by Dannika Dark
Chapter 24
Dear God, Christian was going to murder my date.
How else would a man react after being accused of a crime he didn’t commit, only to find out the accuser was the perpetrator? I shouldn’t have told him that Glass was the killer. Now he was probably on the warpath, and I didn’t feel like burning down another house to cover up his dirty deeds.
As Glass stalked toward the front door, knife in hand, I jogged behind him and grabbed my purse.
When he opened the door, I stopped in my tracks.
Christian was leaning against the doorjamb, his legs crossed at the ankle and a jaunty smile on his face. “Did I miss the appetizers?”
Glass half turned and gave me a sharp glare.
Before I could say anything, Christian spoke. “I’m here on official business, Chitah. My partner and I have been summoned by our boss, so I’ve come to collect her. But I’m not going to stand here and pretend it doesn’t bother me that my partner is romantically involved with a business acquaintance. That’s a conflict of interest in my book. Raven, let’s go.”
I slowly approached the door, keeping my eye on the knife in Glass’s hand. “Sorry, Will. My boss sent me a text earlier about a kidnapping, and I didn’t want it to ruin our dinner. That’s why I haven’t been myself.”
Glass turned around to face me, his voice low. “I can drive you.”
“’Fraid not,” Christian interrupted. “We’re in a rush, and something tells me a law-abiding man such as yourself would follow the speed limit. This is life and death we’re talking about. Raven…” He inclined his head and held out his hand.
Glass gave me an icy stare. “I can’t let you walk out of here with a Vampire. He’s a suspect.”
“Can’t you?” Christian said. “Unless you can supply more evidence than a borrowed scarf and an old candy wrapper, I’m afraid you can’t slander my name by calling me a killer.”
Ignoring Christian, Glass seized my wrist. By the way his nostrils were twitching, I could only imagine what he was smelling. Probably a mixture of bathroom deodorizer and adrenaline.
Christian edged into view and gripped his arm—the one holding me, not the one with the knife. “Take your hands off her.”
I got butterflies in my stomach when a dark look flickered in his obsidian eyes.
Glass snarled at Christian, and his canines punched out. “Did I invite you into my house?”
“Whoa.” I stepped between them. “Let’s not end this date in bloodshed. Christian, I’m coming. Will, I’m sorry, but when my boss calls, I can’t ignore him. I’m sure you know what that’s like, working for the higher authority.” As much as I wanted to tell Glass that he had shitty taste in beer, I decided to play it smooth and maintain our relationship. “I’ll text you when I get back to let you know I’m okay. Unless you want to call me?”
Please don’t want to call me.
Glass retracted his fangs, making him look less like a saber-toothed tiger. He scratched the side of his nose and then shook his head. “Go on. I don’t want any trouble in my house.”
“Don’t be mad.” I touched his arm, gazing up into his golden eyes rimmed in black.
He brushed his knuckles across my cheek, and I suddenly felt Christian’s hand on my back.
“Go wait in the car, Raven. I need to have a word with the good detective.”
I turned around and gave him a punishing glare. “Don’t.”
He grinned wolfishly. “Go on, Precious. I turned the seat warmers on for you.”
I slowly strode out the door, hoping like hell that Christian didn’t get the sudden urge to tear the man apart. Vampires had tremendous strength in addition to their other gifts. Did we have enough solid evidence? Maybe it was all coincidence and I was overreacting, but something felt amiss. I needed to find out what Viktor wanted.
While I sat in the Honda, I watched the front doors and waited for flames to come bursting through the windows. Instead, Christian coolly walked out, one hand in his pocket and a smug look on his face.
He got in, revved the engine, and peeled out of the driveway.
Christian swept a heavy curl away from my face. “Did he hurt you?”
“No. What did you say to him?”
“That I’d sever his head if he came near my partner again. Are you sure he didn’t put his hands on you?”
I shook my head and decided to buckle my seat belt before Christian hit the brakes and I ended up as a hood ornament. “Did Viktor call you?”
