Conviction Read online

  “They took my coat, and it had all my things in it. Do you have a notebook and a pen I could use?”

  The request was so welcome, I couldn’t help giving him a huge smile. I unzipped my waist pouch and peered inside. “Bizbee, could I have a small notepad and a pen? And the suit.”

  The grig that lived inside the pouch popped up with the requested items with his usual efficiency, fuzzy-tipped antennae bobbing merrily. He passed over the notepad and pen, then reached inside with his lower insectoid legs to drag out the tip of a hanger.

  I snagged the curved plastic and lifted, pulling out the suit. I’d purchased it on a whim a month ago after having Peasblossom sneak a glimpse at Andy’s jacket tag on one of the few occasions he’d removed it. Liam had helped me with the sizing for the shirt. The jacket and pants were a deep navy blue, and the shirt was a white so bright it was almost a shade of blue itself. It still smelled faintly of dry cleaning chemicals.

  Bizbee had freshened it up. I beamed at him and he blinked, looking slightly embarrassed.

  Andy accepted the suit with quiet reverence. “Thanks.”

  I turned my back to give him some privacy, and Liam strode to the side of the room to peer out the windows, studying what he could see of the bar.

  “I didn’t kill anyone.”

  I turned at Andy’s announcement, taking it as my cue that it was safe to turn around again. Andy stood in the same spot, but putting on the suit had reestablished the look of confidence and control that I’d come to associate with him.

  I followed him back to the bench and sat beside him as he resumed his corner seat.

  “Tell me what happened,” I prompted.

  Andy opened his jacket and tucked the pen and notepad inside, considering his words carefully before speaking. “All right. So I’ve been coming to Something Fishy for a while. Every Thursday for the past few months.” He paused, probably expecting an outburst from me.

  I didn’t disappoint.

  “You’ve been coming back here for months?” I stared at him. “After what happened last time, you came back?”

  “Of course I came back,” Andy said, his voice harder than it had been. “You heard Morgan. The kelpies—”

  I held up a hand, cutting him off. “We will discuss Morgan later, I promise you. For now, tell me about tonight.”

  “I come here on Thursday nights, because I noticed that the kelpies are always here Thursday nights. And they always have kids with them. Teenagers, never anyone over the age of eighteen.”

  “And you know they aren’t eighteen because…?” Liam asked.

  “Because I ask.”

  Liam arched an eyebrow. “You ID them.”

  Tension pushed Andy to sit a little straighter. “This is a bar. I have every reason to ID them.”

  I waited for Liam to point out FBI agents don’t generally cruise bars for underage drinkers, but he didn’t. Instead, he took a slow step away from the window, studying Andy with an expression I couldn’t quite read.

  “I’m guessing these kids generally hung out on a boat, which would be private property?” Liam suggested. “They never came inside the building?”

  “It’s not private property when they walk down the pier to get to the boat,” Andy interjected. “And that’s when I card them.” He waved a hand. “It doesn’t matter. When I realized it was a weekly thing, I had to keep coming. I had to make sure they were okay.”

  I don’t know what expression he wanted to see on my face, but obviously he didn’t find it.

  “I’ve seen predators before, Shade. And I’m not just talking about sexual predators. I’m talking about bullies. People who need to feel in control, and the only way they can is if they’re tormenting someone else.” His brown eyes darkened. “And I did my research on kelpies. They are every bit the predators I saw that night.”

  “He’s not wrong,” Peasblossom said, flopping down on my shoulder and swinging her feet.

  Andy pressed his back against the wall and stared into space. “I will never forget the look on Grayson’s face. That terror in his voice.” He shook his head. “I’m telling you, there’s something going on here. They were earning these kids’ trust, and that’s always the first step down a very bad road.”

  Something in his voice reminded me of another detail from that night at Something Fishy with the kelpies. Andy had climbed out of the lake, tearing off his shirt in a panic after getting caught up in a hydrophobia spell I’d leveled at our enemies. I’d seen scars all over his back and upper arms.

