Chasing Daybreak (Dark of Night Book 1) (13 page)

“Wait. Go back a step. What?”

Oh. He didn’t know.
Interesting
.

“Yeah, so there’s some kind of inter-species cooperation going on here in Charleston. No idea what or why. But I know that it’s a dangerous gig, getting involved with those people. If you’re in a position that puts my sister at risk…” I let that hang between us.

He shook his head slowly. “I moved here to get away from the pack lifestyle. No way would I jump into bed with the vampires. I can’t imagine it.”

I snorted—couldn’t help it. “So, you’re what, a lone wolf?”

He smirked. “Something like that. Look, the locals don’t know about me, none of them. I’d like to keep it that way.”

I shrugged. “I’m good with that, as long as you answer a few questions for me.”

He looked at me suspiciously.

“Where do you spend your full moons?”

He frowned.
Weres
could often control the changes, at least after the new wore off, but they still ran a bit hotter during their cycle. A PMS-ing
were
was a dangerous creature.

“I go camping, far away from the general population.”

“And your, uh, lineage?” I asked, feeling uncomfortably like my mother.

Being a
were
was usually from an infected bite, but two infected people could produce a full-blooded
were
child. They were crazy rare, crazy powerful, and according to Dad’s notes, mostly just crazy. But the bottom line was the children of a full-blood
were
and a human were almost always born
weres
, at least for a few generations, until the gene sort of faded out. So if he was a full blood, or the child of a full blood, then my potential nieces and nephews were prone to the furry.

“I was infected.”

I nodded. “I assume you plan on telling Phoebe?”

He frowned. “At some point.”

Uh-huh.

“You have two weeks.”

His head snapped up.

“Look. My sister doesn’t do anything halfway. If she’s committed herself to you, it’s with everything she has. It’s a rare thing, a person with that capacity for love and forgiveness. So if you aren’t serious about her, cut her loose now. If you are serious, then tell her. She deserves to know the truth.”

He nodded silently.

“Oh, and we never had this conversation. If she says to me in a week, ‘Hey, sis, my boyfriend’s a werewolf.’ I say, ‘Really? I had no idea.’ Get it?”

“Got it. Thanks, I guess.”

I tipped my head and left the kitchen, walking past the men playing
Mario Kart
, and headed back to the house, ready to tackle the next thing on my Impossible-Crap-To-Do list.

The house was empty when I got home. No sign of Shane or, thankfully, any more
presents
.

It was just dark enough that I flipped on every light in the house as I went. Yes, between the previous night and Heather’s cryptic warnings, I was quickly becoming an electric company’s dream.

My tiny yet surprisingly expensive dinner hadn’t taken the edge off my rumbling stomach, so I opened the fridge to rummage for leftovers. Settling on some day-old pizza, I nuked my plate and went to my office to eat as I searched. The machine was blinking again. I hit the playback button. It took me a second to place the voice.

“Ms. Stone, it was really nice talking to you the other night. I’m calling because our church is having a prayer meeting tonight at eleven. I saw what happened on the news last night, and I wanted to express my sympathy and invite you to join us. Pastor Marlowe and I both hope you can make it. See you then.”
Beep
.

The voice belonged to Pastor Marlowe’s right-hand man, David Pierce.

Well, there was no way I was going to subject myself to Marlowe again, but I did decide to do some more intense background checks on the good pastor. I watched a few videos of his anti-vampire sermons. Same old rhetoric, but delivered by a handsome, charismatic man of the faith. I could see why people were drawn to him. He reminded me of the old-fashioned snake oil salesmen, saying just what you wanted to hear while simultaneously promising the moon and making you very afraid not to buy what he was selling.

There were a few articles on his wife’s death, and a few on his daughter Melanie’s medical condition. His congregation had launched a huge fundraising campaign to earn the money he needed for her pricey treatments. Even so, the doctors weren’t holding out much hope, the general opinion being that it was a miracle she’d made it this long.

