Chapter Ten

CHAPTER TEN

The Black Dagger Brotherhood Underground Housing Complex

a.k.a. The Wheel

Caldwell, New York

T ohr arrived back at the Brotherhood’s cul-de-sac about ten minutes before it was BBQ time. And not as in Last Meal, and short ribs were on the menu.

Dawn was coming like something from Scuderia Ferrari.

As he re-formed by one of the five houses that had been built aboveground to keep the suburban, nothing-special ruse up for the humans, he could feel every inch of his skin prickle, even the stuff that was under his clothes. Likewise, his eyes started tearing up even though he’d deliberately become corporeal with his back to the east.

There were a lot of things in life that you could fudge. The great, glowing death ball in the sky was not one of them—

“Sire! You must come in!”

At the sound of the voice, he pulled a pivot-and- hustle, zeroing in on the command. And as he shot through the side door of the Colonial and into a homey kitchen, Fritz, butler extraordinaire, started fanning him with a dishtowel like he was already on fire.

“That was a little close,” Tohr said, as the breeze did feel good on his flaming cheeks.

And thanks to the special reflective coating on all the window glass, the harmful rays were mostly blocked. The relief was instantaneous.

“Mistress Autumn has been—”

“You’re here! Oh, thank Lassiter.”

His shellan bolted out of the basement door, and his arms opened without him even thinking about it: Those lovely gray eyes that were usually full of calm warmth were frantic, and her blond hair, which she usually knotted high on her head, was streaming behind her like a halo of anxiety.

“I’m sorry,” he said as he pulled her in close. “It’s been crazy tonight.”

After they reconnected for a minute, his mate pulled back, and touched his face as if reassuring herself he was really alive.

“Too close,” she whispered.

“I’m sorry.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead and felt like an absolute asshole. “I won’t do that again.”

It was a lie, and they both knew this, but he didn’t know what else to say. His job was dangerous, unpredictable, and almost always in the way. There was no getting out for him, though. He was Wrath’s second-in-command, and the Elmer’s glue of the Brotherhood, as Rhage always said.

“Okay,” she murmured with resolve.

“Okay,” he echoed with love.

And that was why he could only ever be mated to her. Of all the people he had met, his Autumn was most like water. She flowed over difficulty, and not weakly. No, never weakly. There was great strength in her calmness and the way she accepted that which could not be changed.

Like his past, and the loss of his first shellan . Like his present, and his job.

She inspired him every night, lifted him every day, loved him like they had an eternity in front of them and only one more second at the same time.

Another hug , he thought as he pulled her in again. She was smiling when they eased apart.

“Butch and V are waiting for you downstairs in our family room.” She glanced pointedly at Fritz, who was worrying at the apron that was tied around his waist. “Where we are all going to enjoy everything that has been so thoughtfully prepared.”

“I can make more?” Fritz’s wrinkly face was pitched like a tent off the tip of his nose, and his clear concern for the adequacy of his efforts made everything seem looser. “Perhaps another dessert?”

There was a “please” dangling in the breeze, as if he needed to work out his anxiety on a flan or something—and Tohr hated that he’d worried the elderly butler, too.

Fuck.

“Absolutely.” He forced a smile at the doggen , as regret soured his stomach. “And you know what I feel like I need? A fresh apple pie.”

“Oh! Sire!” Fritz clapped his hands like someone had offered him a winning scratch-off. “I have the most beautiful Braeburn apples. And I can sweeten them up with some Galas. And if I start now, I shall be able to provide it warm in ninety minutes!”

The butler was already turning away and going for the Crisco. Handmade and flaky as ever was the only way a crust was happening in this, or any Brotherhood, household.

Tohr pressed a quick kiss on Autumn’s mouth.

“Before you say it,” she murmured as they went over to the cellar door, “I’ll be staying for the conversation with Butch and Vishous. And yes, I know you hate it, but I live in your world alongside you. Reality is what it is, and I have a right to know.”

For a split second, Tohr entertained a fantasy that there was another zip code, far, far away from Caldwell, where there was no violence, no need for the Brotherhood’s official duties, no war with Lash and the lessers . In his utopia, he would sequester all those who he loved—

“And I just made some fresh vanilla ice cream,” Fritz announced.

“Thank you,” Autumn said. “That would be lovely.”

The pair of them descended together, and as he held the warm, vital hand of his mate, he was grateful for the here-and-now. And he really was going to try to not burn himself to a crisp in the future.

At the bottom, they hooked up with the Wheel’s outermost ring, and they didn’t have far to go. The next door was their quarters, and he jumped ahead and opened the way in. As Autumn stepped through, he closed his eyes and breathed in. She smelled like a summer night, clean, fresh, tinted by rosebuds.

His blood stirred, and he found himself craving another kind of dessert—

“You could have cut that closer,” came the dry greeting from the sitting area. “I mean, really, you had at least three or four minutes’ wiggle room.”

Tohr leveled a stare at Butch O’Neal, but as usual, the former homicide cop was impervious to a good pipe-down-sonny and merely smiled back. Next to him on the couch, the brother’s roommate and best friend, V, was going back and forth between a cell phone and a laptop as if he were watching an argument and not sure who to back.

Vishous was always sharp as a dagger. “I was about to break out the ranch dressing—”

“Enough.”

As Tohr made a pointed can-you-please-not-freak-her-out-more glance at his mate, the two of them winced.

And Butch stammered. “Ah . . . yeah, so anyway, I . . . hey, is it time to eat?”

“Last Meal will hold,” Autumn said as she took took her place on the love seat across from the brothers. “Fritz has it in our warming drawer. What happened tonight.”

