“I only said it because it’strue. Quoth can’t get upset about the truth – that would be impractical. You saw what he did today – he can’t even control his shift. He doesn’t go outside or work a job or help Heathcliff in the shop. He doesn’t even know how totalkto another human. All he does is hide up in the attic, drawing and reading, or flaps around down here pooping on the furniture.”
“Croooooak!” Quoth yelled from upstairs. There was a crash, and Grimalkin howled.
I stood up. “I’m going to talk to him.”
“Don’t get between those two, or you’ll end up in hospital,” Morrie warned. “Quoth will settle down. He’s heard it all before. You can’t judge him by your standards, Mina. Heathcliff spoke the truth – Quothisn’thuman.”
I stared at the ceiling, cringing as there was another crash and a yowl, and the sound of books thumping onto the floor.
Don’t concern yourself with me, Mina.Quoth’s voice popped into my head.I’ve got that bastard cat right where I want her.
“See?” Morrie grinned. “He’s fine. Nothing to worry about.”
I rubbed my temple. It was going to take some getting used to hearing Quoth’s raven thoughts inside my head. Reluctantly, I sat back down – Morrie was right; Quoth’s talons were sharp, and Grimalkin was lethal when she wanted to be. It was better to wait until peace reigned.
“I managed to get ahold of Ribald’s office,” Heathcliff said. “He wouldn’t come to the phone, but his assistant said he had back-to-back appointments and chortled when I suggested he might be in Martha’s Vineyard. So we know your friend lied.”
“She’s not my friend,” I corrected him, waving my empty glass for him to refill.
“Don’t you think it’s odd that the first drawing hasn’t appeared in the media yet?” Heathcliff refilled both our glasses. “If someone is paying money for these designs, wouldn’t they want to leak them as soon as possible?”
“Not necessarily. It depends what they were going to do with them. Anyone paying Ashley that much money isn’t just wanting to leak the designs to the press – they want to add the garments to their own lines. But with Paris Fashion Week in January, they’re going to be scrambling to finish in time. This ishaute couture. These garments are made from the finest natural fibers, hand-dyed and hand-stitched. Every single bead is attached by hand. That’s not the kind of thing you can just recreate in an afternoon.”
“Maybe the idea wasn’t to recreate the pieces, but to blackmail this Ribald character?” Morrie suggested. “That’s what I would do, if I had these drawings in my possession. I’d dig up some dirt on this guy and force him to pay me cashanddesign my next collection in order to keep me quiet. And who better to blackmail him than his intern, who knows all the intricate details of his personal life?”
Back when I thought Moriarty was just an eccentric computer nerd, that comment would have made me laugh. But I got caught up on the thought that he’d actually blackmailed people, actually gone through the process for setting up an elaborate scheme to ruin someone’s life, and that he thought nothing of doing it, and that smile of his lost a tiny bit of its luster.
That wasn’t what you were thinking when he had you up against that wall,Quoth’s voice penetrated my thoughts.
“What wall?” Heathcliff glanced up at me, his dark eyes boring into my soul. Shit. I didn’t want him to find out about Morrie and I. It would make it awkward for him in his own shop, especially since I didn’t know what I was going to do about Morrie, and I—
Is that really the reason?Quoth asked.Or is it that you can’t choose between them?
“Not a difficult choice,” Morrie said without looking up from his phone. “Brains over brawn every time.”
“What are you choosing?” Heathcliff growled. “What’s that bloody bird talking about?”
“Stay out of my head!” I yelled upstairs, my cheeks burning.
“Croak!” came the reply.
“So there might be something to this blackmail,” I said quickly, hoping to change the subject. “But how would we find out? I’m not going to have to talk to Marcus, am I?”
“Not when we have the internet on our side.” Morrie tapped a few buttons on his phone. “Okay, I’ve pulled up Marcus’ Ribald’s financials. He’s made two large payments in the last year, one a few days before the gala dinner, and one just a week ago.”
“They could be payments to do with Fashion Week.”
“So he works with a lot of stylists who have anonymous Cayman Island accounts?”
“Hmmm. You have a point.”
“Of course I do. I’m very clever.” Morrie downed his glass in one gulp and picked up his phone again. “All we need to do is find out who these accounts belong to, and we’ve found our murderer.”
“How do wedothat?”
“When you’re as brilliant as me, you don’t even need to answer that question.” Morrie tapped away on his phone. “Give me a minute, and I’ll have a name.”
“But I don’t understand why Ashley was killed. She’s not the blackmailer. I just can’t see her setting up a Cayman Island account.”
