“That would be good.”
“Cool. I’ll let you know what he says.” He paused. “Atticus is at my feet and asking if you need help.”
“He’s a damn cat. He can’t get up here—not alone, anyway.”
There was another pause, then, “He wishes to remind you that he is unfettered.”
I rubbed my head wearily. It wasn’t so much being unfettered that gave him the freedom to do what he wished, but the fact he was also ayokai. In Japanese legends, they were generally supernatural cat entities who could attain human form. In the witch world, they were familiars who were supposed to die with their witches but didn’t, and therefore retained a presence in both worlds. Basically, he had both a flesh and a spirit form, and could flit between the two as he desired. It was damnably hard to stop a regular cat from doing what it wanted, let alone one who could literally walk through walls or transport itself across vast distances as if they were only meters.
“Tell him I am not going to carry his sorry ass around crime scenes with me.”
“To which he says, his sorry ass doesn’t need carrying, but yours certainly needs his help.”
“Tell him I’m fine.”
He did so, then added, “He made a face and has now stomped away, tail flicking in contempt.”
I laughed. That was Atticus’s general reaction to any conversation that didn’t go his way. Joseph and I continued to talk for a few more minutes, then I let him go. After taking a sip of the watery substance that passed as coffee in this place, I grabbed the computer and booted it up. Thankfully, Ginny had already set it all up, saving me the hassle. I grabbed the USB I’d gotten from Viceroy, attached it, and played the file.
As he’d noted, there wasn’t much that happened in the first fifteen minutes of the tape. Then, from the stairs, René emerged, striding purposefully down the hall, his movement echoing with grace and power. I was tempted to pause and simply admire, but resisted, if only because I might well be teasing hormones that would never find satisfaction, at least when it came to the hands of this man.
I did have to note that he had mighty fine hands.
He reached Ashworth’s door and rang the bell. After a second attempt, he touched the door briefly with splayed fingers. A heartbeat later, the door opened. As Viceroy had said, he didn’t go in, but he did glance briefly sideways.
Someone was with him. Someone who was invisible to the camera’s eye.
I swore and rubbed a hand across my eyes. Damn it, I really hadn’t wanted to believe he could be a bad guy, and maybe he wasn’t, but he certainly wasn’t telling me the truth.
I rewound the tape a few seconds, then increased the zoom percentage until the door all but filled the screen and let it play again. The door opened and, just for a second, the air shimmered as someone moved between him and the door and entered the apartment.
Had that someone been our telepath or the person who’d raided the safe? Were they one and the same? A telepath could certainly have forced Tane to open the safe so he or she could grab the jewels and whatever else they’d been after, but there really hadn’t been enough time between their entry point and mine. Controlling someone to that degree was no easy task, and generally took a good ten minutes or so, at the very least, for such complete control to be achieved.
But if our telepath hadn’t raided the safe, then either Tane was lying about what was missing or our thief had come inbeforehe’d arrived in the apartment.
I continued to watch the tape. René didn’t wait for his accomplice. The minute she was in and the door had closed, he turned and strode back down the hall to the stairs. With only a few minutes left until my arrival, the door opened and closed again. I increased the image size and saw the suspicious shimmer. It was almost impossible to see who or what lay underneath it, but the overall shape was on the small and somewhat shapely side. It did tie in with Tane’s assertions that he’d talked to a woman, because invisibility shields needed to cling to one’s form in order to provide the best coverage.
I went to tap the earwig, remembered it had been smashed, and picked up my phone instead.
“Hey,” I said when comms answered. “It’s Agent Kang here?—”
“Yeah, I know that,” Jack said dryly. “Every call that comes in here has all necessary call information attached. Heard you ended up in hospital, so why the fuck are you calling rather than resting?”
“Because I was bored and going through the security tapes I got from Ashworth’s building manager and need additional information.”
“Just as well nothing else interesting is happening right now, then. What do you need?”
I smiled. “I need the security tapes from Tane’s building manager for the forty-eight hours prior to Tane’s arrival, and then I need someone to go through them and see who—if anyone—goes into his apartment. Also, given the telepath who entered before me used an invisibility spell, you’ll need to watch for that.”
“Well, that always makes things interesting. I’ll get on to it.”
“Thanks.” I paused. “Did forensics pull anything interesting from any of our current crime scenes?”
“Not that I’ve heard, but then, I don’t get updated on that sort of stuff.”
“Could you put in a request I be notified the minute anything does come through?”
“I can and even will.”
