Page 102 of Remnants: Disruption
“I don’t know. Dr. Andrews, the mortician, pointed out that the bodies we’d recovered were marked with the same tattoo that my informant noted as Darkrend’s. They disappeared when I Death Communed with them. Detective Bellick was in possession of the entire file for Revenant, even though he was on NCPD’s most wanted. Though you already know that.”
I level a look at Mary, not caring about the definite growls of warning from half of the collected group.
“So, you have no idea what Detective De Luca was working on before her murder?”
I flinch at her name. Like a slap to the face. My eyes flick back to Alice’s gutted body before returning my gaze to Bast.
“I only know she tried to meet with Damien Roberts but was turned away.”
“And this was before you got her killed?” Loki’s bitch ass voice pipes in, and this time I don’t hold my tongue.
“Who the fuck are you?” I hiss, stepping forward beside Azazel, but a strong hand wraps around my wrist.
I glance down to see Mary’s white knuckled fingers.
“Answer the question, acolyte,” Loki’s tone makes it seem like Mary restrained me for my benefit.
I blow out a hiss of frustration before righting my spine.
“This was before her death, yes. She’d circled the name for the liaison in Robert’s office, but I don’t have the name on me. I’m sure I’d recognize it if I saw it.”
There’s another mumble of conversation around the room as I return my attention to Bast.
“Why are you asking me?”
“Despite our obvious connections, De Luca had everything off the record. You had the final copy of her information, and we do not have it now,” Mary answers instead, her voice definitely holding a bite of accusation.
The fucking audacity.
I roll my eyes at her and reach a hand into my shadow vault. The folder comes out along with the tablet. I toss them at her, and she catches them in an awkward way that almost looks human.
There’s a beat of silence before eyes finally leave me and return to Mary.
Mary reads through the file for a few moments. Her silky dark hair curtains the right side of her face, hiding any possible reactions to the documents.
“Why did she eliminate you?” Mary asks, turning orange eyes on me.
It’s annoying how gorgeous she is.
“Presumably because she found out my identity between the investigation and her death,” I shrug. “Do you think she shouldn’t have?”
Mary pins me with an unreadable expression. I’d call it confusion if she hadn’t already proven herself to be ten steps ahead of everyone else.
“She also eliminated me,” Mary says, as if it’s just us in this meeting and not twenty-six other observers.
“Ballsy move, if you ask me,” I say. “She thought you were—”
“Like Darkrend, yes,” Mary literally sneers at me before turning away. “You made your point clear.”
Fuck, she’s hot.
I step back beside Azazel, my anger and annoyance flicker to a dead stop when my eyes return to the freeze frame on the other wall.
They might not have known her, but did they have to fucking pause it on her corpse like that?
I don’t know if the rest of the meeting accomplishes much. There’s a few arguments about what to do next. Loki makes a crude joke about the dead civilians from Arthur’s, and it takes everything in me to not skewer the bastard to the wall.
After some time, Mary calls for the archons—as she called them—to relay the increased scrutiny on Remnant activities aboveground. And people begin to move.
