Bloodring (13 page)

Thaddeus straightened to his full height, flipped open a small notebook, and poised a pencil on the first page. “What's rough?”

“Was it purple?” I bargained.

Thaddeus' attention settled on me and he waited a beat before answering. “Yes.”

“It's stone before it's cut, shaped, and polished,” Jacey said, as she watched the cop watch me. And watched me flush. Just a hint of color, but that was enough for my best gal pal. She had a definite “well, well, well,” look on her face. “And the stone he sent Rupert is probably gem quality, which he claimed to have found on . . . around here somewhere.”

She amended the location on the fly at an almost invisible tightening of Rupert's face. I had a feeling Thaddeus caught the exchange. He didn't miss much, to my chagrin. On the heels of her words, questions rose, like, why Rupert didn't want him to know where the stone had been found. And what caused the animosity flowing between my friends and the cop? Rupert hadn't said a word since I came down the stairs, and there was a part of him that thrived on conflict. A quiet Rupert was very unusual.

“How much of this rough did he send? When, from where, and by what post? And is it valuable?” the kylen asked.

Speaking slowly, taking cues from Rupert's body language in my peripheral vision, I said, “A lot, a week before he was kidnapped, postmarked Linville, where his gramma lives, sent by mule train. And yes, pretty valuable, unless I miss my guess.” Pretty valuable, all right—the most powerful stone I'd ever heard of, even in legends.

“So
someone
found the stone
around here,
” Thaddeus placed a faint emphasis on the last two words to show he had caught the previous hesitation, “carted it off to Linville, only to have Lucas ship it back here. And Grandma knew all about this.”

“Oh,” I said. Put that way, it didn't make sense.

“Gramma,”
Rupert corrected, sounding surly. “Not
Grandma
. And Thaddeus knows about
Gramma.
” Rupert's eyes were on the cop, his tone rancorous. “
All
about her. And he's decided that if I'm not behind Lucas' disappearance, you are.”

“We discussed his ‘woman scorned' theory last night. I'm on his list of suspects. So is every other woman Lucas has been with in the last few years. Right?” I asked the cop. “And how does he know about your gramma?”

Rupert said, “He neglected to mention we're cousins. His mother is my aunt, long lost and all, found by the investigators Lucas hired for probate. Gramma sent him up here to
pry
.” His tone was insulting, claiming there was nothing worse than a busybody.

The malice in the room suddenly made sense. Gramma was the paternal grandmother to Rupert, Lucas, and Jason. She lived along the Linville River, in the same house where the Stanhope patriarch had died last fall. She was a sour woman, full of old anger and unfulfilled hopes that had turned her soul bitter. She also kept secrets. Forbidden knowledge floated in her eyes. Being a keeper of secrets myself, I had spotted it. On top of all that, she was a snoop, a meddler, a woman who delighted in creating animosity among her own family, pitting one grandchild against the other. The old hag.

“Mrs. Stanhope sent you up here? Not the state police?” I asked.

Bartholomew seemed to realize he'd made an error in judgment at some point. His face went through a fast series of emotions, ending with uncertainty. “I had just discovered the Stanhope branch of my family, so I was killing two birds—looking at an opening with local law enforcement, and taking the opportunity to meet my relatives, starting with Gramma.” The word sounded curious on his tongue, as if he'd never said it before. “Then Lucas was attacked, and because I'm on the scene, I accepted a temporary liaison position with the local cops.” He looked back and forth between us.

“Which you didn't bother to explain when you were questioning me as if I was a fugitive from some hellhole,” Rupert accused, both fists on his hips, head thrown back. “Thanks. It's great to meet you too.”

Thaddeus sighed, flipped the little notebook closed, and sat down, choosing a small, pink tapestry chair with delicate, turned legs. Each move, from the chair choice to the sigh to his posture after he sat, was calculated to bring down the level of animosity. He went from interrogating bad cop to nonthreatening, just-one-of-the-guys good cop in a heartbeat. “I can see I handled this all wrong. I'm sorry.”

That was a nice surprise,
I thought, liking him against my better judgment.

