Emerald Blaze (Hidden Legacy 5)

“Shall we compare notes?” Alessandro asked.

“Yes. Cheryl killed Felix. I can’t prove it, I don’t know if she did it alone, and I don’t understand how the serum fits into this murder, but she did it.”

Alessandro nodded. “Agreed. You go first.”

“She said that she couldn’t remember much about the day Felix died, then gave a detailed account down to the fruit she ate for breakfast. Her workshop and Felix’s office are roughly the same distance from the Pit. She left the office twenty minutes ahead of Felix and disappeared for two and a half hours.”

“What about her alibi?”

“It’s bullshit. When Cornelius’ wife was murdered, he hired Nevada to look into it. She proved that a woman named Olivia Charles murdered her. Cornelius avenged his wife and killed Olivia in a horrible way. Gloria Neville was Olivia’s best friend. She blames us for Olivia’s death.”

Alessandro smiled, a quick, vicious baring of teeth. “A blunder.”

A little scalding spark shot through me. Kissing him was out of the question. Imagining kissing him was out of the question. I dragged my train of thought back onto the right tracks.

“Yes. If Cheryl said she had dinner with anyone but Gloria, I would verify her alibi. But I have Gloria flagged. After the conspiracy to overthrow the Texas government was exposed and the dust settled, the affected Houses went after Connor and my sister. Gloria was in that mess up to her eyeballs. We keep tabs on her and her known associates, and I know for a fact that she and Cheryl are not close friends. They may sit on some of the same charity boards, but they don’t go out for drinks. Especially on Friday night. Do you know what Gloria does on Friday nights?”

Alessandro glanced at me. A little light danced in his eyes. He seemed to be enjoying himself beyond all reason. “Tell me.”

“She hosts a bingo game for her mother and her mother’s three elderly and insanely wealthy friends. They drink cheap wine and play for pennies.”

Alessandro laughed.

“Gloria was selected to be the alibi for one reason only—she will do and say anything to hurt House Baylor. If you called her right now and asked her if she had dinner with Cheryl, she would tell you yes and act offended that you even questioned it. And the four old ladies will lie through their teeth to back her up.”

Alessandro grinned at me again.

“Then there is the murder scene.” I leaned back. “How did Felix get onto that cable? You can’t reach it from the roof or the walkway, unless you had a ladder or caught it with some sort of extralong hook. Then, how would you get it around Felix’s neck and then dump him over the rail? Felix was a large athletic man and he was a Prime.”

Alessandro nodded. “True.”

“But if you’re a powerful animator, you can animate the wire. She had twenty minutes in the Pit. She disabled the security cameras, which meant she planned to kill him. She lured him to the spot on the walkway and the wire reached down and snapped around his neck, jerking him straight up. His neck was broken instantly.”

“It fits,” he said.

“Your turn.”

“She is afraid,” Alessandro said.

“What makes you think that?”

“I read her file. Your cousin is disturbingly thorough in his background checks. Cheryl has had no relationships after the death of her husband. Her life is split between her children and work. If she was ever involved with anyone, she must’ve gone to extraordinary lengths to keep the relationship private. This is a woman extremely conscious of her image. A woman like that wouldn’t respond to blatant interest from someone like me. She would find it inappropriate.”

“But she did.”

He nodded. “She smiled, nodded, and agreed with everything I said, even when it was utter nonsense.”

“I was wondering about the cost-benefit silliness you threw at her.”

“It’s out of character for her to respond to me. It means her position is so vulnerable that she is scrambling for any allies. She thinks I’m pretty and stupid, and therefore easily manipulated. She appealed to my fragile ego to get me on her side.”

I squinted at him. “Your ego would survive an apocalypse.”

“Thank you.”

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

“It was to me.”

A flash of the old Alessandro, here one second and gone the next, so quick I might have imagined it.

“Why did you stop on the way out?” he asked.

