Green-Eyed Envy (32 page)

“So he was able to stop testing them on himself.”

Her lips twisted as she looked at me without a trace of humor in her eyes. “He was
able
to, but he didn’t. By then he’d become addicted.”

“Addicted to—what? You said the drugs had little effect on him.”

“Those in the early stages. As time went on, he became consumed by the thought of developing hybrid drugs that did more than merely treat specific conditions. He wanted to create drugs that would enhance an arcane’s natural abilities. Make them . . . better.”

Scott touched me on the arm. I could tell by the excitement in his eyes exactly what he was thinking. Victor could easily have created the hybrid catnip that subdued the Cat victims
and
a drug to enhance his own strength and speed to carry out the attacks. My lips tightened stubbornly. Just because he created them didn’t mean he was the only one with access to the drugs or motive to commit the crimes.

Meredith interpreted our silence as encouragement to continue. “First he was addicted to the excitement and idea of his research. Eventually he became addicted to one or more of the drugs themselves, and he started to change. Became irritable and then downright volatile. He and I broke up but we got back together.”

Now who did
that
remind me of?

“I loved him but he became impossible to reason with. When he went from a little jealous to a lot possessive and then extremely controlling, I had enough. Broke things off with him for good, though by then I feared how he would react if he thought I wouldn’t take him back, so I convinced him it was
his
idea. As an extra precaution, I reminded him how close both he and I were to my brother. I truly believe those are the only things that kept me safe.”

The more she said, the harder time I had reconciling her words with Victor’s deeds. Sure, he seemed a little moody now and again—but who was
I
to talk? Also true he had been a little forceful with me once or twice when we’d been out. But it was a
huge
leap from there to controlling, murderous psycho. Wouldn’t I
sense
it if he had that darkness in him?

Scott caught my attention by asking another question. “But Sylvia Rodriguez wasn’t so lucky, was she?”

Despair washed over her face though it did nothing to detract from her beauty. I bet she was one of those women who even looked beautiful crying. Couldn’t say the same for myself. My skin blotched up worse than it did with a rash.

“No, she wasn’t. It’s like—like he was looking for a replacement for the one he never got over losing. Harper Cruz. I never lived up to his expectations, and he and Sylvia were even more on-again, off-again than he and I had been—though she had a higher tolerance for his addiction and attitude than I did. I tried to convince her to leave him once when I saw he’d progressed to physical abuse—bruises don’t lie—but she refused. Claimed he was a brilliant genius
I’d
been too small-minded to understand. She was dead not even six months later.”

The self-recrimination in her voice moved me. “There’s nothing you could have done, Meredith. You tried to get through to her but she made her own choices. We all do.” My own inner doubt weasels began scattering as newfound determination swept me up. Emotions and instinct be damned. If even half of what Meredith claimed was true, Victor Esteban was
not
the man I thought he was. Which meant he
could
be a cold-blooded killer.

And if that proved true, may all the gods and goddesses have mercy on his soul because I sure as hell wouldn’t.

 

 

OUR NEXT ORDER OF BUSINESS WAS HITTING up Sahana to pick her brains on the Sylvia Rodriguez case. Unlike with mortal deaths, autopsies were
always
conducted when an arcane died. Some autopsies were more perfunctory than others—just the nature of the beast—but when an otherwise immortal being suddenly bites the dust, identifying the reason why is crucial. The percentage of arcanes who expire due to truly natural cases is exceedingly small.

“Hey, Sahi.” She looked up from the takeout cornucopia spread out on her desk, and I shook my head. “How did I know you’d still be working this late?”

Sahana rolled her eyes. “Yeah, ’cause
you
don’t do the same on a regular basis.”

My arms shot up in an
I surrender
gesture. “You got a sec? We need to chat about the Cat case.”

Sahana dropped the chopsticks she’d been expertly wielding—a skill I had yet to master—and motioned for us to sit. “Of course. I haven’t unearthed anything new, though, I’m afraid.”

“Actually”—I nodded toward Scott—“ we’re here to discuss something old. A death from a few months ago that
could
be linked to the murders.”

