Page 52 of Cozy Prisons
He sounded a rumble of agreement. “In some ways it was.” Now it was time to tell her about the hard times.
“I entered into service with the idea that I would carry out my duties with honor. I believed that nothing could stop me from uncovering the truth,” he sounded a rumble of amusement at the memory. “I was so young and naive.”
She rubbed up and down the inside of his arm, avoiding his sharp quills. “We’re all naive at some point.”
“Probably,” he agreed. “Looking back, I wonder how I could’ve been blind for so long.”
She kept moving her hand on his arm. He was surprised at how soothing it was. “It’s not that you were blind, it’s that you weren’t ready to face whatever horrible truth was going on.”
He was impressed at how much she knew, and he hadn’t even gotten to the center of his story.
“I was called in to investigate a murder. That’s a rare crime on Talarian, but it does happen. Usually, as an attempt to take control of a family or clan.”
She’d stopped petting and was gripping his arm now. “Was that the case here?”
“Surprisingly, no. It was a crime of passion.”
“Passion? As in love? I need details. You can’t leave it there.”
“Not love,” Daxus said. “It was more about status. Olikum was a high-ranking male within the Jum Clan. He managed to capture the attention of Tremus, a female of high rank within the Umor Clan. They were in the middle of contract negotiations for marriage when her family changed their mind. She tried to object, but they overrode her.”
Nataly frowned. “You guys can’t decide who you're going to marry?”
“We can,” Daxus said. “But every decision has consequences. If she’d gone through with marrying Olikum, then her parents would be within their rights to exclude her from their lineage, which meant no inheritance.”
“I get it now,” Nataly said with a small nod. “That’s sad. Do you think she loved him?”
“I think she enjoyed the way he kowtowed to get her attention,” Daxus said. “I don’t think she felt any true affection for him. Any vestiges of affection she might’ve had for him were gone after he became enraged enough to attack her.”
“He attacked her? Because she said no to marrying him?”
“She said that he came after her when she wouldn’t go to her parents a second time to try to convince them to reconsider the match. His attack was clumsy, and she was able to defend herself and walk away without injury.”
Nataly made a growling sound. “Tell me she beat the hell out of him!”
A rumble of amusement bubbled out of Daxus’s chest. “She put him on the ground and told him never to come near her again. Then she walked away as if she wasn’t afraid to give him her back. I can only applaud the insult she handed him. Unfortunately, she didn’t report it to the head of her clan or the mavins.”
“If she didn’t tell anyone, how do you know about it?”
“She didn’t report it officially, but she told her parents and sibling. They brought the information to me after she died under mysterious circumstances."
“Oh no,” Nataly said. “I was hoping he’d died.”
“I’m afraid not. Tremus’s body was found crushed to death in the woods of her family's estate. The area looked as if she’d attempted to move a boulder on her own, and it shifted oddly and rolled over top of her.”
“That seems weird," Nataly said.
“It wasn’t odd for her to be in that area. It was common for the family and staff to move those boulders as a form of exercise. Over the solars they’d created a kind of stone fence between their property and the one next door.”
“I still think it doesn't make sense. If she had the reflexes to easily fight off Olikum, then how did a boulder get the best of her?”
“When I was sent in to investigate, I found many peculiarities also. Marks on the boulder where someone had used a wedge bot to uplift it from its spot. Footprints that didn’t match Tremus or her family. There was also evidence that a vehicle had traveled close by recently, when the family claimed vehicles weren’t allowed in those woods. The report from the healer who examined her body was the most condemning piece of evidence. He found that there was a paralyzing agent in her body, andthe crush injuries on her chest weren’t the right shape for the boulder that was found on top of her. He said it was more likely someone delivered the paralytic, then stomped on her chest until the damage was severe enough to cause death. Then they rolled the boulder on top of her to cover their crime.”
Nataly sucked in a breath. “That’s horrific!”
Daxus sounded a rumble of agreement. “Yes, it was. I was stumped as to who would want to end her life until her parents told me about Olikum. The moment I heard about the incident, I was suspicious."
She looked up at him, engaged by his story. “What did you do?”
