The Hex Files: Wicked State of Mind Read online

  The Hex Files: Wicked State of Mind

  Mysteries from the Sixth Borough, Volume 3

  Gina LaManna

  Published by LaManna Books, 2018.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  THE HEX FILES: WICKED STATE OF MIND

  First edition. August 31, 2018.

  Copyright © 2018 Gina LaManna.

  Written by Gina LaManna.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  The Hex Files: Wicked State of Mind (Mysteries from the Sixth Borough, #3)

  Synopsis

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  To my husband! I love you!

  Special Thanks:

  To Alex—from your potato-loving BFF! я тебя люблю!

  To Stacia—the best editor a girl could ask for, and the best other half of my brain!

  To my family, friends, and LaManna’s Ladies, thank you for getting lost in Wicked with me!

  Synopsis

  There’s no rest for the Wicked...

  It’s Detective Dani DeMarco’s first week back on the job, and she is not amused. The coffee at the precinct is a disaster, a most annoying colleague is driving her insane, and her on-again, off-again boyfriend is now officially her boss. As if that’s not bad enough, Dani’s faced with a double homicide before the caffeine even hits her system.

  When a high-profile young elf is kidnapped and destined for death, Dani’s forced to go toe to toe with a kidnapper who has unlocked a secret so potent it could destroy an entire race of paranormals. Coupled with a favor she takes on for a mysterious friend, and Dani’s cup has runneth over. Way over. And if she can’t unmask the kidnapper before it’s too late, Dani might find herself in the crosshairs...

  Chapter 1

  “Well, hello, gorgeous.” A voice spoke coolly from behind me. “Am I imagining things, or is that a Reserve making coffee?”

  I deliberately ignored Marcus, the slimy detective who’d slipped into the breakroom next to me. I pulled the carafe from the coffee machine and groaned. Empty as usual.

  Shuffling toward the cupboard, I pulled down beans and filters and threw both into place, feeling Marcus’s eyes drilling holes into my back. I pressed the start button and waited impatiently for the machine as it gurgled to life and sputtered out the dark liquid that used to pass for my daily injection of caffeine.

  Finally, I sighed. “We’re not doing this again, Marcus.”

  He winked. “Glad you missed me.”

  I rolled my eyes and turned my gaze back to the carafe, willing it to fill faster. Marcus was a stage ten idiot—who was annoyingly intelligent and a good detective. That made him the worst. He knew all the right buttons to push, and he never ceased to jam them all at once.

  Even worse than his intelligence were his looks. Marcus was annoyingly handsome. He had the sleek blond hair of a cartoon hero and muscles that made him look like someone had blown him up just a little too big. His dress shirt stretched tightly across his body, and when he leaned against the counter, a few buttons gaped to show a smoothly tanned stomach.

  Blargh.

  “So, are you still single?” Marcus asked.

  I yanked the coffee pot out and shoved a towel underneath the steady drip. With trembling fingers, I managed to pour most of the coffee into a World’s Best Dad mug, and then I shoved the carafe back under the drip and threw the towel into the sink.

  I began to storm past Marcus, but he rested a hand on my wrist. It stopped me cold in my tracks. It took all my self-restraint not to dump my coffee straight down his shirt. “Get your hands off me.”

  “Maybe you’d want to grab a drink sometime.”

  “Bite me, Blondie.” I jerked my arm out from under his touch and pressed through the door, muttering under my breath, “Asshole.”

  The second I stepped past him, I ran smack dab into a bigger, harder chest. The murky scent of thick coffee was instantly replaced by a sharp, familiar crispness that had my stomach curling in anticipation.

  “Making friends, I see?” Matthew King, captain of the Homicide Unit, stood in my way. “Is this really the way you’d like to start your first day back on the job?”

  I scratched at the back of my neck and rolled my eyes. “I came back here to work, not to solicit offers for dates.”

  It was a bit of a cheap move, but I knew that would grind Matthew’s gears. The captain and I had a long running on-again, off-again romantic relationship. Even when we were firmly planted in the ‘off’ position, Matthew didn’t like to see me in a relationship with anyone else. I could relate. I’d feel the same way if he found a woman to replace me, too.

  “Conference room, now—both of you,” Matthew said, his voice containing a heavy dose of his persuasive magical powers. “And Detective Prey... I don’t have to tell you to leave the Reserve alone, do I?”

  Marcus wasn’t the least bit fazed by the captain’s stature or threats. He erred on the side of cocky and seemed to think he was equal in size and strength to Matthew. Marcus might be a very powerful sorcerer, but if he met Matthew in a dark alley, I had no doubt who would win. And it wasn’t Blondie.

  I stood at attention, waiting for Marcus to lollygag nonchalantly down the hallway in the direction of the conference room. He whistled a little tune and held a coffee cup—still empty, I noted with satisfaction—as he moved away from us. Once he was out of earshot, I rounded on Matthew.

  “Leave me alone!” I hissed. “Come on, King. I can take care of myself. You go around saying things like that, and people will think you’re my babysitter.”