Tohr glanced around the cozy living room with its relaxed furniture and many throw blankets. Autumn liked their home to be the kind where people could kick their shoes off and curl up—and he wanted it that way, too . . . especially because so many of the conversations were so damned heavy. Like tonight’s.

This morning’s, rather.

And yes, he wished he could talk about this shit out of earshot from her. But he respected her enough not to play the chest-thumping hellren who demanded that her delicate ears be protected from subjects not suitable for the fairer sex.

“What have we got, boys,” he asked in a low voice.

Butch brought his rocks glass up to his lips and took a sip of the Lagavulin in his traveler. “I went through the entire scene at Broadius’s. Very professional job. The killer knew where the security system was, knew how to disarm it, knew the layout of the house. Also knew the schedule of the staffing. He—or she—picked the dead zone right before the maid arrived. ”

Tohr glanced at Autumn. Her eyes were locked on the cop. So he just cleared his throat and continued on. “What about the body?”

“Again, our murderer was very confident in their work. No defensive wounds, no disruption in the closet except for a couple of scuffs on the wall-to-wall, and minimal blood. They’re also strong enough to carry deadweight without knocking into doorjambs or dragging the body to the bed.”

“Why bother with that,” Tohr said. “I mean, you could have just left him in the closet—”

Butch held up his forefinger. “I think there’s a message being sent. You lie in the bed you make. I’ll bet dollars to dickheads that the killer was making an example of Broadius, and took a couple of pictures to send to people. The male who did this—”

“Or female,” Autumn pointed out.

The brothers nodded at her before Butch corrected, “That’s right. Whoever did this also took a souvenir. Broadius was only wearing one cufflink. I didn’t find the other one.”

“Where’s the body now?”

“At the morgue.” Butch tilted his glass forward. “Now it’s your turn. What do we know about our victim?”

Going over to his shellan , Tohr sat on the arm of the love seat, and rubbed her shoulder. “From what Saxton and I were able to discover, he was part of the new group welcomed into the aristocracy about thirty years ago. Not mated. Money made in bitcoin. No controversies—”

“Here we go.” V sat forward and turned his laptop around. “This is our killer.”

Everyone leaned in as the surveillance footage was played on the screen. The grainy images didn’t show much because of the fucking falling snow, but after Tohr’s eyes focused properly, he could make out a figure in white battling the blizzard’s fury, curved in against the gusts as they approached the garage.

“The ski mask covers the face, of course.” V hit replay. “And they weren’t stupid. The first thing they did when they got inside was turn off the system so this trek to the side of the garage is all we have. The interior cameras go black right after this.”

“Like I said, it’s a professional,” Butch murmured as they watched things for a third time. “I mean, no fingerprints anywhere—but then I’m working under the assumption it was one of our kind anyway. But no boot prints, either. I did find two puddles on the floor just inside that door. I’m guessing they jimmied the lock, got in, and slipped on some treadless pads.”

“Any sense what they did with the security stuff, V?” Tohr asked.

“They knew the code.” V sat back on the sofa and stroked his goatee with his gloved hand. “It’s a pretty standard system. You have a minute to disarm it any time you open a door or a window. The log was easy to access and review, and it shows entry from the garage at five thirty-eight p.m. and shutoff with the code less than thirty seconds later.”

“It was twenty-two minutes before the maid arrived for the night,” Butch cut in. “And she confirmed the alarm was off when she arrived, which was unusual.”

“After those digits were entered”—Vishous shrugged—“they they were in like Flint.”

“I loved those movies,” Tohr said under his breath.

“Zowie.” The cop lifted his glass. “Cheers to Coburn.”

“So who wants Broadius dead.” Tohr looked at V. “I only scratched the surface on his identity. I need you to go further.”

“No problem.” Vishous tapped his lappy. “By noon, I’ll know a lot. By nightfall, I’ll be able to tell you even what his favorite fucking color was.”

“I love you,” Tohr said under his breath.

“You should.” V started touching the screen. “Because while we’re on the subject of surveillance footage, I know who left that envelope in the Audience House’s waiting room. Lady and gentlemales, I’d like you to meet our courier.”

As everybody went forward again, the Lenovo was turned back around. “Meet Candice, daughter of Meiser.”

This time, there were four images in a square, each offering a different angle of the waiting area. When V hit the play button, a short female in a wool coat entered and checked in with the receptionist, her voice well modulated and quiet. Then she nodded pleasantly to the male and female who were seated on the couch, and took the single chair by the door.

“I’ll speed it up,” V said as he tapped something.

Abruptly, the little clock in the lower right-hand corner went into flight mode, and the three vampires twitched and jerked through their movements, their feet tapping, their hands shooting up to cover a cough, a series of tiny, split-second tilts of heads punctuating the Alvin-and-the-Chipmunks-octave, staccato convo that was exchanged.

And then the couple was called out. After which a male came in with a female and a tiny baby in a pink blanket. They took the place of those who’d departed on the sofa.

More time passed at a dead run, and more supersonic chatter twittered along.

Then one of Saxton’s paralegals came in and the female in the single chair stood up. As she did, an envelope fell out from under her coat and got wedged in the juncture between the arm and the seat.

Tohr frowned. “She didn’t know it was—”

“Wait for it.” V tapped the upper right quadrant feed, which showed the door. “Wait . . .”

Just before the female stepped out, she glanced back—and not at the couple with the young.

Her worried eyes went to where she had been sitting.

And the envelope she had left behind.

“She knew what she was doing,” Tohr said.

V nodded. “She did.”

“So why’d she deny it?”

“Well, there’s the fun part. I tried to call her back? She didn’t answer. Phone’s a burner, address was a lie, and there’s no record of that name in any of the databases.”

“So who the hell is she?”

Vishous shook his head, and shut the laptop. “At this point, your guess is as good as mine, true?”