by Хлоя Нейл
“Your so-called celebrity,” Nick continued, apparently not yet done with his tirade, “is delicate, at best. There are plenty of people who think the congressional investigations were a joke, who think you constitute a legitimate threat to humans. There are plenty of people out there who think we’d all be better off if the vampire problem went away.” Nick snapped his fingers ominously. “Poof.”
I glanced at Ethan, watched his eyes turn glassy green, and guessed he was struggling to maintain his own control. Still, he managed to keep from silvering his eyes, from descending his fangs.
“I can’t guarantee Jamie’s safety from other parties,” Ethan finally answered. “And I can’t guarantee resolution of this issue in twenty-four hours, particularly when we will be unconscious for more than half of that time.”
Nick’s expression flattened. “Then I suggest you and your soldier here get your asses in gear.”
Ethan looked down at the floor, then glanced up, but not at Nicholas. Instead, he focused his gaze on Papa Breck. “You should consider the possibility that if threats were made against Jamie, they were made for a reason. That he has stepped on one too many toes, or has involved himself in things that do not concern him. If we investigate this matter further, that information might come to light. Are you prepared for that? For answers you’d prefer to keep in-house?”
I’m not sure what information Ethan was referring to, or if he was merely bluffing. But I had to give him props—it was a good rebuttal.
Nick opened his mouth to counter Ethan, but his father held out a hand. “Nicholas,” he warned, then turned to my father. “He’s my son. I will protect him at all costs. Do we understand each other?”
“Clearly,” my father answered.
“Twenty-four hours,” Nick repeated, and began his stride toward the door.
I put a hand on Nick’s arm to stop him. The contact didn’t dissipate the menace in his glare.
“Is Jamie working right now?”
His lip curled. I figured he was seconds away from growling at me.
“I’m not going to hurt him, Nick. You’re asking a lot from us, especially when we have nothing to do with any threat against your brother. If you want us to figure it out, give us something in return.” When he continued to stare at me, I added, in a whisper, “Quid pro quo, Nick.”
Nick wet his lips, then nodded. “Investments,” he said. “Jamie’s selling investments.”
Bingo.
“Forward the e-mail to me,” I told him. “Use my old address.”
He looked at me for a moment before nodding, then went to the door, pushing it to the side with enough force to rattle the industrial hinges. Papa Breck followed him out, without even a glance in our direction.
When Pennebaker slid the door shut again, my father and I both looked at Ethan.
“Is there anything I can do?”
Ethan shook his head at my father’s request. “Thank you, Joshua, but no. We’ll handle this one internally. I’ll call the Masters together. If we could just borrow your office for a few minutes longer?”
“Of course,” he said, then left us alone.
“Forward the e-mail to me?” Ethan repeated, eyebrows lifted.
“Jeff Christopher,” I reminded him, “in my grandfather’s office. He’s a computer whiz kid. He can help us, and he’ll be thrilled to be asked.”
There was doubt in Ethan’s expression. “He’s a shifter, right?”
I frowned back. “Yeah. Why?”
“As I’m sure you’ve discovered by now, shifters and vampires aren’t exactly cozy.”
“Sure, but isn’t Gabriel Keene bringing his Pack to Chicago? This is the perfect opportunity to make inroads.”
He considered the idea for a moment, then nodded. “Make the call.”
Ethan massaged his forehead with the fingers of one hand, his gaze on the floor. “Jamie is not writing for the Chicago World Weekly; Jamie is selling investments. And although we believed we were the victims here, Nicholas believes that we’ve issued a threat against Jamie.” He lifted his gaze to mine. “What do we learn from that?”
“There is no rave story,” I concluded. “Or if there is, Nicholas doesn’t know about it. He apparently knows about the raves, but that’s a red herring.” I shook my head. “No, someone’s playing us against each other.”
Ethan nodded his agreement. “A woman calls the Breckenridge house the day before we attend a party there and informs the Breckenridges of some vague threat. Nick asks you to meet him in the woods and raises this same issue. Today, before we arrive at another party, information regarding a more specific threat is sent directly to Nicholas.”
“They discovered Nick was the point man,” I said. “Whoever’s behind this mess figured out he was the Breck to work through if they wanted to create chaos.”
“Which is exactly what they’ve succeeded in doing,” Ethan muttered. He crossed his arms and walked to one end of the office, then braced his hands on the back of a leather chair.
“Wait,” I said. “The information about the story that first came from the Ombud’s office—the stuff we talked about with Luc. How did they find out?”
“Anonymous tip,” Ethan said. “The information was left at the office.”
Damn, I thought. So much for that lead.
“Okay,” I said, “then why Cadogan? And why the Breckenridges? We’ve been pitted against each other, although I have no clue why they’d put us together on the fight card.”
“I’m aware of only one connection between us and them,” he said, his gaze on me, intensity in his green eyes.
I put a hand to my chest. “Me? You think I’m the connection?”
“You’re the only connection between our House and their family that I’m even aware of, Sentinel.” Ethan crossed his arms over his chest. “And, unfortunately, I’m aware of only one enemy on your end.”
There was a moment of silence as the pieces clicked into place.
