Song of Wishrock Harbor (The Invisible Entente Book 2) Read online

  Contents

  Title

  Copyright

  Dedication

  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

  Thanks for Reading

  Acknowledgements

  Other Works by Krista Walsh

  About the Author

  Song of Wishrock Harbor

  An Invisible Entente Novel

  By

  Krista Walsh

  All Rights Reserved

  This edition published in 2017 by Raven’s Quill Press

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this work are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity is purely coincidental.

  Cover art: Ravven (www.ravven.com)

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication maybe reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the publisher. The rights of the authors of this work has been asserted by him/ her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This book is for Kate, the inspiration behind

  one of my favorite characters

  1

  Gabriel Mulligan’s skin tingled with anticipation the moment she strode into his candlelit office.

  Not because she was a bombshell of a woman in a tight red dress whose sharp red heels firmed her calves and highlighted legs as long as a Greek epic.

  Not because her shoulder-length curtain of vibrant copper curls failed to hide a pair of bloodshot tawny eyes that hinted at recent tears, while the faint wobble of her bottom lip threatened at more to come.

  No, what made Gabe sit up in his worn, wooden chair behind his worn, wooden desk was that somehow this woman had made it across the city and through his front door despite the five-foot snowdrifts that blocked the roads and had kept New Haven under a state of emergency for the last week.

  And that she had done so in a sleeveless dress, without even a jacket.

  His wakened curiosity helped Gabe fight off a wave of fatigue as he rose to his feet. After weeks of running around town on a half-dozen cases, he’d been looking forward to heading home to his stash of beer, leaving the generator on and wasting gas by listening to some blues on his stereo. A new client had been the last thing on his mind, and he’d have been tempted to send her back into the blizzard if the circumstances weren’t so bizarre. As it was, he felt compelled to find out what she wanted.

  He hadn’t even finished straightening up before she leaned toward him, placing both hands on his desk.

  “Are you the private detective, Gabriel Mulligan?”

  Her husky voice was tight with restrained anger, as though she were only two straws shy of snapping.

  The warmth of her rage sent Gabe scanning through his mental database of faces to see if he recognized her. If she was about to set loose on him for something he’d done, he’d rather remember first and take the time to form a defense.

  When nothing in the curve of her eyes or the delicateness of her cheekbones rang any bells, the muscles between his shoulders relaxed. Whatever reason she was here, it wasn’t personal.

  Desperate or crazy, he guessed, but he’d never been the sort of man to run away from either.

  “That would be me,” he said, and adjusted the reflective sunglasses perched on his nose to make sure they were in place. His fingers itched to run through the tangled mess of his dark brown hair, but he dropped his hands to his sides. There was no point cleaning up now that company was already here. He hadn’t expected anyone to walk through his door today, so he’d skipped over his basic hygiene routine of combing through his thick mane. He just hoped the whiskey on his breath wouldn’t be too off-putting.

  He extended his hand, and the woman acknowledged it with a firm, cursory shake before dropping into the chair on the other side of the desk.

  “I knew I was taking a chance that you would be here on a night like this, but I couldn’t sit at home and wait.” She crossed one long, bare leg over the other and folded her hands in her lap. “I guess I got lucky for a change.”

  Gabe considered how lucky the woman had actually been. He’d planned to stay home that evening, but boredom had pushed him to change his mind. Walking to work had been out of the question, and he hadn’t spotted any cabs on the roads in four days, but transportation was never an issue for him. He’d just cut a rift through the Fae dimension and stepped through the doorway into the darkness of his frigid office. The temperature had been low enough that a person of human blood would have needed a parka and three scarves to keep warm. Thanks to the candles, it had warmed to a solid one-scarfer.

  Not that the woman appeared to notice the chill in the air. Her skin remained smooth, without the smallest hint of a goosebump. Gabe made a note of it, but kept the thought to himself, waiting for her to explain her visit. For the moment, she stayed silent, her gaze sharp as she took in his office.

  He politely ignored her examination of the room’s contents: the two taper candles flickering on his desk, the movie poster for The Maltese Falcon on the wall beside the door, the framed business license over the filing cabinet.

  Her attention shifted to the storm outside, and his eyes were drawn to the window. The snow had started six days ago and hadn’t stopped for a full minute since. It was barely even the second week of October and already the town’s snow removal budget had been blown. Thick snowflakes beat against the windows, the remains freezing over and frosting the glass, preventing him from seeing much farther than the shadows of the buildings across the street.

  The old oak tree in the yard swayed under the force of the wind. Its ice-caked branches creaked, threatening to snap. Another tree across the street had already succumbed to the weight of the snow. Clean-up once the storm passed was going to be murder.

  The wind offered a high-pitched scream that sent chills chasing after each other up Gabe’s spine to the base of his neck. He shook off the sensation and turned back to the woman.

  “Quite the weather we’re having, isn’t it?”

