He sighed, rubbing a hand over his weary face. “You and I both know your intent.”
Alice’s smile widened. “You can’t arrest me for intent.”
He nodded, surprising me. I’d thought the old boy had more fight in him than that. “Bad day?” I asked before I realized the words were going to escape my mouth.
He sighed. “A long one.” He cast his gaze on the greasy bag of tacos in the center of the table. “You don’t have any of those to spare, do you?”
Alice nodded and stood, picking up her trash. “Have a seat. Do you want some tea?”
Sebille surged to her feet. “I’d be happy to make it.” The sprite sent me a pleading look. She must have heard how bad Alice’s tea and…well everything else she fixed…was.
“That would be great,” I said, avoiding Alice’s gaze. “I’d love some too, Sebille.”
“Brilliant,” Alice said, dropping into Sebille’s abandoned chair. “Any progress on the case?”
Grym pulled the bag closer and retrieved a taco, carefully unwrapping it and adding two packets of sauce before answering. “Other than the odd condition of the corpse…” He eyed us. “Which, I’m guessing you already figured out since you sent the sprite over the scene to view it…”
Yep, there was no moss growing on Detective Grym and Grouchy.
“We know it was pressed into a rectangle that was about three feet by two feet,” Alice agreed, sending me a warning glance.
It wasn’t necessary to warn me off elaborating. No good would come from EPD knowing the suitcase that had probably contained the corpse had been in the artifact library for the better part of a day before being liberated by magical means. “Have you ever seen anything like that before,” I asked him.
He took his time chewing and swallowing. And then promptly took another bite, staring at me as he chewed.
The message in his eyes was clear as a bell. He wasn’t going to tell.
But that was okay because his unwillingness to answer my question was all the answer I needed. “Any idea who killed him?”
Grym swallowed again, reaching for the bag.
I slammed my hand down on it and his gaze met mine, locking on.
I raised my brows.
Apparently, he was really hungry because he opened those perfect lips and said, “We’re looking into the possibility that Gnomish had him taken out.”
I was so surprised by his announcement I forgot to hold onto the bag, and he wrenched it away from me. I’d get nothing more from him until his next taco was gone.
“We were thinking along the same lines,” Alice admitted.
Grym’s gaze slid from mine. “Why?”
She shrugged. “Probably the same reasons you were.”
He swallowed. “Humor me.”
Sebille set a cup of tea in front of the detective. “Gnomish runs a protection racket,” the sprite told him. “It’s a company of thugs.”
“Go on,” he told her.
She gave me a steaming cup that smelled wonderful. I inhaled deeply over the chipped china, my eyes closing in pleasure. The tea smelled like heaven. Or magic.
“The scene with Alice in front of this place wasn’t good for their business. Gnomish would know this,” Sebille responded. “By killing Gido and dumping his body on the street, they send a message while removing any perceived weakness in their organization.”
Grym swallowed and glanced at the taco bag before looking at me.
“Go ahead,” I told him. I was too busy enjoying my tea to deprive him of sustenance. “This tea is so good,” I told the sprite. “What did you do to it?”
Sebille shrugged. “Nothing.”
Grym groaned in pleasure. “She’s right, you must have added something. Maybe just a titch of magic?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. I’m tea talented.”
“You definitely are,” Grym the Formerly Grumpy agreed.
Alice sipped her tea and gave Sebille a thumbs up. “Have you talked to Gnomish yet?”
Grym prepped his taco. “No. It’s too delicate.”
“Delicate?” Sebille asked, her skinny form going rigid with anger. “What does that mean?”
“It means the owner of the company is friends with the Mayor. It means the company is hands-off unless we can find indisputable evidence that they’re involved.”
“But how are you going to do that if you can’t investigate them?” I asked.
“We can investigate, but we can’t approach them directly. And we have to be careful not to set off any alarm bells with our approach.”
“Banshee boogers!” I said. “That’s crazy.”
He nodded. “Welcome to the world of politics and cronyism.”
“I say we go in,” Sebille said. She scraped a piece of lettuce off one tooth and sipped her tea, looking very relaxed in the chair. Like she wasn’t planning on leaving any time soon.
I yawned. “In where?”
“Gnomish,” she told me, about half disgusted with me for having to ask.
“That’s a brilliant idea!” Alice agreed, her eyes lighting with interest behind her glasses.
Oliver was sitting on her shoulder again, blinking blank eyes at us and working his tiny throat. Fenwald was in his favorite spot, draped along the wide sill beneath the front window, his tail hanging limply toward the ground.
I couldn’t see anything in the glass except our reflection, but the big cat appeared to be watching something. “Do you mean sneak in?” I had no idea what we could possibly gain from such a scandalous act. I, for one, didn’t know how to begin looking for proof that they’d killed Gido.
“Sure. Why not?” the sprite said. “I doubt they’ve even got decent security there. They’re used to being the big bad wolf in the neighborhood. It probably wouldn’t occur to them that they might need security”.
Alice rubbed her hands together. “Let’s do it tonight.”
I started shaking my head, but Sebille beat me to it. “Not tonight. We need to plan for this.”
Alice’s face fell. “What’s to plan? We just
