Archangel's Shadows (Guild Hunter #7)(82)

“Sorry,” the super gasped out, lifting the bottom of his T-shirt to wipe his face. “I kept hoping that she was living the high life on a yacht in the Mediterranean or something, but I knew, I knew she wouldn’t leave Taffy.”

A meow sounded right then. A small gray cat slid through the gap in the door behind the desk on its heels. Seth’s face crumpled again at the sight of the cat, but he pulled himself together on a shuddering breath. “Come ’ere, Taffy,” he said, and the cat jumped up into his lap. “She’s as sweet as Felicity. I never was a cat guy, but then Felicity didn’t come back . . .” Shoulders slumped, he petted the purring animal.

“I’m sorry.” The words were inadequate, but they were all she had until they tracked down the person who’d hurt Felicity.

“I want to help,” Seth said, wiping the back of his hand over his eyes and lifting his head. “Felicity, I never saw her down, you know? But those last two times, it was like she was . . . fading. As if someone was stealing her spirit.” A vein pulsed along his temple. “I asked her if her boyfriend was hitting her, but she said she’d just given too much blood.”

“So,” Ashwini said, thinking through what he’d shared, “she wasn’t really living here those last months but she never took Taffy?”

“No, said her guy didn’t like cats. I told her no man was worth giving up Taffy, but she just laughed.” He petted the cat again, the repetitive action easing the tension in his body. “I couldn’t figure out why she kept the apartment, wasted her money. She knew I’d take care of Taffy if she really needed it . . . I hope she knew.”

“I think she did.” To Ashwini, Felicity’s actions said the other woman had felt safe here, and that she’d had enough misgivings about her new life to cling to that safety as long as she could. “Can you remember the exact date of the last time you saw her?”

“No, but I can find it.” Opening a big black diary scrawled with so many notations, Ashwini didn’t know how he made sense of it, he backtracked until he found the note of her visit. “No, it was shredded,” he said when Ashwini asked about the tenancy agreement. “Did you want to look at her things instead?”

Ashwini’s heart kicked. “You kept them?” Felicity’s belongings could provide a near-foolproof source of DNA and/or fingerprints.

“The landlord sold off most of it to pay the back rent after she didn’t come back,” Seth said, “but I went in beforehand and gathered up the stuff I knew meant something to her. Rest of it was furniture she got from Goodwill, few clothes and books.”

“It’d be helpful if we could take Felicity’s things with us.”

Getting up at Ashwini’s reply, Seth retrieved the slain woman’s belongings from the back room. “I hid it there in case the landlord figured out I saved stuff for her.” His face crumpled again. “I kept hoping she’d come back.”

He placed the pitifully small box on the table in front of Ashwini, then sat down and rubbed Taffy’s head with his fingers when the cat returned to her perch on his lap. “After you’re done . . . could I maybe have the picture in the red frame? It’s of us after we went out to a ball game one time with some other friends.”

That was when she understood the keening note of anguish beneath his sadness. It was love. Felicity had been deeply loved and had never known it . . . or perhaps she had, but was unable to reciprocate it for reasons of her own. People didn’t always love who they should, or the ones who were good for them. “I’ll make sure you get it back,” she said.

“Her funeral . . .”

“Do you know Sina, Carys, and Aaliyah?”

A jerky nod. “I’ll talk to them, take care of Felicity.”

So many lives, Ashwini thought, Felicity had touched so many lives.

Not able to leave Seth sitting there alone with the cat in his arms and tears in his eyes, she said, “Do you have family in the city? Friends?”

“Yeah.” A rough answer. “But I need to be alone right now. I need to try to understand it.”

Ashwini didn’t have the heart to tell him there could be no understanding this. Leaving him to his grief, she didn’t say anything until they’d stowed the box of Felicity’s belongings in the car. Their first stop afterward was the Guild forensics lab, where a senior technician looked in the box and commandeered a black picture frame he said had a good surface for prints.

It held an image of Felicity standing on a rooftop, her arms raised and feet spread as she looked toward the Tower. A classic tourist shot—and Felicity, she looked so young and brimming with hope.

The forensic tech also took a small hairbrush with a carved wooden handle. “I can see several hairs we might be able to use for DNA . . . yes, the follicle is attached,” the bespectacled man said as he meticulously picked the strands out.

Meanwhile, the no-nonsense woman who took care of fingerprints lifted several from the picture frame. A number were too big to be Felicity’s, likely Seth’s. But the smaller ones matched the body they’d found. To confirm, the tech also printed an ID card from a fast-food chain that had Felicity’s name and face on it.

“No doubt, it’s a match,” she said.

The DNA would put the final stamp on the identification, but there was no longer any question in Ashwini’s mind that Felicity Johnson was their victim.