“No. Are you making up fibs? Don’t tell me I came out here for your amusement.”
“What made you believe me?”
He cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t strike me as the damsel-in-distress type who wants my help. I could see you calling if you got yourself stranded and wanted someone to chauffeur you back to the mansion. But if you tell me your life’s in danger, I’m inclined to believe that’s the truth. Now what makes you think he’s the killer?”
“The shoes.” I touched my forehead with my fingertips, the adrenaline finally wearing off and leaving behind a headache. “He had a whole room with these shoes on display.”
“He might be a transvestite.”
“None of the shoes had a match. Remember what I noticed at the crime scenes? All the victims were missing a shoe. Serial killers take souvenirs. It reminds them of the crime and how it felt to have that kind of power.”
He snorted. “That explains your arsenal of weapons.”
“He also said his name’s Willard. That’s the name of the man Penny put in her diary.”
Christian stroked his beard with his left hand. “That’s pretty suspicious. Anything else?”
“He hates Vampires.”
Christian snorted. “He can stand in line with half the city.”
“No, I mean he really hates Vampires. He’s got demons from a relationship gone bad. If he’s the killer, I think he murdered Marlene to pin it on you.”
“And why would he do that? Do you think that would make him stop?”
“I don’t have all the answers, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Maybe when I called him from Washington he got scared we were closing in on him. It explains why he stabbed her through the heart and didn’t take her shoe. I found it lying in the field near the body. Marlene wasn’t a Mage, but he needed a scapegoat.”
“He made too many mistakes,” Christian muttered. “The first being that he crossed me.”
The scenery blurred as he punched the accelerator and we moved at lightning speed.
“Viktor sent a message asking me to come home. Something about a kidnapping involving a pack of Shifters.”
“That’s a lie, to be sure.”
He veered into a McDonald’s parking lot and pulled to the side. Christian leaned in close, studying my eyes, my jaw, my mouth, my neck. This time when he spoke, a current of possession rose in his tone. “Are you sure he didn’t touch you?”
For a brief moment, my heart skipped a beat at the way he looked at me—the same look he gave me when he was standing in the doorway to Glass’s house.
I offered him a hint of a smile. “You should know by now that I can handle myself.”
“Is that why you smell like a pine tree on fire?”
“I needed to cover up the scent of ‘oh shit, you’re the killer.’”
“Clever.”
His eyes skated down to my lap. “Your hands are shaking.”
“I wasn’t afraid for my life, Christian. I was afraid of losing control and what I might do to him.”
He leaned in tight and tilted my chin up. “Never lose control.”
For a moment I thought he would kiss me. Would I pull away like I had with Glass? But that moment faded when he turned away and merged into traffic again, leaving my heart beating so loudly that I was sure it was a banging drum in his ears.
As we headed home, I sent a message to Viktor to let him know I was still alive.
For now.
Ever
y member of Keystone assembled in the gathering room. Christian paced the floor before he finally sat on a stool in front of the hearth, stoking the flames with a metal poker. The fire illuminated the room as the stone architecture had a reflective quality.
Like a guard on duty, Niko hadn’t left my side. Maybe he caught a flutter in my energy, but he remained close, as if I were going to disappear. When Wyatt revealed that his ghost friend had identified Glass as the killer, I stayed silent, a mixture of betrayal, embarrassment, and anger rolling through me.
Claude’s eyes were giving me chills even from where he stood. As I told my story to pile on more evidence against Glass, a murky black would swallow up the gold in Claude’s eyes—a sign he was losing control of his emotions. Gem was very gifted at talking him down, and I could see why she was an ideal partner for him.
I was in the middle of a Gem-and-Niko sandwich and not exactly sure how to react to the concern. I’d been alone for so long that it was an unfamiliar feeling to have someone care about what happened to me.
“I don’t think he was planning to kill me,” I repeated.
“You can’t know that,” Niko said. “Men like Glass don’t think the way we do. They’re methodical and careful about every decision they make. He could have been using you to gather information on what we know.”
