Maybe it was time to start pulling back. For her own good.
Chapter Four
What was it with him and Normal women? Luca suppressed the irritated growl that wanted to erupt from his throat. He hadn’t stayed past dessert at Erin’s the night before. It was obvious she wanted him to go, so he’d gone, but he wasn’t sure what had happened to change the tone of the evening. Sure, he was in this affair for the sex, nothing more—and so was she—but they’d never done the fuck and get out routine. It had always been…friendlier, warmer than that. Though he didn’t spend the night every time he visited, he’d never felt as if he was unwelcome. Until last night.
Damn it.
Did this mean she wanted to bow out? He wasn’t sure, but he didn’t like the thought. He enjoyed his time with her, not just the sexual release, but the mental break she offered from all the craziness of his job. He thrived on that insanity, but everyone needed some downtime. When he was with Erin, he could unwind. Something about her was relaxing, easy to be with. He didn’t want to lose that tiny patch of serenity in his life. But if she wanted out, there was nothing he could do about it, and that sent his mood into dark and vicious territory.
It didn’t help that he now had to put up with the hostility of the last Normal woman he’d dated. Well, Normal-turned-werewolf, but still. His shit luck was holding. He pressed the button to call the elevator with more force than the action required. He’d already been to his office, fetched himself coffee and talked to Delta and Jack about any updates on the Hammond case. There was no more putting off going to speak to Tess about her findings during Dillon’s autopsy. Luca wasn’t looking forward to any part of that particular interaction, but using his rank as agent in charge to delegate it would be the coward’s way out. No one else would know, but he would, and he had to deal with her someday. Best to get it over with.
It was almost a relief when the elevator doors parted and he found the team’s seer, Merek, in the car. Luca dipped his chin in greeting. “Have you had a chance to go through the scene yet?”
Merek nodded. “This morning.”
“Great.” Luca stepped in and stabbed the button for the medical examiner’s floor. “Ride with me and fill me in.”
The doors slipped shut and they moved down. Merek propped a shoulder against the wall, and the powerful warlock eyed Luca critically. “You look like hell. Women troubles?”
Working to keep his expression carefully bland, Luca met the other man’s gaze squarely. “Are you guessing or seeing?”
Merek’s grin said it didn’t matter, since he’d gotten his answer from Luca’s evasion. “Guessing. You know I don’t often get visions about people I know well.”
“Uh huh.” Thank gods for that, considering Luca was fucking Jack’s cousin. He’d prefer that little tidbit not make the rounds of office gossip. Time to get the conversation back on track. “What was your reading of my crime scene?”
“Unfortunately, I’m not going to be as helpful as you’re hoping. It wasn’t the kid’s first trip down the stairs—that much I can tell you. The way things played out yesterday…your vampire was smacking around his kid at the top of the staircase, the wife tried to get in the middle, the bloodsucker grins at her—fucking grins at her—backhands the boy and he takes a tumble. So it comes down to motivation. Hammond hit his son on purpose, but did he mean for him to die? That’s not something my visions can tell us.” Merek shook his head, anger flashing in his gray gaze. “Poor boy never had a chance. I hate assholes who mess with kids.”
Luca couldn’t agree more. The whole case made his skin crawl and molten rage flood his belly. The elevator opened and Luca gestured for the other man to precede him. “How’re Alex and Chloe? I haven’t seen them in a while.”
The warlock’s fierce expression eased at the mention of his wife and their adopted werewolf son. “Chloe’s pregnant. Alex is still a genius, working on his graduate degrees at UW. Yes, I mean degrees, plural.”
Luca shook his head. The teen wolf was a force to be reckoned with: driven, brilliant, and an old soul that made him far wiser than his years. He, Chloe and Tess had all survived the same attack by werewolf terrorists. Chloe was a witch, so she couldn’t be Changed even if a werewolf bit her; Alex had been born a wolf, but Tess had been vulnerable as a Normal. That night had tested the mettle of everyone involved, and Luca had always been impressed by Alex’s grit. He’d survived what would have broken men twice his age. “How old is he now? Eighteen?”
