Lead Me Astray

Chapter 3

Zyr

August 10 | Four a.m.

Who did this to Aurelia Edison? I stared up at the black new moon of another lunatic night, pondering the case. Police tape cordoned off the gruesome stain in front of the Century Luxe Hotel. The Crime Scene Unit was making a clean sweep. Yellow evidence markers followed a scattered trail of vehicle pieces.

My partner and I were interviewing witnesses, but half the spectators had found better things to do. The crime scene was already hours old. The place crawled with reporters. I dodged a videographer and made my way to Detective Tegan Stoney.

The smells of coffee and mouthwash clinging to her bespoke the predawn hour. It was too-early o'clock Saturday morning. I had a keener nose than most, so I picked up on the good time she'd been having before she'd come here. Not my business. We both had been called in for this.

"Don't all the cameras make you feel like we're filming Law & Order?" I asked.

"Complete with our own sexy leading man," she said.

"Love your sense of humor."

"I was talking about Mayfield." Tegan grinned as she pointed at the barrel-chested former marine crossing the hotel drive toward us. Captain Mayfield's salt-and-pepper buzz cut was as high and as tight as his personality.

"What have we got so far?" the middle-aged Black man called out.

"Hit-and-run," I said. "Nothing that warrants this level of hoopla, normally."

When he reached us, the captain confided quietly, "Yeah, NOPD wants this case closed fast. The victim is the daughter of Emily Leigh Edison of Metairie, better known as—"

"Nannette Baudelaire, Academy Award–winning director of two Best Pictures," said Tegan. She smiled at my surprised demeanor. "And her new movie, Gracious Fury, is projected to make that three. It opens next month."

"Well, somebody got cozy with Google when Alexa wasn't looking," I said.

"Actually, I'm a fan of Mrs. Edison's films."

Mayfield asked, "Did you know she summers in New Orleans?"

"Not until now," Tegan admitted. "According to her spokesperson, who I was on the phone with a moment ago, the daughters were raised here, but few people were aware of their link to the director. Mrs. Edison kept her children out of the spotlight."

"All great intel, but I doubt the famous mom was behind the wheel," I quipped.

Mayfield chuckled dryly. "You want to stake your career on jokes, Ravani?"

"C'mon, the perp is an out-of-towner sleeping off a rough night of Hand Grenades somewhere. He'll turn himself in when he sees the body damage to his rental. You could've put anybody on this."

"You're lucky to get anything after that crap you pulled a few months ago. Thanks to your wacky press conference with the psychic, the media thinks you're a nutjob. Take this easy A and solve this thing. Get your reputation back," he said.

I rolled my shoulder free from his condescending back rub. "Get help with one missing person's case, and suddenly you're a nutjob," I said as he left.

"He's fucking with you. You know that." Tegan didn't bother hiding her amusement.

"Yeah, well, I used to get more respect."

The thing with the psychic had pushed the envelope, but I needed an explanation for the leads I followed. Nobody—not even my longtime partner—knew of my network of Supernatural informants. Call it a perk of working for the Council of Overlay Affairs. Whenever unusual crimes spilled into the real world, it was my job to make justice look natural.