Creed ignored the mess Andy had made of his apartment the times she retrieved clothes for him. She kept apologizing as he sorted his way through slacks, coats, socks, and T-shirts. Good thing he didn’t wear underwear, or she likely would have plastered it to his window. And that was before she started cleaning because something stank in the kitchen. Pretty soon she had emptied the kitchen trash, the living-room trash, and tossed out a bottle from the television table.
Creed dressed in his usual jeans and blazer, pissed that his best leather jacket had gotten torched at Riana’s. His old brown leather bomber jacket seemed beat-up and shabby next to the jacket he lost, but it would have to do.
He looked up and realized Andy was absently pitching out unmatched socks he had left on his dresser the last time he did laundry.
“Knock it off,” he told her before she started junking his unfolded gym shorts. “Just—give it a rest.”
At the sound of his voice, Andy went pale. The trash bag trembled in her tight grip.
Creed took the bag out of her hands and tied it.
Andy watched him like he was performing some sort of miracle, then seemed to come back to earth.
“We’ve got to get to the house by oh-nine-hundred for the interview Freeman finally approved with Corey James.” She rubbed her hand over her eyes and took a deep breath. “I want to see what we can dig out of him about his wife’s activities as a Sibyl. I bet there’s a lot more that Alisa hasn’t told anyone, because she doesn’t think she can. That jacket looks good, by the way. I like it better than the black one.”
Creed glanced down at the worn leather. “Thanks. Listen, Andy, we’ll find our way through this.”
Andy didn’t look like she believed him, but her color was slowly coming back. “I didn’t transfer to the OCU for shits and giggles, I guess. I just never really thought—I never really believed…”
He nodded. “I know. Yet all along, your partner was an alien and you never knew it.”
They started out of the apartment and actually made it part of the way down the hall before Andy said, “You’re not
really
an alien, right?”
Creed got them to the station house in record time. OCU was headquartered on West Thirtieth, in the old Fourteenth Precinct station. The refurbished building served as headquarters for the Traffic Task Force. As the powers-that-be hoped, nobody paid much attention to the back corner of the top floor, where the double doors read simply,
POLICE ANNEX
. Six desks, one office, a storeroom, and two all-purpose rooms were crammed into a space not much larger than an elementary school library, but it was enough to do the job. They even had two “cover cops,” regular detectives not officially assigned to OCU, who could investigate and interrogate without raising too many eyebrows. As for the old Fourteenth, the building’s stone entrance looked like a castle with four turrets, giving way to smoother facing and polished windows. It had a modern Gothic charm that Creed couldn’t help but appreciate. It seemed right to put the OCU—“Freak Squad” to the officers who knew about them—in a modern, half-creepy castle.
Suspects and persons of interest brought in for questioning thought the OCU was only there to take the overflow for Midtown South, and no one told them any differently.
Police Annex
was generic enough not to raise many questions. The minute Creed and Andy got off the elevator, though, they could tell something was out of the ordinary. A bunch of guys in dark glasses and suits hovered in the hallway between the elevator and the main door.
“Feds?” Creed murmured.
Andy sighed. “No. Hired protection, I guess. Bodyguards.”
“For a Senate challenger?” Creed shook his head as they pushed into the office. “Never thought of that being so high-risk.”
Captain Freeman was standing in the door of his office scowling at a clipboard, his dark eyebrows pulled together in a sharp, telltale V-shape. Another cluster of guys in suits crowded in the hallway leading to the all-purpose rooms.
“I think we have special company other than Corey James.” Andy nodded to Creed’s desk, where a beige blazer, the very expensive kind with leather
and
lace, draped over his chair. “Unless Mr. James is a cross-dresser.”
Creed noticed the blazer’s scent drifting seductively through the station house. Something classic and musky, the kind older women preferred. Older women with boatloads of money. Right about then he remembered what Captain Freeman had said about a follow-up with Senator Latch and his wife toward the end of the week.
Was this Raven Latch’s blazer?
Could he and Andy wangle a few minutes with the senator and Ms. Latch before they hit the streets again?
“Your guy’s in Two,” Freeman barked. “Keep it clean and quick.”
