“Save your breath. If Mayan came to you with some damsel in distress routine, find someone else to handle it. I can’t play nice with her.”
“Let me remind you that you now work for me,” Levi said, coolly. “Exclusively. You can’t turn this case down.”
“Oh boy,” Priya muttered.
I shot him the finger. “Challenge accepted.”
Priya grabbed the leash. “Want to go for a walksie?”
Mrs. Hudson toddled over to her, her paws clicking against the wood floor. Priya clipped the leash to her collar and the two of them left, the front door closing with a snick behind them a moment later.
Levi dropped all facades of humor in favor of a strained expression that Mayan, did not, in my opinion, deserve. He sank into a chair. “You’re the only one with the investigative skills who also knows Mayan enough to determine if her behavior recently is…” He paused. “Uncharacteristic.”
I’d trusted Levi with my entire career, and after everything we’d gone through, everything that I believed we’d come to mean to each other, my skills not only weren’t valued, they were reluctantly engaged.
“Delighted you feel you have literally no other option,” I said. “Besides, this can’t be all that urgent if Mayan came to see you two weeks ago and you’re just dealing with it now.” A thought hit me like a linebacker rushing the winning team’s quarterback at the five-yard line with six seconds left in the Super Bowl. “When specifically?”
Levi’s brilliant blue eyes met mine. “The night of Omar’s attack.”
I laughed bitterly, dumping the rest of the bottle into my glass. “Your alibi.”
“I didn’t sleep with Mayan,” he said. “We ended up talking late into the night and she’d had wine so she slept in the guest room.”
Levi and I weren’t exclusive. I could have slept with a dozen people since we’d first hooked up and Levi was certainly free to do as he chose. We had an understanding: we were friends who enjoyed each other’s bodies. That was all I had time for, not small talk and visions of how comfortably he fit into my living room.
“Why do you feel the need to enlighten me about who is and is not in your bed?” I said.
“It’s relevant to this case,” he said.
I took a large slug of wine, choking it down past my tight throat.
“I’m not asking because Mayan and I are involved,” Levi said. “She called me, very upset and insisting that we meet because she required help. But when she came over, the entire visit played out like two people catching up. No urgency, just reminiscing and her telling me about her life these days. The visit was pointless. I asked her what she’d been so upset about, but she acted like she didn’t have the faintest idea what I was referring to.”
“You think someone got to her?” Intrigued despite myself, I sat up so fast that my ice pack slid to the ground. “If she’s really in danger, like in an abusive relationship, you should go to the Mundane police.”
“I did,” he said in a tight voice. “Even though she said she was currently single, I reached out discreetly to someone I trust on that force to look into it. The officer came back with nothing. According to friends, Mayan hadn’t mentioned seeing anyone in some time now. She hasn’t distanced herself; there haven’t been any odd bruises. Nor have there been strange withdrawals from her bank account. The officer conclusively ruled out domestic abuse or blackmail.” He rubbed a hand over the dark scruff on his jaw. “I thought Mayan reached out to me because I was her ex, but what if she needed me as House Head to protect her from something?”
It was a fair assumption. A lot of people came to Levi. He’d recently told me about a Nefesh woman whom he’d helped get a refugee visa for, in order to get her mother out of a country known for its persecution of people with magic. Levi was the Godfather of his community, minus leaving horse heads in beds. As far as I knew.
“What could you, as House Head, protect her from?” I said. “She’s a socialite Mundane. I’d be surprised if she knows anyone shadier than some dude with a line to designer purses that fell off the back of a truck.”
“This morning I’d have bet that Tatiana wasn’t mixed up with Chariot either.”
I set my glass down. This conversation was killing my buzz. “Mayan isn’t Tatiana and unless Chariot is in serious need of fundraising, she has nothing to offer them. She’s never struck me as caring about magic one way or the other, so what would she get out of teaming up with them? She’s not part of that organization.”
“I don’t think she is,” he said with exaggerated patience. “But she was scared and she came to me over something. Now she may be missing.”
“Why didn’t you lead with that?”
“Because I don’t know for sure,” he snapped. He exhaled slowly. “Sorry. I haven’t been able to get hold of her for a couple days and she hasn’t been in to work. She did leave her boss a voicemail saying she was taking some time off, but it was very last-minute and she didn’t give a reason. That’s not like her, but on the other hand, she didn’t simply disappear without any notice so is there actually cause for alarm? Who knows? But that initial call of hers is bothering me.”
“Did you think I’d refuse? I don’t like her, but I don’t wish her active harm.” From anyone who wasn’t me.
“Fuck, Ash, would I rather that the woman I’m currently sleeping with not investigate my ex? Funny, that.” He pulled his sweater on, but I got the impression it was more so he didn’t have to meet my eyes as he spoke than because he was cold. “I felt weird about how concerned I am when it might be nothing.”
If Levi’s feelings for Mayan had resurfaced then we wouldn’t be anything for
