Page 21 of Mystic Justice (The Other Detective #2)

I left Ji-ho with instructions to scour the area on the night in question and to locate a warehouse building with a steady stream of people dressed in black going inside.

The black tourneys were highly illegal deadly fight clubs.

All the participants were Other and, according to many reports, few of them fought voluntarily.

The Connection had raided many a black tourney, but someone high up somewhere was running interference and pocketing coin from the illegal betting that went on.

Time and time again we raided, but we were always too late and the organisers got away scot-free. Every. Single. Time.

We knew that recently a griffin known as Ghost had been running the black tourneys but she’d been shut down and the griffins had dealt with her infraction within the framework of their own laws.

Although she – whoever she was, because we only knew she was female – was no longer running the tourneys, it seemed that some other enterprising soul had taken up her mantle.

That was the way of the world: when someone or something created a void, something else was sucked in to fill it.

At times it made police work feel like bailing out a sinking ship with a teacup; take one shit off the street and another stepped into their shoes.

It was easy to think it didn’t matter, but if you believed that you’d never do the job.

And the job did matter, even if some days it felt like screaming into the void.

Every day I showed up, I chose to believe I was making a difference; most days I was pretty sure that I did.

‘Time to bring Sandra Jaxim in for questioning,’ I told Krieg when we were back in my office.

He brightened. ‘I look forward to it. Watching you crush Helga’s killers was one of the highlights of working with you last time.’

‘I hope this won’t disappoint you,’ I said drily.

He stepped closer, invading my space with the scent of leather, black pepper and sandalwood.

It was a heady and delicious combination.

He was more than a foot taller than me and I had to look up at him, something that was rare for me since I was five-feet eleven-inches tall.

I enjoyed the sudden rush of feeling small and feminine; it wasn’t something I’d often experienced.

I’d rarely felt feminine – and I’d never felt small.

‘I’m beginning to think that you could never disappoint me, Inspector,’ Krieg breathed against the shell of my ear, making me shudder deliciously.

I couldn’t say whether it was his hot breath against the sensitive spot or the words he was speaking, but suddenly it was hard to think and the distance between us felt entirely too wide.

My body swayed closer to his and his lips parted in response, his silver eyes darkening with desire. Yes.

Channing burst into my office. ‘I’ve— Oh! Sorry. Um. I’ll just…’ He started to back out of the room.

I reached up and touched Krieg’s chest. Just for a moment I laid my hand over his heart and felt the warmth of his skin through his shirt.

I let my hand linger there for a beat. A promise.

Then I gave him a light push that would have done precisely nothing if he hadn’t wanted to budge.

He let himself drift away from me, and my brain fired again.

‘Channing,’ I barked. ‘Get your arse back in here.’ I sat behind my desk and willed the blush to leave my cheeks. ‘What have you got?’

‘Next time, I’ll knock,’ he promised.

‘Knocking is always a good idea,’ Krieg said wisely. ‘There are things in life you don’t need to see. Like your parents fucking.’

‘I wouldn’t know about that. My mum died in childbirth.’

‘Mine too.’ Krieg gave him a sympathetic glance. ‘Traumatised men for the win. But at least we had our dads.’

‘My dad disavowed magic for most of my childhood and we’ve had issues ever since. It’s hard to accept that it was a good idea not to teach a wizard his magic.’

Krieg grimaced. ‘He was trying to do right by you.’

‘Did your dad keep you from magic?’ Channing asked.

‘That would have been impossible. I’m a creature and magic is in the fabric of my being. I don’t need a portal to know what I am.’

It hurt my heart a little that he said what, and not who.

‘I guess not,’ Channing replied.

‘I’m delighted you’re bonding,’ I interrupted, ‘but can we focus on whatever made you burst in here like you’d just cracked the case?’

‘Right.’ Channing’s cheeks were as red as mine felt. He cleared his throat. ‘Not as exciting as cracking the full case, but I did track down two of Lena Shaw’s friends. Miss Shaw is alibied out until 3am.’

‘You checked it? Thoroughly.’

‘It wasn’t hard,’ he admitted. ‘They gave me access to their social media and they’d taken group selfies at every venue they visited.