“Just turned nineteen last weekend, actually. We took a family camping trip.” Merek chuckled. “If you call a palatial cabin at a mountain resort camping.”
The first smile he’d managed all day broke out on Luca’s face. “Sounds like Chloe’s version of roughing it.”
Merek, Chloe and Alex had spent weeks on the run, hiding out from those terrorists, and that had meant occasionally camping out in the wilderness.
“I’m pretty sure I’m never going to get her in a tent again. Not after Leonard Smith and his band of merry men hunted us down.” The warlock shook his head.
“Can you blame her?” Luca arched an eyebrow.
Chloe had been and still was working on a serum to control the worst effects of werewolves’ forced Change at the full moon, and the terrorist cell leader had decided he’d do whatever it took to get his hands on it. Genius Alex had been Chloe’s research assistant at the time, so when the wolves had come after them, Merek had gone into hiding with them to keep them safe.
“Nope.” Merek shrugged.
Over two years later, Chloe’s serum was in the final stages of testing. Luca wasn’t sure when it would be declared officially safe to sell on the open market, but he thought it shouldn’t be too much longer.
“She’ll take city lights over wide open spaces any day, and she’d not shy about saying so.” The warlock’s grin oozed with the kind of satisfaction only a happily married man could manage. “She’s going to get worse now that she’s pregnant. I don’t even need to be clairvoyant to know that.”
Luca pressed his fingers to his forehead, humming as if he were a television psychic. “I foresee many trips to baby stores in order to find just the right decorations for the nursery.”
“Yeah.” Merek groaned, punching Luca in the arm. “But don’t worry, you’re invited to the baby shower. Tess is hosting it along with Chloe’s great-aunt, Millie. You remember her, don’t you?”
“Vividly.” He smiled wryly. The old witch had ripped him a new one when Chloe had had to go on the run because Luca’s team hadn’t been able to protect her. What Luca hadn’t told anyone at the time was that he’d used the incident to get a double agent into that terrorist cell, which had ultimately helped save Chloe, Alex and Tess’s lives. Still, Luca doubted he’d ever be on Millie’s favorite people list. “Let’s see if Tess medically confirms what your clairvoyance showed you.”
“I’d put money on it, if I were a betting man.” The warlock’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “Though the All-Magickal Council doesn’t condone powerful clairvoyants using their prophetic gifts for gambling gains.”
“I believe you can get arrested for that, in fact.” Luca took the last few steps toward the morgue, depressed the door handle, and the glass panel slid aside to admit them.
“Be with you in a moment, gentlemen.” Tess didn’t even glance up from where she was bent over a large man’s prone form, slicing delicately into his testicles. Luca saw Merek wince out of the corner of his eye, and fought the urge to do the same. If he’d been sitting, he would have crossed his legs. Whoever said there was dignity in death had no idea what a woman with a scalpel could do.
A few excruciating minutes later, she finally straightened and set her tools aside. Stripping off her gloves, she strode toward the two men.
Merek’s gaze lingered on the poor, dead bastard on the table. “Do I even want to know how that guy’s balls could possibly be relevant to a case?”
“No, you really don’t.” Tess’s grin
was pure evil.
Snorting, Luca shook his head. “You had something to tell us about Dillon Hammond?”
Her smile disappeared as if it had never been, and for once he could tell it wasn’t about her virulent dislike of him. This case seemed to be getting to everyone. Child deaths tended to hit hard, but child murders? Hell, he didn’t know anyone who wanted to touch a case like this.
Tess led them over to a wall of square metal doors, pulled one open, and tugged out a long slab with a tiny, pale body on it. She cleared her throat and folded the sheet down to reveal all of the corpse. “There are signs of systematic abuse.”
Mottled bruises and shiny, raised scar tissue marred the boy’s limbs, torso and face. That wasn’t even taking into account the massive gash Luca knew was on the back of Dillon’s head. Even with all the blood cleaned off him, it wasn’t a pretty picture.
