An Unusual Stratagem

I admit it: I’m an exhibitionist. I love attention. I walk around with a deathhawk every day and with my long, tattooed arms bare nine months out of the year. And it’s for a purpose. No, really! Just a month or two ago, I would have relished the chance to stand before a crowd of reporters: think of the business it would bring into the shop.

But now all I could think of was Cinnamon, and how hard it would make our case.

The questions of the reporters were a dull roar, the flashbulbs scattered shots of lightning. Did you kill Christopher Valentine? FOOM. Did you use magic? FOOM. Did you use your tattoos? FOOM. Is tattoo magic dangerous? FOOM. FOOM. FOOM.

In a daze, I followed my lawyers, who fended off reporters with practiced ease. They’d clearly put thought into it. Lee took the left with his arms spread wide, soaking up questions like a sponge, dodging, deflecting, denying. Yao took the right, nonchalantly swinging her briefcase wide, between them clearing a path for me to walk unimpeded.

But they hadn’t counted on my height, and even with me scrunched down, Lee wasn’t a tall enough man. When he stepped down the next set of risers, one of the reporters shoved her microphone straight into my face and shouted, “Is it true that you’ve confessed to the murder?”

“Miss Frost,” Lee said, trying to interpose himself between me and the mike, “has always fully cooperated with the police, but has not confessed to anything, much less murder.”

“But in November you claimed to have killed him,” the reporter pressed, still talking directly to me as we tried to press past her. “In your testimony—”

“Miss Frost’s testimony has been misrepresented—” Lee said, trying to come between us.

“So she was lying?” the reporter said, talking over him. “Were you lying, Miss Frost?”

I stopped on the steps, glaring into space. Lee looked back in alarm and reached to grab my arm, but it was too late. The reporter shoved her mike in my face again and asked, “Don’t you feel any remorse for killing a man who saved your life?”

My nostrils flared. Valentine had staged that shooting.

“No, I don’t,” I snapped, and the reporter’s eyes gleamed.

Lee twitched violently. “Miss Frost,” he said loudly, “doesn’t mean to imply—”

“That she killed him?” the reporter asked. “You are saying that you killed him?”

Lee raised his arms, shouting something, but was drowned out as the reporters surged in. Flashbulbs flashed. Cameras pressed inwards. As Lee and Yao tried to fend them off, I got angrier and angrier. I wanted to belt out that yes, I had killed him, and no, I wasn’t sorry. And it was true. But saying it would torpedo any chance I had of getting Cinnamon back.

Finally I could stand it no more. I straightened up, looked out over Lee and Yao, and picked out a reporter standing on the steps just beyond them. I made direct eye contact, and he shoved his microphone over Lee’s head and into my face. I leaned in and spoke clearly.

“Everyone, please, step back, you’re obstructing the stair.”

Then I walked straight forward between Lee and Yao, gently moving the reporter aside with my hand as I passed. I heard scrambling and splutters behind me, but I just kept moving and hopped right into the open door of the limo. Moments later, Lee and Yao followed.

“Drive,” Lee said, slamming the door. He settled into the backwards-facing seat opposite me. “Damn. That was a hell of a trick.”

“I used to date a musician,” I said. “She taught me a few tricks about working crowds.”

Helen covered her face as Lee choked a little. “She … ah … well,” he said. Then he recovered. “Still, let me do the talking from now on. You can’t go around torpedoing yourself—”

“Have you been briefed?” I said. “Was I not completely honest with the police?”

“We had been hoping to quash that testimony,” Lee said, now openly glaring. “We can’t claim that your confession was coerced if you’re going around corroborating—”

“My confession wasn’t coerced,” I said. “So your argument was going to be that the jury should trust me now because I was lying before?”

“Trust won’t have anything to do with it—we’re going get as much evidence thrown out as we can and argue self-defense, but without you testifying,” Lee said. “Innocent people look terrible on the stand, but the unrepentant look worse—”

“I-didn’t-do-anything-wrong,” I said, gritting my teeth.

“So you think,” Lee said. “But you don’t seem to have realized that your own approval of your actions is meaningless if a prosecutor disagrees—and she can convince a jury.”

“But Valentine was a serial killer.”

“He was never arrested and prosecuted,” Lee said. “He just died, by your hands, via magic—and Paulina Ross just loves making examples of people who kill with magic.”

I leaned back in the limo as Lee went on. I wondered how much this was going to cost me. Surely they weren’t going to take a criminal defense on spec the way they had done with the lawsuit by the Valentine Foundation. Then the bigger problem came back to me.

“What is this going to do to my custody case?” I said. “It can’t look good.”

“Oh, hell, Miss Frost,” Lee said, frowning, “you’re right, it certainly can’t help.”

“That’s not our most immediate problem with Cinnamon,” Helen said. “Earlier tonight I contacted the foster parent, Jack Palmotti, and it turns out he was frantic. Apparently Cinnamon brought something home that was meant for you, and he didn’t know what to do with it.”

“What’s happened?” I asked, mouth dry.

“Cinnamon’s getting kicked out of the Clairmont Academy.”