by M. J. Scott
“Before you say anything,” he said. “I brought you chocolate.” He put a brownie in front of me and then plopped himself down in the chair Dan had just vacated, looking penitent.
“Chocolate doesn’t come anywhere near close.” But I took a bite anyway, figuring sugar might calm my pounding heart. I was too thrown from seeing Dan to yell at Jase for not being a mind reader and knowing not to let Dan in.
“So that’s the guy, huh?”
I choked on my brownie. Then coughed and spluttered. “What do you mean?”
“The one who got away or whatever.”
I took a mouthful of cold coffee to wash down the brownie crumbs and shook my head as I swallowed. “Dan is old news.”
“You still have a picture of him in your house.”
“I do?” I frowned, trying to remember.
Jase nodded. “Yep. There’s a group photo on your mantel. He’s the guy next to you. The one hugging you.”
Oh, that picture. Stupid vampire eyes. And memory. Not much got past Jase. It made him a great PA but an annoying friend. It also explained why Jase had let Dan into my office. He was matchmaking. He thought I needed a life. Maybe he was right but I couldn’t have one with Dan.
I’d tried that. It hadn’t worked.
“Group pictures don’t count.” Or at least, that’s what I told myself every time I attempted to throw that picture away. I never could. I’d pick it up, even get so far as the trash can but then I’d look at it and remember being happy. And carefully carry it back inside.
My answer earned me an eye roll from Jase. Jase was very good at eye rolls. Normally they made me laugh. Today not so much. Still, I summoned a smile to try and prove—probably to myself more than Jase—that I was okay. Jase was one of the few exceptions to my ‘let’s keep the supernaturals to business only’ rule. We’d been friends before he’d been turned. And after? Well, I’d lost too many people to supernaturals in one way or another. I didn’t want to lose another. Besides, vamps are safer than werewolves. They can’t infect you with just one bite. Besides which, Jase wasn’t likely to want to bite me—I needed a Y chromosome to be his type. He was safe. I needed safe.
“Uh huh. So what does Mr. Old News want?”
I pushed what was left of the brownie around the plate. “He needs some help with a case.”
“Fraud?”
I shook my head. Fraud would be easy. But McCallister Tate was nothing as ordinary as fraud. “Murder. A rogue.”
Jase frowned, looking suddenly less like a safe best friend and more like an overprotective vampire. “Why do they need an accountant?”
“Cold case. The guy vanished. They froze his assets and now someone’s finally tried to tap one of the accounts.”
Jase looked even less happy. “Cold? How cold...wait a minute, old flame. Cold case. Tell me it’s not Tate?”
I looked down at my computer screen.
“Fuck, Ashley. Tell me you’re not stupid enough to go after Tate. He’s not a normal vamp. He’s pure evil. I never would have let him in if I’d known it was about Tate.”
He’d gone pale—hard for a vampire. In fact, he looked so horrified I figured he really hadn’t known why Dan had wanted an appointment. That made me feel a little better. “What do you know about McCallister Tate?” It was hard to say the name without letting my mind summon the images. But I managed—just. I knew I wouldn’t be so lucky once I was lying in bed alone in the dark.
“I read the newspapers the same as everybody.” He tugged at his immaculate pale green silk tie, loosening it and pulling it off-center. Which meant he was really upset.
“Tate’s old news,” I said. I hoped. Hoped the FBI was wrong and Tate was dead.
“He might be old news but I remember. And vamps talk. There are some scary mothers who don’t like to say Tate’s name too loud.”
I shivered. I couldn’t help it. A rogue vampire was bad, bad trouble. And Tate was one of the most sadistic on record even though in vamp terms he was young—not even fifty. Supposedly he’d been a psychopath before he’d been turned. Some vamp had made a huge mistake in picking him as a good candidate to become a vampire. It was said that one of the first things he’d done after turning had been killing the vamp who’d made him. Which was pretty much unheard of in vamp society.
Tate was the real deal. The big bad. A bogeyman to all species. Or he had been until he’d disappeared twelve years ago after committing his worst atrocity. Thirty murders in one small town in one night. Including my parents, my little sister and my best friend.
I shivered again. It didn’t matter how scary Tate was, or what going after him might do to my life, I couldn’t pass up the chance to bring him down.
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