Free [Merry Gentry 04] - A Stroke of Midnight by Laurell K. Hamilton Page A

said, crossing her arms under her tight firm breasts.
    â€œI want to contact the police and bring in a forensic team.”
    â€œA what?”
    â€œScientists who specialize in helping the police solve crimes in the human world.”
    She was shaking her head. “I do not want the human police tramping through here.”
    â€œNor do I, but a few policemen, and a few scientists. Just a few, just enough to gather evidence. All the sidhe are royal, titled; they all have diplomatic immunity, so technically we can dictate to an extent how much police involvement we allow.”
    â€œAnd you think this will catch whoever did this?”
    â€œI do.” I stepped a little away from Doyle, so I wasn’t huddling against him. “Whoever did this is worried about magic tracking them down, but it will never occur to them that we would use forensic science inside the land of faerie. They will not have protected against it, and in fact, they can’t protect against it, not completely.”
    â€œWhat do you mean by that?”
    â€œWe, even the sidhe, shed skin cells, hairs, saliva; all of it can be used to trace back to the person. Science can use a smaller piece than is needed for a spell. Not a lock of hair, but the root of a hair. Not a pound of flesh, but an invisible fleck of it.”
    â€œYou are certain that it will work? Certain that if I allow this intrusion, this invasion of our privacy, human science will solve this crime?”
    I licked my lips. “I am certain if there is evidence to find, they will find it.”
    â€œIf,” she said, and she started pacing the room again, but slowly, quietly this time. “‘If’ means you are not certain. ‘If’ means, dear niece, that you may bring all this upon us and the murderer may go free. If we bring in the police and they do not solve the reporter’s death, it will undo all the good publicity I have acquired for us in the last two decades.”
    â€œI think it will work, but either way the media will be impressed with your willingness to allow the modern police into your faerie mound. No one has ever done that, not even at the golden court.”
    She glanced back at me, but she was moving, slowly, toward Barinthus. He was indeed kneeling at the foot of her bed, on a black fur rug. “You think we will gain media points over Taranis and his shining people.”
    â€œI think this will show that we meant no harm to anyone, and that such things are not tolerated among the Unseelie, contrary to all those centuries of dark talk.”
    She stood in front of Barinthus now, but still spoke to me. “You truly believe that the media will forgive us allowing one of their own to be murdered simply because we invite in the police?”
    â€œI think some of them would slaughter their own photographers on altars, with incense and prayers, to get a chance at covering this story.”
    â€œClever, Meredith, very clever.” She turned to Barinthus then. She stroked her hand down the side of his face, like you’d touch a lover, though I knew she had never taken him to her bed. “Why did you never try to make a king of my son?”
    Unless Barinthus and the queen had been having a very different conversation, the question seemed out of nowhere.
    â€œYou do not want me to answer that question, Queen Andais,” he said in his deep, sighing voice.
    â€œYes,” she said, still stroking his face, “yes, I do.”
    â€œYou will not like it.”
    â€œI have not liked many things of late. Answer the question, Kingmaker. I know that if my brother, Essus, had been willing, you would have had him kill me and put himself on the throne. But he would not slay his own sister. He would not have that sin on his heart. Still, you thought he would be a better king than I a queen, didn’t you?”
    Dangerous questions. Barinthus said again, “You do not want the truth, my queen.”
    â€œI