“We might yet. There’s no confirmation that it was Mona.”
“True.” She sighed, and glanced at her watch. “I better get going. I rang our client and arrange to meet her at a café in town at nine.”
I frowned. “Aren’t you pushing your sun limitations?”
She shook her head. “It’s clouded over, and I’ll be sun-creamed to high heaven and covering up.”
Which didn’t mean she wouldn’t burn. “Why not just ask her here?”
“Aside from the ogre factor?” she said, amusement touching the corners of her slate-colored eyes. “I thought she might be less inclined to cry in a public place.”
I snorted softly. “You’re all heart.”
“Totally. Comes from years of walking the streets in the dead of the night.” She pushed up from her desk. “Let me know how the siren thing goes.”
“Ditto with the crier.” I grinned. “And hold your breath as you head downstairs. Gutter humor was alive and well when I left.”
“Another damn reason to move the buggers on,” she said, then drew in a deep breath and quickly retreated down the stairs.
I fired up my computer, then transferred all the images I’d taken of Keale. The shot of the dragon, his body aflame with sunlight and mirrored in the Rialto’s windows, was a stunner. It almost looked as if two dragons were flying through the sky. But it was the picture of him colliding with the helicopter that caught my attention. I’d managed to take the shot from behind him just as the sun broke above the horizon, and the silver helicopter was practically lost in the sudden glare. If I could hardly see it, then a dragon, with their poorer eyesight, certainly wouldn’t have. If ever there was a shot that might provide Keale with an excuse for hitting that helicopter, it was this one.
I stared at it for several more seconds, then emailed the proof across to Greg Harris, my former boss. Technically, I supposed I should have sent it to the police—and that’s certainly what Ceri would have advised—but I wasn’t above trying to sway the public’s opinion in Keale’s favor. He needed all the help he could get on this one.
Surprisingly, Greg’s response was almost immediate and, for once, he didn’t quibble at the cost. Obviously, no staff photographers had managed to get anything, and photos like this on the front page of any newspaper usually guaranteed at least an extra ten thousand newspapers sold.
I waited until I had confirmation that the fee had been transferred to my account, then sent him the full picture. With that all settled, I pulled Lyle’s card from my pocket and opened a separate file to upload them into.
He was no photographer, that was for sure. There were only five shots on the card—four of them of the car from different angles, and one of the driver in government grey. All were blurred, as if taken on the run.
I blew out a frustrated breath, then opened Photoshop and began working on the images. It took me a good twenty minutes to get anything resembling clarity. I ran off a couple of prints, then homed in on the driver’s face and the muddy number plate, and got a couple of prints of those, too. Lyle could probably use his connections to grab the driver’s name, and maybe even the name of the man he’d been chauffeuring.
I studied the five images tiled on the screen for a few minutes longer, then frowned and enlarged the middle one. There seemed to be a vague outline of something in the back window of the car. A passenger, or merely a shadow from the nearby building?
I zoomed in. The shadow definitely resembled the outline of a head rather than the shadow of a nearby building or pole. I reselected the area, then played around with pixels, and shifted some colors and tones, trying to sharpen the image. I didn’t have much luck—the image merged too well with the tint-darkened windows.
I sat back, contemplating options as I ate my yogurt. Maybe if I assigned the glass a different color, the darker head shape might stand out more. I did that, changing the glass color to light grey, then hit re-assign all. And as simple as that, the image jumped into focus.
It was a side shot of a man looking back at Mona’s house, and my stomach twisted. I knew that profile, even if I didn’t know the man himself all that well. In many respects, the profile was so very similar to the one I saw in the mirror day in and day out—if you discounted the sharper angle of his aristocratic nose and a chin that was definitely more prominent than my own.
This wasn’t any old elf. This was the newly elected head of the Elven council, a man who sat on the High Court bench, and a statesman whose word was practically revered in the halls of state government.
My father, Charles Bramwell Harrison Phillecky.
Chapter Four
This was unfucking believable. First Lyle’s case draws Val back into my life, and then it beats a path straight to the feet of my goddamn father. Who was next? My other half brother? The way things were going, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.
