No, I really didn’t. Two weeks. Fourteen days, give or take. “I’ll touch base with Albertson.”
“See that you do.” He crossed the yard. “Oh, hey. I found that note on your desk. I turned it in to Chief Jones during the shift meeting.” He winked. “You can thank me later.”
The spit dried from my tongue. On my desk? No, no, no. I had put that letter in a drawer. Right? Right?
I wasn’t ready. Not yet. But it was too late. My partner had just tendered my resignation.
Rixton would be crushed if he found out before I told him. Sleeping in had bought me a good sixteen hours before I was expected at work again. I would tell him then, I had to, in case the chief started sizing him up for a new partner before his old one turned in her badge.
God, the thought of Rixton with someone else was eating me alive. We were a team. A damn good one.
Why couldn’t I be normal? Live my small-town life, work my small-town job, have my small-town friends? Why had fate selected me for the destiny lotto? I had zero aspirations for greatness. I just wanted to do my job, come home, watch Discovery Channel, and imagine all the places I would never visit because they might be nice, but they weren’t Canton, Mississippi.
“Hey, Rixton, wait a sec.” Guilt soured my gut, made it churn with regret. “I need to grab a file.”
“Help yourself.” He popped the trunk with the key fob. “Do you think your house guests will want the rest of these donuts? I bought a dozen vanilla cream-filled, but I can’t finish them alone. Even I have my limits, few though they may be.”
“I have nothing edible in the kitchen.” I would have to remedy that if Miller required another overnight stay. “I’m sure they’d be thrilled to take a few thousand calories off your hands.”
Checking to make sure he got in the car and stayed there, I shoved up the lid on the trunk and started sorting through the heavy-duty plastic box we used as an on-the-go file cabinet. I didn’t have to search far to spot the envelope with the photos. One stack was missing, probably his personal set, but I took what was there and tucked them between the pages of the Hensarling fire report to hide them until I could secure them elsewhere.
“What’s on your agenda for tonight?” One manila folder looked like the next, but I tucked the file under one arm with the label facing inward to mask what I had taken. “Are you going to hit a burger stand and make bad life choices since there will be no witnesses?”
Gut roiling from my deception, no matter how necessary, I doubted I’d ever eat again.
“Burgers will probably happen. And fries. Maybe a hotdog.” He passed over a box that must have weighed three pounds. “I have to flush all the sugar from my system, and I bet those buns are super absorbent.”
I hated bursting his bubble but… “I don’t think that’s how it works.”
“Do you ever read those medical articles in magazines? What they claim will heal you today they swear will kill you tomorrow. Who’s to say I’m wrong? And if I am, by some miracle, wrong —” he shrugged “— give me twenty-four hours.”
All those articles were hooey, in my opinion, but Rixton was a magazine connoisseur, and I wasn’t about to pick a fight with him over his choice of reading material. “What about those thirty-two-ounce sodas you knock back with your meal?”
“Shh.” He mimed zipping his lips. “We don’t talk about that.”
Sagging under the weight of the donuts, and my guilt, I let him off with a warning. “Be careful out there.”
“I always am.” He pointed at me. “You be careful in there. Take my advice. Pry that guy off your sofa before he asks for his own toothbrush to keep in your bathroom.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Later, Bou-Bou.”
The annoyance usually sparked by that particular nickname never surfaced. Its days were numbered after all.
Santiago held the door open for me, hoping to relieve me of my burden, but I carried the box straight to the couch. Sinking down beside Miller, I passed him the first of nine donuts. “Would a sugar coma be a step up or a step down from where you are now?”
“I’m willing to find out.” He smashed the whole thing in his mouth and pleaded with his eyes for another, which I had prepped and ready to press into his hand. “Thom? Santiago? You guys want to grab one before they’re gone?”
Thom accepted one, careful to pinch it between two fingers. Sniffing around its edges, he licked the icing off the top, then sat the otherwise untouched pastry on the coffee table while he cleaned his hands with a moist towelette he pulled from his pocket.
Santiago polished his off in two bites. Without missing a beat, he scooped up Thom’s and finished it too. When he caught me staring, he wiped his hands clean. “Do you have any idea how much of his saliva I’ve had in my body at this point? He could probably transfuse me with the stuff. Sharing food with him won’t kill me.”
“Have you guys already hashed out what happened?” I passed Miller his third. “What did I miss?”
“We waited for you,” he said around a mouthful of dough. “Cole ordered a late breakfast for four from the Waffle Iron. He ought to be back any minute.”
I cued up another donut. “Am I one of the four, or should I take what I can get?”
“You’re one of us,” Thom assured me. “Cole would stay, but he must return to Portia.”
I mouthed thank you for telling me what I couldn’t help wanting to know without making me ask.
“What’s in the folder?” Santiago nodded toward my side. “You’re going to cut off circulation in your arm if you don’t ease up on the clamp action soon.”
