Copycat Killer (Psychic For Hire 1)

Rosalie is waiting outside the office, pacing back and forth in an agitated manner. She glowers at me

The little voice smirks. “Eric told you to fuck off Rosalie,” she says. “Because the job is mine.”

Chapter 18

STORM

Storm gets to Agency Headquarters in a better mood than he has felt in days. He had parked his car a little way up Diana’s street and then tailed her to see where she’d go. She had hopped into a cab that drove east, towards her place of employment. It is good to know she has finally let go of her mad ideas about Beatrice.

He is glad she is finally getting back on track with her life. He plans on speaking with the chief later, to see if the Agency will consider sponsoring her to train as an Oracle. Even better, he can finally focus completely on his job and stop worrying about her.

He finds his team is already working, sat at their desks outside his glass walled office. As Storm approaches, Leo raises an eyebrow, as if silently acknowledging that Storm came in late, which he never does. Storm ignores it. He ignores Remi’s grin too. Clearly they’ve been speculating about Diana staying at his place last night.

His scowl only makes Remi smile wider, particularly when he says, “Monroe, arrange a hotel for Diana to stay at tonight until forensics clears her apartment. And give her a call later to tell her about it, will you?” After seeing where she lives he no longer thinks posting an officer outside will work.

“And make sure it’s somewhere with a good breakfast,” he adds.

“Yes, sir,” Monroe says.

He quirks his brow at Leo and Remi. “Update?” he says.

Remi groans. “It’s first thing in the morning, boss. I’ve barely had my coffee yet.”

Monroe gives a nervous laugh. “She’s joking, sir. We got something back from forensics. That partial fingerprint that Remi found on the window outside the Everett house? A result came back for it.”

Storm gestures for the team to follow him into his office. They take their usual seats around the small meeting table in there. Storm deposits the coffees and the box of donuts he picked up on the way in front of them, and they help themselves. Remi snatches the chocolate one before Leo can get to it. She cackles at Leo, who scowls back at her.

“And?” says Storm, depositing his jacket on a hook and dragging his chair out from behind his desk to join them. He helps himself to a frosted lemon donut. He hands a plain sugared ring to Monroe who has yet to help himself.

“Plain?” Remi scoffs.

Storm shrugs. “I get the feeling Monroe is a plain donut kind a guy.”

Monroe accepts his donut. He gives an apologetic glance to Remi. “He’s right. I don’t like too much sugar.”

“Ha!” says Storm.

Monroe grins. He hands over the tablet he has bought into the room with him to Storm.

“It was Kris Caprio’s fingerprint,” says Remi, inadvertently stealing Monroe’s thunder.

Monroe looks disappointed. “We matched it to the fingerprints taken for elimination,” he mumbles.

Remi is unaware. She licks chocolate frosting off her thumb. “It doesn’t mean anything unfortunately,” she continues. “Because in theory Caprio could have been there peering in through the window for some other reason, given that he is Everett’s personal assistant. Heck, maybe Everett makes him clean the windows.”

“What’s the status on Caprio’s alibi?” Storm asks.

“He might not have been at the set like he said he was,” says Monroe. “Nobody I have questioned so far remembers seeing him for most of Friday and half of Saturday. It doesn’t mean he wasn’t there. The set was busy. I wasn’t able to get hold of some of the people I tried calling. I’m still chasing them.”

“Anything on the murder weapon?” says Storm.

Remi speaks up. “No prints on it. No DNA other than the victim’s. I spoke with his vampire-hunter TV show people. The props handler said the axe definitely didn’t come from the show set, and they do actually have some real axes there. The killer staged it to look like it was from Everett’s show. Which does throw doubt on the possibility of Caprio being the killer because Caprio had access to the set. He could just have stolen an axe from there to make it genuine.”

“And Everett’s alibi?” says Storm.

“Astrid Wikander has not been answering her phone,” says Leo. “I left several messages, and I’ll chase her again today. I did manage to speak to her assistant, Kyra Lyle, who confirmed she had a forty minute video call with Wikander at 8:00 pm on Friday night, the evening of the murder. She saw Wikander walking all around the beach cottage during the call, so there’s no doubt that Wikander was there. That takes her out of the frame for the murder, because there were no flights that would have got her to London in time. But Kyra doesn’t recall seeing Everett anywhere in the video during that call, even though Wikander walked between both the lounge and the bedroom.”

Storm takes a sip of coffee, mulling it over. “It still doesn’t mean Everett wasn’t there,” he says.