by Chloe Neill
“What was the fight about?”
Nessa crossed her arms and looked away, the breeze ruffling her tousled hair. “We were supposed to go into town for a date night. He was at the library, lost track of time, and stood me up. I wasn’t happy about that, and I confronted him about it. It was not our proudest moment. He wasn’t perfect,” she said, pushing fresh tears from her cheeks. “But we were working on it.”
“And Darla saw the fight?” Tom asked.
“I suppose. She’s a student; I wasn’t exactly discreet.”
That explained part of what Darla had known, but not the rest of it. “How did she manage to get a copy of the divorce papers?”
Nessa looked at me, blinked. “What?”
Tom frowned. “She had a copy of the papers? I thought you said you didn’t file them.”
“I didn’t.” Realization apparently struck Nessa. She’d thought about Darla’s divorce revelation, but not how Darla had found out about it in the first place. “She had my copy—I remember seeing my name across the top. That copy came from my attorney.”
“Where was it?” I asked. “Your copy.”
“In my office.” Her expression changed, from grief to horror. “They were in my office. They were in my house.”
We looked back at it, the front door marked prophetically by a yellow X of police tape.
“No one was in the house today,” Tom said. “It’s been under guard. It would have been before the murder.”
Or, I grimly thought, during it.
“Why don’t we go inside and take a look?” Ethan suggested.
Tom pulled away the tape, crumpled it into a ball before pushing the door open.
“Ethan, Merit, Gabriel, Nessa,” Tom said, gesturing us inside. “Everyone else stay out here, please.”
No one objected to the instructions.
Considering the circumstances, I tried not to goggle as we walked inside but found it difficult. The house was enormous and opened into a gigantic living area with a kitchen and dining room along one side. The entire back half consisted of unshaded windows that overlooked the valley. The light was necessary for the palm tree that grew in the middle of the living room, set into the Spanish tile floor and surrounded by a small fountain of water.
Any blood that might have been spilled was gone, any sign of Taran’s death erased, except in Nessa’s mind. She stood silently, stoically, staring at a spot on the floor where she’d last seen her husband.
“I’m going to take Nessa into her office,” Tom quietly said. “We’ll start there. Why don’t you start in his office?” He gestured to the left.
The house might have been enormous, but the office was cramped, crowded, and utterly charming. To the left, a tall bookshelf, each shelf stacked with books, papers, tchotchkes. In front of it was a small desk, and on the right was a small and well-worn love seat of teal velvet that probably served as the site of afternoon naps.
Shifter or not, from the piles of paper, the assortment of globes, the collection of hats that hung on pegs on the wall, I figured Taran for the smart and quirky type. My bread and butter, at least before Ethan. I felt a pang of sympathy for his death, but pushed it down. The only way to help him now was to find the truth.
“Gentlemen,” I said, when I was sure my voice would be steady, “we’ve reached the office of an academician. You’re going to want to let me handle this.”
I could all but hear their eyes rolling behind me, but I ignored them, walked inside, and took a look around.
I started at the shelves. The books were primarily about exploration in the western and midwestern United States. A complete set of Lewis and Clark’s journals. A set of Prince Maximilian’s journals. Countless books of flora and fauna. Histories of mining in Colorado.
I moved to the desk, trying to ferret out his organizational system, finally realized each pile was a category. Papers that needed grading were in one pile, already graded papers in another. There was a stack of research on Arapaho settlements, another on the Mormon Trail. And a third of brittle and yellowed paper.
They were notes, each page dated at the top and scratched with “CM” at the bottom.
Christophe Marchand, I thought, blood beginning to race.
I grabbed a pencil to flip the sheet, careful not to touch the paper. The notes spanned several weeks. Most tracked the domestic details of his life with Fiona. Chickens fed. Ground cleared for a garden. A shelter improved for their donkey, Fred. Christophe loved art, and he noted that he’d brought to Colorado a book of famous pieces. He and Fiona would peruse it by candlelight, discussing the paintings, imagining the fantasy worlds. That, apparently, had inspired her.
Fiona is painting, read one of Christophe’s entries. She isn’t very good yet, but she is trying very diligently. I told her we must visit Paris and see the wonders there.
His love for her was obvious, his enthusiasm for Elk Valley clear. I could have happily spent hours reading through his notes. But I had an assignment, so I made myself resituate the papers before I got sucked in any further.
I sat down in a squeaky and threadbare chair, pulled open the bottom desk drawer. There were folders of research, article drafts, published articles, copies of Taran’s curriculum vitae printed on thick stock.
I reached in and felt the back of the drawer for anything that might have been taped or secured there—I’d watched my share of criminal investigation shows. There weren’t any secret packets, but I did find a folder that had slipped down behind the others.
I pulled it out. Threats, was written in his tidy script across the tab, and so they were. There were nasty emails from students, rude letters from overbearing parents, an accusation—unfounded, according to Taran’s notes—that he’d plagiarized a twenty-year-old unpublished conference paper. Many of the papers were yellow with age. But there was one at the very back that was still white, still crisp.
I pulled it out, my heart accelerating as I realized what I’d found. It was an e-mail to Taran dated a week ago.
