I understood that presumed motive was a fundamental part of her investigation. But it was becoming harder not to take the questions personally. “I have nothing against the AAM. As I said, we disagree about interpretation of the rules.”
“And you’re angry at them?”
“I’m angry that the organization gives so little value to the life of a human. Especially when that human was nearly killed in a supernatural feud that had nothing to do with her.”
“Blake came to your home. Threatened you.”
“He came to my home with two other vampires on behalf of the AAM. He didn’t threaten me. He asked me to meet the Bureau in Grant Park.”
“And you suggested the Grove.” She looked up. “Why?”
“It’s outside the city. Less populated, so there’d be less risk of human injury if things went awry. Which they did.”
Her brows lifted. “You were expecting violence.”
I knew she knew all this. Some she’d heard from me at the Grove; some she’d heard from Theo. But I kept playing along.
“The Bureau came to Chicago,” I said with monumental patience, “to accuse me of breaking their rules by saving a human life. That doesn’t scream ‘reasonable’ to me. So I expected more unreasonable behavior to follow. I was right.”
“They claimed you drew first blood.”
She had done her homework, so I nodded. “They claimed it, but they caused it. One of their vampires threw a knife at Alexei Breckenridge. He threw one back. Theirs missed; his didn’t. They started the fight, but we technically drew first blood.”
“You own a sword,” Theo said.
I shifted my gaze to him. “I do. You’ve trained with it.” We’d done a few rounds in the OMB gym.
“I know,” he said, and there was regret and guilt in the words.
“Where is it?” Gwen asked, and added notes to her file.
“At the loft.”
“Will you turn it over for forensic analysis?”
There were limits to everything. Including my cooperation.
“No,” I said, and she stopped taking notes, looked up at me.
“You refuse?”
“If you have a duly executed warrant, you’re welcome to take it. But since I didn’t hurt Blake, I don’t think you’ll be able to get one. It’s possible there’s a trace of his blood on it; I don’t know. The fight at the Grove was intense, and I’m not sure who the blade touched. But I didn’t kill him.” I looked at Theo. “I suggest you talk to Clive, find out who the Compliance Bureau has pissed off recently.”
“Other than you?”
“Pissed off,” I repeated, “and is willing to use murder as a tool of revenge. Because I’m not. Nor, for the record, are any of my friends.”
“Killing Blake might slow down the AAM’s prosecution of you,” Theo said. “Divert their attention.”
And killing Clive would have done that faster, I thought, but managed not to say that out loud. “I don’t want to divert their attention,” I said instead. “I want them to leave me alone. That’s not going to happen now. Instead, they’re probably going to draw the same conclusion you did. They’re going to think I did it.”
And they were going to come after me even harder.
***
Three more times. We went through it three more times, enough to have my temper flare and fall again. By the time we were done, it was midnight, and I was exhausted.
I hadn’t killed Blake. But I didn’t like the coincidence that he’d been killed here, during a trip to Chicago to investigate me, to confront me. And why Blake particularly?