by Lexi Blake
* * * *
When we turned down the narrow road to Joanne Taylor’s home, I knew we were in trouble. The street was lined with cars. We had to park a block away and walk. Gray held my hand, but I disentangled us as we approached the house.
“I’d like to look somewhat professional, please,” I said at the annoyed look he gave me.
We were moving up the sidewalk toward the Taylor’s small two-bedroom home when a limo stopped and Marcus Vorenus stepped out. He said something to the driver and then the limo slid down the road. His dark eyes turned to us but if he had an emotion in his body it didn’t show. He was polite and a little cool. “I’ve been waiting for you, Lieutenant. I thought it proper that we enter together. We must show that the Council and law enforcement are working together. Good afternoon, Ms. Atwood.”
I knew Vorenus was an academic and that meant he could walk in the daylight. That particular class of vampire wasn’t the strongest. They didn’t begin to compare to warriors, but academics had their own abilities. They were the smarty-pants of the vampire world. Their powers were almost entirely mental. Persuasion. Instinct. Intelligence. I’d heard they tended to get obsessed with subjects and became super experts.
Even though I know all the facts, I supposed I still thought it would be odd to see any vampire walking in the daylight, but Vorenus practically shimmered in light. As Daniel had been at home in the velvety darkness of night, Marcus belonged in the sun.
It clung to him, lighting his skin and nearly giving the man a halo.
“Hello, Councilman.” It was awkward because it came out a little breathy, a little flirty. I hadn’t meant it to, but the minute I was close to him, I felt more at ease than I’d been before.
Gray was all business. “When did Helen call the Council?”
“I received her call about an hour ago,” the vampire explained with his calm authority. “She told me what had happened and I promised I would come. I also promised to inform the king this evening. I was lucky she called me at all. She’s been told that vampires killed her daughter.”
“Well, that’s only to be expected,” Gray said, not a trace of compassion in his voice.
“Some of the killings took place during the day,” Marcus pointed out.
“So, he had an accomplice or he has special talents.” Gray wasn’t willing to let up.
Marcus sighed as though weary of all the games. “Are you playing devil’s advocate, Lieutenant? Or are you accusing me of something?”
Gray stared at the vampire with cold blue eyes. “All of the girls went into that club. None of them came out alive. The way I figure, a vampire has to be involved.”
“Why would a vampire waste the blood?” I hated the tension between the two of them.
“Who knows why a vampire does anything, darlin’.” Gray emphasized the endearment. “They enjoy games.”
“Ah, but Lieutenant, vampires are not the only ones who enjoy games, are they?” Marcus posed his question with the hint of a questioning smile. The vampire looked dapper in a perfectly tailored pinstriped suit and a snowy dress shirt. His red silk tie was a splash of elegant color. “The rumors are that you very much enjoy games. This killer likes bondage and I believe has a problem with vampires. Perhaps I don’t have to look far to find a suspect of my own.”
I put myself in between the two men who seemed like they were ready to throw down. “If the two of you are finished acting like two bulls about to lock horns, you might remember that Marcus was in London with the king when one of the murders took place and Gray was with me last night. There are security cameras in the parking garage. They can verify his whereabouts until we left. I can verify them the rest of the night. The only person he managed to tie up last night was me.”
“Kelsey!” Gray radiated disapproval. I guess demons weren’t big on sharing.
“Well, apparently everyone knows your kinks, babe,” I said with a shrug. “Stop beating the crap out of each other. I’m going in. If you two want to take potshots, stay out here.”
Marcus nodded my way. “Of course. I apologize.”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’ll behave,” Gray promised.
We started to walk up toward the house, the men following my lead.
I knocked briefly on the door and was admitted into the house. The air was quiet and thick with grief. The windows were all open, letting in the sunlight and the afternoon warmth. But I felt a chill as I saw Joseph Castle sitting next to Helen Taylor, his meaty hand patting her lightly on the back.
The whole herd seemed to have come out. I could tell the deer from the other shifters in the room. They all had wide, dark, gentle eyes. They stood close to each other, as though they could physically share their grief and in doing so lessen it. I wondered what it felt like to have a whole group of people to depend on, who huddled together in times of trouble, held each other when tragedy struck. It seemed like a beautiful thing to me.
And a wolf was among them.
Yeah, somehow I didn’t think he’d come here to protect them.
Marcus stepped up, holding out a hand. “Helen, the Council offers you condolences in your time of grief.”
Helen took his hand, her head held high. “Thank you, Marcus. I appreciate you coming out.”
“You’re late, Councilman,” Castle said, a sneer in his voice. “Do all the vampires have their stories straight?”
“Mr. Castle, the vampires are sleeping,” Marcus replied, his tone revealing nothing of the contempt he must feel for the alpha. “I come to offer condolences and to introduce Mrs. Taylor to Lieutenant Grayson Sloane of the Texas Rangers. He’s handling the case for the human authorities and recently discovered your daughter was involved.”
Gray tipped his head forward. “Ma’am. I apologize for presenting myself in such a casual fashion. I was actually working on your daughter’s case when I got the call.”
