Page 27 of Capitol Matters

“Yeah…” Felix’s face twisted. “They already did that.”

My nostrils flared through a short breath. “Just a whole buncha dicks, aren’t you?” I glanced at the rear motor compartment, wondering what else they’d gotten into. Plenty of tubes and wires connected vital automotive organs. The hefty bodywork bill I’d been imagining doubled with mechanical failure involved. Too bad criminals—and recently reformed ones—didn’t carry car insurance.

Felix approached with the Magic 8 Ball tucked securely under his arm. “I’m sorry,” he said. “For what it’s worth, you don’t seem so bad to me.”

“You wouldn’t be saying that if I broke your toy,” Ireplied.

“But you didn’t.”

I nodded. “Good to know I’ve got at least one of you fooled.”

Looking at the ruined Porsche stirred my insides up again, so I leaned against it and scrubbed my fingers along the sides of my scalp. I needed to call a cab. Needed to get to my meeting with Grimm. Needed to have my newfound beater towed to the nearest repair shop. Didn’t want to do any of it.

Felix stayed close while I squinted at him. He looked down, polishing a spot on the 8 Ball’s slick surface. I was about to question again why he hadn’t left me in peace when he spoke.

“We studied you at the training academy,” he said. “The Farrow family case.”

“I’m course material?” I asked.

He shrugged.

“What an honor.” The sarcasm tasted bitter in my mouth.

“What happened to your parents and your brother…” His forehead scrunched at what must have been an unsettling thought. “It was a tragedy.”

I grunted a discordant sound. “Try living it.”

I almost felt bad for the investigators who stumbled onto that scene. My father fought to defend his family, but he was outnumbered by the Bloody Hex members slinging spells like outlaws in a shootout. I’d been too young to help—despite mentally tearing one of the men to pieces in a display of power I didn’t know I had. It had been enough to save my life and Donovan’s by proxy.The older I got, though, the more I wondered if I hadn’t secured us a far worse fate.

“Do you need a ride home?” Felix asked. “I feel like I owe you.”

I flapped my hand. “You don’t owe me anything, man.”

“Yeah, well…” He offered a half-smile. “Do you want the ride anyway?”

Leading an investigator to the Lazy Daze Motel had all the dramatic appeal of bringing a surprise significant other to a family dinner. The look on Grimm’s face would be worth any amount of tongue lashing and fist shaking I would have to endure afterward. I was perturbed enough to do it, too. Someone should be in as shitty a mood as I was, and it might as well be Grimm.

But that could splash back on Felix or the other members of Holland’s team. If Grimm sicced the Hex on them, my work/life balance would fall into shambles. I liked to think he knew better than to start trouble with Maximus’s daughter, just like he must have thought I knew better than to let a Capitol employee drive me home.

I returned Felix’s smile with slightly more vigor. “Thanks, but I’m good. Gonna call a cab.”

Felix seemed to take that as his dismissal. He was halfway through a turn to go when I thought of one more question.

“Hey, tell me something.”

He glanced back.

“You’re clearly a soft touch,” I said, “but I don’t expect apologies from the other two. If I’m gonna beworking with you, we might as well get along. Not to mention I don’t want to foot the repair bill for a totaled car more than once.” I gave the Porsche another pat. “So, what’s it gonna take?”

His head tipped, quizzical. “Take for what?”

“For me to convince you all that I’m not a scumbag murderer.” I jerked my thumb toward the word graffitied on the windshield. “And that I’m not here to start shit. I get enough of that… everywhere else,” I finished after a pause.

Felix passed the 8 Ball from one hand to the other, pondering. “I guess that depends,” he said. “Did you really not kill all those people?”

My inner voice told me to lie, embrace my innocence, be more like Capitol Fitch.

Instead, I squirmed like a perp under a spotlight.

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