Page 9 of Veiled Justice (The Other Detective #1)

I assumed that Krieg was going to drive me home but instead he stalked down the corridor and held open a wooden door for me. When I raised an eyebrow in silent question, he jerked his head. ‘Helga’s room.’ I tugged out a fresh pair of disposable gloves from my back pocket and pulled them on.

When I entered, I blinked in surprise. It was as stark as anything I’d ever seen: there was merely a single bed, a wardrobe and chest of drawers, a chair and desk, and a door to an ensuite bathroom with a shower and a toilet.

I opened the wardrobe to reveal several variations of black combat trousers and black tops and an array of shit-kicking boots, but absolutely nothing that hinted at her likes or dislikes.

There were no books on her bedside table, just a half-drunk glass of water that she would never finish. There were no cushions on the bed, no throws to snuggle into. The curtains were gunmetal grey, as was the duvet cover. Everything was utterly sterile.

I rifled through the drawers, checking for anything of interest, but there was nothing. The room had all of the warmth of a prison cell.

Next I searched under the bed and under the mattress: nothing. For an eighteen-year-old out on an unsanctioned contract, it was surprising that there was no sign of anything illicit.

‘There’s not much here,’ I said cautiously to Krieg. So far he’d been fairly good about sharing information so I pressed my luck while it lasted.

‘She was in training. She lived by the codex.’

‘The codex?’ I asked.

‘Our book of law. During training, we divest ourselves of personal items to better learn ourselves, to learn what is a loss to us and what is not. She has been in training for two years. She only had one more year until comforts would be restored to her.’

I nodded as if I understood, but I didn’t. If you tried to take my books away from me, I’d have set you on fire. ‘There’s nothing here. Let’s go.’

Krieg held the door for me. I appreciated that he’d taken the opportunity to show me the room; I’d planned on asking for access, but at least now it was done and dusted.

He led me out of the building and again I expected him to offer to drive me home, but instead he marched off towards the outbuildings. I followed silently.

When we came to one of the doors, he reared back and kicked it in. With a concussive bang, it slammed open. ‘Woah!’ I protested sharply. ‘You could have knocked first.’

‘I could also have used the key that I have,’ he admitted dryly. ‘But that wouldn’t have had the same effect.’ He moved inside and bellowed, ‘Aron!’

There was a thump upstairs as if someone had fallen out of bed, then a naked young ogre stumbled downstairs. When he saw us, his bleary eyes looked wild and confused. ‘Your Excellence?’ he stammered, clearly half-asleep and half-panicking.

Neither he nor Krieg seemed bothered by his nudity, but with the variety of shifters in the Other, plenty of magical denizens didn’t worry about being seen without their clothes.

Some even tried to weaponise it by making the human wizards feel awkward as they swayed around in the buff.

To dampen my own reactions, I’d taken a few holidays on nudist beaches until I wasn’t fazed by the human form in any of its guises.

I still felt a little uncomfortable with people walking around in their birthday suits, but not enough that I couldn’t keep my eyes on the balls. Ball.

Now I kept my eyes on Aron’s head and ignored anything dangling below.

‘Helga is dead,’ Krieg snarled.

Aron dropped to the floor like he’d had a solid kick to the solar plexus. ‘What?’ he whispered, eyes wide.

‘Helga is dead,’ Krieg repeated. ‘And her parents said she was with you last night.’

‘Helga,’ Aron whimpered. His eyes filled with tears and then, like a switch had been flipped, they were full of rage. With a roar, he picked up the chair next to him and threw it through the window then started to destroy his living room.

The more he destroyed, the more the tension slid from Krieg’s shoulders. ‘He wasn’t involved,’ he murmured decisively to me.

No, I didn’t think so either. In his rage Aron was destroying everything in sight – everything but a framed photograph of him and a beaming Helga.

‘He loved her.’ I hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

Krieg sighed unhappily. ‘Yes. He loved her.’

‘It wasn’t requited?’ I queried softly.

‘No,’ Aron said bitterly, freezing mid-punch. ‘It wasn’t requited.’ Darn ogres and their excellent hearing. ‘It wasn’t me she loved,’ he spat.

‘Who did she love?’ I asked curiously.

Aron looked at Krieg then, with a snarl, jerked his chin towards his High King. ‘Him.’

There was no shock or surprise on Krieg’s face; then again, there was nothing much there at all. His expression remained calmly blank. I would not have wanted to play poker with this dude.

‘Helga was not with you yesterday,’ Krieg started, ignoring Aron’s accusation. ‘Do you know where she was?’

‘No,’ Aron said sulkily and folded his arms.

Eyes up, Stace.

‘She just asked me to alibi her with her parents,’ he continued, ‘so I said I would.’

‘Has she got any enemies?’ I asked.

Aron snorted. ‘She’s the nicest ogre ever.

No, she didn’t have enemies. She hadn’t even started her career; she hadn’t completed any contracts so she couldn’t have got any enemies through work.

No, this is bullshit.’ The wheels in his brain belatedly started to turn.

‘How did she die?’ A frown marred his forehead. ‘It wasn’t an accident?’

‘A contract went south,’ Krieg said vaguely.

