In tense silence, Ambrose, Perry, and I sit in her office to look through the mage forms of the accessory check. It took three full days to complete the whole thing and process the results. Dean remains suspended and the rumours going around the station are abundant. It’s cruel to let everyone believe he’s guilty, just to give the real killer a false sense of security. At least it seems to be working, there hasn’t been another murder.
“Did every mage show up for the check?” Ambrose gestures to the file on the desk. “Is that everyone?”
Perry shakes her head. “There were two people who didn’t show up and haven’t been reachable since we announced the check. Jake Mulligan and Ross Giovanni.”
I frown. I don't know Giovanni, but Mulligan has always struck me as a good officer. And he was lenient on Topaz.
But I shouldn't let that influence my thinking. I promised Dean that I'd approach this impartially, and that's what I'm going to do.
“Shall we pay them a visit? Let’s catch a killer.” There's a little bit too much excitement in my voice, but it's not about actually catching the person, it's about potentially ending this case. I want it to be over more than anything.
“That’s very… dramatic,” Perry says dryly. “But it’s not a bad idea. Let’s split up. I’ll take Mulligan, you check up on Giovanni.”
Ambrose nods and gets to his feet. You coming, Amy?"
"I wouldn't miss this for the world."
Perry gives me an odd look, which doesn't surprise me, I suppose I am being a little weird.
I follow Ambrose out of the station and climb into his car. It's good to be going somewhere other than to the station. I don't feel like I've made many field trips with this case. I don't count crossing the road to go to the morgue.
"How are we going to celebrate making an arrest?" I ask Ambrose as we set off.
"You're getting a little ahead of yourself, aren't you?" Amusement dances in his voice. Three days of not being a suspect has brought back some of his sense of humour, though I can tell he's still hurt over it.
"I'm looking forward to it being over," I admit.
"I was thinking a walk on the beach."
"That sounds perfect," I admit.
"Really? You don't think it's too boring?"
"Time with you is never boring," I point out. "I like spending time alone with you. I didn't think that was a secret."
"It's not."
"Good."
He brings the car to a stop in front of a semi-detached house. It's surprisingly nice for the salary I'm sure Giovanni is, but there's a lot of inherited property when it comes to paranormals, so it's good not to jump to conclusions.
Nerves flutter in my stomach as we walk towards the house. Are we about to face down a murderer?
If we are, then we need to be prepared. He's already proved he has a vicious streak I don't want to be on the receiving end of.
Ambrose knocks on the door.
It's only a minute or so before the door cracks open and a man I recognise seeing from the station, but have never talked to. There are bags under his eyes and it looks like he hasn't showered in days.
He frowns. "Detective Ambrose, is something wrong?" He seems genuinely confused. Either this guy is the best actor I've ever seen, or he's telling the truth.
"We're just following up on the accessories check you were supposed to report for earlier this week."
"Accessories check? I'm sorry, I don't know anything about that. My dad..." His voice cracks. "My dad is on his deathbed, I haven't been to work in a week."
"I'm sorry, I didn't realise," Ambrose says softly.
"But if you want to check my staff, you can. Just let me get it..."
"Thank you, that would be appreciated. We'll wait here so we don't intrude anymore."
"My family appreciates it." He disappears, but leaves the door open.
"Do we need to worry about him running away?" I ask.
"What does your gut say?"
"That he's innocent."
Ambrose nods. "Mine too. I guess we'll find out when he comes back."
"He was very forthcoming about being a mage."
"We went to school together, he knows I know."
"And everyone assumes that what you know, I know," I supply.
"Precisely."
"Here you go," Giovanni says, handing his mage to Ambrose.
He appraises it for a moment, then hands it back. "I'm so sorry for intruding..."
"It's fine. I understand these things are important, I just hadn't checked my emails."
"I'll make sure that's logged in the report," Ambrose promises.
"My condolences to your family," I add.
Giovanni smiles weakly.
"Thank you for your time." Ambrose nods tersely.
We say our goodbyes and start to make our way back to the car.
"You didn't look at his wand for very long," I observe.
"I didn't need to. I could tell from touching it that it hadn't been used in a week. There's no way he committed a murder a few days ago."
I frown. "You can tell things like that?"
He shrugs. "It kind of felt...dusty, I guess."
"Huh. Interesting."
"Do wands not do that?"
"No."