“Nick said she called the House,” I murmured, then lifted my gaze to Ethan. “Celina? You’re thinking Celina?”
Ethan shrugged. “We have no evidence of that, of course, but would you consider it beyond her capabilities?”
“Creating chaos? Hardly. That’s practically her calling card.”
“Much to our chagrin. And this particular chaos has the added benefit of putting you right in the middle.” Ethan shook his head. “That e-mail will have been sent by a Cadogan vampire. Someone who knows that I showed you the library—”
“More importantly,” I interjected, “someone who knows what we said in the library, and someone who knows our social schedule. Someone who knows where we’ve been going, and who’s set Nick up with bad information beforehand.”
He stood up slowly, hands on his hips, and looked back at me, eyes wide. “What, precisely, are you suggesting?”
“There’s only one group of vampires who know about the raves and Jamie’s supposed story,” I said. “Only one group who know about our excursions to visit the rich and famous.”
I paused, wishing he’d reach the conclusion so I wouldn’t have to say it aloud.
“Ethan, it had to be a guard.”
CHAPTER 17
LOVE BITES
That declaration got as warm a reception as you might have imagined. Ethan turned away and immediately flipped open his cell phone, unwilling to engage in a discussion about the possibility that our current havoc was being wreaked by one of his own bodyguards.
One of my colleagues.
Ethan called the House, updating Malik and Luc about the threat but offering no information about my group of suspects. As if nothing was amiss, the guards were put into full investigation mode, their assignment to identify any and all information regarding the purported threat against Jamie.
I was also in full investigation mode, and I’ll admit that my suspect list was pretty short. A woman had made the call to the Breckenridge house . . . and I’d seen Kelley arriving at Cadogan a
fter spending the day somewhere else. Had she been the Cadogan vampire with a chip on her shoulder? The link to Celina?
Eager to solve the mystery, I borrowed the house phone and put in a call to the Ombud’s office, updating my grandfather on the evening’s revelations. I also talked to the man with the skills I needed.
“Jeff, I have a problem.”
“I’m glad you’ve finally realized I’m your answer, Merit.”
Okay, so the mood wasn’t exactly light, but I couldn’t help but smile at the comeback.
“Someone’s using e-mail to make threats on behalf of Cadogan House,” I told him, flipping open my cell and pulling up my e-mail client. Ever efficient, Nick had already forwarded the e-mail message.
If it was us, we’d get a good solid aspen stake. But aspen’s too good for you. Maybe quartering.The guts and appendages removed while you’re still conscious so that you can feel the pain. Understand what it’s like. Drowning? Hanging? A slow death at the tip of a sword, a slice from stem to stern, so that blood and gore and meat are all that’s left of you?
By the way, the youngest one gets it first.
I shivered as I read it, but appreciated that the author of this threat, unlike the last one I’d seen, hadn’t tried to rhyme. I also wondered if Kelley was capable of that kind of violence. That kind of anger. Those questions unanswered, I asked Jeff for his e-mail address and sent the message on.
“Phew,” he said after a moment, apparently having reviewed it. “That’s a doozy.”
It was a doozy. It was, however, notably empty of details about why, exactly, Jamie had been chosen. That he was a Breckenridge seemed to be the only knock against him.
“It is a doozy,” I told him. “And we need to figure out who it came from. Can you work some of your mojo?”
“Easy breezy,” Jeff absently said, the sound of furiously clicking keys in the background. “He’s disguised the IP address— rudimentary stuff, but I’ll have to do some backtracking. The e-mail addy is pretty generic, but being a representative of our fine city, I might be able to make a call.”
“Call away,” I told him, “but there’s one small catch. I need the details on this as soon as you can get them.” I checked the time on my cell—it was nearly midnight. “How’s your schedule looking for the next few hours?”
“Flexible,” he said. “Assuming the price is right.”
I rolled my eyes. “Name your price.”
Silence.
“Jeff?”
“Could I—can I get back to you on that? I’m kind of at a loss, and I want to make sure I take complete advantage of this situation. I mean, unless you’re willing to give me two or three—”
“Jeff,” I said, interrupting what was destined to become a very lascivious list. “Why don’t you just give me a call when you’ve got something?”
“I’m your man. I mean, not literally or whatever, I know you and Morgan have kind of a thing going—although you’re not officially together-together, right?”
“Jeff.”
“Yo?”
“Get to work.”
With our contacts on the trail of information that might mollify the Brecks, Ethan and I slipped out of my father’s office and headed back through the crowd to the front door. The house was packed, and it took us a few minutes of squeezing through bodies and handshaking to make it to the other side. I think I managed a polite smile in the direction of the people I passed, but my mind was completely focused on a particular Breckenridge.
I didn’t understand how he could think I was capable of the accusations he’d leveled against us. How could a childhood romance, a decades-long friendship, turn into something so ugly?
