Page 31 of Smokescreen (Knight & Daywalker)
Ijust sat in the passenger seat and let Davin drive after that. It took a while to get down into Avalon anyway, but I just...
If Charles truly had been working against my mother, then it didn’t matter who had killed him, my mother was the best suspect. Likely, given those circumstances, most people would never believe it was anyone else, no matter what happened. Even if I personally confessed tomorrow, everyone would blame my mother.
Of course, if I’d done it, it probably would have been because of her, even if she hadn’t wanted me to kill him.
We were halfway to downtown when my phone rang, and the number on my caller ID was weirdly long. I wasn’t much of a phone answerer, but that was weird, so I answered out of curiosity if nothing else.
“Knight.”
“Mr. Knight,” a familiar voice said, bringing to mind narrowed brown eyes that looked like nothing had ever impressed their owner in all of history, set in a face that was as smooth and expressionless as a pane of glass.
“Wu Mei.”
“Indeed. I understand that if you aren’t yet, you’ll soon be looking for me.”
Unsurprising, really. Vampiric society was as gossipy as TV melodramas about high school. I’d have been surprised that Gerald hadn’t known about Charles’s death except that no one liked him, so him not hearing all the hot gossip wasn’t so terribly shocking. “We were just on our way to your penthouse, if you’ve got some time to speak to us.”
She...she laughed. That was weird. I’d never so much as heard her say she felt an emotion before, let alone express one with her voice. “I would love to see your adorable little face when I say this, but I’m afraid I can’t see you in my penthouse. You see, I’m in Taipei.”
For a moment, all I could do was blink in astonishment. Was this a confession? Was she saying she’d killed Charles and run off to another country to...to what? The Senate was worldwide. If she had killed Charles, they would find her wherever she was. There were no non-extradition countries for vampires.
If she confessed to me, I’d simply call my Consulate number and tell them. If she claimed some kind of immunity because her brother was the senator of Taipei, well, there was no such thing. Honestly, there was no way she could get away with it, if she confessed. Her own brother would likely turn her over to save his own skin, if necessary.
After an interminable silence that I suspected she had wanted me to stew in, but that I’d used to think through all the possibilities instead, she spoke again. “At my brother’s house, if you must find me. Where I have been for more than a week. The moment that little weasel Mailloux approached me talking about overthrowing your mother, I knew. One of the two of them was going to end up dead, and I would be blamed for it.”
“You left town so no one could possibly blame you,” I said on a single, heavy exhale. That was...actually, while being almostsociopathic in its lack of care for the lives of others, it was also very clever. Pretty much exactly what I’d have been expecting of her, if I’d considered that angle. “All right. Charles approached you about betraying the senator.”
“Don’t you try to tell me I’m responsible because I didn’t report him. No one would have believed me if I had.” Her voice was crisp, professional. Like we were talking about a project for her business rather than a man’s death.
I considered for a moment, trying to find an angle that would make her stop reacting with defensiveness and just tell me what I needed to know. Business. “Frankly, I couldn’t care less why you acted the way you did, ma’am. I’m trying to find out more about what Charles was doing that got him killed. Exactly what did he say to you?”
She was quiet for a while, and when she spoke again, her voice was begrudgingly respectful. “It was all innuendo. Wouldn’t we be better off with a different senator, and her time is over, and all that. He was trying to get me to say what he meant, rather than saying it himself.”
“So he didn’t actually say you should kill her?”
“No. He was trying to lead me into it, like a damned lawyer.”
Interesting. Like a lawyer. “Like a defense lawyer,” I clarified.
“I...suppose?” She’d gone bemused, and I heard the creak of a chair in the background, as though she was sitting back in it. Relaxed. “Like a bad Perry Mason book. Not that any of them were good.”
Me, I’d always liked Perry Mason. I liked all the TV and book detectives, and I’d grown up devouring all of them I could get my hands on. Raymond Burr had been fucking hot in the sixties, solving crimes and kicking ass in the courtroom. Plus gay icon, so bonus points.
Also, William Hopper as Paul Drake was the smoothest motherfucker ever born. The guy was private investigator career goals.
“And that was all? No other meetings, no one else bothered you about this? Just one meeting with Charles, and you left town?”
“What else was necessary? You can call me a rat, Mr. Knight, and I will accept that title proudly. Iama rat, and rats leave sinking ships. I wasn’t going to wait and go to the bottom with you all.” She took a deep breath and let it out, which immediately made me think of Davin sitting next to me, breathing like the world’s weirdest vampire. More likely she was smoking a cigarette. Vampires didn’t seem to get anything out of smoking, but some of them liked to affect a certain style by doing it.
Villain, I thought. I could picture Wu Mei using a cigarette holder, like some old school movie villainess. Movie star was how I pictured all the women in my life, honestly, so maybe that was just me. It probably came from having the mother I did.
“Thank you, I appreciate your call and your forthrightness about this. I’m sure we’ll have it taken care of soon, if you’d like to come home.”
She scoffed on the other end of the line. “Oh Xiaolóng. I think I will return when matters are settled. You never know what might come up before then. Who might become a convenient scapegoat, regardless of facts.”
She wasn’t wrong exactly. Things like that had happened in the world. I didn’t think it would happen in this case. I was almost certain that Mother wouldn’t allow it, but I understood her hesitance. I was a little more hung up on the other part, though. I didn’t know much—or any—about any of the Chinese languages, but I did love their food, so...“Did you just call me a dumpling?”
She laughed and hung up.
