“Yeah, he’s a bit much when he’s drunk,” said Murdock.
“No, I mean I’m not crazy. I thought I was hallucinating and going crazy. All this time, I’ve just been hearing people I killed,” I said.
Murdock slowly turned his head and stared at me. “Uh-huh,” he said.
“No, well, what I mean is… Wait a sec, there goes the secretary again,” I said.
I was watching Ardman’s secretary, Sophie Wells, but my mind was reeling with the idea of the dead haunting me. After so many days of anxiety, the things that had been happening to me had a rational explanation. Rational, of course, being a relative thing in my life.
Wells stepped off the threshold of the Ardman house, her movement snapping me back to attention. I’d told her twice to stop that because it made her look suspicious and might tip Powell. At least she had varied the time of her coffee run. She adjusted her scarf against the cold. The scarf was the all-clear signal that Powell had set up with Ardman, and she had worn it every day at the same time. Wells passed the car without looking at us this time, another thing I had had to explain to her. She wasn’t stupid, just inexperienced.
Less than a minute later, she quick-stepped across the street from the opposite direction. I knew I didn’t see her pass us and loop around. She turned the corner onto Pinckney, and her coat fluttered open to reveal her white blouse. No scarf. Suspicious, I did a flash sensing on her and grabbed the door handle. “It’s her.”
Murdock didn’t waste time debating and followed. Wells had entered the Ardman townhouse by the time we reached the front door. I tapped on my earpiece. “Keeva, Wells is the target. She’s glamoured.”
Keeva’s voice spoke calmly in my ear. “We’ve got Ardman in her office.”
I nodded to Murdock. “The office off the parlor. You first, then me.”
Murdock pulled his gun and opened the door. He led with his gun, and we strode through the foyer. Both pocket doors were open to the back office. Wells stood in the arch. Lady Ardman rose from her desk as Wells turned toward us with a confused look.
“Police. Hands out,” Murdock said.
“What…” said Wells. She raised her hands in front of her.
Murdock rushed her and pointed the gun to the side of her head. “I said hands out, not up.”
Panicked, Wells froze. “I don’t understand, Officer.”
Murdock pressed the gun against her temple. “Hands out or I put a bullet through your head. You know what that feels like, don’t you, Powell?”
The fear slipped from Wells’s face and became anger. “Lady Ardman, please! What’s going on?”
Ardman smiled. “Let’s all drop the masquerade, shall we?”
She slid her hands behind her neck and removed her necklace. Her face rippled, the colors blurring and shifting, and a glamour fell away. Impressed, I nodded as Keeva dropped the necklace on the desk. “Rhonwen ap Hwyl, a.k.a. Rhonda Powell, you are under arrest.”
Wells moved nothing but her eyes, looking first at Keeva, then Murdock, then me. With a shrug, she stretched her hands out to the side as essence rippled over her. There have been moments in my life when I’ve seen things I couldn’t believe, times when my eyes denied the reality in front of them. None of those times prepared me for the woman who stood in front of us. She shrank a few inches in height, her blond hair darkening to a pumpkin orange. I was wrong. I had been wrong. I was wrong, and I couldn’t believe I was wrong.
“I can explain everything,” Meryl said.
Keeva didn’t miss a beat. “We can talk about that at the Guildhouse.”
With a stricken look, Murdock relaxed his stance.
I struggled to find my voice. “Meryl, I don’t understand.”
A sad smile softened her face. “You will, honey.”
Essence surged around her. Murdock’s body shield flashed behind Meryl, filling the room with an angry red glow. In a blur of motion, he coldcocked her with his fist. She crumpled to the floor as Keeva deflected a ball of white essence that shot across the desk. It arced over her head and shattered a window.
Security agents rushed in, their hands primed with white light. Keeva came around the desk and stood over Meryl’s body. “You’re a little rough on the ladies, Detective,” she said.
Speechless, I sank to my knees and checked for a pulse. Relieved, I found it strong and regular. I pulled her against my chest. Even though she seemed fine physically, her essence wavered in my vision in an odd cycle of white and blue. Something was wrong.
Looking deeper, Meryl’s essence shone with a green haze but with an unnatural geometric shape burning blue in the middle of it, as if she had two different body signatures. I opened her coat. Something heavy shifted in the fabric. I slipped my hand into the inside pocket and found a brick of granite shot through with yellow crystal. Exactly like the ward stones Meryl used at the Guildhouse to amplify essence.
Without the ward stone, the woman in my arms blurred and changed shape. Her hair lightened to an ashen blond, and her features relaxed into the blunt face of someone I didn’t know. Repulsed, I pushed her away.
“Rhonda Powell. You were right, Connor,” said Keeva.
I looked up at Murdock. “How the hell did you know?”
He shrugged. “She called you honey. Meryl never calls you honey.”
I shot to my feet. “Are you kidding me?”
He backed away as he holstered his gun. “I’d be lying if I said I knew it wasn’t her, Connor. You were looking at her face. I keep my eyes on hands until they’re in cuffs. Hers turned white. I’ve seen that enough around you guys to know what comes next. I hit her when I saw that essence shot about to release. I’d do it again even if I was sure it was Meryl.”
Two responses warred within me. I wanted to thank him. I did. With Keeva’s physical condition weakened, he’d probably saved her life. Without her, Murdock would have his body shield, but I would have had no protection. But hearing the truth of the matter, that at the right moment, he put his personal feelings aside and hurt someone he thought a friend, struck a very deep chord. It was exactly what I feared I would do to Dylan. No matter how justified, it didn’t make me feel any better.
Keeva saved me from speaking. “Impressive reflexes, Murdock. I guess I owe you my thanks.”
He inclined his head to her. “You’re welcome.”
Keeva gestured to the Danann agents. “Make sure she’s properly secured. If she tries to escape, you are authorized to use any means necessary to take her down.” The agents wove a binding spell around Powell’s inert body, strands of fierce light winding about her body like rope. With practiced ease, they chanted a levitation spell to carry her out of the room.
“You could have told us you were here,” I said.
Keeva gathered up her necklace glamour. “I don’t believe in using civilians as bait.”
Murdock and I exchanged glances. It was a dig at us. We had used a young human as bait not too long ago. It hadn’t ended well.
“She should be in police custody,” said Murdock.
Keeva sighed. “You’re never happy, Murdock. You complain about the Guild not taking cases, and now you’re complaining that we are.”
“You’re not taking the murder cases. You’re taking a blackmail case,” he said.
Keeva walked to the front door. “Have your father call me. I’m sure the commissioner and I can work something out.”
Murdock’s strange essence surged again, a crimson flickering that enveloped him like a shroud. “Let it go, Murdock. She’s baiting you.”
He nodded without speaking, and his essence settled. “I want to be there for the interrogation.”
I hefted the ward stone Powell had used to create the Meryl glamour. “I think we’re all going to enjoy this one.”
CHAPTER 25
Another day, another visit to the Guildhouse holding cells. Keeva had locked Rhonda Powell in the deepest subbasement the Guild had to offer. The only furniture in the granite-block cell room was the chair that Powell occupied. Five-foot-high quartz obelisks tipped with silver surrounded her to form a triangular essence barrier-standard protection wards. They suppressed most fey abilities. Protocol called for an added calming spell in case the suspect became agitated and tried to use essence anyway. Not that Powell needed it. For someone in as much trouble as she was, she acted like she was bored waiting for a doctor’s appointment.