Page 39 of Booked for Murder

I’d argue with her anyway, even if she believed I had no grounds for putting up a fight over the costs of my operation. I understood why she felt as she did, as I was the reason her son had been the only survivor of the crash to emerge relatively unscathed. “By the time I’ve completed the next stage of rehabilitation, I’ll be able to afford the operation.” I pointed at my boot with my chopsticks in the approximate location of the primary arch. “This whole part is a bloody mess; the ligaments aren’t doing their job, so that’s a major point of failure. They need to be tightened.” I gestured to my toes. “I’ve learned the hard way your toes serve a purpose, and if they are all busted, good luck walking. They’re all busted. They’ll be fixed last, because without the rest of the foot working, why bother with the toes? I’ve been told I should shut up and be grateful I have toes at all. Which I am, of course. The first batch of doctors did a good job making sure I kept all of my various body parts still attached, with the exception of my spleen. I’m a bit of a guinea pig for that, because I needed a transplant. I emerged from that experimental surgery without complication as far as anyone can tell.”

The transplanted spleen could be a problem, as science hadn’t yet determined how magic formed and developed in the body. More specifically, would the experimental spleen transplant result in a change to my rating? Most days, I didn’t even think about my new spleen, although I was grateful for it.

I’d become the first human transplant candidate because I was an exsanguinator and could filter my own damned blood of impurities if needed, including aged red blood cells no longer capable of performing their function of oxygenating my body. The spleen’s other purpose, which involved maintaining my immune system, made me doubly grateful for the transplant.

I could fix my blood. I had trouble with my immune system. All-in-all, my new spleen did a great job, and I blamed a lot of other things for why I’d get sick every now and then, including the strain of hobbling around on a dud foot, not eating as well as I should, and otherwise running myself into the ground.

Bradley’s mother frowned. “Yes, there were a lot of notes about your replacement spleen. Have you had to use your magic to filter your blood?”

I shook my head. “I have a prescription to go along with some orders to do morning practices to warm back up to using my magic at its full strength. To maintain my current rating, I’ve had to take certain cares so I could pass the examination.”

“You painted your nails,” Bradley muttered, wrinkling his nose. “I can’t believe you painted your damned nails during the examination. Not only did you paint your nails, you didn’t want to ruin them, so you extended the testing period so they could dry.”

“It worked, so there.”

“You were always exceptional at falsifying rating examinations,” Bradley’s mother conceded. “I have seen your employment record, and I’m aware of some of the more unique training methods used. I paid for them, after all.”

“Those methods, for the record, suck. I also resent that some asshole murdered an idiot senator on the steps of my library.”

“I see your dislike of Senator Godrin has not eased.”

“Well, yeah. He’d be happy to see people like me chucked off a bridge and drowned right along with my parents. I take that sort of thing personally. That said? I hate murder far more than I ever hated him, so I’m on board to help locate his killer. I’m also a prime scapegoat for the killing, although I don’t think I could do the type of cranial damage he experienced—or sever a brainstem. I have other methods of killing people.”

Bradley’s mother stepped out of the entry into my bedroom and explored my kitchen, peeking into my fridge and clucking her tongue, likely at the presence of meat and eggs. “How would you have killed him?”

“Massive intracranial hemorrhage, of course. In the appropriate portion of the brain to cause instant death. It’s along the same lines of what actually killed him, from my understanding of the situation, but with a lesser-tuned control over blood flow. If I’m aiming for humane, I must be precise in how to kill someone. Otherwise, I just prevent blood from exiting the heart. That’s simple enough to do, and a ruptured heart will kill you fairly quickly. Separating the aortic valve from the heart through excessive blood pressure is also effective. Essentially, I can separate the aortic valve from either the heart or the aorta itself by concentrating blood in the region and applying pressure until the cell tissue ruptures. At that point, hemorrhaging occurs fairly quickly. I have many other ways I can kill someone. If I don’t want someone to realize I’m the cause of death, I might create a blood clot in the appropriate area. Clots can happen to anybody, and it’s difficult to detect if an exsanguinator is responsible for the clot.” To add to the illusion I’d misplaced or otherwise lost my last fuck, I smiled.

Bradley’s mother glared at her son. “This is what you get for wanting a nurse.”

I had never made it to the nurse stage of things, but I refused to show that the jab stung.

“She’d make an excellent nurse. With some rehab to her foot, she could be a librarian by day and a nurse by night.”

“That would leave her with exactly zero time for any other pursuits, including investigating a certain murder.”

“You’re still refusing to say his name, aren’t you?”

“He was a twat. I don’t want to say his name. It makes me feel dirty.”

Bradley sighed. “He had his good sides.”

“Oh?”

I observed the mother-son dispute with interest, nibbling at my orange chicken and wondering why the hell I’d invited a war into my home. Jezabella stayed near the door and fidgeted, something I’d remember her doing from the day she’d been brought into the Hampton household.

“You can relax, Jezabella. You’d kick my ass in a fight unless you’re trying to take my lunch from me.”

That caught the young woman’s attention, and she stared at me with wide eyes. “How’d you con him into drinking milk?”

“I didn’t con him into doing anything. He’s the one who decided he wanted to buy me two lunches, thinking he could actually handle spicy food without having had it before.”

“Wow.” Jezabella eyed Bradley. “You’re an idiot.”

Time had done her a lot of good, and I grinned at her open lack of respect for my ex-boss. “How’d they get you to actually say what you think?”

“Tears.”

Ah. Jezabella hated watching anyone cry because it made her cry, and once she started, she struggled to stop. “Well, that was ruthless.”