“I wouldn’t have told him anything.”
“Under physical duress…”
I clenched my jaw. The last time I’d been tortured, I sang like a canary, and even though I was now loyal to Keystone, I understood Niko’s concern. Still, I had my doubts that Glass had been planning to do anything heinous to me aside from offering a tour of his mother’s wig collection. Glass was smart, and if he were to be the last person to see me alive, that would bring the investigation to his front door.
“He wooed all those other women,” Gem reminded me. “I bet they thought they were in love with him.”
Something snapped inside me. I launched to my feet, hands clenched in tight fists. How dare he try to seduce me like one of his pets. And how could I have fallen for it? I stepped over Wyatt and paced toward the fire before turning to face the team.
Shepherd was sitting in the chair to my left, tapping his knife against his boot. “I’m going to put nine hundred holes in his body and see how he likes that.”
Viktor sat down, and Gem yanked Claude’s hand, forcing him to sit next to her in my spot.
Blue’s heels tapped against the stone from where she sat on a low partition in one of the archways. “Wyatt, make sure you respond to Romeo and let him know how excited I am to meet him.”
Wyatt laced his fingers behind his head. “He’s probably going to try to cancel after what happened tonight. I’ll be sure to let him know that a better woman is out there waiting for him. Got any nudie pics you want me to attach?”
“Of your mother,” she fired back.
Shepherd sheathed his blade. “Our case hangs in the balance of how well Wyatt can write love letters. Why does that scare me?”
Viktor savored his vodka with a slow sip. “Glass doesn’t know we have invitations, so be careful who you speak with at the ball. My guess is he’ll enjoy watching his prey, so alert the team if you find him first. Keep your masks on, do not use your real names, and limit conversations. Once he approaches Blue, she’ll draw him away for a private conversation. He’s more likely to say something incriminating while alone, and we’re collecting as much evidence as possible before making a scene. He is a detective and under the protection of the higher authority. If we do not collect every scrap of evidence to build our case, we could be tried for slander.”
I jumped when Christian jammed the poker into the fireplace and stabbed the weakening log until it broke in half.
Viktor craned his neck. “If you break my tools, it will come out of your pay.”
“What makes him so different from every other man we’ve targeted?” Christian snapped, rising to his feet and taking my side. “He’s a festering wound, and the longer we leave it alone, the more dangerous he becomes. His title shouldn’t give him a free pass to kill. The higher authority pays us to take care of criminals however we deem fit. If this were anyone else, we’d be raiding his house and taking him down the old-fashioned way.”
“Old-fashioned?” I asked.
He held up both fists. “Thunder and lightning.”
Viktor set down his glass. “This is different, and you know it. The law will not issue a warrant against one of their own without substantial proof. He trusted Raven when he invited her into his home, but if you made him suspicious, I can promise you he set those shoes on fire.”
Christian inched forward. “I’m not going to take the blame for lost evidence. If I hadn’t gotten there when I had, do you know what he could have done to her?”
“Baked me a pie?”
He held up his finger, voice flooded with irritation. “I’m going to let that go, but keep in mind that you were unarmed. Maybe you think it’s a common courtesy in the dating world, but it could have cost you your fecking life. You were vulnerable, and if I hadn’t answered my phone—”
“Then I would have taken him down myself if it came to that.”
“Exactly. And this would be an entirely different conversation about how to save Keystone, regardless if you had succeeded or not. Had he stuffed you in a box and tossed you into the lake, we wouldn’t have known about what you discovered in the house, let alone his true name.”
“We knew.” Wyatt sat up. “John identified him when he picked her up.”
“Who the feck is John?”
“The specter I mentioned earlier.”
“Are you afflicted in some way? Your ghost’s testimony would be inadmissible in a court of law on the grounds that no one can see the eejit.” Christian’s attention swung over to Viktor. “I don’t see why we have to go through the charade of a costume ball in order to identify him. Even if he burned the shoes, let me charm the truth out of him.”