“A hunch. People who throw around words like legacy worry me, so I wanted to see Cheryl’s accomplishments. That room is full of giants, and I don’t mean constructs. There are no I’s on Cheryl’s constructs.”

“I don’t follow.”

“When one of the Castellanos invents something new, they mark it with a Roman numeral I. Digger I, Crawler I, Blossom I.”

His eyes narrowed. “Cheryl’s constructs all have high numbers. She hasn’t invented anything new. She just refined what came before her.”

“I think so. The Kraken would have been her first attempt at an original construct. I wonder to what lengths she went to make it.”

Alessandro pondered it. It was a disturbing thought. I would need to speak to Regina. Patricia’s wife was an upper-level Significant animator. Maybe she could tell me more.

“So, what did you do to Rahul?” Alessandro asked. “I didn’t see the wings.”

“Neither did he.” How did I know he would get around to that? “I don’t always need the wings. I can do it with my voice. Sometimes I can do it with my magic alone. Seeing the wings is a privilege, Alessandro.”

“Is it?”

I couldn’t help myself. “Even Albert hasn’t seen the wings.”

“Out of curiosity, what exactly has he seen, Catalina?”

I smiled. “None of your business.”

“I’ll just have to ask Albert myself.”

“You will leave Albert alone.”

The look he gave me was pure predator. I fought the urge to freeze. It was like crouching in the middle of the woods to take a drink from a stream, raising your head, and realizing a jaguar was staring at you from among the branches.

“You don’t have the right to be jealous.”

“I’m very aware of my rights,” he said. “I would never presume to tell you who you can love. But I will protect you, Catalina. If he intends to pressure your family, he will regret it.”

“If he pressures my family, I’ll take him apart. I don’t need your help.”

“You will get it anyway.”

Arguing with him was like pouring oil on a fire.

Oh. A half-forgotten thought popped up. “When you magic a weapon into your hands, can you tell where the original is located?”

Six months ago, he wouldn’t have given me an answer. I waited . . .

“Not the exact location or distance, but I can usually determine the general direction,” he said.

“Do you remember when you roasted the tentacles that grabbed Marat with a flamethrower? Where did it come from?”

He thought about it, raised his left hand, and pointed to the left and slightly forward.

“Is that the absolute direction or relative to the way you were positioned?”

“Relative.”

He had been facing the swamp with the shore directly in front of us. There was nothing to the left of him, except muddy water.

“It was underwater,” he said.

“Yes.”

“She torched his legs and then tossed it into the Pit.”

“Yes. The Abyss must’ve grabbed him.”

“The Abyss?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know what else to call it. Let’s say I’m Cheryl. I kill Felix and now he is dangling above the water like a delicious snack. The Abyss does exactly what it did today. It grasps his body, tries to pull it under, and partially succeeds, which accounts for the bruising on his face as well as the bite. Cheryl fights it with her wire, pulls Felix’s corpse out, but the Abyss is still holding on to his legs. Cheryl grabs a flamethrower—there might have been one there—torches the Abyss, and it lets go. Then she throws the flamethrower into the water. But why go through the trouble of saving the corpse?”

He wagged his eyebrows at me. “Would you like me to tell you?”

“Yes.”

“Corporate liability,” Alessandro said. “Without the body, Felix would be declared missing. Lander would mothball the entire project and comb the Pit looking for his son.”

And he would find the Abyss. I had a strong feeling Cheryl would avoid that at all costs.

“So here we are,” I said. “I know she did it. I can’t prove it. I don’t know if anyone helped her. I can’t take it to Linus, because I haven’t found the serum. I can’t take it to Lander either. I know exactly what he would say.”

“Kill that evil bitch,” Alessandro declared, perfectly imitating Lander’s voice.

I blinked at him. “Yes. We need more information. We need proof, so we’ll have to keep digging.”

Alessandro reached over and took my hand. His warm fingers squeezed mine.

Suddenly, I didn’t know what to do with myself.