Andy paused to grab a pen, pad, and a tape recorder, then the two of them plunged into the sea of suits clogging the main hall. They passed up the first door, at which point the clot of well-dressed guys with earpieces thinned considerably. Creed glanced back toward One, wondering what VIP had stopped in to ruin Captain Freeman’s morning. He didn’t have time to give it much thought, though, because Andy opened the door to Two and marched in to greet Corey James.
The man appeared to be in his early forties, with brown eyes and close-trimmed brown hair, dressed in a standard blue business suit and tie. Creed knew from Andy’s notes that the guy was retired Army, and he looked the part in build and bearing, and in the way he kept his gaze level and straightforward, ready to meet any challenge. He didn’t have any bodyguards, and to Creed’s surprise, no team of attorneys or press agents or spinmeisters flanked his chair. He was sitting in a wooden chair at the room’s small conference table, absolutely alone. Morning sunlight streaming through the screened window provided the only light. The guy had no trained pets, no props. Nothing but a cup of coffee in front of him. No cream. Probably no sugar, either.
Pretty basic
. Creed studied him, knowing that Corey James had married a Sibyl, apparently with full knowledge of who and what she was. Straight A’s in high school, toward the top of his class at the Citadel, eight years in the Marines, then business and politics. A little to the left with his environmental policies and social consciousness, but the guy was no idiot, that was for sure. He looked the type to make his decisions deliberately and carefully.
What would make him take on a political liability like a Sibyl?
An image of Riana floated through his mind, and Creed clenched one fist. He guessed he knew the answer to that question, didn’t he?
When Creed and Andy sat down, Andy put her pad, pen, and recorder on the black oak table in front of her. She gestured to the recorder, and James nodded his permission for her to turn it on. Clearly, he’d been through his share of interrogations already.
Andy pushed
RECORD
, and Corey James opened the conversation with, “You’ve made a terrible mistake, arresting my wife.”
Creed didn’t correct him about which division and officers arrested Alisa James, and neither did Andy. They just asked him to explain.
Corey James leaned forward and gripped his coffee cup with both hands. “She would never harm a child. She protects the weak and innocent.”
Andy gave the man a smile, tuning up for the role she’d play in this questioning. Creed didn’t have to work at looking sympathetic, either. He felt for the guy, assuming he wasn’t a psychopathic bastard who made demons in his spare time.
“Maybe you can tell me again why your wife was at the Latch house the night Jacob Latch was murdered?” Andy kept up her sweet smile, but Creed saw James sizing it up for what it was: a sugar-coated snarl.
James looked down at his coffee. “She was taking care of the boy, like she told you. She often watched him when his parents went out—Raven Latch is one of Alisa’s best friends, and she doesn’t—didn’t—trust too many people with the boy.”
He looks down when he doesn’t tell the whole truth,
Creed noted to himself.
Not a guy accustomed to lying, even for his wife’s benefit. What the hell is he doing in politics?
“How does that work, her being friends with the man you’re running against?”
“Alisa and Raven met through their work on the Children’s Council five years ago, and they hit it off right away. As for Davin, he and I do fine. Our rivalry is political, not personal.”
“He’s pretty far to the right of your positions.” Andy tapped her pen on her pad. “That’s got to piss you off every now and then.”
James shook his head and let out a breath. “On paper, Davin’s aligned with his party. He’s not that stiff interpersonally.”
When they gave him matching quizzical expressions, James added, “He’s been a mentor to me, tried to sway me more to the center. We’re not enemies, Detectives. There’s no mudslinging going on, no vindictive bullshit. We’re just two guys slugging it out in the polls.”
Andy put down her pen and leaned back in her chair. “May the best man win?”
“Exactly.” James killed the rest of his coffee. “Look, you know I was across town from Raven and Davin when this horrible thing happened. At a fund-raiser—hundreds of people saw me, so I know I’m not a suspect.”
“Killers can be hired,” Andy said, beginning to really unleash her inner bitch.
James put down his empty cup and stared at her.
Andy stared right back at him.
Game on.
