His question surprises me. “No,” I answer honestly. “I’d heard rumors… a friend of a human acquaintance was arrested by FIRE. But in sixteen years, I never met another fae. To be fair, I wasn’t looking for them and I avoided anything related to our kind. I was too scared it might draw suspicion.” I try not to think of how terribly lonely it was living in Vegas. My human relationships were better than nothing but necessarily shallow.
“Understandable.”
“If a human did this, it’s not like they could come and go. Everyone who passes through the front gate is screened, and the only other way in is through the moon gate, which is only open to the fae. A fae living in the US like I was might have crossed into Devashire to commit the crime, but in that case, Godmother would have their magical signature in the wards. And neither of the scenarios explains why the murderer would try to blame a human murder on US soil on a creature unknown to humans.”
He rolls his pen back and forth under his fingertips. “Godmother doesn’t know about the murder Donovan told you about. Are you going to tell her, or should I?”
“You,” I say immediately.
He gives a brisk nod.
The office grows quiet. He’s staring at me again, and my stomach flutters in response. Stupid stomach. “So who was Michael Murphy last seen with?”
“We don’t know. There was a planned power outage in that sector of the park the night of the murder. No security footage.”
I blink at him. “Who knew about the outage?”
“No one who isn’t accounted for. We’ve checked.”
“Nothing on Michael’s social? Facebook, Instagram, TikTok?” Humans tend to post pictures of their pixie dates.
“Michael was disappointingly discreet about his endeavors here in Dragonfly.”
I ponder that for a minute while I stare at a sterling silver sculpture on the corner of his desk. It’s one of those pieces of art that’s both ostentatious and purposeless. He probably paid thousands of dollars for it and it doesn’t even hold pencils. What is it even supposed to be? A wing, maybe? A lightbulb goes off in my head. “What about Flutter?”
He stares at me blankly.
The corner of my mouth twitches, and then my smile spreads. “You don’t know what Flutter is, do you?”
“Don’t be smug, Sophia. It’s very unattractive.”
“Ha! I bet your sister knows. I bet your company advertises on their website.”
He leans back in his chair and threads his fingers across his stomach. “Are you going to explain to me what Flutter is or should I go find Evangeline to ask her?”
I get comfortable in my chair and rub my hands together. “Oh no, I’ll tell you. Flutter is a dating site like Grindr or Tinder but specifically for humans who want to be matched with pixies and satyrs.”
His eyes narrow. “Do users post pictures?”
“Sometimes, but even if they don’t, the site tracks who’s matched with whom. I bet Michael had an account.” I bound out of my chair and charge behind the desk to Seven’s laptop. He rolls his chair out of the way, scowling at me like I’ve broken some kind of unwritten rule. Scowl away. I’m driving.
Gods, this thing is sleek. It looks like it was manufactured by aliens in some high-tech chamber that uses microscopic beams of light to assemble it. The thing is so thin if I turned it on its side, I could probably floss my teeth with it. “Password?”
He rolls to my side and presses his finger to the fingerprint reader to unlock it. I navigate to Flutter. Illustrated fairies flit across the screen, landing on giant flowers where they arch their backs and spread their knees. Nice. I search for a profile under Michael Murphy. Nothing comes up.
“Damn,” Seven says.
I search for Michael. Three hundred profiles come up. I start scrolling. On the second page, Michael Murphy’s mustached face stares back at me. I click his photo. “There he is. MichaelLovesWings69.”Ick.
His profile doesn’t give us any answers other than his favorite music—country—and his membership in a gun club in Alabama. There’s a picture of Michael on the back of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and another firing a handgun at a shooting range.
“Nothing here about who he hooked up with,” Seven says. “I’ll get someone from security to see if he can bypass the login and take a look at his profile.” He reaches for the phone.
“Gods, that will take too long.” I hang up the phone and navigate to a new window. I set up a new email account. MichaelLovesWings69 is taken but I get MichaelLovesWings95. Once I’ve validated it using Seven’s system, I navigate back to Flutter and scroll down to the contact number at the bottom of the page. I start to dial but then realize the flaw in my plan.
“You’re going to have to do this. My voice is too high. I could use illusion, but you make a more convincing man than me.” I hand him the phone.
He looks at it like I’m handing him a scorpion. “What do you want me to say?”