  I thought of the folder Flint had tried to give me that night. The file on Andy. All his secrets.

  I hadn’t read it. Not just because it would have been a betrayal of Andy’s trust, but because deep, deep down, I just didn’t want to know the story behind those scars. I didn’t want the images and details in my head.

  “So tonight I came here, like I do every Thursday,” Andy continued. “I sat at the bar where I had a view of the pier out back and the front door. Then around seven-thirty, I saw a kid standing outside. He didn’t move toward a boat or the bar. Then I saw Siobhan.” The muscle in his jaw twitched, and his stare into nothingness intensified, as if it were all happening all over again. “She started talking to him. He tried to walk away from her, but she grabbed his arm, tried to drag him out of sight.”

  He continued, his hands moving as if re-enacting the events. “I ran out and drew my gun. And I swear it was Siobhan. I could see her plain as day. I remembered her face, leaning over me in that rocking boat, and feeling that gunshot wound burning a hole in my side while she tried to trick me into ‘accepting her help.’ I warned her to let him go, but she just stared at me like I’d lost my mind. Like she didn’t know who I was.” His brow furrowed. “I remember telling her to get away from the kid.”

  I waited for him to continue, but he didn’t. He just sat there, frowning.

  My nerves broke before he did. “Then what?”

  Andy shook his head slowly. “That’s just it.” He met my eyes. “I can’t remember.”

  Chapter 3

  “You don’t remember?” I echoed, my voice rising.

  Andy put his hand to his head, digging his fingers in as if he could reach inside and pull the memories free. “Someone tackled me, and I hit my head. Next thing I remember, I’m waking up here,” he gestured around him at the room, “and that wizard is leaning over me saying something about trying to heal me and a possible concussion.”

  “You mean Vincent Aegis,” Liam supplied. “He’s a good man, you can trust him.”

  Andy looked at me, and I read the question in his eyes.

  “Healing isn’t as easy as I make it look,” I told him honestly. “You can’t just throw a healing spell at someone, you have to guide the magic, tell it what to heal, how to heal it. I studied medicine for a long time to get to where I am. A lot of magic users can do basic healing—stop bleeding, ease pain, things like that—but if you had a concussion, that means a possible brain injury. Vincent wouldn’t know how to heal that.”

  Andy relaxed a little. “Okay. That explains it then. When he brought me around, I was still in a lot of pain, and I could still feel the wound at the back of my head.”

  “You thought he was lying about the healing?” Liam guessed.

  “Waking up in a strange place to a strange man poking at your head can be disorienting,” Andy said dryly.

  “Especially if it’s Vincent,” Liam agreed with a small smile.

  “Anyway, he asked me what happened.” He closed his eyes. “And it wasn’t until then that I realized I couldn’t remember.”

  “So the very last thing you remember,” Liam prompted, “is what?”

  Andy opened his eyes and stared into space again. “Like I said, I remember aiming my gun at Siobhan and telling her to get away from the kid. After that it’s all…garbled. Like a painting that was still wet and someone smeared the colors around.” He dropped his elbows to his knees, cradling his head in his hands.
/>   Peasblossom fanned her wings as she stood, holding on to a lock of my hair for balance. “Did Vincent tell you anything about what happened? Try to fill in the blanks?”

  “He told me the person I thought was Siobhan was some kelpie named Raichel.” His words came more hesitantly if recounting events he didn’t want to believe. “He said there was no kid. And he said… He said I shot her. And she’s dead.”

  Suddenly he looked up at me, and the ferocity in his eyes startled me. “I did not come here to kill anyone. I know that’s what they think. I know it’s what Siobhan thinks.” He stopped. “I was just here to make sure nothing happened to the kids.”

  I shared a look with Liam and mouthed “Kids?” I hadn’t seen any kids out front, or on the back patio. Liam shook his head. He hadn’t seen any kids either.

  “I’m going to find out what happened here tonight,” I said, putting that thought aside and focusing on Andy. “I won’t stop until I know everything that happened.”

