Fire Within - By Ally Shields Page 0,5
flipped the pages, “a Lewis Hampton, the first person out the door, Eddie seemed frozen, just staring at the body. Maybe he was shocked by what he’d done.” Ryan returned to his desk and sat down. “You can look for mitigating factors, maybe affect the penalty, but a jury is going to take about ten minutes to convict.”
Ari shrugged. Maybe not, if Ryan couldn’t produce a weapon. And Eddie’s lawyer could get him to retract the confession. The juries in human trials were human. While they’d try to be impartial, she felt they’d be hesitant to convict on such slim evidence. Especially considering the consequences. Of course, nothing would help Eddie if he pled guilty. He’d never get to trial. The case would go straight to the penalty phase, and Eddie would be turned over to the vampires for disposition.
Ari’s gut clenched. Vampires could be very inventive.
She strengthened her resolve and wrote down Lewis Hampton’s number and address. His testimony would be critical to the prosecution’s case. If she wanted to save Eddie, she had to find a way to punch holes in his confession.
What they knew so far led to an unacceptable conclusion. She intended to start over from the beginning. Give it a fresh look. Collect new facts. Vampires—overly confident, arrogant or just plain belligerent, depending on your point of view—had a way of making enemies. There had to be other, better, suspects than Eddie. Ryan didn’t know the reporter the way Ari did. Eddie was a law-abiding guy, the kind who paid his parking tickets and didn’t fudge on his taxes. Much more likely to write a vitriolic column than take a gun in his hand.
But if Ari was right about his character, why was Eddie lying?
Chapter Two
As she drove away from the police station, Ari turned her Mini Cooper west toward the river district. The Woodland Inn was a small, neighborhood bar on the east edge of Olde Town. It stood in the zone next to Goshen Park that bridged the modern city with its dominantly human population and the original town, which in the past twenty years had been taken over by those who possessed and used magical abilities. The owner and any frequent patrons of the bar would be familiar with both divergent worlds.
When she arrived, Gillian was already there.
“Ari, so glad you called. Good excuse to get out of the OFR. What’s the story here?” The twenty-something lab tech, dressed casually in white jeans and a pink blouse, hurried across the parking lot with light, graceful steps. Tangled wisps of short blonde hair softened Gillian’s sharp, elfin features.
“I hoped they’d send you.” Ari grinned at her. A fragile looking species, but under that facade lay unusual strength; any elf could bench press 1,000 plus, if he or she was so inclined. Gillian chose to rely on her mind. The two women had been friends since Gillian joined the Otherworld Forensics & Research laboratory four years ago.
Ari explained what she knew about the case, the confession, the lack of physical evidence, and together they gave the scene a once-over. The bar was the only business in an unpretentious brown stucco building with the parking lot east of the front door. The crime scene tape was down, and a clean-up crew had already finished their work. Gillian began to walk around the edge of the paved area. Much of the surface was dotted with old oil stains. That made it easy to identify where the body had fallen. The spot-free area left by a clean-up crew was a dead give-away. Although it was early in the day, four cars were parked in the lot, but the scrubbed area remained empty. Superstition, or a show of respect for the victim?
Gillian returned, stopping next to Ari. “Not picking up much. How about you?”
“Haven’t tried yet.” Ari concentrated, reaching across the parking lot and around the building with tendrils of witch magic. She found residue of Otherworld energy, enough to raise the small hairs on her arms, but it was no more than could be accounted for by the victim’s presence the night before or even by Otherworld bar patrons. Vampires, wizards, lycanthropes, halfling demons, to name a few. Any of them might leak enough magic for trace readings. It had been too long since the incident for her to identify anything specific. She turned to look at Gillian. “Not getting enough. What’s your ES reading?”
Gillian peered at the screen of an Energy Sensor (ES), an instrument no