Helen’s eyes seemed dazed. She looked around like she wasn’t really hearing anything until she focused on me. “Kelsey Atwood?”
“Hello, Mrs. Taylor.” I was quieter than usual. I felt the heavy weight of guilt. She’d likely been dead before I even got the case, but I couldn’t silence that voice that told me I should have found her. I should have been there. I should have known.
It’s funny how illogical an instinct can be.
“Is it true? Did you find her?”
I took a deep breath. “I did. I’m so sorry. There’s no mistake. I found her body not an hour ago.”
She stood up and held herself with such dignity I wanted to weep for her. Castle tried to stand next to her. She regally shrugged him off. “I would like to speak with Miss Atwood alone.”
She didn’t wait, merely walked off expecting me to follow. I trailed after her silently, gesturing to Gray and Marcus not to follow me. She walked through the kitchen and into the backyard. It was small and neatly kept, with old shade trees and rose bushes along the chain link fence. She turned to me, her eyes so much older than the first time we met.
“You found my daughter. I thank you for that.” Her voice was hoarse. I wondered if she’d screamed when she’d seen the evidence of her daughter’s fate. How long would that image stay with her, obliterating all the good memories. She’d been forced to exchange visions of her daughter smiling and alive for horrors untold.
“I don’t know that you should thank me. I didn’t save her.”
“Likely no one could save her. We’re much like the animals we turn into. Always prey. It isn’t in our natures to fight, to protect ourselves. We try to run, but everyone else is faster. I don’t blame you, dear. I would prefer to know than to be left waiting forever in vain for her to come home.”
How close had my mother come to that fate? It struck me that the world really was filled with predators and prey. Most people didn’t have to face that fact—or learn which side they belong to. Helen Taylor had known from birth. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
She nodded slowly. “You can be
honest with me. You’re the only one I trust.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I knew what she was going to ask me and I knew that I would tell her the truth no matter what councilmen and faery princes and even Gray wanted. This was a contract between me and Helen Taylor, and I would not break it.
“Was my daughter involved with vampires?”
“Yes.”
She took the news with stoic pride. “Do you believe they killed her?”
I let out a breath of relief. If she’d left it there, I would have stopped. I was glad to be able to tell her my thoughts. I was sure Castle had been filling her head with his. “My instinct tells me no. One of the victims was killed during the day and the only two daywalkers in Dallas have ironclad alibis.”
She brushed that off with a wave of her hand. “Only Academics can daywalk. It’s not in their natures to kill in such a manner. A warrior, yes, but not an academic. Castle expects me to believe the king has something to do with this. The king is a good boy.”
Though I hadn’t met the king, simply by his nature he was the baddest ass among badasses, but I liked that docile Helen called him a good boy like he was just another kid on the block begging for cookies.
“I can’t rule out that some vampire might have an assistant, but it doesn’t add up for me. I’m going to the club tonight and the Council promises me an all-access pass.”
She sighed and her body sagged down into a worn chair. The vinyl used to have a pattern, but the Texas sun had faded it. Grief had faded Helen Taylor’s natural sunniness. “It’s good for you to keep looking. Castle doesn’t want to look past his own theories. Having a vampire slaughtering werecreatures plays to his political ambitions.”
I sank into the seat next to her. It didn’t surprise me that the alpha was making trouble. He’d seemed to be looking for it last night. “What’s he saying?”
“That the vampires have made us their slaves. It’s the same thing he’s been saying since the king forced him to shut down his gambling businesses. It cost him a lot of money,” Helen said wearily. “I think the werewolf alpha is trying to start a rebellion and he’s using my daughter. I don’t care about any of it. I want to know who killed my daughter. I know I didn’t pay you much…”
“It was enough.” I didn’t mention Quinn’s money. I wouldn’t have stopped even if he hadn’t stepped up. I would still be here. “I’m going to get to the bottom of this, Mrs. Taylor. I promise.”
Her hand came out to slowly pat mine. It was a motherly gesture, soothing and second nature to her. “You’re a good girl, Kelsey. Find out who killed my daughter. I trust you. You won’t allow politics to sway you.”
“Ma’am, I don’t know enough about politics to let it sway me,” I admitted.
“Why don’t you go back inside?” She let her face find the sun. “I like the peace out here. I think I’ll sit for a while.”
I started to get up and had made it to the door when her soft voice made me turn once more.
“Kelsey?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“When you find him, what do you intend to do?”
“I intend to kill him, ma’am,” I said because it was the truth.
“Like I said, you’re a good girl. No one fights for us. It would be nice for once to have someone on our side.”
Now it wasn’t guilt, but responsibility that ate at me. If this really was a vampire—the mysterious Alexander—then the Council would likely want it hushed up.
I couldn’t allow that to happen.
The screen door closed behind me and I could see easily why Helen Taylor wanted to stay outside. The minute I walked into the house, I was struck by the oppressiveness of the grief. I thought it odd that when Helen needed solitude to think and let it all sink in that she was bombarded with people. I walked through the small kitchen crowded with relatives and friends. The table was laden with food. I noted the requisite Jell-O mold hadn’t been touched yet, but then it didn’t seem like many people were eating. Even my appetite seemed to have fled.
