“You talk to Shadi already?”
“Yes, ma’am. Odd, ain’t it, that he chose Babylon?”
“That’s what I said.” I sat with my hip perched on the edge of my desk. “She’s looking for a local connection.”
He nodded, as if he’d made the same call when he’d talked to Shadi. “How’s Pen?”
My lips twisted. “She’s fine.”
“I hope you weren’t too hard on her.”
My mouth dropped open. “You’re joking. Of course I was hard on her.”
He shook his head. “You ever have a broken rib, Cupcake?”
“No, but I’ve broken other bones.”
“All I’m sayin’ is she’s been through a lot. Taking one potion to ease the pain doesn’t mean she’s going to start riding the magic dragon again.”
“Whatever,” I said, crossing my arms. Before I could change the subject to one less likely to get me yelling, his phone buzzed.
He checked caller ID first. “What’s up, sir?”
Whatever Gardner’s response was, it made Morales’s brow slam together. “Got it,” he said in a clipped tone that could only mean trouble. “We’ll be there ASAP.”
He punched the End button and looked up at me. “Let’s roll, Cupcake.”
The luxury apartment building stood out like a garish rhinestone in a pile of rust. Volos had built the Phoenix along the Steel River as part of his plans to revitalize the Cauldron’s dying neighborhoods.
When the call came from Gardner to meet her at this address, she’d been sketchy with the details. Just that we needed to meet her there ASAP. When we’d arrived, the entire block was cordoned off and police lights flashed like strobes.
Morales and I ran into Mez on our way toward the building.
“You know what’s happening?” I asked the wizard. His dreads were their natural brown color that day. Instead of his normal vintage-inspired uniform, he wore a pair of faded jeans and a concert T-shirt from the alchemical band Spirit of Vitriol’s Solutio tour.
He held up his phone. “Just got a text to meet her at this address.”
“Judging from the production out here, we’re not looking at another theft.”
In the city of Babylon, personal theft was categorized as a felony, and any calls coming in for those sorts of crimes required four units to respond. But there had to be ten uniformed cops just outside the building, and through the glass doors of the building I could see dozens more milling around the building’s lobby.
“Murder?” Morales said.
Thinking about Aphrodite’s potions, I countered, “Or sexual assault.”
At that we all fell silent. We flashed our credentials at the police tape. “Special Agent Gardner around?” I asked the shift supervisor near the front doors.
“Top floor.”
Morales froze beside me. “Isn’t Volos’s apartment up there?”
The blood rushed from my face. I nodded and took off toward the building with the guys on my tail.
We took the stairs to the fourth floor because the CSI team was busy dusting the elevator for prints. On our way up we passed several other officers, who all wore the stoic expressions cops get at particularly gruesome crime scenes.
By the time we reached the top floor, my heart was pounding in a way that had nothing to do with the stairs we climbed and everything to do with worry. All the signs so far indicated a violent crime had occurred. The thought that the victim might be John scared me more than I was comfortable admitting to myself.
Once we reached the hallway, I expected to turn right, toward the door I knew to be John’s. Instead, all the action was centered on a door on the opposite end of the long hallway. Momentarily disoriented, I veered left and stopped in my tracks. About halfway down the hallway, a female uni was taking a statement from none other than John Volos.
The tightness in my chest eased a fraction, but before relief could totally claim me, a hotter emotion reared up. Deep down I knew the anger was directed at myself, but I wasn’t evolved enough to claim it. Instead I spun it around and aimed it directly at the man I’d been worried about two seconds earlier.
“Watch yourself, Cupcake,” Morales said under his breath. “You’re glaring at Volos like he killed your best friend.”
I realized that my hands were clenched into fists and my jaw was tight. I forcibly relaxed my muscles.
A quick glance down the hall revealed that John was watching me. His eyes were narrowed with concern. A silent question passed from him to me—What’s wrong?
I shook my head. I didn’t want his concern. I didn’t want to talk to him about how I was pissed at myself for caring whether he was alive or dead. And I certainly didn’t want to focus on the fact that in his faded jeans, mussed hair, and bare feet he looked a lot like the old John I used to love.
“I’m fine,” I snapped at Morales. “Let’s go.”
I marched forward, studiously avoiding Volos’s probing gaze. I heard Morales greet the tycoon and saw Mez nod a greeting from the corner of my eye. I barely spared him a glance and kept walking.
“Hello, Kate,” he called. I waved a hand over my shoulder and kept going.
The CSI supervisor, a real hard-ass named Perkins, greeted us at the apartment’s door and insisted we all don booties and gloves. “What’s the deal?” I asked him.
“Homicide. You might want masks, too. It’s pretty ripe.”
I shook my head. It’s not that I enjoyed the smell of death, but the ability to handle a rotting corpse was somewhat of a mark of honor among the BPD. Only rookies and pussies wore masks, and God help you if you yakked. Especially in front of one of the CSI guys, who’d give you holy hell for contaminating the crime scene.
Morales and Mez refused masks, too. Guess things weren’t all that different in the MEA, either. But we all put on the booties and took gloves.
“They’re waiting for you in the master bedroom,” said Perkins. “Down the hall. Try not to touch anything, m’kay?”
Once inside, the traffic was sparser. I had a feeling if Gardner hadn’t specifically requested our presence, we wouldn’t have been allowed inside at all.
The apartment was a mirror image of John’s on the other side of the top floor. Wide floor-to-ceiling windows spanned the living room, offering a breathtaking view of the lake. The seating area, dining room, and kitchen were open-concept, which made the space feel massive. But the place was empty except for a couple of fingerprint techs working their way around the room.