“You will not charm a detective. Remember that you are still the prime suspect. If we behave like renegades without some measure of order, that will be our downfall. People trust us because we are just as methodical and ruthless as the killers we catch. Romeo corresponded with Penny and Blue. Wyatt is hacking his account to match any of the unidentified victims with his list of contacts. But that takes time. We must link Romeo to Glass by setting a trap. This must happen.”
Christian raked his fingers through his hair from back to front.
“What’s that on your neck?” Wyatt asked. “Did you get a tattoo?”
Christian gave me an icy stare. “It better fade before the party.”
Wyatt jumped to his feet and moved swiftly toward the doorway. “This is a private meeting. No freshies allowed.” He held his arms wide as if blocking someone. “Who?” Wyatt looked over his shoulder at us, then back. “Christian?”
Christian folded his arms. “What are you blathering on about?”
Wyatt aimed his green eyes at Christian. “John says he knows you.”
While the men continued their odd conversation, I headed out of the room, shaken by the events of the evening. I wasn’t sure if I’d left the doors upstairs at Glass’s house open or closed, and if he suspected I knew something, he might try to come at me when I least suspected it.
But unlike all the previous times I’d been in danger, this time I wasn’t alone.
Chapter 25
Christian watched Raven exit the gathering room. He felt compelled to go speak with her alone, but Gem and Claude followed close behind her, so he stayed rooted in place. Perhaps it was just an innocent dinner, but seeing Glass holding that knife had made Christian want to shatter every bone in the man’s body.
He steadied his eyes on Wyatt. “I’m sure a lot of dead men know me.”
Wyatt shut his eyes for a minute and then looked back. “Okay! I heard you.” He strode forward and spoke to Christian in a quiet voice. “Look, John’s swearing up and down tha
t he knows you. I really don’t care if he’s having a hallucination or not. Maybe this is a good chance for you to help me get him out of the house.”
“And where shall we go?”
“Anywhere. Take him to someone he needs to make amends with. That’ll keep him occupied. Once he’s gone, he won’t be able to find his way back. He doesn’t belong here. I like the guy, but that doesn’t mean I want to live with him for the rest of eternity. If there’s a chance for him to move on, he’s not going to find it with me.”
“I don’t know a John, and even if I did, how the hell would I know who he’s got unresolved issues with?”
“I’ve had enough of this Vincent Price bullshit,” Shepherd muttered on his way out of the room.
By that point, everyone else had left. Or so Christian thought.
Wyatt’s eyes were off to the side as if listening to someone talking. “He can’t remember the details of his life, but he remembers you were an asshole.”
Christian snorted. “That’s hardly conclusive evidence.”
Wyatt tugged on the edge of his hat until it covered his ears. “He can’t remember who he is, but he thinks about the Atlantic Ocean a lot. He said the sound of the waves calms him whenever he gets confused or upset.”
Christian blanched and stepped back. “The ocean?” Wyatt was a jokester, but that was too specific. “What does this John look like?”
Wyatt glanced over his shoulder. “Big guy. Tough in the face. He looks like a marine or something, and he used to be a human. Dark hair, and his ears stick out a little. Come on, man. Just take him where he needs to go. Otherwise, he’s going to haunt this house forever. So, do you know him? ’Cause he sure as hell doesn’t know himself.”
Christian knew who Wyatt was describing. Not exactly an old friend, but an acquaintance all the same. It made him wonder about the afterlife. If ghosts were real, had his sister ever sought him out? Or the men he’d killed in the past? Better that he didn’t know. If Gravewalkers could see all that, no wonder most of them weren’t killers.
“Aye. I know him.”
Wyatt arched an eyebrow. “Now that’s a twist I didn’t see coming. He’s been avoiding everyone since he arrived; I guess that’s why he didn’t notice you before. If he’s someone you”—Wyatt made a slicing motion across his throat—“then maybe you should get a case of amnesia.”