“I should have just come to see you and introduced myself. Should have told you who I was up front. Get acquainted the usual way.” He dropped his elbows to his knees and laced his hands together. I pulled my eyes away from his long, limber fingers, Stanhope hands, I realized, set off by the impressive ring. His body language was honest and sincere, but I didn't quite buy it. Neither did Jacey or Rupert, but Audric seemed complacent. Odd.

“Gramma acted like I was the savior of the family. Said her other grandsons were quarreling, fighting about the inheritance. She claimed you'd never accept me as anything but a money-grubbing interloper—her words, not mine—if I just came to visit. With the kidnapping, I figured being a cop might give me an entrée I might not get otherwise.”

“The old bat set him up,” Audric said, with a bark of laughter.

“She set us up too,” Jacey said. “Why?”

“It's her nature. Like scorpions sting and lions eat their prey,” Audric said, lifting a brow at Rupert.

Rupert pursed his lips, clearly making a judgment. Finally he stood, walked over, and extended his hand. “Let's start over. I'm Rupert Stanhope, your long-lost cousin. I'm a metal smith, a partner in Thorn's Gems. My associates and I design and make jewelry. My brother Lucas is missing. Jason, my other brother, is probably drunk, and if he knew you were here, he'd be trying to borrow money.”

Thaddeus stood and took Rupert's proffered hand, his face slightly wry. “I'm Thaddeus Bartholomew, Hand of the Law of the state police. Good to meet you, cousin. Call me Thadd. I'd like to meet your ne'er-do-well brother and offer my services to find Lucas.” Instantly the ambience in the room mellowed.

“Okay, Thadd. And Gramma?” Rupert asked, his hand still clasping Thaddeus' as the men measured each other.

“Gramma appears to be a poor judge of character. And a . . . contentious woman.”

“Didn't like me much?” Rupert asked.

“She didn't like anyone much.”

“Bingo.”

I thought about the stone in the back room, the pull it had on me. And about the stone Lucas had been carrying. Over my head the scene of Lucas being attacked still played, and I watched it again, focusing on the dark smear on the alley floor. Without exactly knowing why, I asked, “The alley where Lucas was taken. Was there any blood left when the cops got there?”

The kylen froze and turned penetrating eyes to me, his face a cop mask. I had asked something important. Suddenly I knew that something had happened to Lucas' blood at the scene of the attack. Something bad.

Thadd's eyes narrowed, holding mine. “Why do you ask that?”

Oops.
I had just moved back up a notch in the list of potential bad guys. Choosing my words carefully, I said, “Yeah, I thought so. And you found a shattered piece of amethyst in the alley, didn't you? And the other cops don't know about it.”

His eyes narrowed further and he moved slowly closer, to tower over me.

I craned my neck up at him. “You took it from the scene because you knew it had to be important. Can I look at it?”

“Why don't you have the stone Lucas sent evaluated by a geologist?” he deflected.

“I can do that. I have a friend here in town and another in Boone.”

“I'll bet you do.” His tone was bland, obscuring a measured note of satisfaction.

“Now, wait a minute—” Rupert said.

“I'm a lapidary,” I interrupted with a vulpine smile. “A maker of, and dealer in, stone jewelry and sculpture. I have to know people who evaluate its quality.”

“Convenient. But if we can come to terms, I'll see about letting you have access to a bit of the stone from the alley. For comparison purposes.”

My smile widened, showing teeth.

“What terms?” Audric asked.

“Our strange little friend here introduces me to her Lolo,” the kylen said.

I was thrown off base. In this convoluted conversation, that was one subject I hadn't expected at all.

“What's a lolo?” Jacey asked.

Thadd answered without taking his eyes from me. “A difficult old woman who somehow found out where I was staying. She called my room about ten times. And then she found my secure police sat number, which I was furnished only last week, and she's calling that. She's an annoying, irate old woman who keeps calling, and whom I can't seem to block, though I've tried twice. And she keeps telling me I have to help Thorn.”

“My adopted grandmother. Sorta,” I said.

“What's a sat?” Jacey asked.

“Well?” he asked, ignoring Jacey.

I couldn't tell him Lolo lived at Enclave, not without going to die there myself. So I lied. More or less. “She lives in southeast Louisiana. You want to visit a licensed witchy-woman, I'll give you her address.” He didn't seem to read the partial omission.

