Taylor held very still and dropped his gaze, seeming to think it over. “Then who do you think killed Davies?”
I tried to hold back my grin. I’d hooked him—he was curious now, willing to consider another possibility. That was all I needed.
“The money Emerson paid Davies was enough to pay off some, but not all of his debts. Bora Kang was still breathing down Davies’s neck, so he decided to try and extort more merkles out of Emerson the night of the police ball. Emerson, seeing that Davies couldn’t be trusted to keep the secret, took advantage of his intoxicated state and pushed him overboard.”
I sucked in a breath. “I came here to tell Peter what I’d found and to suggest we return to the ship, the scene of the crime.” I shrugged. “There might be a seagull there who saw something that I could interrogate.”
Chief Taylor pursed his lips, his gaze far away, and nodded to himself. Finally, he looked up, eyes focused on me. “I’m not sure I believe in your animal abilities, Miss Hartgrave, but you present a fairly convincing theory.”
I opened my mouth to start convincing him further, but he held up a hand. “Now don’t get too excited—I’m not saying I’m convinced yet, and I doubt a seagull will make for any kind of reliable witness”—he shot me a dark look—“but returning to the scene of the crime isn’t a bad idea. We may stumble across some piece of evidence we missed.”
I grinned. This guy might be tough, but at least he was willing to hear out ideas that ran contrary to his own. Unlike Bon. I shot a heavy glance in the direction of his office. He always seemed to be trying to close cases as quickly as possible, regardless of how well justice was being served.
“Edna!”
I glanced over my shoulder. The office manager held one finger to her ear and had a line of officers gathered around her desk waiting for her attention. She glanced up, looking slightly dazed and overwhelmed.
“Clear my schedule for the next couple of hours,” Chief Taylor directed. “I’m going to deal with this situation.”
Edna opened her mouth to say something, that same concern in her eyes, but was cut off by the person speaking in her ear. She nodded. “Yes, yes, I’m here.” She held a finger up to an officer on her right. “Just a moment, I’ll be right with you.”
Chief Taylor scanned the sea of desks, then whistled and waved a couple of cops over to us. My stomach sank as I recognized the two buzzcuts from the other night on the ship who’d been hazing that rookie, Officer Russo.
Speaking of whom….
The young man bounced over, getting in the path of the other two. One of the buzzcuts shoved him out of the way, then stalked toward us. Behind them, Russo’s expression darkened. He rose on his tiptoes. “Why don’t I go too, huh?”
Taylor scowled at him. “We don’t need you, son.” He shrugged, adjusted the neck of his uniform jacket, then nodded grimly at the other two officers who towered over me. “Ready?” They nodded.
I gave a more hesitant nod, wishing I was going with Peter and not these three. As a secretly cursed shifter running a semilegal business, to put it generously, I was wary of cops. Anyone raised in the Darkmoon District learned to be.
I climbed into the back of the airship beside one of the broad-shouldered, silent buzzcuts, and we lifted off towards the pirate ship. I told myself it was just my distrust of cops in general that had me so on edge. Plus, being powerless, always left me feeling vulnerable.
I glanced out the window at the glowing lights of Bijou Mer below and chewed the inside of my cheek, wishing I had my magic back… and Peter, too.
33
WALK THE PLANK
A tall wooden gate barricaded the ramp that led up to the restored pirate ship. I, the two buzzcuts, and Chief Taylor had barely spoken the entire airship ride down here to the docks and now even they were empty, save for a scuttling rat here and a whining seagull there.
I rubbed my arms, goose bumps prickling them despite the warm summer night. I wished, again, that Peter were here. Shell—I’d even take Daisy at this point.
A heavy chain with a massive lock looped through the gate’s handles. One of the buzzcuts, the taller one, tried to pull it open but it merely rattled.
I shrugged. “Oh darn, it’s locked, maybe we should come back another time.” With more cops… during the daytime. Wow. I, the nocturnal shifter, was hoping to do something during the day. I shivered. Now I knew I was freaked out.
I turned to go, planning to just book it back to the Darkmoon District on the next tier up, but Chief Taylor grunted. “Hang on, Ms. Hartgrave.”
The shorter buzzcut clamped a beefy hand down on my shoulder and brought me up short. I shrugged his hand off me, but I hadn’t missed the menace in that grip. My stomach sank and I slowly, reluctantly turned around.
Chief Taylor held up his wand, the tip glowing. He lowered it to the heavy-looking lock and sparks fizzed. “One of the perks of being Chief—I’ve got a master lock spell. It’ll open most any lock on the island.”
I flared my nostrils as I tried to measure my panicked breathing. “Oh… good.”
The lock clicked open, the chain dropped, and the tall cop pushed the gates open. They swung inward, and I followed the chief and tall buzzcut up the slightly swaying ramp to the deck. The other cop’s footsteps clomped behind me. I was surrounded.
I pursed my lips and blew out a breath. I was probably just feeling like this was