"Also interesting," he echoes my words with a slightly impish smile.
"We should call Perry so she knows to be extra careful when approaching Mulligan. If it's him."
He nods and pulls out his phone. He puts it to his ear.
I wait while it rings.
And rings.
"No answer."
Hmm. Not good.
"We have Mulligan's address, right?"
"Of course," he replies.
"We should make our way over there after you try Perry again,” I suggest.
"Yes." Ambrose holds out his phone, the speaker on loud as it rings. “Nothing. This is worrisome.”
"Okay, well, that's not looking good for his innocence."
"None of this is," he points out.
We get back in the car, with neither of us saying a word. We're too tense about the entire situation. Perry could be in a lot of trouble. Mulligan has already killed three people that we know of, and has framed two detectives in the process. We need to get there before anything bad happens to her.
Or anything worse happens to her.
"That's her car," Ambrose mutters darkly as we approach a green Volvo.
"She's not in it." My statement is a bit redundant. He has eyes, he can see that.
Ambrose parks behind her car and picks up his phone. "I'm going to call for backup."
"Good idea."
I walk around nervously, retracing the footprints from Perry’s car to the front door. We shouldn’t have let her go alone, this is why people team up in the PPD. Even as a regular consultant, untrained in combat, I still add a lot of value and safety to Ambrose on these missions. It’s a lot harder to overpower and surprise two people and only one has to get away to alarm the station.
Perry came here alone, probably expecting a lame excuse like Giovanni had, and instead, she faced the killer on her own.
Stupid. We knew there was a killer, I guess we just didn’t want to believe it was actually one of us. We’ve worked with Mulligan before on multiple cases and he was always helpful. How could he have done something so vile?
Ambrose joins me next to Perry’s car. “What are you doing?”
“Not sure… There’s something I’m missing but I can’t figure out what.”
He looks at the footprints in the mud and frowns. “There’s only one set leading into the house.”
“But Mulligan is gone and so is Perry. Where are the footprints leading out?”
“Let’s go around the back,” Ambrose suggests, hurrying towards the fence. He kicks the gate open and whistles. “Tire tracks down here!”
I hurry towards him and spot deep footprints in the mud. “Here, that’s a man’s shoe.”
Ambrose crouches down next to them and measures the depth with his finger. “Those are much deeper than I’d expect from a guy of Mulligan's size. He might’ve been carrying something heavy.”
“Like Detective Perry?”
His grim nod says everything I need to know. He types on his phone and gestures to my pocket. “I texted you a number. Call them to request the license plate for Mulligan.”
I quickly take out my phone and dial the number. The line rings once, twice, thrice.
“Hello, this is Myriam.”
“Hi, I’m calling for a license plate for Detective Jake Mulligan.”
“Who am I speaking to?”
“Amy— Amethyst of the Gemstone Coven. I’m consulting for Detective Ambrose. Badge number one-seven-two-seven-nine-five,” I rattle off, surprising myself that I know the number by heart.
All right, I'm not surprised. I know a lot of little details about him.
“Give me a second, sweets.” Keys rattle in the background and something chimes. “Jake Mulligan, lives on High Road?”
“Yes, that’s the one.”
“I’ll text you the plate.”
“Thank you.”
The line goes dead and almost immediately, an envelope flies across my screen. I open the message and forward it to Ambrose.
“Mulligan seems to be on the run and he might have taken Detective Perry as a hostage,” Ambrose says down his phone. “It’s highly likely that he’s travelling by car. The plate is— oh you have his plate? Okay, good. Sent out a city-wide alert. He can’t be far yet.”
I listen in awe as Ambrose does what he does best. There’s no surprise why he’s one of the best Detectives in the PPD. He’s not just smart and good at detecting clues, he’s kind to the victim’s families and knows how to commandeer the people around him. Maybe one day, he’d rise in rank just like his great-grandfather? I can't wait to see what he achieves.
A couple of squad cars arrive on the scene. They look just like their human counterparts. I'm not sure how that works, but I suspect there's some kind of magic mirage to it to keep the human authorities from trespassing on paranormal crime scenes.
Ambrose strides over, leaving me by the car as he instructs the junior officers on what to do to secure the scene.
After a moment, he walks back towards me, his phone to his ear.
"They've found him, we need to go." He gestures to the car.
My heart pounds. I'm scared, but I'm also looking forward to catching the person responsible for so much pain.