Page 27 of Smokescreen (Knight & Daywalker)
Twist, who’d been curled up in my pocket after devouring not one, not even two, but three entire chickens at my mother’s house, poked her head out, sniffing the air and looking mildly disgusted. “What stinks?”
“I’m guessing it would be Mr. Forsyth,” I answered her, motioning to him and ignoring the fact that I was talking to a cat in front of a stranger. He could think I was crazy if he wanted. Gerald Forsyth’s opinion didn’t matter at all to me.
She sniffed in his direction, then nodded. “Dead. And not the nice kind like your mother.” Then she turned and burrowed back into my pocket.
I watched her, confused. The nice kind of dead? Weird. I’d have to remember that. Still, I shook myself, because Davin killing some murderer and Twist not liking how the guy smelled weren’t why we were there. “We’re here about CharlesMailloux,” I told him, leaning back in my chair and trying to look non-threatening, sort of the opposite of how Davin was sprawled in his.
“What about the old frog?” Forsyth demanded. “Is he whining about how rude I was at the opera? Really, he wore plaid, like some sort of barbaric highlander.”
That was...a lot of information. It wasn’t a certain thing, but I didn’t immediately sense any duplicity in the words, either. While I didn’t have some magical ability to see through lies, more information was always better. More opportunities to see the truth. If he was going to act as though he didn’t even know Charles was dead, that was an opportunity to see quite a lot of his reactions.
So I watched him carefully as I spoke. “No. It’s not about plaid. It’s not about him complaining. He’s dead.”
He rolled his eyes and started to speak, but then hesitated, his mouth already open. “Wait. You mean...permanently dead. He’s...he’s been murdered.”
It was sort of a fair presumption, since why would I randomly show up at the man’s house to tell him that Charles was undead? And there weren’t a lot of ways for vampires to permanently die, all of which likely involved foul play.
“He’s been murdered, yes.”
His face went through a fascinating array of emotions that I didn’t think he could have entirely faked. From surprise to fear to horror, and then landing on downright disgusted, all in just a few seconds. “Your mother has put you up to investigating it, of course.” His sneer was damned impressive, and part of me wanted to get defensive, but it was understandable.
“She did put me up to investigating it. She told me to find his killer, whoever it might be.” Before he could sneer any more about it, I stood up and stared him down. The great thing about most powerful vampires being a few hundred years old was thatmost of them were also shorter than my five-foot-ten frame, and Gerald was no exception. Sure, he could kick my ass, but I could look down at him first. “And Iwillfind out who killed Charles. Whether it was you, or some other vampire. Including my mother, who is also part of this investigation.”
Davin gave a low whistle and nodded at me, seeming to approve of the statement, which was a surprise, since he also seemed to adore my mother.
Forsyth was a little more dubious. “Who are you planning to tell if she’s the killer? Her?”
“I have a contact number for the Consulate,” I told him, because it was true. I didn’t for a moment believe that my mother had killed Charles, but I did have that number. She’d given it to me fifteen years earlier when she’d been elected senator, to call in case something happened to her and I needed help. But it meant that if I needed to go over my mother’s head at some point, I had a way to contact the Consul’s office. The three consuls were essentially every vampire’s bosses, so it didn’t get any higher than that.
And who knew? Maybe I’d end up being surprised, and Mother had killed Charles. It didn’t seem likely, but anything was possible.
Forsyth sighed and folded onto a large velvet sofa, apparently accepting my response. “I can’t imagine why anyone would kill him. The old frog was entirely toothless.”
A particularly nasty insult among vampires, of course, but it only made me think of adorable dragons. Also, Charles might have been born in France hundreds of years ago, but he’d been in California for so long that calling him a “frog” seemed both reductive and silly, as well as probably offensive.
“He talked a big game,” Forsyth went on, “but everyone knew he was never going to do anything. Your mother is only fifteen years into her stint as Senator of Los Angeles anyway, so the onlyway to remove her would be to kill her, and he didn’t have the fortitude to do a thing like that.”
Fifteen years into a hundred year term. It was fair; no one was going to have a chance to take over LA without assassinating my mother, and my mother was terrifying. Maybe eighty-five years was nothing to a vampire, but it sounded like a long-ass time to me.
“Why don’t you ask your friend the killer if he did it?” Forsyth asked when he decided I’d been quiet too long, flinging his hand in Davin’s direction.
I lifted a brow at him, but turned to Davin. “Did you ever even meet Charles?”
“Can’t say that I did, no. Doesn’t much matter, though, as I only kill arseholes who try to kill me first, and he doesn’t sound the type.” He turned and flashed a bright, white-toothed smile at Forsyth. “Just in case you needed to know.”
Also making it quite clearhewasn’t toothless, as his canines seemed sharper than average. Pointedly so, maybe.
Forsyth huffed and shook his head, turning back to me with his nose back in the air. “The last time I saw him was at the opera. I pointed out that his tie was hideous, and he told me I was old-fashioned and stuffy. He made some...insinuations that your mother was doing a poor job running Los Angeles, and I told him he was right, but if he wasn’t going to do something about it himself, he should keep his mouth shut.” His thin lips curled into a nasty smile. “So you see, little human, if you should be investigating anyone, it’s mummy dearest.”
I couldn’t think of a nice way to say “fuck off you elitist prick,” but Davin did it for me as he stood and looked at me. “I think we’re done here. All he’s got is bluster. Unless he’s lying, which we’ll find out in due course.”
Okay, so he didn’t fill the conversational void for me, so much as he just threw good manners out the window and spoke the truth. Eh, whatever.
It looked like Forsyth liked to talk a big game, but he didn’t have much to back it up in the end, because he didn’t say a word as I nodded to Davin and we walked out of the room. As we hit the hallway, I thought of the cops, and turned back to look in on him. “Due to an unfortunate set of circumstances, the human authorities were informed of Charles’s death, so they’re investigating. He had your name on a list, so they’ll be coming here to ask you questions. If anything happens to Detective Cain, Mr. Forsyth, that won’t end well for our community, and you know what Mother thinks of that.”
He narrowed his eyes at me, and his lips peeled back from elongated canines in a pathetic almost-threat that I rolled my eyes at, but he didn’t say a word, only nodded sharply, as we turned and left his home.
CHAPTER 10