“They’re crime scene photos from the Orvis fire down in Madison.” I placed them on the coffee table. “Wu requested I obtain all the copies Rixton and I are responsible for so I can hand them over to him.”
“Same ones you sent us?” Santiago waited on my nod of confirmation. “The adult female is a textbook example of how viscarre clean out their victims. I can see why he’d want those out of human hands, not that pictures will do them much good without the bodies to go along with them.”
Thankfully, that threat had already been eliminated. “The bodies never made it to the coroner’s office.”
“Way ahead of you.” Shades of his Grinchiest smile returned. “They were incinerated about six hours ago according to the timestamp on the security feed I was watching.”
“I’m not going to ask.” I pinched the stretchy fabric of my cat burgling pants. “I’m a cop for a couple more weeks. Let me enjoy walking the straight and narrow while I can. After Wu gets ahold of me, I get the feeling my moral compass will be spun.”
“To accomplish any good in this world or any other,” Thom said, “you sometimes must do bad things.”
“Listen to the fortune cookie.” Santiago swiped a donut faster than I could pop his hand. “The only way we stay alive on this terrene is to keep hidden. Someone blabs, and we’re toast. Most terrenes are tolerant of other charun, if not welcoming, but this one is peculiar in that there are no native charun. There are only humans and what comes from mixing species.”
“Why would Earth be the exception?” I wondered. “Are there other… beings… here?”
The men all got busy looking somewhere else.
Lucky for them, the front door chose that moment to open, and a tailor-made distraction waltzed through looking better than anything that might be in the bags he carried.
“Cole,” Miller called in welcome. “Glad you’re back.”
“Food,” Santiago echoed. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Thom ducked his head in apology for the evasion, but I didn’t have time to dwell because breakfast was incoming, and the guys were falling on Cole like lions on a gazelle. As he pressed a box in my hands, my stomach growled its own welcome to him.
“I got you a breakfast bowl with double meat and added cheese in your grits.” He made a second trip onto the porch and returned with a drink holder brimming with a variety of lattes, black coffees, and ot
her assorted wake-up juices. Saving me for last, he passed me a nondescript cup. “It’s a surprise.”
Intrigued, I took a hesitant sip, moaned, then licked an icy sweetness from my lips. “What is this magical creation?”
“The barista recommended it for coffee drinkers with a sweet tooth.” He sipped his – plain black – and watched me have another taste. “Cold-brewed iced coffee mixed with espresso granita and topped with homemade vanilla bean ice cream.”
“It’s delicious.” A thought struck me, and I set my goodies on the coffee table while I darted up to my room. I came back down and pressed a fifty-dollar bill into Cole’s palm. “There’s your tip, delivery boy.”
Cole looked like he might protest until he noticed the crisp lines where the intricate folds used to tuck. “Are you sure you want to give this up?” Rough, his voice was so rough. And uncertain. I both loved and hated having that effect on him. “The bracelet was a gift. You don’t owe me anything.”
I gave his words from the swamp back to him. “I know.”
But taking that ring from Wu, letting him slide it on my finger, had injured Cole in the same way hearing a woman’s voice, soft from sleep, had wounded me.
Expecting him to pocket the cash, I gasped when he shredded the bill into confetti then dusted his hands over the dregs of his coffee. I got the feeling if I’d had a fireplace, he would have tossed the whole thing in there for good measure.
“What did Ulysses S. Grant ever do to you?” I couldn’t fight the laugh hitching my chest. “Was that really necessary?”
“Yes,” he said, tossing back his cup and drinking it all down. “It was.”
So this must be the modern day equivalent of when dragons of old scorched their enemies’ bones before grinding them to dust between their teeth. Maybe it aided digestion. Or maybe Cole was caving to his instincts in a way that left my new partner breathing. For now.
Settling back into my spot on the floor next to Miller, I took a sip of my drink and noticed all eyes on us. “Do you guys want a sip?”
“Nope,” Santiago said, making a popping sound with the P.
“I don’t enjoy coffee.” Thom shook his head. “I prefer milk steamers.”
Miller was the last man standing, well, laying. “I’m good with my orange juice.”
“All right.” I dug into my meal and let their stares bounce off me. “Don’t say I didn’t offer.”
Done exacting his revenge, Cole sank into Dad’s ancient recliner, which groaned in panic at its current circumstances. I really had to invest in some Cole-friendly furniture for the place. Not that we would be around long enough to get much use out of it, but I would visit often. That much I could guarantee Kapoor. He would get his month, but after that, I wanted regular off days and vacation time nailed down so I could coordinate with Dad.
“I don’t have much time,” Cole said, kicking off the conversation. “What can you tell us?”
“Ivashov was a plant.” Miller shoveled in his eggs faster than he’d hoovered the donuts. “He let me take him from the hospital without a fight, and he endured the —” he focused on his meal to avoid eye contact with me “— interrogation for several hours. There wasn’t much left of the host when he snapped. That’s when all hell broke loose.”