  “I know.” He shifted in his seat, concentrating hard on the floor before looking up at my face again. “Siobhan made it sound pretty damning. Witnesses, physical evidence.” He made a sound that was probably meant to be a laugh, but was too strained. “She almost has me believing I did it.”

  Dread seized my stomach, but I shoved the sensation down, viciously stamping it out of existence before it could show in my face. “It’s in her best interest to convince you that you did it. But I, for one, find your loss of memory very suspicious.”

  Andy shifted in his seat again. “So did Vincent. But he didn’t find any trace of magic on me. And Evelyn said she didn’t find any of the damage that usually accompanies the brute force of someone trying to manipulate memories.”

  “There are only signs of force if the person was inexperienced or making no effort to be careful,” I insisted. “Otherwise it would take someone who specializes in memory manipulation to find the signs. Let me talk to the witnesses. Find out who—and what—we’re dealing with here.”

  After holding his head in his hands for a few heartbeats, he looked up at me. “You told me about the Vanguard before. About what happens when someone from one…species, commits a crime against another. Something about a weregild?” He cleared his throat. “I might need to know more about that now.”

  I shared a wary look with Liam before I could stop myself. Andy caught it immediately. “What?”

  I forced my face into the witchy mask I used any time I had to share unpleasant information. “A weregild is a deal two cultures make when one has made a transgression against the other and they need to establish a course of justice that suits both cultures. Usually when someone breaks a law that exists in one culture, but not the other, or when the punishment in one culture for that specific crime is radically different than in the other culture. It’s meant to keep one group from calling out a member of another group for some obscure law and then punishing them with death or slavery or some such outrageous punishment. It doesn’t apply if the crime is the same in both cultures, and both cultures have the same punishment.”

  Andy stared hard into my eyes, but I must have been more closed off than I’d meant to be. He looked to Liam.

  “In your case,” Liam said calmly, “murder is a crime in both human and kelpie society. And both kelpies and humans have the death penalty for murder.”

  “So why is the Vanguard involved?” Andy asked. “Why wouldn’t Siobhan just kill me if she’s so sure I did it?”

  “Most humans are ignorant of the Otherworld, so you get a sort of ‘diplomatic immunity,’” I explained.

  “For example, if a human shoots a wolf near their farm, the Vanguard doesn’t expect you to know that it could have been a werewolf,” Liam added.

  I winced. That did tend to be the most common one. Fortunately, most farmers didn’t use silver bullets. “Right. So, the Vanguard represents humans because most humans don’t know about the Otherworld and therefore don’t have a representative to negotiate for them. Siobhan is asking the Vanguard to waive your ‘diplomatic immunity’ so she can formally charge you and mete out punishment. But first she has to make a solid case that you’re guilty.”

  All emotion drained from Andy’s face. “So you’re telling me if they find me guilty, then they’ll hand me over to Siobhan to execute me.”

  “They won’t find you guilty.” I shot to my feet, suddenly ready to get out of this room, off this boat. My magic writhed inside me, needing an outlet, needing to do something. “We need to get out there and talk to these witnesses that Siobhan is so eager to shove in your face.”

  Andy rose with me, then stopped himself and sat back down. “They aren’t going to let me out there until they’ve finished processing the scene.” He retrieved his new notebook and pen. “I’ll stay in here and write down what I can remember. Maybe it’ll jog something loose.”

  “Good idea,” Liam said, nodding his approval.

  “Right.” I twisted the zipper on my waist pouch. “So right now, our main priority is to find out, one,” I started ticking points off on my fingers, “is there anyone here with the ability to manipulate Andy’s memory? Or, barring that, did someone specifically cause his concussion?”

  “That would be difficult,” Liam said doubtfully. “Head injuries are notoriously difficult to predict. And I seriously doubt they could have foreseen memory loss.”

