Page 31

Chapter 31

The brief daylight had already waned, but it wasn't so late that everyone would have gone home from work; even so, the tailings area was completely deserted. It might have been because the road was blocked but that didn’t feel right because we’d managed to move the truck. Anyone who’d been down the road could have moved it, too.

Where were the workers who had to go back down the road to leave? I rubbed my hands up and down my arms to smooth the goosebumps that were threatening to erupt.

Thomas was on high alert. Before I knew it he’d also moved off, presumably in search of the armed men. Sidnee and I looked at each other then focused on our task. ‘Fluffy,’ I called. ‘Can you find the dead dwarf’s blood?’

He gave me a look that for all the world said, ‘Duh.’

I’d left Shadow in the SUV, but with the window broken and his crate melted he could come and go as he pleased. Despite that, he’d seemed happy to curl up and sleep which I found oddly reassuring. I was learning to trust his instincts, and his instincts right now said it was safe for him to snooze. A little of the tension left me. We were okay – for now.

Fluffy started searching methodically. Since we didn’t have dog-level noses – although I was pretty sure I’d smell blood if I got close enough – Sidnee and I looked around. The dwarf had bled out so there had to be a lot of blood somewhere. Humans had approximately five litres of the stuff; though shorter, dwarves were pretty stout and I guessed they’d have close to four litres.

I signalled Sidnee that I’d work one side of the tailings pile and she nodded and moved to the opposite side. We worked for about fifteen minutes before Fluffy’s bark caught our attention and we both hurried over to him. He was standing over a patch of ground, but his body language was uncertain.

‘Do you smell blood?’ I asked him.

He whined. I guessed that meant no. ‘Do you smell Evgard Appleton?’

He barked. He could smell the dwarf. I looked at Sidnee. ‘Where’s all the blood?’

Sidnee shrugged. ‘Dunno. Down the hatch?’

I choked back a nervous laugh. ‘Funny.’

‘We don’t know he died here,’ she pointed out. ‘That’s just supposition. Evgard had tailings’ dirt in his boots but that doesn’t mean he was killed here, just that he was walking around here before he died.’

‘True.’

‘They could have murdered him anywhere.’

I grimaced – that was what worried me. Without the head or a forensic examination of the body, we had little evidence to point to what had happened. I didn’t even know if the victim was dead before the marks were made on him. I hadn’t noticed any bruising to indicate he’d been slashed before he died, but I hadn’t been able to look at the body too closely. And who had the head? If the dwarf had died here … the only one who would meticulously take the blood too was a dwarf.

‘Do you think the dwarves are involved in this?’ I asked Sidnee.

‘What?’ Sidnee was genuinely taken aback. ‘They think it’s the hag.’

‘Do they? Or are they just acting like they do?’ My phone rang, interrupting us: Connor. I swiped to answer. ‘Hi, you okay?’

‘We’ve got an issue.’ His tone was grim.

‘I don’t like the sound of that.’

‘You’re not going to like it one bit,’ he warned me.

I braced myself. ‘Hit me.’

‘Apparently there was an offer on the mine this fall.’

‘An offer? Someone tried to buy it? Was it up for sale?’

‘No, it wasn’t for sale and apparently none of the other owners were informed. Liv and Calliope knew nothing about it. You’ll need to check with Thomas.’

‘He’s on site with me – I’ll ask him.’

‘According to Goren Flankson, the dwarf I interviewed, the dwarven council handled it on their own.’

‘Surely they couldn’t accept an offer without a majority agreement?’ I asked.

‘The council has a controlling interest in the mine, though they have to inform the other owners and have a vote followed by their written agreement to the sale.’

‘So the dwarves turned down the offer?’

‘They did.’ He paused. ‘It gets worse. One of the people they met who was representing the anonymous buyer was a local water shifter.’

My stomach lurched. ‘Do we know who it was?’

‘We do. Chris Jubatus.’

My mind racing, I froze for several moments until I realised I was staring at the phone. I choked out, ‘Chris Jubatus? Selkie, and Sidnee’s drug-dealing bastard of an ex-boyfriend?’

Oh shit. Cogs started turning. Chris had tried to buy the mine. He had no money of his own; we’d frozen his assets when he’d rolled out of town so I knew exactly how much he had. He wasn’t trying to buy it for himself, and he wasn’t representing Calliope because she already had a share in the mine. No, he’d been trying to buy the mine under the radar for the MIB … and now we had armed men crawling around it and several deaths. It couldn’t be a coincidence.