“His x-rays show several bone breaks from different times. They could have been from accidents, of course, but combined with some of the other indications of deliberate trauma, I’d guess the breaks are somewhat less than accidental.” She took hold of the boy’s left leg and rotated it outward. “There are three thin slices on the inside of his calf, another set on the side of one of his feet and another on the back of his neck. The cuts are precise—not deep enough to cause permanent damage, very little scarring, but I’m guessing there was quite a lot of blood.”
Merek jerked a little. “Hammond was feeding from his child.”
Sliding his hands into his pockets hid the tremor in Luca’s fingers. He had to swallow twice before he could speak. “Some old-school vampires keep Normals as a food source. It was more common before we developed the elixir we now drink as a replacement for blood, but the Vampire Conclave has outlawed keeping…sheep…anymore.”
“Sheep?” Tess’s gaze burned with feral fury, her canines extended to deadly points. “You assholes call the humans you victimize sheep?”
“I don’t.” He balled his fists in his pockets. “But this kind of thing would be much harder to regulate, to prove, if a vampire had married his sheep. I think we know why Robert never turned his wife.”
“Yeah, he’s eating her,” Tess snapped. “What do you guys call abusing your sheep? Tenderizing them? Playing with your food?”
“I wouldn’t know.” Luca tried to keep his face impassive, knowing she intended to make this about their brief relationship. As usual. “This is a very small sect of vampires, Dr. Jones. One to which I don’t belong, and you know it.”
“Do I?” She folded her arms. “You bit me on more than one occasion. I just didn’t know you were sucking my blood. Me being an uninformed Normal at the time.”
“I bit you during sex,” he ground out. “I hardly kept you under lock and key for my daily feedings. And you were more than happy to be bitten, if I recall correctly. You liked it a great deal, in fact.”
She cut him a fulminating look. “I wonder if the vampires ever told little Dillon here about magic, him being a mere human and all. Did he understand what was going on when his daddy started gnawing on him?”
“Being related to a Magickal, yes, I’m sure he knew about magic. The non-disclosure laws make allowances for human family members, just not for anything as temporary as, say, dating. Which is all you and I did,” he replied evenly while Merek pretended absorption with the tile pattern on the floor.
“I loathe you,” she snarled, her fangs fully extended, her fingers tipped with deadly claws.
Always it came back to this. It was an exhausting merry-go-round of blame and guilt, and Luca just wanted off this sickening ride. Frankly, he thought she needed to get off that ride and get on with her life too, but if he said that now, she’d probably take a swing at him. Another time and place, perhaps. He didn’t want to deal with it today, especially after the unsettling night he’d had with Erin. He’d had more than enough of women in the last twenty-four hours. “I don’t really give a damn what you think of me. Now, is there anything else can you tell us about your autopsy, Doctor?”
She glared at him but got back on task. “There are a few vampiric bite marks that haven’t quite healed, adding to the overall sheepish picture. Two here”—she pointed to a spot on the child’s arm, then to his neck—“and another here. The third bite was delivered post-mortem.”
Luca considered the implications of that. “Was there evidence of blood around the boy’s mouth that wasn’t his?”
“I thought you might ask that. Yes, there was.” She handed him a file with some lab results. “I ran DNA on it and it’s a match to a male relative of Dillon Hammond.”
He grunted, the pieces falling neatly into place. “Robert tried to turn his son after he was dead.”
Leaning forward to look at the file, Merek asked, “Desperation of a father who doesn’t want to lose his child, or desperation of a man who doesn’t want to go down for murder?”
Luca held the paperwork so it was easier for them both to read. “Unclear at this point, but I know which option his lawyer will present as his motive.”
“I hate lawyers,” the other man stated.
Luca hummed in agreement. “They do tend to get in the way.”
Tilting his head, Merek squinted. “Though I assume your judge uncle used to be a lawyer uncle.”