Taran:
I know you don’t want to talk about the Trust anymore but you have to understand. You will destroy everything we have built just because of her. That is how this valley fell apart in the first place and we cannot go back to that. Do the right thing here or what happens after will be your fault.
—Rowan
I wasn’t sure what the “trust” was, but I read a thinly veiled threat from Rowan over it. I put away the folder, carried the paper into the hallway, found Ethan, Gabriel, and Tom already there.
“Find anything?” I asked.
“Nessa doesn’t think they took anything else out of her office. She wanted a few minutes to herself.”
I nodded. “I might have found something,” I said, and handed Tom the paper. “What trust is he talking about?”
Tom frowned, handed the paper to Ethan. “Probably the land trust.”
“What land trust?” Ethan asked.
“From what I understand, Taran’s plot—the property on which the house and guesthouse sit—is held in a revocable trust in Taran’s name.”
“If Nessa and Taran are married,” I said, “why is it in Taran’s name?”
“The land has always been in the McKenzies’ names. They filed homesteading claims before the Marchands got to it. That’s one of the reasons for tension in the valley. The shifters have the land; the vampires have the money.”
“Compound interest,” Ethan and I simultaneously said.
Tom nodded. “And there’s the practical issue—Taran couldn’t have put the trust documents in Nessa’s name—not when she’d never age. It would have been too obvious she was different.”
“And put her in danger,” Ethan said.
Tom nodded.
“So what was Rowan afraid of?” I asked. “What was he afraid Taran was going to do?”
“I believe,” Tom said, “it’s time to ask him just that.”
***
In comparison to Nessa’s houses, the shifters’ home was humble. Several buildings on a small, fenced acreage, with a dozen cars parked here and there across what would have been lawn. Chickens pecked in the dirt, and weeds and vines scrambled over a chain-link fence on the edges of the property.
Was that part of the animosity? Jealousy, that the vampires had so much and the shifters had so little? Or did their connection to the earth make the material elements of their existence irrelevant?
Rowan walked outside, Niall and Darla behind him. Niall and Darla looked surprised—and disappointed—to see us alive.
“Sheriff,” Rowan said, his gaze slipping warily to us. “Gabriel. Is there a problem here?”
Tom paused, looked at Gabriel, who nodded his permission to proceed. I guess Tom had decided his alpha had authority enough.
“First things first—are you aware Niall and some of his friends shot at these vampires, burned down the Marchands’ compound, and attempted to burn them out? One of your people also stole some legal papers from Nessa’s house, decided they proved she’d killed her husband.”
Rowan’s expression stayed blank but for a twitch in his jaw. His gaze found Gabriel’s. “That was not approved by me.”
“We’ll discuss that later,” Tom said. “In a calm and reasonable fashion, with the Marchands and the McKenzies at the table, we’ll discuss whether reparations are appropriate.”
Niall opened his mouth to speak, but Rowan silenced him with a hand.
A surprisingly reasonable approach, Ethan silently snarked. I had to agree.
“Then why you are here?”
“Because of this.” Tom walked forward, handed Rowan the paper, now enclosed in an evidence bag.
Rowan looked at it suspiciously, but his body stiffened with each scan of his eyes across the page.
“I didn’t write this.”
Tom wasn’t buying it. “It’s got your name on it. It’s from your e-mail address.”
Rowan offered the paper back to Tom. “Be that as it may, I didn’t write it.”
“You talked to Taran about the trust?”
Rowan’s eyes flashed with something. “Yes.”
“What about it?”
His jaw worked. He was clearly unhappy about the subject of their talk—or revealing it here. After a moment, with magic settling in the air like dust, he fixed his gaze on Nessa.
“They were working on their relationship. He thought things were getting better. He was going to change the trust. He wanted to put it in her name, make a gift of it to her. It was supposed to be a promise for their marriage.”
Nessa’s lips parted with obvious shock, with fresh grief. I guessed she hadn’t been aware of Taran’s plan.
Ethan’s eyes narrowed. “Has that happened before? Property in the valley held by a vampire?”
“No,” Rowan said, and he left little doubt that he’d have preferred it stay that way.
“So what did you plan to do about it?” Tom asked.
“It’s his land, not mine. What could I do?”
“That’s magnanimous.”
“It’s practical,” Rowan countered. “The trust is in his name. Not mine, not hers. It should have stayed that way. But it wasn’t my call to make, legally or otherwise.”
“Killing him would ensure he couldn’t change the trust,” I said, and silence fell heavily.
“I didn’t kill my cousin,” Rowan flatly said. This time, he said it to Gabriel.
“Who else has access to your e-mail account?” Tom asked.
“Nobody.”
“So you sent the e-mail yourself?”
“I’m telling you, I didn’t send the damn e-mail. I didn’t even have my laptop. I let Darla use it for school.”
It wasn’t until Rowan got the words out that he realized the implication. He stiffened and very slowly glanced back at Darla, who stood silently behind him, her chin lifted defiantly.
“You used my account?”
She didn’t respond.
“Answer me!” he demanded, magic pouring across the yard with a hornets’ nest of buzzing anger.
