Frozen Desires (Asylums for Magical Threats 2)

Pushing the thought aside, she said, “Fine. First, we put the bullshit aside, and now we treat each other as equals. I wonder what you’ll ask for next.”

One side of Marco’s mouth rose in a half-smile. “I know what I’m betting on.”

Cam cleared her throat, not wanting to think of the true meaning of his words. “No man-whore behavior, remember?” She tossed her hair over her shoulder and started walking. “Now, catch up so you can tell me what you know about these murders.”

Chapter Seventeen

An hour later, Marco stood inside a small house on one of the edges of the city, waiting for his witness to stop crying.

The victim this time had been a twenty-four year old restaurant worker named Fernando Vega. Marco didn’t have much information on Vega, which meant he was relying on Vega’s widow to determine if this fire was related to the others or not.

And so far, it wasn’t going very well.

The sight of the young woman crying only reminded him of what his aunt back in Colombia must be going through after hearing about his cousin Isa’s death.

The woman couldn’t tell him anything as long as she kept crying—he needed to try a new tactic. In an effort to calm the widow down, Marco softened his voice. “Mrs. Vega, I know this is a difficult time for you, but the more information I get, the greater the chance I can catch the arsonist. So again, I ask you, did your husband’s family have any connection with the AMT, either past or present?”

“I—,” Mrs. Vega started to sob again and he resisted a sigh. At this rate, they would walk away empty-handed.

Marco had tried to approach this situation in a straightforward manner, but what had worked with the man in Pisté was not going to work here.

He racked his brain, trying to think of a different way to approach the woman, when Cam moved from the corner where she’d been standing and kneeled on the ground next to the woman’s chair.

Cam placed a gentle hand on the woman’s arm and said in accented Spanish, “What’s your name?”

“Ma-maria.”

Cam switched back to English. “Maria, can you still understand me?” Maria nodded and she continued. “Maria, I lost my parents when I was eleven. Even now, it’s painful to talk about them.” She squeezed Maria’s arm and the woman looked up. “But every once in a while, I force myself to talk about them because if I always keep silent, and never tell people how kind or loving my parents had been, it would be like the world had forgotten them. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t want that to ever happen.”

Maria had stopped sobbing, but all Marco could do was stare at Cam. Never in a million years would he have pictured her gently comforting a widow. Yet there she was, doing what he should’ve been doing from the moment they’d walked in the door.

No doubt Cam had hidden her softer side to keep up her reputation within DEFEND. But now he’d seen her empathy, he wondered what else she was hiding. Camilla Melini was fast becoming an enigma he wanted to solve.

Maria Vega lowered her hands from her face, and Cam grasped one of Maria’s hands in her own before she continued in a gentle tone. “Maria, help keep your husband’s memory alive. Tell me about Fernando.”

Fernando. The name Fernando brought up images of Marco’s little brother of the same name, one he hadn’t seen in years. A little brother who thought he was human, and might never know the truth.

A brother he’d probably never see again.

Focus, Alvarez. Cam’s comments about family were bringing up his own memories. He’d had to distance himself from his family to keep them safe. Even if he got the chance to investigate his cousin’s murder, his parents probably wouldn’t let him anywhere near his siblings.

When Maria finally wiped away her tears with her free hand and nodded, Marco pushed aside thoughts of his family and focused on her answer. “Nando appeared tough on the outside, but inside, he was the most thoughtful man I’d ever met.” Maria gave a sad smile. “As soon as I told him I was pregnant, he rushed to the store and bought all of my favorite foods and the best-selling pregnancy book.” She placed a hand on her abdomen and looked down. “But he’ll never meet our baby—”

Maria let out a sob, and Cam drew the woman into a hug. “Which is why it’s so important to keep his memory alive.” She released Maria so she could look into the woman’s face. “I’m going to try everything in my power to catch the bastards who killed your husband, but to do that, I need you to answer my friend’s questions. Can you do that?”

Cam had broken one of her own rules—never show her soft side in front of a co-worker she didn’t trust with her life—but found she didn’t care. Maria Vega was hurting, and no matter what people thought of her, Cam wasn’t cold-hearted.

She understood grief.

When her own parents had died, she had screamed for two days, calling out for her mom and dad, sobbing herself to sleep each night. Everyone had tiptoed around the issue, unsure of how to handle an eleven-year old girl’s grief. Then Uncle Alex—her mother’s brother—had come and encouraged her to talk about her parents. As he’d listened, for the first time, Cam hadn’t felt completely sad. The happy memories had helped her heal.

And while it’d been some time since she’d spoken about her parents, she hoped that she’d get the chance to reminisce with her sister Kiarra soon.

As she waited for Maria’s answer, she was acutely aware of Marco’s gaze on her back. She didn’t look forward to explaining herself to him later. Right now, Maria was more important, and not just because the woman was grieving.

The arson fires were an old Fed League M.O. If it turned out they were doing them again, Cam had some old contacts that could help stop them.

Even though she’d never killed anyone directly while working for the Fed League, she’d played a part in too many deaths, and that guilt continued to eat at her to this day. While working for DEFEND had helped to make some amends, stopping the fires might just help bring down the Fed League for good, which would nearly atone for her past. She might finally be able to put the Fed League behind her.