I could hear Marcus quietly arguing with Castle in the laundry room. He was trying to keep it down, but Castle had no such qualms. Gray was off to the side, sifting through some papers. It was probably the letter and the photos Helen had received. He would take them into evidence, but she would never forget.
Then I sensed someone watching me. I stopped, not turning. Most people would avert their eyes at that point, but I still felt them on me. I didn’t want a fight, but I also couldn’t walk away. When I turned, I realized a fight might have been better.
“Do you think it hurt?”
My heart sure as hell hurt looking down at Nancy Taylor, aged fifteen, who had seen far more death in her young life than any kid should. She was painfully thin in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt emblazoned with the name of some rock band I’d never heard of. I was sure when she’d gotten dressed this morning she hadn’t been thinking she’d attend a wake.
“I don’t know,” I answered, knowing I was probably lying. In this, I couldn’t give her the truth. It helped no one and offered so much pain. “I hope not.”
“You’re the PI my mom hired, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I need to talk to you about something.”
I cast a short look back at Gray and Marcus. “Okay.”
I followed Nancy down the hall and into her room. It was an explosion of teenaged girl. There were posters of rock stars and actors and cutout photos of the “hot guys” from magazines alongside pictures of girls and their shining, smiling faces. There were several photos of Nancy and her sister. She was neat for a teen, meaning I could kind of see the floor. I wasn’t exactly OCD so I couldn’t complain.
“My mom says you’re a hunter,” Nancy started, her brown eyes wary.
“I don’t hunt like that.” Oddly, I didn’t feel the same rush of shame today. I simply explained to her. I was able to meet her eyes as though the night before had purged the shame I’d always felt. I was able to breathe.
“So you don’t hunt people like me. You hunt bad guys.”
That pretty neatly summed up my new chosen profession. I hunted bad guys. The only way to make up for what my father did was to stop other people from doing it. “I try to.”
“That’s cool,” the teenager said. “My dad was killed by a hunter, but not one like you.”
Again, no rush of guilt, only a deep sympathy for what had happened. “I know. Your mom told me. I’m sorry about that.”
“Mom thinks Jo was doing bad things.”
Wow, how had I gotten into this conversation? It was a veritable field full of land mines. “Your sister was trying to get by like the rest of us. She wasn’t bad.”
The girl shook her blonde hair. The ponytail was like an exclamation point. “That’s not what I mean. I mean Jo wasn’t doing it for the reason you think she was.”
I sat down on the frilly pink comforter and gave her my absolute undivided attention. “I thought she needed the money.”
“It’s true that she lost her scholarship and Mom didn’t know,” Nancy explained. “Jo didn’t want to worry her, especially since she applied to the Council for a loan. With her grades she would have easily qualified. It’s a program the queen set up a few years ago. Anyone under Council protection can apply for a loan to go to school or get training to get a job. You have to pay it back, but not for a while, and Jo said the interest rate was good, whatever that means.”
Every reason I could think of for Jo to be in that club flew straight out the window. “Then why would she work at the vampire club?”
Nancy played with her hair, twisting it around and around her right index finger. “Jo was really good friends with this girl named Britney Miles,” Nancy said and I kept my face perfectly blank. I recognized her as the first victim, but no one else knew she’d been found. “She was a werewolf, but Jo got along with everyone at school. Jo got worried about her when she didn’t make it to their weekly movie date. Everyone thinks she’s bad n
ews and probably ran away with some guy, but Jo didn’t think so.”
The room went cold around me as I knew what Nancy Taylor was going to say next, and everything fell into place. I had underestimated Jo Taylor. I had looked at her and seen a sweet little doe. I’d seen prey. But sometimes even the sweetest of prey can turn hunter when something they care about is in harm’s way.
“Jo went to the club undercover,” Nancy said. “She went there to find out what happened to Britney.”
She’d played the hunter and she’d been killed. I wondered for a moment if the same thing wasn’t going to happen to me.
Chapter Twelve
Marcus followed us back to Gray’s house after we left Helen Taylor’s. There was no more talk of me going back to Hurst, no more pushing me aside. Gray was quiet the whole ride home as though he knew he’d lost the fight.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the Taylors. No matter what happened, I had to push on. Even if it meant going against the Council and the king. No one else wanted justice. No one really wanted the truth. Not even Gray. He wanted me safe more than he wanted the truth, but the need burned inside me.
The guilt I’d felt before had somehow morphed, becoming a need. I needed to find this killer, needed to bring him into the light.
Marcus and Gray headed to his office, but I couldn’t sit there and listen to them go over the case again. I still hadn’t figured out what bugged me about the photos and it gnawed at my gut. I was restless. I headed to the kitchen where Syl had again been busy.
If there’s one thing I loved about Gray’s, it was the open-all-day buffet. I didn’t have to rummage around to find a snack. I didn’t have to settle for day-old bread or hustle to a vending machine. Syl always provided. There was a tray of fruit and cheese on the bar along with wine, water, and juice. I poured myself some juice and downed a ton of crackers and cheese.
I sat in the kitchen for the longest time eating and drinking. It was peaceful after the stresses of the day, but I knew I had the night to come.