His eyes considered. “I was born in Natchez. Maybe my mother knows her.”

“Stranger things have happened,” I said. Like the confluence of events that resulted in a kylen being related to Rupert, having family in spitting distance of my Enclave, and arriving in Mineral City near the time his cousin was kidnapped. Then coming to Thorn's Gems and interrogating me. I didn't believe in coincidences. Either Thadd orchestrated it, or it all was Lolo's machinations.

“What's a sat?” Jacey asked again. “Wait. You mean a portable phone? Like a Pre-Ap satellite phone? Can I see it?”

Ignoring Jacey, he said, “May I look at the stone? Or do I need to get a subpoena?”

At the implied threat, I stood and led the way. Throwing open the storeroom door, I stood back and allowed the others to enter. The cold of the unheated space rolled out in an icy wave. I opened the small icebox and pulled out another beer. Was it the third today? The fourth? I'd be drunk at kirk and have to confess.

The cop stepped in. I clenched the bottle to keep from running my hands across his backside. The curves were taut, moving beneath the fabric with a rapid, smooth flex. I downed the beer, drowning my need in alcohol.

He flashed me a look over his shoulder and saw the direction of my gaze. I felt his answering heat and knew suddenly, finally, that he wanted me too, though his interest was tempered by suspicion.

A sense of drunken triumph flooded me, until I remembered that sex between us would come with a death sentence at seraphic decree. No kylen and mage may mate. Ever. There may never be another mixing of seraph and mage genes. I wanted to laugh. After all, what was one more death sentence? They could kill me only once.

Audric and Rupert opened a case of the amethyst rough, handing a sample to Thadd. He lifted the stone as light danced through it, diffuse and sultry. I wanted to grab the amethyst,
my
amethyst, out of his hands. Desperately, I slid fingers beneath my tunic and touched the amulet. Lust for man and rock receded and I could breathe.

“All these are full of this?” Thadd asked, kicking a metal box with his leather-clad toe. When Jacey said yes, he asked, “Are you going to trust me enough to tell me where this came from? More than ‘around here.' ”

My eyes on the stone in his hand, I said, “From the Trine.”

I could feel the reactions of my friends, their shock, their incredulity that I had allowed a near stranger in on the truth. I explained to them, “Lucas said local cops and elders are involved with Darkness. The Stanhopes are in danger. Thadd isn't a local cop. He's a Stanhope, and he's here, against all odds, at this particular time. We have to tell him.”

“You just want to get in his pants,” Jacey murmured into my ear as she whisked out of the room, pulling me away from the men. “You just want him in your bed and if you don't get yourself under control, we won't be able to help you.”

Help me what?
I blinked and put down the bottle
.
My fingers were white where I had cut off circulation, gripping the beer. I released the amulet and sighed, not knowing how to salvage this. The ammo box lid clanged shut. The power of stone and cop waned as Jacey pulled me across the workroom, shook me once and shoved me toward my loft. “Go upstairs. And don't come back down until time for kirk. Go.”

Exhaustion swamped me. I took the stairs on leaden legs, entered my cold apartment, stripped off my clothes, and slid between the sheets, beneath the feather duvet, my shortsword on the pillow near my head. Sleep fluttered downy wings over my flesh, tantalizing. Just as I slid beneath its lure, I had a moment to wonder about Thadd. He had seraphic and neomage genes mixed with his half-human structure. Why didn't he react to the amethyst?

C
iana's knock woke me. I crawled from warm blankets, tossed on my robe, sheathed and hid the kris, and opened the door. The sleep had done me good. I was myself again, clearheaded, as Ciana came in and plopped into a chair.

She kept her eyes downcast, her mouth in a firm pout, more angry than sad. I didn't try to draw her out; she would talk when she was ready. I poured us juice and put sliced, thawed fruit and cookies on a plate.

Without speaking, I put the treat on the table beside Ciana and gathered up my clothes from this morning so I didn't have to think about my wardrobe. I added heavy underclothes, boots, and a scarf, and tossed my leather cloak over the stand near the door. Taking the clothes, I moved behind the screen, strapped on the kris, and started dressing.