She pushed her chair back slightly and tapped the desk with a pen she’d picked up. An unconscious habit that meant the gears in her brain had kicked into overdrive. “Hmm. Sylvia Rodriguez.”

“Yeah. The only other Cat death this year. I remember you mentioning it to me before the MCU officially formed, but—well—my attention was admittedly elsewhere.”

Her expression turned sympathetic without crossing the line to pitying. “Understandably so.” She pulled the keyboard tray out from her desk and tapped away faster than I ever could. “Ah, just as I remembered. Thirty-two-year-old Latin American Bastai found dead in her home after a night of hard-core partying. No signs of foul play. Tox screens revealed extraordinarily high levels of alcohol and narcotics in her system. More than enough to kill her outright and then overwhelm her body’s abilities to regenerate.” Suddenly, her fingers stilled on the keyboard, and she raised widened eyes to stare into mine.

Adrenaline sent tingles flying along my skin. “You see something.”

She nodded slowly. “Something that didn’t mean much at the time. A small amount of an unidentified substance in her blood. I didn’t recognize its chemical or magical signature at the time and thought the tests must have been off.”

“But they weren’t.”

“No. I just didn’t have anything to compare it with.”

Scott reached the same conclusion a heartbeat later. “The hybrid catnip that nixes Cat regeneration.”

“Precisely. Which confirms what you both apparently already suspected. Sylvia Rodriguez didn’t die of an accidental overdose. She was murdered.”

Even though my mind had been expecting that pronouncement, my heart still thudded painfully when she spoke the words out loud.
Oh gods, gods, how could I have been so stupid? I let my emotions—my gods-damned libido—blind me to the fact a monster was trying to seduce me! The very monster I swore to stop. How could he make me lose my mind for . . . him . . .
Rage roared to life when my conscious mind made the next logical leap.
That son of a bitch drugged me. He freaking drugged me!

Red-hot fury flared and then cooled to ice-cold steel. I thought back over the past few weeks, dredging up every single Victor-related memory I could.
Electric sparks every time his skin touched mine . . . Unbridled lust consuming me whenever he was near . . . My mind wanting to say no to his invitations to spend more time with him after we ruled him out as a suspect—ha—but my body and hormones screaming out
yes
!

Steely determination gave way, in turn, to shock and a sense of betrayal as profound as when Stacia revealed herself to be a traitor. The words escaped my lips before I could force them back. “My gods, I think he drugged me, too. Drugged me and made me w-want him. Made me
think
I wanted him.” My voice skittered and I shot Scott an anguished look. “That bastard probably tried to date rape me. Would have succeeded if I hadn’t gotten that emergency call from my mother.”

 

 

SCOTT LET OUT AN EARSPLITTING ROAR AND leaped to his feet. Human teeth sharpened to inhuman canines. Golden eyes glinted with the eerie fire that preluded transformation. Barely audible growls passed peeledback lips.
Gods, Riss,
think
before you speak!

I stood and reached out a calming hand, but he backed away from me like I had the plague. Hurt speared through me, ironic considering the sheer amount of pain already overloading my senses. I once thought nothing could hurt more than watching my dearest friend die in my arms and then find out my mentor had been responsible. I thought wrong. Realizing someone I trusted had drugged me into lusting after him and then having my lover recoil from me as if I were contaminated hurt even worse. Still, finding out that my Fury nature wasn’t what had caused those feelings . . . at least that was a relief.

Sahana’s arms wrapped around me, and she eased my body away from Scott’s. “Shh, sweetheart, let him get the bloodlust out of his system.”

Her whispered instruction dulled the mental agony somewhat. Of course. Scott hadn’t backed away from me out of revulsion. He’d been afraid the surge of Warhound anger very much resembling a Fury’s Rage might overcome him and he’d hurt me. Severely. A Hound locked in bloodlust was
not
a creature to be reasoned with. Lucky for us all that Victor Esteban was nowhere nearby, or he’d have been a dead man.

Though, really, now that we knew what we did, he was pretty much
that
. A dead man walking.