  “Hm?” She turned her head toward him, and in the brief vacancy of her expression, he guessed her thoughts had been scattered between the snowflakes. The faint tremor in the energy around her told Gabe her anger hadn’t ebbed since she’d entered his office, but he hoped the silence following her initial outburst meant that she was working to explain her problem and wouldn’t subject him to a long, meaningless rant.

  As long as she came to a clear point eventually, he was willing to wait.

  “The snow. It’s something else, isn’t it? Can’t say I’ve ever seen anything like it.”

  His profession had given him lots of practice polishing his small talk, but by the narrowing of her eyes, the woman wasn’t impressed with his efforts.

  As though the sound of his voice reminded her of her reason for coming, she drew her shoulders back and raised her chin. “I didn’t come here to chat about the weather, Mr. Mulligan. I’m looking to hire the best and was directed to you by a couple of trusted friends. Are you as good as they say?”

  Gabe flash
ed his teeth in a grin to cover his spark of irritation at her tone. He cast out his usual roguish charm, but when the woman showed no response, he reeled his smile in, not wanting to waste his energy. He settled back in his chair and tilted his head to better see her face in the dim light.

  The orange glow of the candlelight lit the contours of her cheekbones, which contrasted sharply with the valley of her smooth forehead. Her light eyes, so unique, almost seemed to capture the fire, reflecting the same flicker as the candle flame. He stared into her eyes to see if he was imagining things and found himself slipping into their depths. He forced his gaze away and shifted in his chair with a surge of uneasiness.

  “I don’t know if I’m the best,” he said, and rearranged the file folders on his desk as a brief excuse to keep his gaze averted. It wasn’t often he worked to avoid meeting someone else’s eyes. Usually it was his own gaze he worried about. The switch was unnerving. “I don’t know if my methods of doing business would meet your standards. What I can tell you is that I’ve been in business for eight months and have closed every case for the forty-two people who have walked through those doors.”

  He inclined his head to the office door, where Gabriel Mulligan, Private Investigator was stamped on the glass in bold white letters.

  He’d often stared at that door and wondered if he’d made the right call in opening his investigation business. It had never been his dream career. His background was in remote IT support — he’d made his living avoiding direct human contact and liked it just fine. But everything had changed after his run-in with the warlock, Jermaine Hershel. That man had destroyed countless numbers of supernatural beings for his own gain, and Gabe had wound up in the middle of it — first as a potential victim, and then as a possible suspect for Jermaine’s death. The experience of uncovering Jermaine’s real murderer had revealed a need, a public duty on behalf of the otherworld, to keep the mundane world safe. As soon as he’d escaped the warlock’s magical trap, he’d decided to do whatever he could to prevent another Jermaine from rising up in the city of New Haven.

  From his new office desk, he could keep an eye on any growing threats in the city. Since he’d opened his business, no such problems had arisen, but he hoped he would be ready if one came knocking on his professionally white-lettered door.

  The door design itself hadn’t been his idea. His original plan had been to get a bunch of black cards made with his address on them and build himself up as a myth in the otherworld. People liked the idea of a secret contact you could only stumble upon through references, and he’d figured it would cut down on the number of mundane cases people might expect him to take on. He didn’t want to deal with the neighbor’s yapping dog or unfaithful husbands.

  But his friend Percy had pointed out that if he wanted to afford basic necessities, like food, he would have to widen his scope, and a friendly door with bright, easy-to-read lettering would help with that.

  Gabe had then pointed out how ironic it was that someone who refused to step out of his own warehouse fortress should be counseling him on being accessible. Percy had offered a few choice words in reply, and Gabe had paid for the stupid door.

  Although he did get the odd request to spy on a philandering spouse, his career had mostly taken the direction he wanted thanks to word-of-mouth recommendations. Last week he’d chased down a missing dog, sure, but it was a Shalon demon’s hellhound, so at least it had proved a challenge. He carried the scratches across his chest to prove it.

  At the memory of those sharp claws tearing through his flesh, he rubbed his fingers across his sweatshirt, waiting for the woman to make up her mind as to whether she would confide in him.

  She stared at him in silence, as though assessing every word of his answer. Her gaze scanned him from his messy hair down to his wrinkled blue sweatshirt and rough jeans. He suspected she intended for him to feel self-conscious under her evaluation, but just as his charm hadn’t melted her frosty exterior, neither would her coldness freeze him.

  She realized it soon enough and settled her attention on his reflective sunglasses.

  “My name is Clare Davidson, Mr. Mulligan, as in the daughter-in-law of Kurt Davidson of Davidson Transport. I don’t waste my time on fools. No matter what I’ve heard about your reputation, I can’t say that sitting in a dimly lit room staring at a pair of sunglasses is very reassuring. Are you hung over?”

  His irritation washed over him again at her assumption.

  I’ve got better things to do than explain myself to you, lady, he wanted to say, but bit his tongue.

