Killer's Gambit (Psychic For Hire 3)

Dear Finch, she had began every single entry with:

Dear Finch, It is so exciting to be at university. I never thought mama would let me go, but I made a deal with her that I would live at home to save money and babysit the kids during my spare hours and I would get a part-time job to help put towards the bills, and she said we’ll see how it goes. I miss you. I wish now that I’d had the guts to stand up to mama when she told me I couldn’t see you anymore. You were my best friend….

Dear Finch, Lectures are really hard and I’m struggling to keep up with everyone else. The lecturer talks about stuff that everyone thinks is basic background information, but I’ve never heard of it before. And don’t have time to do all the extra reading because in the evenings I need to feed the kids and they won’t give me any peace and quiet. It’s a full-time job trying to keep the boys at home and doing their homework instead of out on the streets, where mama doesn’t want them to be. And I’ve had to turn down a couple of shifts at the cafe I’ve been working in because I had to be home with the kids. They didn’t like that. I think of you often, and how wonderful it would be to be able to give you a call. The boys used to love you. You could have taken them to play basketball in the park nearby. Maybe mama wouldn’t have minded that if she hadn’t found out about you.

Dear Finch, They fired me at work. My boss was really mean. I think she wanted to make me cry, and I’m embarrassed that I did because it was such a shock when she said to me in the middle of the staff meeting that she had to let me go. Nobody else. Just me. Mama will never let me stay at university now. She said I have to drop out and get a full-time job. I wish I was like you. I wish I could run away and live your kind of life where people are powerful and free. Where life is exciting. Wish I had the guts to call you and tell you I miss you…

Dear Finch, I’ve met the most exciting new people and they’ve offered to pay me to be a waitress and socialize at their parties. They’re your kind of people, and I secretly daydrea

m that one day I am going to bump into you at one of the parties and it will be just like old times… I’ve got enough money for the bills now but mama hates my job. I think she knows that I can’t be working a normal job and she’s suspicious of the people that I’m hanging out with. Why does she have to be so mean and worried and angry all the time? Why can’t she just trust me? If only you were here again. This time I would tell her to back off and leave us alone…

It was all the usual heartache and joys and angst that I imagined any eighteen-year-old at her first year at university would be feeling when life was changing so much so quickly. Not that I would know. I had never been to university.

It was odd to me that she had addressed the whole thing to Finch. There had been no mention of whether she and Finch had just been friends or in a relationship or anything in particular about Finch himself.

The feelings I got from the diary did not offer any new leads. No hints of anyone dangerous that she had met, no visions of any of the events that she wrote about, and nothing more than wisps of the emotions she had felt as she had written the entries down.

The diary entries ended suddenly. The last one was another entry addressed to Finch where she daydreamed about meeting him and having fun and dancing together at one of the parties that she mentioned, but most of it was just talk of her feelings and insecurities, with no mention of any names.

By the time I finished reading it was just past 5:00 pm. Still daylight. Too early for me to go to the Ronins and too early for me to go to the back to the bar that I had met Marielle in to check that out again. Marielle had not called me either. She had not offered me her number, and I hadn’t asked for it given that she was a private citizen and a vampire to boot. I was being impatient. It had only been a couple of days and she probably didn’t have any news yet.

I sent Storm a message saying that I was still chasing leads on the Zezi Shahidi case and that I would see him tomorrow.

Feeling impatient to do something useful, anything at all, I ended up calling the cowboy. Ronin had said I could make use of the cowboy while investigating the case, and I had assumed he meant as a chauffeur.

The cowboy answered his phone immediately. “Do you think vampires would be awake by now?” I asked him.

“Sure thing,” he said. “They don’t like the daylight much but that doesn’t mean they’re not up in it. They don’t need much rest.”

“Excellent! Can you meet me at University College London? I need a lift to the Ronin house.”

I got myself a chai latte to go and made my way to the spot we’d agreed to meet at, outside of a big red crossed-shaped building called the cruciform. Five minutes later the cowboy rolled up in the Cadillac with American country music blaring. The sight put a big grin on my face. The guy really knew how to live big. I liked that.

The cowboy got out to open the passenger door for me but I waved him away. I could darn well open my own door. But then a shout stopped me. I turned towards the source. A guy who was waving at me from down the street. It was Finch Greyiron.

Chapter 9

FINCH

Finch had been eating crunchy nut cornflakes that morning in the kitchen of his halls of residence when the doorbell downstairs had rung. He had looked out of the window which overlooked the street and seen a very pretty blond haired girl outside, hoping to be let in. Innocent enough, if it wasn’t for the fearsome and authoritative way that she’d jabbed the buzzer as if she owned the place. Immediately, Finch had been on his guard, worried that she was here to see him.

He had been right, as he’d realized a few minutes later when some idiot had let her in and she had knocked first on Finch’s bedroom door and then confronted his nosy neighbor Matt, demanding to know where Finch was. Finch had been standing behind the kitchen door just a few meters away from her, wondering what the hell she wanted.

He had been careful, he knew he had, and there was no reason for anyone to have come looking for him.

Even so, it was best not to hang around, so he had pulled his disappearing act. Fading, he called it. Fading into the air, becoming a part of it, a rare skill that absolutely no one must ever know that he had. It was certainly not one that goblins were known for, and nobody at his university even knew he was goblin. Humans were notoriously distrustful of goblins. As they were right to be.

So Finch had faded into the air and drifted past the Diana girl and down the stairs, where he had re-materialized near the front door. He’d swiftly let himself out of the flat and made his way to the first of his classes that day. He had not expected the Diana girl to follow him, but she had, proving remarkably persistent. In the end he had followed her, first back to his room where she had left him a note, and then to a cafe where she had sat for two hours with her attention riveted to some book that she was reading.

The note she’d stuck to his door had said that she worked for the Agency of Otherkind Investigations and she had insisted that he had better call her back or else she would be coming back in an official capacity. That had been jarring. But if she really knew what Finch was up to she would never have left a note to warn him she was after him. And if it wasn’t that, then what did she want?

Whatever it was could clearly put his entire life and everything he had worked for in jeopardy since the Agency were involved. Not knowing what she wanted, Finch hadn’t been able to decide whether it was best to speak to her and get it over and done with or whether it was best to avoid her entirely.

The cafe that she’d chosen was inside a bookshop, and very busy with students, so it had not been difficult for Finch to quietly take a seat some distance away from Diana and keep an eye on her. Growing bored after half an hour of watching her read that damned book, he had pulled his little fading act and drifted over her to see what she was so engrossed in. And gotten a shock.

It had been a book full of handwritten letters to him. In handwriting that he would have recognized anywhere. It was Zezi’s handwriting. She had been writing to him!

But before he could get a closer look, Diana Bellona had suddenly stiffened and looked around her in confusion as if she sensed his presence, which was impossible of course, since he was nothing more than air. But it had unnerved him. He’d backed off, drifting off to a quiet spot behind a bookshelf to resume his normal form before re-taking his seat at the other end of the cafe.