“I heard him tell you about changing the trust. That’s wrong. Bloodsuckers don’t belong here. They’ve never belonged here. The land belongs to the McKenzies. We were here first, and he had no right to give it away. I tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t listen.”
When she paused, Rowan glared at her. “Finish it. Do the honorable thing and finish it.”
Darla stared at him for a moment, before carefully shifting her gaze to Gabriel, looking for a sympathetic ear. But Gabriel’s expression was filled with as much rancor as Rowan’s, and that was apparently enough to convince her.
“I sent the e-mail from your account,” she confirmed. “He ignored it, so I went to the house to talk to him. He told me it wasn’t my business, that he was doing the right thing for his family. He turned around—turned his back on me. On the McKenzies. I couldn’t let him do that. Not after all that we’ve been through since Fiona. So I picked up a paperweight—it was the closest thing I could find . . . And I hit him with it.”
“Oh, Taran,” Nessa quietly said, covering her mouth with a hand as she choked back tears.
“I ran out the door so no one would see me,” Darla said. “I dropped the paperweight somewhere along the road, and I went home.”
“You’ve killed one of our own,” Rowan said, face wan with shock. “You’ve killed us.”
Tom stepped forward, pulling handcuffs from his belt. He fixed Darla’s hands behind her back, snapped on the cuffs.
“Darla McKenzie, you’re under arrest for the murder of Taran McKenzie.” He recited her rights and handed her over to the deputy, who shuffled her into the car.
Niall ran forward, eager to protect his sister. “You can’t take her! She hasn’t done anything! This is the vampires’ fault! It’s the vampires’ fault!”
Two McKenzie shifters intercepted him, put out hands to stop his progress.
“Rowan, this has got to stop,” Tom said, obviously tired. “No more reprisals. No more fear. No more hatred. I’ve let it go on too long, and that’s on me. But now it’s on all of us. If you won’t sit down together and talk, I’ll call the governor and ask for the National Guard, and we’ll see how far black helicopters get us.”
For a long moment, Vincent and Rowan simply looked at each other.
“I have no objection to a discussion,” Vincent said.
Rowan nodded. “We’ll sit with you.”
That, I hoped, would be the beginning of something new.
***
The guesthouse smelled gloriously like pasta, tomatoes, rich garlic, and spicy meat.
Damien, thank God, had been busy.
He’d already piled food on the dining room table—bowls of pasta and sauce, freshly grated Parmesan, steaming meatballs, and crusty bread for dipping.
I stared at the table and sighed with sensual approval.
“You’d better propose to her quickly, Sullivan,” Gabriel warned, taking a seat at the table. “Before she proposes to Damien or the food.”
Ethan made a sardonic sound, pulled out a chair for me. I sat down and began to stuff my face.
I didn’t stop until I’d had thirds, until I’d eaten enough to pooch out my stomach like I’d swallowed a volleyball. A delicious volleyball.
That’s when all the blood rushed to my stomach and my eyes began to close.
Gabriel pressed a napkin to his mouth, then tossed it onto the table. “You’d better get to bed before you fall into your food, Kitten. We’ll keep watch today.”
“You’re sure?” Ethan asked.
He nodded. “You’ve done your part to help us. Least we can
do is return the favor. We’ll head out at dusk when you’re awake. I presume you’re going back tomorrow?”
Ethan nodded. “The jet will be waiting at dusk.”
“Perfect timing,” Gabriel said.
“Do you ever sleep?” I groggily wondered. Most supernaturals didn’t have vampires’ sensitivity to the sun but slept during the day, anyway. I’d assumed they wanted to be awake for the action—or the havoc.
“Not as much as you do,” Gabriel said, grinning. “We prefer cat naps.”
I smiled back, covered a yawn with the back of my hand. “Of course you do.”
“Get to bed.”
I didn’t argue with him. While Ethan cleaned up, I hit the bed in my clothes and was out before he returned.
6
I woke with a start, my body jolting upright. I blinked, oriented myself, realized I was very naked.
My clothes hung neatly on a bedside chair. Ethan must have taken them off before the sun rose.
The room was dark, shutters still over the windows, the sun’s journey though the sky not yet complete. Ethan slept soundly beside me, and the rest of the guesthouse was utterly silent, utterly still.
I rarely stirred before Ethan, and it was odd to experience twilight’s quiet while he slept soundly. The question was—why? I threw back the covers, scrubbed hands over my face, tried to remember the dream I’d been having or the noise that had stirred me.
I rose, walked into the bathroom, splashed freezing water on my face until my brain began to function, then walked back into the bedroom, looked around. My gaze kept shifting back to the Barrymore landscape, to the representation of the valley on canvas.
And then I thought of Christophe’s journal entry: Fiona is painting. She isn’t very good yet, but she is trying very diligently.
My heart began to pound. “Could it be that simple?” I asked, eyes widening.
“Sentinel?”
Ethan’s voice was groggy. When I looked back, he sat up, fingers combing through his hair, sheet pooled at his abdomen. “What’s wrong?”
I looked back at the painting. “I think I know what happened to Fiona McKenzie.”