‘But she shouldn’t have been on a contract!’ Aron objected. ‘She wasn’t ready!’

‘I’m aware.’ Krieg’s expression was tight.

‘Then how did this happen? How did she get on a contract?’

‘That’s what we’re trying to find out,’ I intervened. ‘If you don’t know where she was, does she have another friend who might?’

Aron grimaced. ‘Katrín, or maybe Einar.’

‘Einar?’ Krieg said sharply.

Aron shrugged. ‘They went on a few dates.’

Krieg’s face was blank again; a sure sign he was hiding something. I needed to look into this Einar. ‘Weren’t you two best friends?’ I asked Aron. ‘Surely if anyone knew where she was, it would be you?’

He sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face.

‘We were but my feelings got in the way and she started to put some distance between us. I promised I wouldn’t make her feel uncomfortable, that I accepted that she didn’t like me in the same way, but she still felt some space was a good idea. I didn’t fight her on it.’

‘Yet she was still using you to alibi her for her parents?’ I asked. That seemed cruel: she was happy to use him but not to love him.

He shrugged. ‘We’ve been doing that for years. It would be weird to stop.’

‘What have you hidden from your parents?’ I asked nosily. ‘Why do you need alibis?’

‘Nothing heinous. Our parents are strict – we use each other to hide stuff they’d object to. Smoking, drinking, dates with unacceptable people, that sort of petty shit.’

‘And what did she need an alibi for last night?’ I pressed.

He shook his head. ‘I really don’t know. I assumed she and Einar had another date. She didn’t tell me, probably because she felt it was cruel to rub my face in it.’

Krieg checked his phone. ‘Einar is on a contract. Out of town.’

‘I don’t know anything more,’ Aron protested.

‘You don’t know anything,’ Krieg growled. ‘Tidy this shit up.’ He gestured to the wreck of the room then turned on his heel to walk out.

‘She loved you,’ the boy said miserably.

Krieg paused for the briefest of seconds then continued walking. Like Mary’s docile little lamb, I followed. Being docile wasn’t my natural state.

I thought he might go and wake this Katrín but no, he walked straight to his car. He opened the passenger door and pointedly held it open. ‘Get in,’ he ordered. I got in.

He walked around the car and slid into the driver’s seat. I waited until the engine was running before I asked where we were going.

‘I’m driving you home.’

‘You don’t need to do that. I can grab a taxi,’ I protested.

He didn’t answer. O-kay then. I was running on empty and I was too tired to fight him.

My eyes were gritty and sore, and I wanted sleep more than I wanted an argument.

This way, I didn’t have to wait for a lift.

If the High King of the Ogres wanted to play chauffeur, who was I to stop him?

My eyes were sliding shut, so I sat up and bit the inside of my lip.

The jolt of pain brushed away some of the sleepiness, for a moment at least. As soon as I got home, I was going to crash fast. I pulled out my phone and set an alarm for four hours’ time.

I could function fine after three hours’ sleep and the extra hour would lift ‘fine’ to ‘good’.

I slid my phone into the pocket of my suit jacket.

In a desperate bid to stay awake, I looked at the man next to me. ‘Did you know she loved you?’ I asked.

His hands were so tight on the steering wheel that I was genuinely worried he might wrench it off. ‘Yes,’ he said finally.

‘What did you do about it?’

He grimaced. ‘She tried to kiss me. I told her that her interest was flattering but misguided. I told her that I saw her as family. I did my best to let her down gently and redirect her attentions elsewhere.’

‘She was a beautiful young ogre.’

He nodded. ‘She was.’ He turned to look at me and hesitated a moment. ‘I have no interest in dating someone half my age.’ His eyes held mine. ‘I want my mate to have life experience. She’ll need balls to take on the ogre den. Helga …’

‘Didn’t have either of those things,’ I finished.

‘No. She was soft, kind-hearted.’ He made it sound like a criticism.

‘Surely that’s a good thing in a mate?’

‘Perhaps for an ordinary ogre,’ he shrugged. ‘But I am the High King. My standards are necessarily different.’

I was genuinely interested. ‘What’s on your list?’

‘My list?’

‘Of attributes for your mate?’

‘She must be strong; she must have her own morality – and she must be willing to kill for me.’

I raised an eyebrow; the last two seemed a mite contradictory. ‘That’s it?’

He nodded. ‘That’s it.’

‘What about beauty?’

He looked amused. ‘I am an ogre. As a group we are misshapen and deformed, and what you consider beauty we often do not. To an ogre, appearance matters little. Beauty fades, it is what is in her heart and soul that would interest me.’

I was genuinely stumped. ‘Huh,’ I said eloquently. ‘I wouldn’t have expected that.’

‘Most would not. Most look at our tusks and our overly large limbs and think we are brutes.’

‘Well, you do lean into the brute stereotype.’

He smiled a little. ‘We do, and we take pleasure in it. But there is far more to us than that.’ He pointedly turned his attention back to the road.

Ogres were notoriously close-mouthed about their culture and it was disconcerting that he had shared so much today. It was the case, I decided. He thought it was relevant, that was all.

The seat was warm and the hum of the engine was quietly soothing. Before I knew it, my eyes were sliding closed.