Page 33 of Secrets of the Forgotten Heir

Rory’s scowl deepened. ‘He’s her source of money and you don’t kill the golden goose, do you? Besides, she couldn’t be behind it. You said Dad was shot today, right? Mum isn’t even here. She goes into Southampton for her dance classes on Tuesdays, she’s there all day and normally stays overnight with some non-magical friends. She’ll be back tomorrow morning.’

It sounded like a too-perfect alibi. Apparently my dubious expression betrayed my thoughts because Rory looked at me and continued. ‘I promise. Look, she sends me videos of her at the lesson – she does that every week. It’s basically the only communication we have. She never askes after me or my life, but she sends these videos of her looking young and beautiful, dancing perfectly.’

Jennifer rubbed his arm sympathetically as he pulled out his phone and passed it to me. ‘She sent one from this morning’s class about fifteen minutes ago. See?’

After a nod from Yanni, I pressed play. The video showed a beautiful woman in her mid-fifties dancing with a gentleman half her age. She had a full face of makeup and hair that was dyed a startling white with streaks of icy blue through it.

I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Her feet were gliding across the dance floor so smoothly it was as if she were skating on ice. As the light glinted off the floor, I realisedthat was exactly what she was doing. ‘Your mum’s an elemental witch,’ I observed. ‘Ice magic.’ Okay, maybe she’d come by the icy hair honestly.

‘An elemental who’s seriously into younger men,’ Gilbert commented.

Rory shot a glare at his half-brother and snatched back the phone. ‘She got chucked out of magical dance classes because she kept using the ice to her advantage. And she likes younger dancers because they can do the moves more easily.’

‘Allthe moves,’ Gilbert said, waggling his eyebrows.

We all shot him a glare and he flushed with embarrassment. Apparently he’d forgotten for a moment that they were there because their dad was dead.

Rory took a long breath and flashed a reluctant glance at his half-sister. ‘Look, if we’re going to talk about people Dad had a fight with, we need to mention Toby, don’t we?’

‘That’s out of order!’ Jennifer snapped instantly. ‘He would never harm anyone!’

‘You don’t know that!’ Rory shot back. ‘If Mum is a suspect we have to consider Toby!’

‘Sorry, who is Toby?’ I interrupted.

Yanni’s lips pursed; clearly, that was a question she’d been about to ask. I was supposed to be asilentobserver but I was too used to asking the questions.

I sent her an apologetic glance; I wasn’ttryingto piss her off, it was wholly accidental. I would have to keep my mouth shut or she wouldn’t let me ride shotgun again and I didn’t want that to happen. The PI side of me much preferred talking and interviewing people to looking for information online.

Which reminded me: I still needed to dig into Fraser Banks. Hopefully when I did there would be more dirt on him than you could buy in a garden centre.

‘Toby is my ex-boyfriend,’ Jennifer said finally. ‘Toby Brown.’

I held my tongue with effort.

‘And he and your dad didn’t get on?’ Yanni asked.

‘Well, they used to…’

‘Until Toby went psycho,’ Gilbert interrupted. ‘It was bad enough that he was a land shifter!’

‘Psycho?’ I asked, the question slipping out before I could stifle it.

‘No.’ Jennifer shook her head firmly. ‘He was not a psycho and he neverwentpsycho. He was protective, that’s all. There was a merman who tried it on with me one night at Shady’s –reallytried it on. He was a water shifter and he thought he had more of a right to me than Toby did. Toby didn’t take kindly toanyonethinking they had rights over me, himself included. It got a bit … heated.’

‘They had to split up afterwards,’ Rory said. ‘Dad was pretty insistent.’

‘Is that right?’ Yanniasked Jennifer gently. ‘That must have been hard for you.’

Tears welled in Jennifer’s eyes. ‘Yeah. Dad was on the water shifters’ council and it didn’t look good for my boyfriend to attack one of them. And the merman… He was pretty powerful too. It was making the political landscape difficult for Dad and he asked me to break up with Toby –toldme to,’ she admitted.

‘But that was months ago,’ she went on. ‘Toby wouldn’t hurt Dad – he’s a teddy bear. Literally. That incident was a one-off. Ask his family, ask him, ask anyone who knows him. There’s no sweeter guy than Toby in the world, I promise you.’ The way she was speaking about him wasn’t the way people generally spoke about an ex. Not in my experience, anyway.

‘Don’t worry,’ Yanni said. ‘We’ll look into everything. Now, could you give me the addresses for your stepmother and for Toby? We’ll be in touch as soon as we know more.’

Jennifer nodded and scribbled a note on a scrap of paper. The room stayed thick with tension, grief pressing down like a weighted shroud, and beneath it that gnawing guilt. It was the kind of guilt that whispered, ‘you should have beenthere’or, even worse, ‘it should have been you instead’.I knew it only too well.

Yanni shot me a pointed glance and rose. We were done for now.

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