Shadow of the City by R. Morgan

Author:R. Morgan [Morgan, R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781948516068
Publisher: The Fourth Gorgon

Chapter 14

They argued all the way to the haunted castle.

“It’s too obvious, Hala. A copycat killer is not going to make the original killer’s lair his lair. I should be questioning the witnesses at Isis’s house.”

“The myth of the brilliant criminal mind is just a myth—you know that. Most often they’re normal people trying to do right with incorrect tools when society has failed them. Then there are the desperate and damaged and those seeking relief. Often they don’t think through their crimes because they result from flare-ups of emotion and no one ever taught them to follow the trail of their own thoughts, feelings and actions. If they aren’t merely mentally deficient.”

Rocío winced. Hala was tired if she was reverting to mental elitism. They all were. The cold coffee in the carriage hadn’t done much to combat the strain of murder and the damp chill of the night. Paloma’s eyes were glassy, and she hadn’t said a word since they’d entered the carriage. She had also taken the unbelievable news that Hala and Rocío suspected necromancy, not imported magic, with an aplomb Rocío thought had more to do with emotional exhaustion and overload than anything else.

“Not okay,” Rocío said.

Hala looked blank, and then her brain caught up with what her mouth had said, and she winced. “My apologies.”

“None of those things apply here. Except that our killer is possibly damaged. And possibly seeking relief. This wasn’t a desperate, unplanned murder committed in a welter of emotion. It was planned and orchestrated with—”

“Flare.”

“I was going to say cunning and intelligence. And cruelty, to place them in the middle of the party and reveal them that way.”

“The placement of the bodies was careful, yes,” Hala said. “But is that what you think of the murders themselves?”

Rocío squeezed her eyes shut, picturing the gaping mouths of the wounds whether she wanted to or not. “No. That was rage.”

“So we have uncareful murder and careful body disposal.”

“Making it likely that Isis was targeted. I should be questioning the witnesses.”

“Advocate Cetz has it under control. There were only a dozen people left to interview.”

“But”—Paloma faltered under Hala’s and Rocío’s gazes—“but if someone is targeting the ministrx, why do it this way? Why murder two people she’s not particularly close to and leave them at her house? Why them?”

“I suspect if we knew the answers to those questions, we’d know who the murderer is,” Hala said.

“We don’t know enough for it to make sense. And where is Aleksandr Prokofiev? Or his body? If any dead bodies were going to turn up in Isis’s house, I would expect his.”

Hala shook her head and stared at the darkness behind the window, no doubt running her own calculations. The carriage lurched through a particularly bad pothole, and Rocío slid to the edge of her seat. She settled back, bracing her feet against the opposite seat. Considering the road barely existed between the rural area of Villalta and the equally rural area of Roxal, Tomás was doing an excellent job driving the carriage.

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