I scrubbed a hand across my eyes, then picked up my coffee and leaned back in my chair. What was I going to tell Lyle? For that matter, why the hell hadn’t Lyle recognized his own damn brother? I knew his sight was getting worse, but surely it couldn’t be that bad.
Frowning, I studied my father’s profile for several seconds, then sighed and hit print. In reality, it was probably fortunate that Lyle hadn’t recognized him, because I suspected he was a little unstable—at least emotionally—when it came to Mona. He would have confronted Bramwell—both verbally and physically—and that could only have gone badly for Lyle. This also explained the trolls being set onto him. He’d obviously been spotted taking the photos.
Which meant I had to proceed with caution. But it also meant my next step was talking to my father, and that really wasn’t something I wanted to do. I might not have much respect for my Elven kin—Lyle aside, and despite what Ceri might think, I had no illusions that he held any deep affection for me—but I knew full well what my father thought of my existence. If he’d been willing to set trolls onto his own brother, I could well imagine what lengths he’d go to if he thought I now had the photographs.
Seeing him wouldn’t be easy, though. While he’d never denied my existence, he’d never publicly acknowledged it beyond allowing my mother to place his name on my birth certificate. Why he’d allowed this I have no idea, although I suspected it might have been something of an insurance policy. After all, there’d been no guarantee he’d actually reproduce with his wife, and a half-breed was better than nothing. But then my brother had been born, and I’d become valueless. In twenty-nine years I’d met him precisely three times—and never for more than five minutes at a time.
I drained the rest of my coffee, then rose and walked across to the window. Rain slithered down the pane in silvery streaks and the day outside looked even gloomier than it had before. It was a somewhat fitting reflection of how I suddenly felt.
Movement below caught my eye. In the yard behind mine, my neighbor—who went by the somewhat ill-fitting name Delilah—was currently attempting to hang out her washing. Why she’d want to do this when it was raining was anyone’s guess, but then, in the entire time we’d been neighbors, she’d never once done the expected.
She was perched tippy-toes on the top step of a ladder that was about two rungs too short, thanks to the fact she was a shorter than normal dwarf—a fact she refused to acknowledge. I shook my head and wondered when she’d actually get around to buying a decent ladder—especially when the one she was currently using was the one she’d borrowed from me several years ago. Delilah, as well as being a dwarf, was also something of a magpie.
She must have caught the slight movement, because she suddenly glanced up. “Harri?” she said, her voice deep but holding an edge that grated. “That you hiding up there again, girl?”
I grimaced, but opened the window and leaned out. “Morning Delilah.”
“When are you going to do something about that house of yours? The smell coming from it this morning is atrocious.”
I somehow managed to restrain my smile. “Guy’s bought a couple of his mates over again.”
“Guy?” Her stout little body suddenly quivered with indignation. “That ugly ogre bastard owes me fifty bucks.”
I suddenly felt sorry for Guy. He didn’t have a hope against the cyclone that was Delilah on a mission to retrieve.
She clomped down the ladder then marched toward the gate she’d cut into the fence between our two properties. When it came to privacy, none of my neighbors seemed to think I needed or wanted it. I sat on the sill and crossed my arms. There was no way in hell I was actually going down there.
The back door crashed open. “Guy, where the hell are you?”
I could practically feel the ogres cringing from where I sat. Delilah might be a good sixth of their size, but she could be meaner than a pack of dogs fighting over a scrap of food.
“You got my money?” she demanded. She was obviously tapping her foot—the sound was as sharp as a gunshot on the polished boards below.
“Er...no. Mom had to go to the doc and...um...the van needed some work and-”
“In other words, you’ve pissed it against the wall again.”
Guy mumbled something I couldn’t quite catch, but I very much suspected from the general tone that it wasn’t exactly polite.
“Don’t you go cussing me, boy. I want my money, not more of your excuses.”
“Look, the strike should be over in a couple of days-”
“I could starve in a couple of days-”
Somewhat unwisely, Guy snorted. The sharp sound of flesh being smacked echoed.
“Fuck, Delilah, that was uncalled for-”
“Then show a little respect, ogre. That new black van out there blocking half the street yours?”
“Yeah. What of it?”
“Give me the keys.” Delilah’s voice was imperious. The wise did not ignore that tone. “When I get my money, you’ll get back your keys.”