Scott paced the few steps of clear space near the office door like a caged beast, canines still visible, eyes still glowing, and growls still echoing through the confined area. Several tense moments passed before the growls faded and the goose bumps prickling my flesh receded. He turned to me with a look of sheer anguish on his face. Anguish and, shockingly, guilt. Which he immediately gave voice to.

“Anubis slay me, baby, but this is all my fault!” He started to cross the space between us but stopped, deep breaths racking his body as surely as inner turmoil.

My heart broke even more. “What the—Scott,
no
. How could it be
your
fault?”

“I
knew
something was wrong with that bastard, especially when you kept spending time with him even when you didn’t have to. Even when we thought he couldn’t be the murderer. But, gods, I didn’t want to chase you away with what had to be plain old jealousy. Only it
wasn’t
, and I wasn’t there to stop that sack of shit. Wasn’t there to
protect
you when ”—his voice cracked midsentence—“ you couldn’t protect yourself.”

Sahana sensed how much we needed physical touch and released me so I could throw myself into his arms. We clutched each other like we were drowning, desperate for something to hold on to in the midst of a howling storm. Scott stroked my hair when I buried my face in his chest and sobbed like a baby for what had been taken from us both. From me: trust and an unflagging sense of personal strength. From him: the Warhound need to keep his mate unharmed when she could not do that herself. And that only scratched the surface.

I somehow managed to pull myself together and took a deep, steadying breath. Scott sensed the change in my frame of mind and, after one final squeeze, let his hands drop away. He and Sahana listened as I found the courage to tell them everything I’d been trying to bury about the sheer firestorm of lust Victor had inspired in me every time he touched me, nodding wordlessly so I could get it all out in one frenzied rush rather than interrupting.

When I was done, they moved their gazes from me to each other, nodded once more, and spoke in unison. “He’s the killer.”

Hearing it out loud only solidified the truth in my own mind. Victor Esteban—no, Scott had it right with Vic the Slick—was a drug-addicted, power-hungry psycho who had murdered the lover who jilted him without convincing him it was
his
idea. And now, there was no doubt in my mind he was
also
the envy-ridden killer preying upon the former lovers of the ex-lover he had never given up hope of winning back for himself. It
all
made perfect sense: The Cat victims also made the ultimate test subjects for his mad-scientist ways. He could inject them with as much of his drugs as he wanted since killing them was his ultimate goal anyway.

That clicked an inner lightbulb. “He experiments on them somewhere else until he’s done with them. Probably tortures them to see how their bodies react. Then he delivers one final dose along with a fatal beating before dumping the body.”

“Until Rockefeller.”

My eyes blinked rapidly. “Yeah, until Rockefeller. He snaps because he realizes his efforts to break up Harper and Penn aren’t working like he planned. Stops at Rockefeller’s office, knowing what a workaholic the guy was, and goes all psycho on him. Doesn’t have time to really clean up his mess because he has to get to the engagement party.”

Scott picked up the thread. “He takes something himself to amp up his speed and strength, and cleans himself up—he’d just come from the airport so he had the clothes—before racing to the event in record time. It’s dark out and he’s really fast, so people either don’t see him or don’t believe their eyes if they do.”

Sahana let out a breath. “He’s spiraling out of control.”

My voice was grim when I nodded. “Exactly like the drug-addicted psychopath he’s become.”

Her eyes widened. “He’s been using hybrid drugs on himself this whole time.”

“For years. We spoke to the ex-lover of his smart enough to make him think breaking up was
his
idea. He started using his drugs on himself in the year or two after his breakup with Harper. Meredith said she tried but failed to live up to his memories of Harp. I can only assume Sylvia failed even more in his drug-addled mind.”

“So he killed her.”

Scott snapped his fingers. “And his dual specialties in medical science and the magical arts allowed him to dress it up as an accident.”

“Which I bought hook, line, and sinker,” Sahana said bleakly.

Impatience had me snapping. “Oh no, Sahi, you don’t get to blame yourself for
that
any more than Scott gets to blame himself for what happened to me.”