  “Just covering all the bases at this point,” I reminded him. I held up a second finger. “Two, we need to find out what happened to the kid Raichel tried to drag off. If she had a victim, then it’s a moot point whether or not Andy shot her, because there are exemptions for acting in defense of a minor. The previous shooting helps us there, because it shows Andy believed his actions would be justified under Otherworld law.”

  “I’ll be able to tell if someone was here earlier but isn’t here now,” Liam added. He snorted. “Trust me, there’s no mistaking the smell of a teenager.”

  “I’d prefer to talk to the kid first. He’s the one most likely to give us the part of the story that we need.”

  “Agreed.”

  I started to say something to Andy, though I wasn’t sure exactly what. Hang tight? Don’t worry? Be right back? It ended up not mattering, because Andy was already lost to his notebook, pen scribbling furiously as he tried to get all his thoughts out.

  When we made our way back out into the open air, Siobhan was standing on the deck in the same spot as before. She and Rowyn stood on one side of the boat, with Evelyn standing nearer to the door, her blue face serene as if lost in thought. Or prayer.

  “Did he confess?” Siobhan asked innocently.

  “Where’s the kid?” I asked. “The one Raichel was trying to drag off against his will.”

  Siobhan’s smile widened. “Inside the bar. I thought it best if I remained out here. I wouldn’t want to be accused of intimidating him.”

  There was still something in her voice I didn’t like. She was far too happy, far too confident. And it didn’t feel like bluster.

  I let it go for now, but it nagged at me as I stepped off the boat and onto the pier. I didn’t realize we had an unwanted guest until I heard too many footsteps behind me. It might have been my imagination, but even in human form, the footsteps sounded like hoof beats.

  I turned. Liam was already facing the boat. Or, more specifically, the large male kelpie who’d just followed us off the boat.

  Rowyn raised himself to his full height. “What? Did you think we’d let you go in there and speak to witnesses without supervision?”

  “I will make certain everything remains aboveboard,” Evelyn said calmly. “I—”

  “If you’ll forgive me for saying so,” Rowyn interrupted, “the last time one of my kind was shot and killed by that man, the Vanguard did nothing.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Evelyn said gently. “But under the law, Agent Bradford did nothing wrong.”

  Rowyn stamped his foot, hard enough I was surprised the battered w
ood held. “Under fey law, Bradan did nothing wrong. And yet his murderer walks free.”

  Peasblossom tugged on the lock of my hair in her fist. “You torture kids for fun. If you’re expecting pity, you’ve got a long wait.”

  “You’ll judge us, then?” Rowyn demanded. “Humans can torture animals all they like for their own amusement, fighting rings, rodeos, zoos, and that’s fine, but—”

  “Humans aren’t animals,” I interrupted coldly.

  Rowyn clenched his hands into fists. “They are to us.”

  “This isn’t the time or the place for this fight.” Liam pointed at Rowyn. “You can come in and watch, but stay out of the way when we’re talking to someone. If I think you’re trying to intimidate a witness—”

  “You’ll what?” Rowyn raised his hands, palms up. “Doesn’t seem like a werewolf is in any position to throw stones. Should I remind you how many people your kind have eaten?”

  Liam took another step toward the kelpie, his aura flaring outward like heat escaping an open oven door. “Maybe,” he said in a low voice, “I should remind you of where horses and wolves fall in the food chain. Respectively.”

  At first, I thought Rowyn would pounce. The kelpie was looking for a fight, that much was obvious. And kelpies were no pushovers. There was a reason “horsepower” was a unit of measurement for energy and strength. On land, Liam would likely win, not because he was a werewolf, but because he was an alpha, and that meant experience not just physical strength.

  But if Rowyn could get Liam in the water, there was no question about who would win, and who would drown.

  Over Rowyn’s shoulder, I saw Siobhan take a step forward. “Rowyn.”

  The larger male kelpie turned.

  Siobhan nodded toward the boat. “Stay here and guard the accused. I’ll go with Mother Renard.”

  I held a witchy look on my face, refusing to give Siobhan any reaction to the sudden change in plan. If she wanted to tag along, fine. I’d need to interview her anyway.