“Thank you.”
“For what?” He looked confused. “I screwed up, I admit it. I should have known that Rachel might come looking for me one of these days. I put you in danger with my silence.”
“For not making me ask. For not trying to make me feel like I have no right to know about her.” I remembered what Sandy had said. I had been Mad Maudlin, respected and feared. I held tight to that memory, straightening my shoulders. “Because if you had tried to brush me off…”
“You’d make me leave. I understand. But Maddy, do you really think Ralph killed Rose? He might be working in cahoots with Rachel, but I never pegged him for a killer. While Rose’s death is going to impact the business, I just can’t see him attacking your coven-mate.”
“There’s something that I don’t think Delia told you. Rose was wearing the same kind of coat I was. She has long dark hair. In the gloom…”
Understanding dawned in his eyes. “She could have been you. But wasn’t she killed today? In the sunlight?”
I shook my head. “She was killed last night when she left here. That’s why Delia wants to talk to you. When you came home—”
Sandy shifted. “What Delia’s going to ask you is how, when you returned home, you managed to miss Rose’s body.”
The doorbell rang then, and I broke away, going to answer. Delia was standing there, along with one of her deputies. I ushered them in.
“Aegis is waiting,” I said. “I have some more information that might have some bearing on the case.”
“Don’t you want to know if we caught Ralph?” Delia asked, following me back into the kitchen.
“I don’t think he did it—”
“He’s in jail, Maddy. He confessed. He said that he was tricked into it by the woman he keeps talking about, that she said she could help him destroy his competition.” She pulled out her notebook. “I just have some routine questions,” she added, turning to greet Aegis. “Hello—mighty fine band you have there. I caught your show last week at the Utopia. Good sound.”
“Thanks.” Aegis frowned. “You say Ralph confessed?”
“That doesn’t make sense. When I talked to him, he acted like normal—like he always does. If he killed Rose, do you think he would have stood there arguing with me in the bakery? If he thought Rose was me, don’t you think that he would have been surprised to see me?” Nothing made sense, not even why Delia was taking Ralph’s word at face value.
She bit her lip. “Tell me what else you found out. For the record, I don’t know if Ralph’s telling the truth, but not many people confess to murders they don’t commit, and Ralph’s not the self-sacrificing type.”
That was true enough. Satyrs, in general, didn’t think much about others. They were fun-loving and brave, but I wouldn’t count on them to have my back unless they were a good friend.
“Okay. I went out and talked to Essie.” I laid out everything about Rachel that Essie had told me. Aegis chimed in to fill in the blanks.
Delia frowned. “So this Rachel is around. Ralph might just be working with her. Or there’s another possibility. I’ll have my men check Ralph for bite marks. He might be under thrall. If that’s the case, then he’d do anything for her and she could use him as a fall guy.”
“True. Satyrs can be mesmerized by a vampire as much as anybody.” As a witch, I was immune to the charm a vampire’s gaze caused, but just about anybody—witch or not—was subject to thrall, the state of euphoria and slavish devotion that a vampire’s bite could produce.
Aegis shook his head. “I wouldn’t put it past Rachel to sneak around Bedlam trying to produce an army of slaves. She always longed to be worshipped. Anybody who refused to put her on a pedestal ran the risk of becoming lunch. I release those whom I drink from so they aren’t bound, but Rachel never did. When she left them alive, she left them pining for her.”
“How long were you with her? We need to know everything we can about her. It sounds like she’s not just a danger to Maddy, but to Bedlam proper.” Delia was taking notes furiously, but I had the feeling she was watching Aegis very closely even though her focus seemed to be on her notepad.
His gaze clouded over. Finally, he shrugged and looked directly at me. “I first met Rachel in 1925. She was a dancer at one of the burlesque joints. The moment I set eyes on her, I knew she was special. I just wish I had never walked into that music hall, because that’s the last day I ever felt fully free.”
Chapter 7
“I MET HER in New York. She was dancing at a place called the Moxy Music & Theatre Hall. It was cold out, I think. The snow was thick and even though I didn’t feel the chill, it seemed bleak and dark. I was new in the city—I had come over in steerage to prevent exposure to the sun, and it also gave me an ample amount of people to drink off of during the night. I hid out and slept during the day. Anyway, I was fresh to the city and trying to find my way. I had worn out my welcome in Greece, and England was feeling old and tired. America promised wide spaces and new vistas.”
I understood, and I knew Sandy did, as well. Those of us in the Pretcom were long-lived, so we had to keep things fresh. We had to turn over our lives and reinvent ourselves more than once to stay focused. The Fae didn’t seem to feel the passing of time as harshly as we did, and Elves were best at handling long expanses of time. But shifters and Weres, witches and vamps—we all needed to shake the dust loose now and then.
“I ducked into the Moxy, just to see what was there. And she was on the stage. Rachel. She went by the name Desire—her stage name. She was dancing. But it wasn’t bump and grind. No, she used her glamour to enthrall her watchers. I could see it even though I wasn’t pulled in by it, but the aura gave her away. I knew she was one of the Fallen. A vampire like me.”
I didn’t want to hear this and yet, I had to. I had to face the fact that Aegis had had other loves—like I had—and that they had been to him what my sweet Tom had been to me. Aegis must have sensed what I was feeling, because he smiled at me.
“Glamour’s very real, but it’s not the core of what true attraction is. Anyway, she must have felt the shift in energy as I came in, because she looked directly at me from up there on the stage and that was it. I waited till after she was finished and we took up together that very night. Rachel knew her own way and she was a shrewd businesswoman. Nobody ever got one over on her. But there was a side of her that I couldn’t accept. She was ruthless and a user. She liked bloodwhores and sycophants, and for people to grovel in front of her.”
A chill raced down my back. “She likes power.”
He shook his head. “She craves it. I think it’s an actual addiction for her.”
“Where did Rachel originally come from?” Delia asked.
Aegis frowned. “She’s from an old Romany family. She’s not as old as I am, but she’s at least four or five hundred. She comes from the Old Country and keeps to her family’s customs. Her mother was one of the Strega. When Rachel was turned, her mother tried to stake her. Rachel killed her entire family, but she holds to their beliefs about vengeance. Once you cross her, you’re forever on her list.”