“Indeed.” After snapping the file shut, Luca tucked it under his arm. “He’s been handy to have around. Especially back when I was a practicing lawyer too.”
The warlock chuckled drily, then gestured toward Dillon’s corpse. “Are you making this case a priority for me?”
“Not at the moment.” Luca shook his head. “I’ll let you know if we need a reading on anything else, but I’m having Peyton and Jack question Hammond.”
“He’ll love that,” Merek drawled. “Stick-up-his-ass vampire that he is.”
“Yes, I’m looking forward to his reaction. I imagine it will be…revealing.” More than that, Luca hoped that if he timed matters just right, he might be able to get a confession out of Robert. Or his wife. Either would work, though Robert would be preferable. It would have to be handled carefully. Just like everything else in this politically-heated case, but Robert was too slick to give up any information easily. Luca tapped his fingertips against his thigh, considering options to twist the situation to his advantage. What were Robert’s weaknesses? What could break him? Cecily might be easier to crack, but she couldn’t be forced to testify against her husband. It was Robert that Luca wanted most.
“I have work to do. You can show yourselves out,” Tess interjected. She shot a chilly stare at Luca and smiled at Merek. “I’ll see you and Chloe after work. I’ll bring wine for us and something prenatally approved for her.”
The warlock patted her shoulder. “You should maybe not label it quite that way when you give it to her.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes to keep the pregnant lady happy, don’t worry.” Her gaze gleamed with mirth. “That’s what best friends are for, right?”
“That is exactly the right attitude to have.” He nodded in approval. “For the next seven and a half months, anyway.”
“She has you so well trained.” Reaching out, she patted his jaw.
Merek’s broad shoulder rolled in a shrug that was both arrogant and humble at the same time. “I keep my woman happy.”
“If you didn’t, I’d have to kill you.” She glanced at the table that still held the fricasseed man. “You’ve seen what I can do with a scalpel.”
A pained expression formed on the warlock’s face. “Ah, yes.”
“Exactly.” Her grin was satisfied. “I’ll see you tonight. Chloe said eight.”
“Make it seven. She’s starting to crash earlier with the pregnancy.”
“Will do.”
Movement shivered at the edge of Luca’s consciousness and he closed his eyes to let his extra senses heighten. Someone approached the door, silently enough it could only be another vampire or a werewolf. It took a split-second for him to recognize Peyton.
The warmth of his body, the pulse of his blood through his veins, the familiar scent of the man all came to Luca in quick succession. He didn’t bother glancing back when Peyton came in, simply motioned the wolf forward.
Tess’s gaze flickered toward Peyton, and a warm, welcoming smile formed on her face. “Hey. These two were just leaving.”
“I see.” He nodded a greeting to everyone, something in his expression softening when he looked at Tess, but he didn’t crack a smile. Not that anyone was surprised by that—the wolf was notoriously reserved. His gaze shifted to Merek. “Tell Chloe I said thank you. Again.”
“No problem.” Merek clapped him on the back, then turned to follow Luca out the door.
Luca waited until they were in the elevator before he let his curiosity loose. “Why was Peyton thanking your wife?”
Shrugging, the warlock leaned against the wall. “She got him into one of her drug trials for lycanthropy.”
Luca frowned, his memory tugging at him. “Yes, I believe that information came across my desk several months ago.”
“It’s been working well for him, I hear. He’s grateful, apparently.”
“Apparently.” For Peyton to say anything at all, let alone repeat himself, was just short of miraculous.
Merek squinted, his voice uncharacteristically hesitant. “Luca…”
Ah, the uncomfortable moment where someone wanted to warn him that Tess was screwing Peyton. It had happened once or twice before, and Luca would be just as glad to never have it happen again. Unfortunately, that wasn’t likely until he was in a solid relationship with someone else and everyone could be relieved that he’d moved on. He had moved on, even without that solid other relationship, but he still had to deal with awkward moments like this one. Wonderful.
“I know they’re together. Have known for a long while now.” He sighed. “Believe me when I tell you it’s fine with me. She needs to get over us.”
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