her homework, so I nodded. “They claimed it, but they caused it. One of their vampires threw a knife at Alexei Breckenridge. He threw one back. Theirs missed; his didn’t. They started the fight, but we technically drew first blood.”
“You own a sword,” Theo said.
I shifted my gaze to him. “I do. You’ve trained with it.” We’d done a few rounds in the OMB gym.
“I know,” he said, and there was regret and guilt in the words.
“Where is it?” Gwen asked, and added notes to her file.
“At the loft.”
“Will you turn it over for forensic analysis?”
There were limits to everything. Including my cooperation.
“No,” I said, and she stopped taking notes, looked up at me.
“You refuse?”
“If you have a duly executed warrant, you’re welcome to take it. But since I didn’t hurt Blake, I don’t think you’ll be able to get one. It’s possible there’s a trace of his blood on it; I don’t know. The fight at the Grove was intense, and I’m not sure who the blade touched. But I didn’t kill him.” I looked at Theo. “I suggest you talk to Clive, find out who the Compliance Bureau has pissed off recently.”
“Other than you?”
“Pissed off,” I repeated, “and is willing to use murder as a tool of revenge. Because I’m not. Nor, for the record, are any of my friends.”
“Killing Blake might slow down the AAM’s prosecution of you,” Theo said. “Divert their attention.”
And killing Clive would have done that faster, I thought, but managed not to say that out loud. “I don’t want to divert their attention,” I said instead. “I want them to leave me alone. That’s not going to happen now. Instead, they’re probably going to draw the same conclusion you did. They’re going to think I did it.”
And they were going to come after me even harder.
* * *
* * *
Three more times. We went through it three more times, enough to have my temper flare and fall again. By the time we were done, it was midnight, and I was exhausted.
I hadn’t killed Blake. But I didn’t like the coincidence that he’d been killed here, during a trip to Chicago to investigate me, to confront me. And why Blake particularly?
“Theo,” Gwen said, and the word snapped me out of my thoughts. “Would you give me and Ms. Sullivan a minute?”
Brows lifted, he looked between us, nodded. “I’ll be right outside,” he said and rose.
“And clear out the observation room,” she said.
Another look of surprise, but after checking my face, he nodded at that, too, and left us alone.
I had no idea what to expect, or what she didn’t think she could say in front of Theo. So I watched her. When the door closed with a decisive click, she rose, flicked a switch on the wall. The mirror went transparent, revealing the observation room on the other side. Empty and nearly as grim as this one was.
Our privacy confirmed, she leaned against the far wall, arms crossed. “It hurts him to interrogate you.”
I hadn’t expected that. “What?”
“He values your partnership and your friendship. He doesn’t want to question you. But he also knows it’s the right thing to do—for Chicago, and for you.”
I considered that in silence. And she let me. “You and he are close?” I asked.
“We’re just friends, if that’s what you’re asking.” She pushed off from the wall, sat at the table again. “I knew him when he was with the CPD, and I was, frankly, disappointed when he moved to the OMB. It’s those damn comic books.”
Theo was a fan of graphic novels and comics, and told me he’d decided to join the Ombuds because he loved stories of superheroes, of supernaturally inclined crusaders who made a difference in the lives of humans. He thought the OMB was the best way to do that.
For the first time in hours, I smiled just a little. “Tell me about it,” I said. “Connor shares the obsession.”
“I know. Theo and I grab a beer every once in a while, and he tells me about the latest release or explains how number sixty-two is amazing or somebody I’ve never heard of is going to be at a comic con or whatever.”
“It’s a language I don’t understand.”
“Girl, same.” She linked her hands on the table, gave me a level stare. “I know what you’ve done for Chicago, and what your parents have done. Your great-grandfather.”
He’d been Chicago’s first supernatural Ombudsman.
“But given what happened last night, there’s a good chance this will get uglier before