KDBookOnline
Share Us
People changed all the time. I’d witnessed that sad truth time and time again. Loving spouses transformed into brutal, abusive monsters—sometimes overnight and without warning. Stress could transform a once vibrant soul into a thin shadow of their former self.
How had Erik changed?
Part of me wanted to know, but the rest of me feared the answer.
Change could be good. Change could be bad. Change could be simply change, lost somewhere in between.
What had become of the man I had left behind?
I placed the phone on my desk, and rather than pursue the mysteries I needed to solve for the sake of the brothel girls and those seeking to become dragons, I petted my kitten and wondered.
EIGHT
Good cops were my type.
Monday, April 20, 2167
The Gray Ward
Dragon Heights, Wyoming
Learning about Dragon Heights devoured the entire day, forcing me to inform Cecilia I had nothing solid for her yet but was working on it. She took the news better than I expected, and I hauled off another box of information to peruse.
With my base research completed and no strong leads to follow, I delved into the depths of financial investigations. With a wealth of data to sort through, I organized everything by person before categorizing as much as I could by type. Every cop had a different way of handling financials, but I preferred to look for habits first, establishing the routines in the life of the account’s owner.
Unlike regular workers, the brothel women tended to do their shopping either early in the morning right after the stores opened or in the early afternoon before they were scheduled to begin their work for the night. Dinners with clients were flagged in a record submitted by each worker. To protect the clients, their names were masked. Each time one of the women thought a client might ‘do me some good,’ their falsified name came with a note suggesting I do some close personal investigations. To make it clear what they had in mind, they included their preference for how they liked removing the man’s clothing.
The cop who brought other cops to the brothel garnered the most attention from the women, and their lewd suggestions would bother me for a while.
Unbeknownst to them, good cops were my type, but also unbeknownst to them, I had a major hang up in the form of the man I’d left behind, all for his sake. If given the choice between the world or Erik, I would have picked Erik each and every time. However much I liked living, the hole in my soul continued to eat away at me.
I could understand why the brothel women liked the idea of partnering me with a yellow dragon. Yellows had a reputation of being excellent husbands and fathers.
Knowing my parents, they’d adore the idea of shipping me off with a yellow dragon. With a yellow around, their quest for grandchildren would eventually be successful, although they underestimated my determination to maintain my career.
There would be no children in my life until I was confident I could be a good mother and have the career of my choosing.
Well, assuming I could return to the career of my choosing.
All signs pointed to no.
When I wasn’t reading through the financials in search of answers, I petted Garnet and wondered what might have been if only things had been a little different.
My search through their financials offered limited overlap, which both made my job harder and easier. Outside of the yellow dragon charming everyone, no woman had the same client base. None of them had consistent overlap surrounding the time of their attacks, either.
Worse, the written descriptions of their attacker varied.
The yellow dragon would be a problem; as the sole common link between them, I would need to investigate him and confirm he wasn’t the culprit behind the stabbings. While the yellow dragon mostly declined invitations with the brothel women, he’d engaged in cuddle sessions with a few of them.
Thus far, the cuddling had been clothed, but I had no interest in a dragon warming up to his many dinner dates. I preferred a man interested in me and me alone.
Like Erik.
Ugh. Erik would drive me insane, and my father would be the one to push me over the ledge. I’d pined enough for the man—and would continue to do so.
I had problems with letting go.
The number of possibilities involved with the brothel attacks would prove to be a problem. A dragon of the right color could trick the women into believing their eyes rather than reality, similar to the magic I’d inherited from my father. Illusions could be created, although they tended to be fragile and broke when overly handled.