Cole leaned forward, planting his elbows on his thighs. “Thanases?”
“No.” Miller crunched on his bacon. “War’s mate was nowhere in sight.”
“Well,” Santiago drawled. “Don’t keep us in suspense.”
“Sariah.” Miller let his announcement sink in. “She must have worn a tracker of some kind. There was no indication we had been followed, but she hit a certain point, and the weak act dried up in a hurry. She bared her teeth, ripped out of her host, and attacked. I could have taken her, but three of her siblings answered whatever distress call she was throwing out.”
“War is trying to take us out one by one,” Santiago decided, “weaken the coterie.”
“Starting with Miller was ambitious,” Cole countered then checked with the man in question. “Did she give you anything?”
“Nothing.” He closed the lid on his empty container. “She didn’t crack.” He sipped his juice. “She’s worse now than the last time our paths crossed. Whatever happened to her during the last century, it’s totally unhinged her.”
“Three of her siblings?” I swore I smelled smoke as my brain kicked into high gear. “Drosera siblings? As in born from a Drosera pair?” There was only one I could name: War and Thanases. “This Sariah is War’s daughter?” That’s what they meant. What they hadn’t said was that made her my niece. Conquest’s niece. “And you’ve known her how long?”
“Sariah is the only surviving child from War’s first clutch with Thanases,” Thom informed me. “She hatched first, and she ate her siblings as they emerged. None of War’s other children have survived as long. Sariah won’t allow it, and her parents approve of her ruthlessness. Sariah is War’s third, second only to her father. Her appearance portends nothing good.”
“Where has she been?” Santiago asked. “That’s what I want to know. That’s what we need to find out.”
“War exposed herself publicly,” Thom explained when it became obvious to him I was lost as to why her arrival was such a big deal. “Sariah ought to have been there, but she wasn’t. Thanases was the only senior coterie member we encountered. The others were young, inexperienced, easy to kill.”
That was easy? Dad almost died, Maggie lost her life as she knew it, and Cole had been held hostage at knifepoint.
“Cannon fodder,” Cole agreed.
“I’ll start digging,” Santiago volunteered. “Sariah wouldn’t have gone with Miller without a reason. We’re missing something.”
“You do that.” Cole rose, and the recliner sagged with relief. “Report back on what you find.” His gaze touched on me. “I need to get back to the bunkhouse. Portia is still weak from her transition. If Sariah is singling us out, she’ll start with the weakest link.”
Santiago scratched his jaw. “Portia would eviscerate you if she heard you say that.”
“Notice I said it where there’s no risk of that happening.” Cole scrubbed his palm over his bristly scalp. “She’s a top-notch fighter and a major asset to this coterie, but facts are facts. She needs more time to regain full strength. She’s a liability until then. We’re going to have to close rank and make sure she gets what she needs to recover.”
Having nothing to add to this portion of the conversation, I stood and started cleaning up the trash. I was dumping the containers in a trash bag in the kitchen when a tingling awareness swept over me, and I turned to find Cole camped out near the fridge, the point farthest away from me.
“Santiago told me there was trouble this morning.”
“I overslept and missed work.” I tossed an empty cup with more force than necessary. “Rixton drove out to check on me and bumped up against Santiago. It wasn’t pretty, but I’ve smoothed it over for now.”
When I didn’t elaborate, he prompted me. “What did you tell him?”
“More lies,” I huffed out on a tired laugh. “What else? He thinks I hired you to find Maggie’s remains. That seems harmless enough, so I let him believe he was right.”
“You had to explain us away somehow. We had no reason to still be in town unless we’d picked up additional work in the area.”
“Maggie used to pick on me because I sucked at lying. She could always tell.” I shuffled to the table and sank onto a chair. “Now I’m an old pro.” At this rate, I would have to start making notes to keep up with all the yarns I was spinning. “Every time I open my mouth, I betray someone. All those little white lies sure add up fast.”
“Things will be easier when you’re working for the NSB. Everyone will be on the same page there.”
So I kept telling myself, but I was starting to wonder if it got easier or if you simply got used to it.
“The things that make me human, that make me me, are
the very things I’m leaving behind.” I voiced one of my greatest fears. “What if severing those ties gives Conquest a stronger hold on me?”
Cole kicked up his chin. “I’ll bring you home if you start backsliding.”
The promise held an edge. “The NSB isn’t going to let me leave every time I get homesick.”
“You’re an asset to them.” He stated the fact. “They’re going to do whatever it takes to hold you together. You’re the best weapon they’ve got in the coming war, and it does no one any good if you go off prematurely.”
Thunking my elbows on the table, I dropped my face into my hands. “I wish someone would pull the pin already.”
Footsteps pounded out a furious cadence across the room, and I gasped when my chair wrenched away from the table. Cole spun me around, got down on his haunches so I didn’t have to break my neck looking up at him, and shoved his hard face in front of mine.
Bone Driven Page 23