damn strong suspicion that Niol was the killer in question. “This victim called me last night.” Hadn’t been completely proven yet since the woman who could prove the call was stone dead, but lying to Niol wasn’t a crime. It was perfect bait. “Told me that you’d been getting your workers to lie about Cara’s alibis.”
Now Niol frowned and took a few steps away from the closed door. “I haven’t told anyone to lie.”
“Then maybe you used some of that demon bullshit power of yours and made ’em think they were telling the truth.”
Niol tapped his chin. “Finally figured things out, have you, Detective? It certainly took you long enough.”
He hated this asshole.
“But your education is still very much lacking.” Niol sauntered toward the bar. “Demon magic doesn’t generally work on other demons. And my staff here, well, aside from the occasional witch—who, by the way, would be immune to my power, too—well, they’re all pureblood demons.”
As if on cue, Cameron suddenly appeared behind the bar, looking a bit pale as he pushed a dark red liquid toward Niol and a whiskey toward Todd.
“I’m not here to drink,” Todd snapped. Not even 10 A.M. What was with these demons?
Niol took a slow sip from his glass. “No, of course not. Thanks, Cameron.” He glanced at Todd. “You’re here to find out if I’ve got some kind of wounds, right? From the attack?”
“Yes.”
Cameron headed toward the back of the bar, disappeared.
“I don’t think I have to show you anything. I mean, a demon’s body is his own, now, isn’t it?” A taunting smile curved his lips once again. “I think you’re playing out of your league, human. Way out. Perhaps you’d better leave and send the shifter back. At least he’s strong enough to handle all the players in the game.”
Todd’s control snapped. He could still smell that woman’s blood. See Cara’s face. And he wasn’t in the mood to be jerked around by a demon. He lunged at Niol, grabbed him and slammed the guy back against the bar. “Don’t fuck with me!”
“Why? Aren’t you fucking with one of my singers?”
He’d break him apart. He pulled back his fist, ready to wreck Niol’s face and—
“Stop, Todd!”
Cara’s voice.
His head snapped to the left. There she was. Standing just outside the door Niol had exited moments before.
His arm shook with the effort of holding back his punch. “What are you doing here?” He didn’t release Niol and didn’t drop his hand, though part of him was surprised the demon wasn’t using his mojo to send him flying across the room.
Cara glanced down at Niol, then back to him. “I work here, remember?”
“Not today, you don’t.” Wednesdays through Saturdays. He’d confirmed her schedule long ago.
“Um, good memory, cop,” Niol murmured.
Cara’s chin lifted. “I still have to come in and get my check and—talk with Niol about the band.”
And spout lame-ass lies to him.
“Take off your shirt,” he snapped.
Cara blinked. “Uh, Todd—”
“Not you!” She’d damn well better not think of stripping in front of Niol. His fist dropped and his hands clenched the front of Niol’s black shirt. “Him!”
Niol’s eyes—eyes that were just as dark as Cara’s when she dropped the glamour, but lacking the warmth he saw in her stare—narrowed. “Despite what you may have heard, Detective, I really do prefer to be wined first. And I prefer my partners to be female.”
Fucking asshole. “Cut the crap and take off your shirt.”
The scent of sex and lavender floated around him as Cara scrambled to his side. “Niol didn’t kill that woman. He didn’t even know about her until I told him—”
“What?”
“Demon hearing—”
“Another part of your lacking education,” Niol said at the same time.
“It’s much stronger than a human’s. Not shifter strong, of course, but…” She shrugged. “I heard everything you said to Niol.”
Hell.
“And I heard everything that woman told you on the phone.”
“I know.” And that part, he did know. Cara had been right beside him when he got the call—even a human would have heard the conversation. “What I don’t understand is why you would have come running to him.” That she had done so made Todd angry.
Furious. Okay, fucking pissed.
She shouldn’t have turned to Niol, she should have turned to him.
“Cara and I go way back.” Niol’s voice held the intimate tone of a lover and it made every muscle in Todd’s body stiffen. “She trusts me.”
The guy didn’t have to say the rest. It was implied. And she doesn’t trust you.
“Take off your damned shirt.” He wasn’t there to find out which of them knew Cara better. He wasn’t there to play the jealous lover, though he sure as hell could have nailed that part.
“Take your hands off me,” Niol snapped, and the mask that he’d been wearing began to crack as shards of anger pierced his words.
Todd stared down at him. Waited one beat, two.
Then he released him. “Your turn. Get the shirt off.”
Niol glared at him. “I don’t have to do a damned thing for you—”
“For me.” Cara touched his arm and the move had Todd biting back a snarl. “Just show him, for me.”
Niol caught her hand. Brought it to his lips and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “Only for you.” Then he rose, yanked the black T-shirt over his head, and exposed a chest that was completely unmarred. He lifted a brow at Todd. “That good enough for you, or do I need to drop my pants, too?”
The phone booth had been small. The blood splatter marks had been high on the glass—so the perp must have been injured in the upper portion of his body.
Not below the waist.
“Not necessary,” he growled.
Niol winked at Cara. “And what about for you, my love?”
“Not necessary,” Todd answered for her.
Cara shook her head, mouth tightening. “Look, stop acting like a jerk. Niol did what you wanted, he’s shown you every courtesy—”
And just how many courtesies had he shown her? “I found a woman’s body less than an hour ago. A woman who looked almost exactly like you.”
She flinched.
“Her body was in a phone booth outside of town. She’d been left there, like some kind of broken doll.”
“The woman who called you—she’s really dead?”
“Yeah, I think it was her.” Odds were damn high that it was.
Her eyes squeezed shut for a moment, then she opened them and said, “You don’t understand what’s happening here, Todd.” She licked her lips. “You’ll think it’s crazy, but I-I believe someone’s trying to set me up for murder.”
Not crazy. “And you came to Niol?”
“He hasn’t told anyone to lie for me! My alibis were good. That woman,” she swallowed, “if-if that’s the one whose body you found, she was lying. And there’s only one reason she’d call like that and lie to a cop.”
“Because she wanted to take Cara down,” Niol said, making no move to put his shirt back on. Instead, he reached for his drink, and took another slow sip. “The vics were all linked to Cara, weren’t they, cop?”
All but the last one. Thomas Monroe—and his murder hadn’t fit the MO.
“So you’ve got these bodies, these men who are all somehow tied to Cara, even if she didn’t know them, and they wind up dead. Men in the peak of health. Dead.” He tapped his fingers on the bar. “And they bear the mark of a sex demon.”