Creed felt completely relaxed for the first time in days. He was in his element, playing off Andy’s lead. Thoughts of Riana, the
other,
and the outside world faded away as he watched his partner spend the next fifteen minutes doing what she did best: pissing people off. She absolutely infuriated Corey James, asking leading questions about his campaign finances, bank accounts, timings of withdrawals and transfers, and ultimately whether or not he screwed around on his wife or had a thing for little kids.
James held it together longer than most people, Creed had to give him credit, but he finally lost it over the infidelity question. James turned red in the face as he banged the table and pushed back his chair. He stood and pointed his finger at Andy. “I don’t know what you’re trying to do, and I don’t give a damn. I came here to help my wife. Have you seen her? They—those people—
did
something to Alisa. You don’t understand. You have no idea!”
“We have a better idea than you think,” Creed said as Andy settled back in her chair, satisfied she had him rattled and off his guard. He reached in front of her, turned off the tape recorder, and landed the next blow. “We know your wife’s a Sibyl, Mr. James. An earth Sibyl, trained at Motherhouse Russia. We know that her triad got caught in a shit-storm at Van Cortlandt Park this weekend, and that her friend Bette got killed by man-made demons known as Asmodai.”
The expression on Corey James’s face defied description. His muscles went slack, and he sank back into his chair, gaping at both of them. For a long time, he couldn’t say anything. When he did speak, he said, “I heard about Bette, and about Camille going—uh, home. It’s going to kill Alisa. She’ll blame herself for Bette’s death.”
Creed nodded, and his gut ached when he saw the torture in Corey James’s eyes. By the time he asked his next question, he already knew the answer. “Are you a member of the Legion, Mr. James?”
James shook his head, staring at his hands. “I know a little about them, but just what Alisa’s shared. I never thought it would get like this, so bad. What are they doing?”
“We don’t know,” Andy admitted. “Killing kids for one thing.”
James’s head came up. “So you know Alisa’s innocent, right?”
“
We
do,” Creed clarified. “But I’m afraid we don’t matter much in the grand scheme of things. We need proof, Mr. James. Tell us where to find it.”
Once more, the look of pain on the man’s face punched Creed in the gut. James opened his hands. “I don’t
know
. Raven and Davin were afraid, though. I think they’ve run into these bastards before.”
Andy kept her expression steady. Creed hoped he did as well. She didn’t turn the tape player back on, but instead picked up her pen. “Go on. Please.”
James eyed the pen and pad.
“This isn’t official, Mr. James,” Creed assured him. “You won’t be quoted. Just give us something. Anything.”
James frowned and lowered his head. “You know Jacob was a late-in-life baby, right? That Raven called him her little miracle, since she was almost forty-two years old when he was born.”
Creed and Andy both nodded. That was in the main file, front and center.
“Their first baby was stillborn, back when Raven Latch was just twenty,” Andy said.
Corey James looked down at the table, which put Creed on the alert. “Tell us, Mr. James. Your wife’s freedom may depend on it.”
“I can’t prove anything, you understand.” James lifted his head with that torn, tortured expression. He felt like he was giving away his wife’s secrets, betraying his friends. That much was obvious. Still, he wanted Alisa out and back with him, and Creed couldn’t blame the man a bit.
“We understand,” Andy said quietly. She put down her pen to make him more at ease.
James hesitated, then seemed to decide. “From some things Alisa said before all this happened, I’m not sure their first son was born dead. I think something…weird…happened to him, and Davin’s people covered it up. I think—I think the Legion killed that baby.”
This time, Andy didn’t hide her stunned expression.
“I know it’s far-fetched, but Alisa said something about Raven and Davin being targeted, though she didn’t know why.” James scrubbed one cheek with his hand and made himself continue. “She said the death of their first baby was a bloody tragedy. That’s why Raven Latch was so protective of Jacob, and why Alisa and her triad saw to the boy when Raven and Davin had to be away.”
Creed and Andy kept up their strategic silence, but all James had to add was, “Regular bodyguards don’t make much difference with Asmodai.”
“Yeah.” Andy ditched her bitch routine and frowned, actually showing a trace of sympathy. “That we know.”