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Chief Hawthorne bowed his head, let out a breath, and said, “Your parents didn’t teach you about color classes.”
Not a question. A statement.
In some ways, I appreciated his frustration, as I shared his feelings. “I know there are colors, and I know the colors have varying abilities, but my parents prefer I naturally discover any abilities my heritage has to offer. Jars pose no obstacle to me, and I have one purple ability.”
“Ah. Tin. Yes, there are definitely tin dragons in your lineage. Which purple ability do you have?”
“I can read wounds, sir.”
Chief Hawthorne raised a brow. “If I take you to some of our bodies, and I asked you to read the body, what would you learn?”
“I’d learn what caused the wound, and I generally can get a feel for the weapon and who wielded it. The stronger the emotion associated with the injury, a better a read I can get from it.” Something relaxed in me, as though confessing my ability somehow liberated me from everything that had driven me away from Miami—and Erik—in the first place. “It’s not pleasant, but I can usually identify the murder weapon and a general description of who wielded it. In Miami, it helped me eliminate the innocent from our direct suspect list. There’s no point investigating a woman when a man held the weapon, for example.”
“A very useful ability, yes. We have some purples in Dragon Heights with that ability, but it’s rare compared to the other healing arts. Such sight doesn’t help in operating rooms. You have no known healing abilities?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“Good. We won’t have to fight with the purples over having you, then. I’ll be blunt with you, Kinsley. I’ve looked over your Miami record, and there’s going to be a city-wide brawl between the wards to have you. Your solve rate is stellar, your ethics are what we expect from dragons in the force, and your willingness to make personal sacrifice for the sake of another is exactly what we look for in our officers. I recommend that you make it clear where you want to work if you do come back to the force full time. Working as a private investigator would let all wards have access to you, and your skills could be invaluable during difficult cases.”
I considered the chief, raising a brow at his blunt admission. “Do you think working as a private investigator is a good idea?”
“I do. It’d let any ward have access to your skills. If that’s a path you’re interested in, I’d push to get a contract working with the police for a set number of hours a month. That way, you could have full benefits while still being free to pursue private work.” Chief Hawthorne pulled out his cell phone and tapped at the screen. “We’d get you for twenty hours a week under those terms, and we don’t bar double dipping as long as your client gets equal information with the force.”
In Miami, any private investigator found to be working twin cases faced heavy penalties and the loss of their license. “You allow double dipping in Dragon Heights?”
“We’re dragons, Kinsley. We’re arrogant and egotistical on a good day. We’ve found a private investigator with their fingers in multiple pies gets the job done better and faster. We don’t always like the result, and we require truth verification for those cases, but we are after the truth. And sometimes, it takes allowing interference from the outside and a double dipper of a private investigator to find the truth. We do require that the private investigator notify all parties that they are working the case from multiple angles. But sometimes, a private hire will ask the questions we miss, which leads to the truth being unveiled. We have to walk the straight and narrow on those cases, but it usually works out for the better. We would rather a private investigator tear down our prosecutor and determine the innocence of our favorite suspect than punish someone undeserving.”
“It boils down to disclosure, then?”
“It does.”
Some rules were easier to follow than others. “That’s easy. I won’t hire any clients that aren’t willing to share information; my job isn’t to support people or the police. It’s to find the truth.”
“And that’s why I think you’ll do well. The first thing I want to figure out is how you escaped from that mansion. When we arrived, it was seething with maddened dragons. The fools had poisoned themselves with their own element.”
“I only saw one woman, but yes, she seemed more than a little crazy.”
“Madam Merorie. She was, until Thursday, the leader of that group of mercury dragons. She is no longer among the living. Your father caught her wearing your blood. She lasted about ten seconds after he sniffed you on her.”
Damn it. I’d heard about the dragon Erik’s mom had killed over Dragon Heights, but nobody had told me that my father had gotten in his hits, too. “How is he dodging a murder verdict?”
“Considering she was ranting and raving about how her latest prize had given her the slip, and that she wasn’t done with her operation, all he did was spare us all from a long trial. Considering you were still a little hatchling and passed out nearby with the Millson hatchling, nobody was getting between your father and his prey. It’s not justice like you get in Miami, but he did that woman a favor, especially after what we found in her house. Her prints are all over the tools used to dissect her victims. Justice was served, but so was mercy. She was mad—and she was far enough along there wasn’t anything anyone could have done to help her.”
“She had been wearing horns with liquid mercury in them.”
“We’d found those, yes. Those were designed to leak when worn, and there were small blades to allow the mercury to pollute her bloodstream,” the chief informed me.
I grimaced. “How badly was I exposed?”
“The purple dragons would have taken care of that as part of your treatments. If you had been exposed, you’re either resilient, you have immunity to mercury from your bloodline, or it was caught early enough to treat. Mercury dragons like to think they’re immune, but in reality, they aren’t. You might be mercury immune, but that’s a test nobody likes doing, especially on a hatchling.”
“Ah. She showed up after Erik’s father brought him over but before I got to a hospital?”
“Your father waited until the ambulance and a purple dragon arrived before helping you shift back to human. He didn’t let anyone other than the commissioner near you, and he helped you shift back once medical staff had arrived. A few more than he appreciates have seen you as a hatchling, but we’re all going to keep our mouths shut about it; we try to let the hatchlings discover themselves without unnecessary influences. Take your mother, for example. She’s as much orange as she is red, but she got heavily pressured to embrace her red heritage. She is both, and she wants to remain both in equal measure. Most choose to believe she’s red with some orange coloration. I know better, as do those who have bothered to get to know your mother. Many underestimate her. A rather lethal decision, really.” The chief leaned back in his seat, which squeaked. “This chair was retired out of our interrogation rooms because laughter is not what we’re looking for sometimes. We bring this one in when we know we need a lighter mood.”
I snickered; I’d dealt with more than a few interrogations where something silly had lost me valuable time. Laughter could help—but it could also firm the resolve of someone determined to avoid prison for a crime they’d committed. “I don’t miss the interrogations, honestly.”
“That Millson boy said as much when I spoke with him before he got to go to the hospital. He hitched a lift on his father while your mother accompanied you. Your father needed to be detoxed in case of mercury contamination. Anyway, I’d like to figure out how you’d gotten out of that mansion. When we arrived and went to clear it out, there were at least thirty crazed dragons in there—dragons who hadn’t seen you at all. Once we saw how much mercury they had out in the open, we went in in hazmat suits, but nothing I’ve heard indicated you were suffering from mercury exposure.”