  “I’m not your babysitter,” Matthew corrected. “I’m your captain. I watch over my people.”

  “Yeah, well, watch over me a little less than everyone else,” I grumbled. “I can handle Marcus. He’s an idiot.”

  Matthew cocked his head to one side, not quite agreeing, not quite disagreeing. “I’m laying down the ground rules. It’s your first day back, Danielle.”

  “Yeah, well, right now, the ground rules are making it look like I’m a suck up,” I said. “People will think I just got my job back because Lucia’s taking some time off, and the boss happened to have dated me in the past.”

  “This is not about us.”

  I blinked. “Fine. Where’s my desk?”

  “I’ll show you later.” Matthew appeared dismayed our personal chat was over. “Now, the conference room.”

  “No rest for Wicked, huh?”

  Matthew gave me a thin smile. “Welcome back, Detective.”

  WE MADE OUR WAY TO a conference room that felt like a children’s classroom. Chairs were lined up in rows and a sturdy podium stood at the front of the room. The flag of Wicked hung brightly behind it.

  Most of the chairs were already filled, and as Matthew and I entered the room, a sea of
faces turned to watch us find our places. Some of them brightened when they caught my eye, and one or two folks gave a wave. The others watched with caution, as if I had been raised from the dead and brought back to steal their jobs. I glowered more, wishing I’d waited and gone into the room after Matthew.

  “Take a seat,” he muttered, then we split off. He headed toward the podium while I snuck around back and plopped into a nondescript chair in the corner.

  I could see my second oldest brother, Nash, sitting in the front row. Suck up, I thought. In the middle of the room, I spotted Marcus, his shiny hair reflecting light like a crisp apple. He turned and gave me a brilliant smile, which I promptly ignored.

  I’d been to a few of these meetings before, but it wasn’t a regular thing. Since I’d never worked exclusively for homicide, I only attended meetings when necessary. I considered them a huge waste of time and bureaucratic crap, and I preferred to have my orders handed to me without additional fanfare.

  As a Reserve, I’d jumped through the ranks and reported straight to the chief during my prior tenure with the NYPD’s Sixth Precinct. I’d been loaned out for different high-profile cases when needed. Homicides, kidnappings, even narcotics from time to time. While I loved the variety, it meant I didn’t have a home. No matter how hard I worked to make friends (which admittedly wasn’t all that hard), I was still the witch who reported straight to the chief.

  “Morning,” Matthew barked, and that was the end of his niceties. “As you’ll notice, we have a new, or rather, an old friend back with us today. Detective DeMarco will be working select cases and reporting to me. Questions?”

  I slunk lower in my seat.

  When nobody shouted out a response, Matthew continued. “Updates on cases. Petri and Jones, I want you on the Bludgers case. Lucas and DeMarco—er, Lieutenant DeMarco,” Matthew corrected quickly—“continue with the Bing case. I’ll need a report on my desk for the chief by noon.”

  As he listed off names, the members of his team who’d been called stood and filtered out of the room. A few laughed and made jokes, while others had a determined set to their expressions. I understood. Sometimes dark humor was the key. Other times, an ugly day filled with death felt like too much to face.

  Matthew made it through the list of names in record time, and soon enough, the room was half empty. Marcus looked back at me and cocked an eyebrow. He made a me and you sort of gesture with his hands, and then he grinned again. I kept my attention focused on Matthew.

  “We’ve got a new case,” Matthew said, “or I think we do. It’s a little untraditional for Homicide to take on a disappearance, an alleged kidnapping, but it’s my belief we have a good reason to do so.”

  “So, nobody died?” Marcus asked to a titter of laughs around him. Apparently, Blondie had groupies. “Or aren’t they dead yet?”

  Matthew’s gaze cut Marcus down a few notches. “In the past week, we’ve found the bodies of two elves. They’ve been missing for three months. We suspected it was a kidnapping, but there were no leads. Their names are Lillie Brooks and Maybelline Frank.”

  “Those are the working elves, right?” Marcus asked. “The ones who disappeared from Silver Street?”

  Matthew looked like he wanted to bite off Marcus’s head, but I gave the captain credit. He kept his composure. I was ready all over again to dump my coffee down the back of Blondie’s shirt, but Matthew probably wouldn’t appreciate that. Instead, I took a sip of the horrible sludge and choked on it. The tears of dismay were a distraction and a relief.

  “Lillie and Maybelline were coming back from a grocery shopping trip when they disappeared,” Matthew said. “They were with one other elf—Cynthia Nealy—who survived unharmed.”

  “Did someone talk to this Cynthia?” Marcus asked.

  “I bet if you pipe down, he’ll tell us,” I muttered, loud enough for Marcus to hear.

  “Enough,” Matthew roared. “We pursued all leads. Including Cynthia. All she remembers is that someone went after the two girls she was with and left her completely untouched.”

  “Did she fight back?” I asked.

  “She said that everything happened too fast,” Matthew said. “The three of them were walking back from the store one second, and the next, someone was holding them at spellpoint.”

