Heart of Stone

He gave her another sideways look, a smile playing at his mouth. “You’re saying this to me? Janx and I go back a ways, Grit. I’ve been on him for years and he knows it. Cat and mouse game.” He shrugged. “Maybe he figures giving me a heads-up on a guy who might be killing women all over the city will commute some of his sentence when I finally make the arrest. So did he know anything?”

Margrit pulled her head down until her upper spine cracked. She sighed, feeling tension release with the popping nitrogen. “I wish.”

“You telling me the truth?”

Margrit smiled. “I thought you believed people were basically honest, Tony.”

“I do. I also know you’ve been keeping things from me all along with this goddamn investigation.” There was no heat in the detective’s voice, just weariness.

“You haven’t been exactly forthcoming yourself,” Margrit said, but nodded against her knees.

“I want this thing over with. I want our lives back, Grit. Just you and me and our breakups. Like it used to be, without your new friend in the picture.”

“Alban’s not…” She had no words for what Alban was or wasn’t. Not human whispered through her mind again, and she sighed. “It shouldn’t matter.”

“It does matter, Grit. I don’t know who the guy is and I don’t like that you’ve been covering for him. If there’s something going on, don’t I deserve to know?”

Margrit released her head, turning to look at the dark-haired man by her side. “Nothing’s going on.” It was as much an untruth as anything Janx or Daisani had said to her. “Nothing like you’re thinking.” Warmth crept up her body and she lowered her head again, hiding any telltale blush that might color her cheeks. “We’ll see what happens. Right now I’m going to see if I can find anything out about where Cara might have gone. I’ll talk to Daisani if I have to.”

“You think Eliseo Daisani disappeared your client?”

“Under the circumstances, I think it’s not beyond the realm of possibility, although I wouldn’t say it in a court of law just yet. If you’ll put out that APB…”

“Yeah.” Tony got to his feet and offered her a hand. “I will. It might take awhile. There’s a lot of shit to clean up after this murder. I’ll do my best, Grit, okay?”

“Thank you.” Margrit hesitated, then let him pull her to her feet. “I owe you one, Tony.”

“Yeah.” He crooked a faint, uncertain smile, still holding her hand. “We better?”

“Better than what, Tony? We’re not together. I mean, you can’t think we are. Not with…” She trailed off, unwilling to discuss recriminations and recognizing too clearly their same old pattern in her reluctance. “This still isn’t the time to talk about it. I’ve got to find Cara, and you…”

Tony whitened his lips, then nodded, expression unreadable. “I have to go explain to my boss why there’s another dead woman in the park.” He let her go without trying for a kiss, his face still drawn and serious. “Be careful, Margrit.”

“Yeah. You, too.” Margrit turned back to face the empty apartment so she didn’t have to watch him go.

CHAPTER 26

AFTER A LIFETIME of not knowing gargoyles hid in the city’s shadows, Margrit’s irritation at being unable to find the one she sought was blown out of proportion. Having Janx’s Cruiser made both her irritation and her inability greater: convenient as a car was, she couldn’t watch the sky while she drove. Fingers tapping against the wheel, Margrit guided the vehicle toward downtown, wondering if she might find somewhere to park it at or near the Legal Aid building on Water Street.

Work. A wince tweaked her. The weekend was gone and she hadn’t been near the office, much less spent the hours putting together supporting documents for the injunction that she’d promised she would. She thought of the Russell will kill you file folder and let a deep breath turn into a sigh. He’d have to kill her. There was no way to turn back the weekend and be in two places at once.

Besides, with Cara missing, there might be no case for the injunction anyway. Margrit swore under her breath and pushed away thought in favor of concentrating on driving. Minutes later she pulled into a downtown parking garage and took the ticket, trying not to think of how much the fee would be for overnight parking. Maybe she could deliver the stub to Janx and let him pick the car up himself.

The idea brought a grin to her face and she left the garage cheerfully, stretching her legs into a jog. Huo’s on First was close, and if anyone had a sense of where Alban might have hidden in the moments before sunrise, Chelsea seemed a likely candidate. Margrit came up the steps to the bookstore two at a time, cheeks pink from exertion. Chelsea appeared from the stacks with a look of amusement. “There you are. Who’s after you?”

“Nobody, I hope.” Margrit folded her arms over her chest. “I can’t find Alban. He suggested meeting here before, so I hoped…have you seen him?”

Chelsea tilted her head toward the beaded curtain at the back of her store, smile warming. “He’s waiting for you.”

Margrit jolted, a few quick steps sending her through the rattling curtain. Alban stood in time to catch her as she flung her arms around his neck. Even in human form, his scent was cold stone, the clean smell of earth after rain. Margrit inhaled deeply, tightening her arms around him and trying not to let herself think beyond the warmth and safety she found in his embrace. “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been trying to find you all night. I thought maybe something’d gone wrong this morning, at sunrise.”

He closed his arms around her carefully, as if she might be fragile. “I landed a few blocks from your building just before dawn. Perhaps I should have just gone to the top of yours, but I thought if anyone knew where you lived…I was careless,” he admitted. “I haven’t been that incautious in centuries. I won’t do it again.” He shifted his weight back so he could look down at her. “After I checked your home and saw you weren’t there, I came here. I hoped you’d think to. I’d have called your cell phone if I’d known the number.”

“It doesn’t work anymore. Malik phased it into oblivion.”

“Malik?” Alban’s voice rose with alarm. “You’ve seen Janx?”

“I’ve been busy since I saw you.” The words seemed so inadequate she laughed and cast a helpless glance upward. “I haven’t done my laundry, though. It’s Sunday, right?”

“It is,” Alban said, bemused. “Laundry?”

“That was my big plan for Sunday. Laundry and cleaning the bathroom. Maybe watch the Superbowl. I wonder who won.” She breathed a laugh and ducked her head. “How did I end up chasing down murderers and gargoyles instead?” She held up a hand to stop his reply, wincing at her purpling fingers. “Rhetorical question. Lawyers like those. Janx set us up, Alban. He sent us after Grace O’Malley so he’d have time to hire a copycat killer. Vanessa Gray was murdered last night.”

Alban’s eyes widened, palpable shock rolling off him. “Daisani’s assistant? That Vanessa Gray?”

“That one.”

Alban whistled, a long high sound of wind howling through stone, and Margrit looked at him in surprise. “You can whistle?”

His eyebrows wrinkled. “Can’t you?”

“Of course, but it’s so frivolous. You’re sort of stolid. I wouldn’t have thought whistling was in a gargoyle’s nature.”

Alban chuckled. “I don’t do it often.” Laughter faded into concern. “Do you understand what Gray’s death means, Margrit?”

“That Daisani’s schedule will be messed up for a week?” Margrit lifted her hand again, dismissing her own flippancy. “I know that Daisani hauled me in this afternoon to tell me I was personally responsible for apprehending the killer. He knows Janx is behind it, but he won’t go after him.”

“Personally responsible.” Alban’s voice became quiet. “Had he said that to me, Margrit, my inclination would be to run.”