Sidnee had stopped moving when I’d spat out her ex's name and she was staring at me, wide-eyed.

‘The one and the same,’ Connor confirmed.

‘This changes everything,’ I said tightly. ‘I was thinking some dwarves had been responsible for the deaths to try and frame the hag, but now I think the MIB is trying to scare away the dwarves. They didn’t have any luck buying it, so now they’re trying to get it through any means necessary.’

I bit my thumb. ‘Maybe Helmud saw something – he wasn’t supposed to be in that part of the mine.’ His was the one body we actually had. ‘We should get toxicology to check for fisheye.’

‘Henderson was human,’ Connor pointed out.

‘Exactly. We have no idea what fisheye does to humans. What if it’s as deadly to them as to us? There has to be a reason why the MIB have been so selective in using it, otherwise, they’d have sprayed it across all known supernat towns. ’

‘You might be right,’ Connor said grimly.

‘I need to speak to Gunnar. That interview with Goren, have you got notes on it?’

‘Better.’ He sounded pleased. ‘All of the interviews have been recorded. I’ll email a link to you both.’

‘Thanks. Connor … be careful.’

He sounded resigned when he said, ‘I’m not the one stomping on their heads right now. You be careful, Bunny.’ He hung up.

I turned to Sidnee, who was looking wan, then called, ‘Thomas! Sidnee needs you!’ I wasn’t sure exactly where he was, but moments later he ran out of the woods. He took one look at Sidnee and bundled her into his arms. ‘Hey baby, what’s wrong?’

She burst into tears. He held her close, rubbed her back and sent me a questioning look over her shoulder. ‘We think the armed men are MIB,’ I explained.

Thomas’s face didn’t change; he’d already suspected that.

‘Last year, Chris Jubatus tried to facilitate another buyer to buy your mine,’ I went on.

Thomas’s jaw tightened. ‘First I’ve heard of it,’ he said darkly.

‘The dwarven council decided to keep the offer to themselves but they rejected it anyway. Since they have the controlling interest, it wouldn’t have mattered if you had wanted to sell.’

‘We could have shared our portion of the mine,’ he pointed out.

‘Did you want to?’ I asked curiously.

‘No. I like having multiple income streams.’

‘How much is your share?’

‘Liv, Calliope and I each have ten percent. The dwarves hold the remaining seventy percent.’

‘But the dwarves didn’t sell,’ I pointed out.

Thomas nodded grimly. ‘So the MIB decided to start a campaign, frame the hag and make the dwarves want to leave the mine.’

‘Exactly.’

‘What if he’s here?’ Sidnee said quietly into Thomas’s shoulder.

‘Chris?’ I asked gently.

She nodded, her head still averted. ‘I’m over him, I swear, but I don’t want to see him. I don’t want to…’ She trailed off. ‘Fuck him. Just fuck him.’

Thomas stroked her back. ‘You can stay with me, at least until we’re sure he’s not in town.’

Sidnee drew back to look at him. ‘Are you sure? I can be real messy.’

He gave a lopsided grin. ‘Good thing I’m tidy, then, isn’t it?’

She smiled and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him.

I moved away to ring Gunnar. ‘You better not have gone down that hole!’ he said when he answered. So much had happened that it took me a moment to realise what he was talking about.

I laughed. ‘No, sir, I didn’t. And I’m damned glad about that.’ I filled him in on everything we knew – and everything we suspected.

‘I’d already ordered toxicology on Helmud Henderson,’ Gunnar said. ‘I’ll call again later and ask for them to test specifically for fisheye. Get your ass back to the office. We need a plan of attack.’

‘Yes, boss. En route.’ I hung up.

Sidnee was calmer. Thomas still had his arm around her delicate waist. ‘Did you see anything when you looked around?’ I asked him.

He shook his head. ‘I couldn’t find anyone.’

‘How many people should be working here at this time of the night?’

He checked his watch. ‘There should be at least four people. They might be getting ready to close down for the night, but it shouldn’t be deserted. Not like this.’

‘Who supervises this area? ’

He scrolled through his phone and finally gave me a name. ‘Sven Ogelvie.’ He pressed the call button and I heard the ringing tone at the other end before the call flipped to voicemail. At the beep, Thomas said, ‘It’s Patkotak, call me back.’ He tucked the phone into his jacket pocket. ‘He should be at work. Let’s hope he was on the phone or in the john and calls back soon.’

As we turned to walk back to our vehicles, I saw Shadow leap from the broken window – and then a huge explosion knocked us all to the ground.