Sometimes repeatedly. They went out in Liverpool and stayed there all night.

The selfies were taken every fifteen to twenty minutes and even more regularly in a place called Albert Schloss. Apparently it has a disco toilet.’

I blinked. ‘A disco toilet?’

‘Two loos, rainbow lights and a juke box.’

I shook my head. ‘So you can dance while you pee? Seems like asking to piss on your shoes, if you ask me.’

Channing looked embarrassed again. ‘Right. Anyway, I checked the original photographs on their phones and the encoded time stamps near enough match their posting times. All Lena Shaw’s movements are documented until 3am when they called it a night and got taxis home.

The longest period between photos was twenty-two minutes and that was nowhere near enough time for her to get to Grosvenor Lake, let alone back again. ’

A selfie-filled night was my idea of hell; better to live life than document every minute of it. One picture was great; two was overkill.

Remembering DS Roberts’ prodding, I cleared my throat and tried my hand at positive feedback. ‘Great work, Channing. Have you uploaded the witness statements and accompanying photographs to SPEL?’

He nodded. ‘Yes, ma’am.’ I’d say one thing for the app; it certainly speeded things up.

‘Fantastic. Well then, go and get Sandra Jaxim, and bring her in for questioning. Let me know when she’s here.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ He looked excited at the prospect of flying solo.

Back in the day cops had always worked in pairs but with financial cuts being what they were, we were back to working solo at regular intervals.

If that was the new status quo, Channing needed to be confident to fly without me holding his hand.

‘Check in on arrival and again when you have her secured.’

‘Yes, ma’am. I won’t let you down.’

‘Great. And Channing? Call me Wise. All the “ma’ams” are giving me a headache.’

Looking a little proud, he nodded. ‘Sure thing.’

‘Good. Then get to it.’ He got.

‘The kid didn’t get Introduced until late?’ Krieg asked.

‘He was sixteen.’

‘That explains a lot.’

It did. There was something so green about Channing; his eyes, which were supposed to be cop-cynical, were always on the verge of wonder and he often looked like a kid in a sweetie shop.

It was something I found endearing but I worried because the Other realm ate wonder for breakfast, burped out corruption and death and washed it down with the last dregs of hope.

This realm wasn’t for the faint of heart and I fretted about what Channing would do in a kill-or-be-killed situation.

Krieg came around to my side, picked me up like I weighed nothing and sat me on the edge of my desk facing him. He opened my legs and stepped up to me. ‘Now,’ he murmured. ‘Where were we?’

‘I think we were about to kiss,’ I offered, heart suddenly racing again.

‘I think we were,’ he agreed. His eyes looked longingly at my mouth and I licked my lips. He followed the movements of my tongue like a man starved, and heat pooled in my stomach.

He moved towards me with deliberate slowness – and then a firm knock on the door interrupted us once more.

Krieg gave a low groan of frustration but moved back around the desk and sat in the visitor’s chair again.

Battling my own frustration, sexual and otherwise, I slid into my own seat. ‘Come!’ I barked to the intruder.

‘I wish,’ Krieg muttered, making me snicker inside. It was an effort to keep the grin off my face.

McCaffrey strode in. ‘We’ve got an ID on the centaur.’

All thoughts of kissing vanishing in an instant, I leaned forward. ‘And?’

‘Joe Bogan, part of the Anglesey herd. He had a degree in economics and he was looking to move to Liverpool with his new girlfriend. But get this, Inspector, he was one of two centaurs that Bland dealt with yesterday. Bogan came to Liverpool to surprise his girlfriend and found her in bed with centaur number two. He and the other guy ended up brawling in the street and that’s when Bland found them. ’

‘They were fighting over the same girl?’

‘Right. I reached out to centaur number two, who was recorded on Bland’s report as a Jesse Dusty, and guess where he and Bogan ended up?’

I went cold. ‘Botany?’

McCaffrey smirked triumphantly. ‘Bingo.’

I smiled back: bingo, indeed. Now we had a thread to tug. Moss was employed at Botany and Bogan had been drinking there. The club’s involvement was no coincidence; in fact, it seemed to be the very epicentre of the case.