I nibbled the edge of my lip as we traversed the crowd, recalling scenes from my childhood. Nick had been my first kiss. We’d been in his father’s library, me a girl of eight or nine, wearing a sleeveless party dress with an itchy crinoline petticoat. Nick had called me a “dumb girl” and kissed me because I’d dared him to, a quick peck on the lips that seemed to disgust him as much as it delighted me, albeit not as much as the fact that I’d beaten him at whatever game we’d been playing. As soon as he’d kissed me, he was off again, running out of his father’s office and down the hallway. “Boys have cooties!” I’d yelled, Mary Janes clomp ing as I ran after him.
“Are you all right?”
I blinked and looked up. We’d reached the other end of the room. Ethan had stopped and was gazing at me curiously.
“Just thinking,” I said. “I’m still in shock about Nick, about his father. About their attitude. We were friends. Good friends, Ethan, for a long time. I don’t understand how it came to this. There was a time when Nick would have asked me, not accused me.”
“The gift of immortality,” Ethan dryly said, then glanced back at Chicago’s rich and famous, who sipped champagne while the city buzzed around them. “Infinite opportunities for betrayal.”
There were a bevy of his own stories behind that little aphorism, I guessed, but I couldn’t see past my own.
Ethan shook his head as if to clear it, then put a hand at my back. “Let’s go home,” he said. I nodded, not even up to an argument that Cadogan wasn’t “home.”
We’d just moved into the foyer when Ethan stopped, his hand falling away. I glanced up.
Morgan stood just inside the door, arms crossed over worn jeans and a long-sleeved white T-shirt. A single brown curl draped rakishly across his forehead, and his blue eyes—accusing blue eyes—stared back at me.
I exhaled a curse, realizing what Morgan had seen. Me in a ball gown, Ethan in a tux, his hand at my back. The two of us together, in my parents’ house, after I couldn’t be bothered to return Morgan’s phone calls. This was definitely not good.
“I believe someone has crashed your party, Sentinel,” Ethan whispered.
I ignored him, and I’d just taken a step toward Morgan when I felt like I was falling through a tunnel. I had to touch Ethan’s arm just to keep myself upright.
It was the telepathic connection Morgan and I had formed when he’d challenged Ethan at Cadogan House. The link was supposed to work only between vampire and Master, which might have been why the link with Morgan had such a strong effect. And why it seemed so wrong.
I’m sure you have an explanation, he silently said.
I wet my lips, uncurled my fingers from Ethan’s arm, and forced my spine straight. “I’ll meet you outside,” I told Ethan. Without waiting for a response, I walked toward Morgan, forcing myself to keep my eyes on his.
“We need to talk,” Morgan said aloud when I reached him, his gaze lifting to the man behind me, at least until that man slipped silently beside us and out the door.
“Come with me,” I said, my voice flat.
We followed a concrete hallway to the back of the house, the walls still imprinted with the grain of their wooden forms. I picked a random door—a breach in the concrete—and opened it. Moonlight streamed through a small square window in the facing wall, providing a single beam of light in the otherwise pitch-black space. I stood quietly for a second, then two, and let my predatory eyes adjust to the darkness.
Morgan stepped into the room behind me.
“Why are you here?” I asked him.
There was a moment of silence before he met my gaze, one eyebrow raised in accusation. “Someone suggested I might see something interesting in Oak Park tonight, so here I am. You’re busy working, I assume.”
“I am working,” I replied, my tone all business. “Who told you we’d be here?”
Morgan ignored the question. Instead he arched his eyebrows, and with a look that would have melted a lesser woman, raked his gaze across my body. Had waves of angry magic not radiated from him as he did it, I’d have called the move an invitation. But this was different. A verdict, I think, of my guilt.
He crossed arms over his chest. “Is that what he’s dressing you in these days while you’re . . . working?”
He made it sound like I wa
s less a Sentinel than a call girl.
My voice was tight, words clipped, when I finally spoke. “I thought you knew me well enough to know that I wouldn’t be here, in my father’s house, if there weren’t a phenomenally good reason for it.”
Morgan gave a strangled, mirthless half laugh. “I imagine I can guess what the phenomenally good reason is. Or maybe I should say, who the reason is.”
“Cadogan House is the reason. I’m here because I’m working. I can’t explain why, but suffice it to say that if you knew, you’d be sufficiently concerned and more supportive than you’re being now.”
“Right, Merit. You blow me off, avoid me, and then turn it around, blame me for being suspicious, for wanting some answers. You haven’t returned my phone calls and yet”—he crossed his hands behind his head—“you’re the victim here. You should take Mallory’s place at McGettrick, great as that spin is.” He nodded his head, then looked down at me. “Yeah, I think that would really work out well for you.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t call you. Things have been a little crazy.”
“Oh, have they?” He released his hands, walked toward me. He reached out a finger and traced his fingertip across the top edge of my bodice. “I notice you aren’t wearing your sword, Sentinel.” His voice was soft. Lush.
I wasn’t buying it. “I’m armed, Morgan.”
“Mmm-hmm.” He lifted his eyes from my chest and met my gaze. I could see the hurt in his face, but that hurt was tempered by anger. Predatory anger. I’d seen him in the same mode before, when he’d challenged Ethan at Cadogan House, wrongly believing that Ethan had threatened Celina. That Ethan had made a move after his own Master. Apparently this was a theme for Morgan—the anger of a man who believed another vamp was sniffing around his girl.