  “Cynthia didn’t get a look at this guy’s face?” I asked. “How close was he to them?”

  “He was shrouded in a Smoke Cloak, so she didn’t get a good look at her attacker.”

  “And this mystery man just let her go while he took the other two?” I asked. “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Well, you’ll get the chance to question her yourself,” Matthew said. “The finding of the two corpses—dumped in ogre territory—coincides with the disappearance of another elf.”

  “What are we doing on the case if it’s a disappearance?” Marcus asked. “We’re Homicide. Dead people.”

  “Linsey Luca has vanished,” Matthew said, and the name had a hushing effect over the group of officers. “She is the daughter of Leonard Luca—yes, the Mr. Luca of the Golden District. Mr. Luca has specifically asked for our help to find his daughter, and the chief thinks it pertinent we assist.”

  “But we’re—” Marcus continued.

  “Shut up,” I said. “Don’t you want the case?”

  Matthew shot me a warning look, but it worked. Marcus silenced.

  “As many of you know, Leonard Luca owns more gold than just about anyone in Wicked. He lives on Gilded Row and is an important donor to the Sixth Precinct.”

  I kept my mouth shut, but something didn’t sit right with me. It felt like a bribe, and I could tell Matthew didn’t like it any better than I did. Apparently, the chief had given him a direct order to run point on this case, and he was doing the best he could under the circumstances.

  “It may be relevant to Homicide if we don’t find Linsey soon enough,” Matthew said, and his eyes scanned severely over the room. “We have to do our best to ensure that doesn’t happen.”

  “Do you think the disappearance of the Silver Collar workers is related to Linsey Luca?” Marcus asked. “Why would someone steal a bunch of Silver Collar workers... and then a Luca? Talk about opposite ends of the spectrum.”

  “It’s possible,” Matthew said. “Though the more likely situation is that we’ll get a call asking for ransom gold soon enough. Linsey Luca’s disappearance seems targeted. She is a very high-profile woman.”

  “Who’s on the case?” Marcus asked. “I’d be happy to show Detective DeMarco the ropes. She’s probably rusty.”

  “DeMarco and I will be going to meet with the Luca family,” Matthew said. “Marcus—you and Tanner follow up with Cynthia, Maybelline, and Lillie. I’m hoping to rule out any connection between Luca and the others—and fast.”

  “Rule out a connection?” Marcus raised an eyebrow.

  “If we don’t, we might be looking at another homicide, and that’s not happening on my watch,” Matthew said. “The rest of you—chase down the leads we’ve got flooding the Comm lines on Lillie and Maybelline. We need to canvas the Golden District. We’ll go door to door on Silver Street. Andrews, I’m putting you in charge of organizing everyone else. Get to work.”

  It was as if a judge had banged his gavel and everyone in the courtroom could breathe again. We all rose, most detectives mingling with one another, while I hung out in the back. I didn’t like the idea of elbowing my way into the unit and forcibly making friends. Sooner or later, people would come around. And if they didn’t, no problem. I wasn’t here for tea and crumpets—I was here to put murderers behind bars.

  “Bummer about the assignments, isn’t it?” Marcus swung near me, his voice low. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Matthew was occupied with another detective at the front of the room. “I was looking forward to showing you a good time. Seems like it’s been a while since you let your hair down, Detective.”

  “Do your pickup lines work on anyone?”

  “I
don’t know, you tell me.”

  I crossed my arms. “Get out of my face. How’s that?”

  “You’ll come around, DeMarco. Just you watch.” Marcus gave me a grin. “Have fun with the captain. But not too much fun. You know what they say about business and pleasure...”

  Before I could respond, Matthew began his march toward the back of the room, and Marcus smartly moved on to find his partner and get to work.

  “Thank God you didn’t pair me with that weasel,” I said when Matthew arrived next to me. “But I imagine you do know that if you keep me and you paired together, Captain, people are going to talk.”

  “The chief asked specifically for you to handle the Luca case,” Matthew said simply. “And for me to do the same. Let’s move.”

  I followed Matthew out of the room, ignoring the stares that followed us. He brushed past the front desk and pulled up at a trolley stop before the precinct. We hopped on and sailed toward the Golden District without a word.

  Halfway there, the silence had me itching to talk. “Doesn’t it bother you?”

  Matthew glanced down at me. “What?”

  “Them. Your team,” I said. “I felt like I was a leper in there today. It hasn’t been all that long since I’ve worked for the precinct. Most of them know me. But it was like I was some weird outcast.”

  “When you’re the only one of your species,” Matthew said smoothly, “you get used to it fast.”

  “I’m sorry, I—”

  “You’re not here to make friends, anyway,” Matthew said. “You’re here to close cases. The rest will fall into place.”

  “I know, but—”

  “Was Marcus bothering you?” Matthew’s lips tilted into a frown. “He’s been pushing his limits for months, and I’m waiting for him to cross a line.”

  “No, don’t,” I said quickly. “Don’t do anything because of me; that would only make the situation worse. I just—forget it. You don’t understand.”