  While his curiosity was an asset for digging into people’s lives, his temper occasionally proved an inconvenience. He wasn’t an angry guy — at least, not the kind of guy people left off their invitation lists for fear he’d pick a fight or anything. His anger ran right down into his genes and simmered in his blood. No amount of meditation or pictures of kittens could get rid of it. Fortunately, he’d spent most of his life mastering his reactions and could trust himself to keep it bottled. Usually.

  Tonight, his limited whiskey intake allowed him to remain in control, and he forced his expression into casual amusement.

  “Gabe, please,” he said. “And no, Mrs. Davidson, I am not hung over. I just like the aesthetic.”

  He left it at that. He preferred his clients didn’t find out that the real reason for his sunglasses was another genetic birth defect — one that had popped up sporadically in his family’s bloodline for centuries and gave him the unfortunate ability to turn people to stone at a glance. He found it made people skittish around him when they found out. Who would have guessed?

  At his response, Clare narrowed her eyes a fraction and tapped her manicured thumb against the back of her other hand.

  “I hope you take your job more seriously than your clients, Mr. Mulligan.”

  “Gabe,” he repeated, relieved that his anger seemed to have settled into the back of his mind. “And I assure you, Mrs. Davidson, I do. Each case is a priority until it’s done, no matter the challenge.”

  After another hesitation, another assessment, she dipped her head in a nod. “Very well. I want you to find out who murdered my husband.”

  Gabe’s eyebrows twitched upward in spite of himself.

  I guess the husband’s not cheating, he thought, and leaned forward over his desk. At least, not anymore.

  “When did this happen?”

  “Three days ago.”

  “That’s not much time to give the police a chance to catch whoever did it,” he said. “Has the weather been holding them up?”

  Clare frowned and, with what sounded like a touch of reluctance, said, “No. They’ve actually done more than I might have expected, given the obstacles. But it’s not enough.”

  “What are they saying?” Gabe asked. He didn’t want to tread on the authorities’ toes if they were already getting the job done. They were likely doing everything he would do, but Clare clearly wasn’t happy with the answers they’d found.

  She sniffled and cast her gaze toward the window. The whites around her tawny irises glistened, and at the sudden display of emotion, Gabe reached for the whiskey bottle in the bottom drawer of his desk. He might have been opposed to paying for his name on the door, but when Percy recommended the whiskey as a second necessary purchase for booting up his business, he hadn’t argued.

  He poured two tumblers and slid one across the surface of his desk.

  Clare didn’t spare a glance for him before grabbing the glass and pressing the rim against her red-stained lips to take a sip. As she swallowed, she closed her eyes and released a soft sigh. When she opened them, her gaze was steely once again.

  “The police have no idea what they’re dealing with.” She smoothed out her fingers to stop the slight fidgeting in her hands and raised her chin a fraction of an inch. “Let me be frank with you, Mr. Mulligan. There are private investigators all across this city who boast years’ more experience than you. There are investigators who work with more hig
h-profile clients, clients closer to my own class. They understand how to be discreet, and they know cost is not an issue. The reason I chose you is because I was informed by certain members of my circle that you have a…particular skill set. That you’re familiar with a side of the world most people are too blind or ignorant to see.” She paused and tilted her head, her sharp stare boring into his as though trying to meet his gaze through the mirrors over his eyes. “What I mean is that you’re comfortable with the concept of the supernatural. Is that correct?”

  Gabe schooled his features to prevent any sign of his surprise from showing. Davidson Transport was one of the most successful companies operating out of New Haven, but for all the gossip he regularly picked up from both the mundane world and the arcane, he’d never heard their name connected with anything supernatural.

  A moment’s concern shot through him that she might believe he was some sort of medium who could put her in touch with her dead husband. But then he realized his first instinct about her had been correct — this woman, who had crossed a snow-bound city with apparent ease and now sat in his chilly office without shivering, was someone more than human herself.

  Drawing in a breath, he said, “Yes, Mrs. Davidson, I believe it would be fair to say that I am familiar with the otherworldly.”

  “Good,” she said. “Then you should be able to understand where I’m coming from. Three days ago, the police showed up at my door to tell me Sam had been murdered. I had to push hard to get any kind of details, but from what I gather, they found him at Wishrock Harbor. Naked.” She pressed her lips together and her throat bobbed with a hard swallow. “They think he was mugged.” She fell silent, her throat working.

  Gabe sipped his drink and waited for her to fill him in on the rest of the story. A woman as classy as Clare wouldn’t bring up the otherworldly just to have him ask about it.

  If she hadn’t mentioned the supernatural slant, he wouldn’t have thought the scenario out of the ordinary. The harbor was deep in the warehouse district, only a few blocks down from his office building. By day, the roads were busy with trucks and boats coming up the river, but at night it transformed into a hub for prostitutes and drug dealers. Minor trouble, for the most part, but occasionally the wrong person walked in at the wrong time and found himself at the wrong end of a gun.