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“I’ve got something to tell you guys,” I said, tilting my head up to the wooden beams in the ceiling.
Kira cocked her head. “What have you done?”
“Don’t make it sound like she’s done something wrong, Ki,” Allison said.
I dipped my mouth under the water and back up again. “No, she’s right Ali. It could be one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done.”
“Hah.” Kira’s face split into a gleeful smile. “What did you do?”
“I made an… alliance for lack of a better term, with Ben Everhart.”
Allison’s gasp lasted until she ran out of breath, after which she nearly inhaled a mouthful of water.
“First off, go you,” Kira said, grinning wider. “Second off, why?”
“I didn’t want to.” I trod water a little faster to keep my head above water. “But he is basically the only other person on this island who also thinks someone murdered Tyler. We stand a better chance of solving this if we share information, that’s all.”
“Are you sure this is safe?” Allison asked. “What if he hurts you?”
“He already tried. I got him pretty good.”
“You go, girl.” Kira fluttered her wings. “But seriously, if you need us for backup, we’re only a call away.”
“I’m trying not to gang up on him,” I said, swirling my arms back and forth in the water. “But I’ll take that into consideration.”
“Well? What have you learned so far? Are you any closer to finding out who did it?” Allison asked.
She let go of the side of the pool and floated on her back, infinitely more buoyant than either me or Kira. Dryads floated.
“Closer to a motive,” I said. “Today I learned Tyler had a life insurance policy.”
“Oh, I could have told you that,” Allison said.
I whipped my head around to look at her, a wet strand of hair sticking to my face. “You could?”
“My cousin is a financial advisor for the Bakewells,” Allison said. “Remember? Tyler took out a huge policy on himself because if his dad hadn’t had one, he and his mum would have really struggled. He did it so he wouldn’t leave his mum in the lurch if he died.”
“Did he tell anyone about it?” I asked.
“Nobody, as far as I know.”
I dipped my nose and mouth beneath the surface of the water.
If Tyler had taken out his own policy and told nobody… his murderer couldn’t have killed him for money. Which only left limited possibilities. Back in the bowels of London’s supernatural population, people were murdered for money, for clout, and sometimes because they knew something they shouldn’t.
With the first two off the table, had someone killed Tyler to conceal a dark secret?
My nerves prickled in all the wrong ways as I followed Mervyn down the dating agency corridor. Swimming had calmed me right down until Allison had thrown me that curveball.
Here I thought I’d been onto something with that policy, and now I was back at square one.
I smoothed out my dress, a forest-green one today and a little shorter than the one I wore last time. It wasn’t fair on William if an informal murder investigation I shouldn’t even have been pursuing distracted me.
Like it or not, I couldn’t do anything about it that evening, anyway. Unless I rocked up to the Everhart home to ask Ben more questions about Tyler.
No thanks.
“Have a wonderful date, ma’am,” Mervyn said as he opened the door for me.
