“Did he say where the murder occurred?” Cole squatted down beside me and handed over a Mintie. It wasn’t a burger or even chocolate, but a chewy mint was better than no food at all.
“Here in these trees.” I paused to unwrap the mint, popping it in my mouth before replying. “He said his attacker sprayed something in his face that froze him, so you’d better do a full toxicology.”
“Like I don’t always.” He touched my shoulder lightly. “Are you sure you haven’t come back too soon?
Because you’re not looking too good at the moment.”
I met his concerned gaze, managing a small smile. “Meaning there were occasions in the past when I actually did look good?”
He grinned, and the warmth of it flowed over me, chasing away the chill faster than the coffee. “I will admit to thinking, every now and again, that you looked great.”
“He confesses this now, when he’s finally found a girl who will put up with him?” I shook my head in mock despair. “We could have had so much fun.”
“I don’t think I have the stamina to handle someone like you.” He pushed to his feet. “And you very neatly avoided answering the question.”
“Not too neatly if you noticed.”
He shook his head, his expression concerned. “You need to take it easy, Riley. This job isn’t worth dying for, no matter what Jack says.”
Again, the frustration surfaced. “Jack doesn’t want me dead. I’m of no use to him that way.”
“But he will keep pushing until you begin to think you might be better off dead.” He reached into his pocket and tossed me another Mintie. “Sooner or later, you’re going to have to set boundaries.”
“Which is easier said than done.” I squinted up at him. “I don’t see you saying no too often.”
“My situation is not the same as yours.”
“No. You haven’t been injected with drugs that are changing the very chemistry of your body.”
“That’s irrelevant, and you know it.”
It wasn’t, because it was the one reason I couldn’t walk away from the Directorate and Jack.
“I’m just saying that you need to be careful.” He hesitated, then added, “Jack may be a good boss, but he doesn’t run the Directorate. His sister does. And trust me, she’s a hard bitch who won’t hesitate to suck you dry and then spit you out.”
Curiosity stirred, and I raised my eyebrows. As far as I knew, no one had ever met the elusive director Madeline Hunter—none of us plebs, anyway—although they did speak of her in the administration halls with varying degrees of trepidation. “You’ve met Director Hunter? What is she like?”
“She’s everything Jack isn’t, and she doesn’t care who she has to use—or use up—to get the job done.”
The bitterness in his voice raised my eyebrows. “So you’ve crossed swords with her?”
“Not me personally, but someone I know.” He glanced away, his expression grim. “He died because of her, because she and the Directorate kept pushing. I’d hate to see the same happen to you, Riley.”
The anger in his voice was very clear, and yet here he was, working for the very people he seemed to hate. “It won’t.”
“Good.”
The short, sharp way he said that made me realize he wasn’t about to go into details, no matter how much I might want them. So I wasn’t surprised when he changed the subject.
“Did the victim have any idea why the murderer dragged him into full view?”
“No, but the most obvious answer is that he wanted Johnson’s body found.” I shrugged. “Someone who runs around dressed as a demon obviously isn’t dealing with a full deck of cards.”
“And that,” he said heavily, “is the most sensible thing I’ve heard all day.”
I laughed and rose. I finished the coffee in one swift gulp that burned my throat, then handed him the plastic cup. “You’ll let me know if you find anything?”
“Nope,” he said, his eyes twinkling as he slapped the cup back on top of the thermos. “I’m going to keep it all to myself.”
“Heard that about you.”
He smiled and walked away, and I headed down the hill to interview the woman who’d reported the murder.
As it turned out, she wasn’t much help. She seemed to be the local busybody, but she was elderly with failing eyesight, and she was convinced she’d seen a real demon, not someone dressed up as one. Weirdly, the idea seemed to thrill rather than scare her.
When I got back to my car, I switched on the onboard and typed in the partial plate number, requesting a search for gray Toyotas with those letters. It’d probably turn up hundreds of possibilities, but at least that would give us somewhere to start.
Then I swung the car around and headed for home. I was about halfway there when I realized I was being followed.
Chapter 2
I studied the red Mazda through the rearview mirror. It was just far enough back that I half wondered if I was being paranoid. After all, we were on a freeway, all heading in the same direction, and mostly going the same speed. Well, except for the young idiots in their pimped-out, overly powerful V8s, trying to prove how tough they were by going over the limit.
It wasn’t even as if the red car were shadowing all my movements. I moved out to overtake a slower car and red remained where he was, neither increasing nor decreasing his speed.
Imagination, I thought. Or a bad case of nerves.
Except … the back of my neck prickled uneasily and I couldn’t stop checking out the car. It remained in my sight, remained the same distance away, and it just felt wrong.
Well, I wasn’t about to ignore my instincts. The last time I’d done that, a friend had died.
Of course, Kade’s death was a whole lot more involved than just a case of me ignoring my instincts. And besides, this uneasiness stemmed as much from the warning that Kye had given me before I’d killed him.
A warning that said that Blake—the wolf who’d murdered my grandfather to take over the leadership of the Jenson pack, and a man whom I’d threatened and seriously humiliated almost a year ago—hadn’t finished with me yet.
That even now, he was planning his vengeance.
Yet more fucking vengeance.
Just what my already broken world needed.
But by the same token, if Blake wanted vengeance, he knew where we lived. He didn’t have to shadow my movements, just hit me where I felt the safest.
Still …
I touched my ear lightly, switching on the voice part of the com-link. “Hello, anyone there?”
“Well, well,” a sultry and altogether too familiar voice said, “isn’t it lovely to hear your dulcet tones again.”
I couldn’t help smiling. Sal and I would never be friends, but we’d moved from barbed insults to droll comments, and from dislike to companionable trust. She was also damn good at her job—my old job—and had saved my ass on more than one occasion.
“You say that with such conviction that I almost believe you,” I replied, voice dry. “Want to do me a favor?”
“Oh, I live for such moments.”
In other words, she was bored shitless and could use something to do. Either that or she was on her lunch break. And like most vampires working for the Directorate in a capacity other than as a guardian, she tended to restrict her feeding to the times she was off duty, which left her with spare time during breaks. Me, I’d be heading out to shop, but as a vamp, Sal didn’t have that option.
“You want to pinpoint my location with the satellites and grab the plate number of the red Mazda three cars back?”
“And why would we be doing this?”
I could hear keys tapping, so she was setting the satellites into motion even as she questioned me. “Because I think it’s following me.”
“Did you pick him up before or after your visit to the crime scene?”
“After. I couldn’t say if he was tailing me from the moment I left the park or not, though.” I really hadn’t been paying that much attention—although I wasn’t about to admit that to Sal. She’d only tell Jack, and he’d probably blast me for not showing good guardian form.