A little after ten, Shane came home, alone thankfully. I got that he was seeing Mercy, and on some level, I could deal with that. But seriously? She made me want to redecorate in Holy Object Chic.

Shane peeked his head around the doorframe, holding a bag from Bubba Sly’s deli out like bait.

“Hungry?” he asked.

I looked at my half-eaten, now-cold-again pizza for a split second before dumping it in the trash.

“Bring it on.”

He vanished, reappearing again with two paper plates. Handing me a Philly cheese steak with a side of salt and vinegar chips on my plate, he dropped into his usual place beside me. Vamps didn’t have to eat solid food, but they could. Their taste buds didn’t react quite like a human’s did, or so Shane said, but that just made experiencing food more enjoyable. It was like getting to try everything all over again for the first time.

“Whatchya doin?” he asked.

Sighing, I took a bite. I answered around my mouth-watering sandwich. “Trying to figure out this Marlowe guy.” I wiped my mouth. “He’s big bad, no question. But what was his connection to Lisa?”

“She a member of his congregation?”

I shook my head. “According to her sister, she went to St. Peters, downtown.”

“So why was the husband going there?”

I shrugged. “Convenient? He was going there for treatment for his gambling problem.”

“We ever come up with any debts for the husband?”

“Nope. No money missing that I can see, no weird debts, no loans. Clean.”

Shane swallowed. “And I had no luck with the bookies. They’d never even heard of the guy. How many gamblers do you know with zero debt?”

“None. So who was the wife working off the debts to?”

It was his turn to shrug.

“It’s just so sad,” I said thoughtfully. “A seemingly nice, normal suburban soccer mom gets coerced into prostitution to save her husband’s sorry ass.”

“The question is—did the husband know what she was up to?” Shane added.

It was a very good question.

“The number-one question is still—who was he in debt to that the
vamps
were letting her work off his markers? Must have owed the vamps themselves,” I said, thinking out loud.

“Or one of their subsidiaries.”

I looked at Shane and blinked. Robert Welch was a vampire hater, part of Marlowe’s anti-vampire movement, so why would he owe money to the vamps unless it was through a middleman?

“Shane, I could kiss you.” I smiled.

He leaned away. “Eww. Girl cooties.”

Jumping out of my chair, I went to the file cabinet and pulled open the drawer labeled B. I removed a manila folder, took it back to my chair, and opened it. It contained a list of all known businesses run by, associated with, or owing money to the vampires.
Thank you, Dad.

Unfortunately, it was a very thick folder.

Shane set his plate on the edge of the desk and motioned with his hands. “Here, give me half. It’ll go faster if I help.”

I handed him a small stack. “I’m not sure what I’m looking for.”

“I’ll let you know if anything jumps out at me.”

Smiling, I took another bite of my cheese steak and dug into the papers. The next time I looked up, my neck and back had cramped and it was eleven-thirty.

I closed the folder, careful to mark my spot.

“I gotta go.” I stretched, rolling my neck side to side as I stood up.

“I’m going too.”

I looked at him flatly. “No, you are gonna stay here and keep looking. The note said
come alone
, remember?”

“And it was written by a possibly psychotic Vampire Mafia boss, remember?” he snapped back.

“It’s
Xavier
. He’s helped us this far. Besides, he’s your soon-to-be undead boss.”

“He’s only helping because he’s attracted to you,” Shane retorted.

That stopped me for a moment, and then I laughed. “Whatever.”

“I can smell it,” Shane admitted with a low growl.

Now I stopped laughing. “You can smell what,
exactly
?”

“The testosterone. He oozes it when you’re around.”

“Hold up.” I planted my hands on my hips. “Were you planning on sharing this information?”

“Why? You don’t do vampires.”

Shane’s bitter tone felt like he’d slapped me across the face. He had never acted bitter since he’d turned, or even like he wanted to get back together. I always sort of thought he felt the same way I did. It wasn’t about not loving each other, it was about the fact we had no future together.

I wasn’t sure what to say, so I opted for an irritated rebuttal. “So, some mystery person leaves me a
drained body
on the porch, and you don’t think to mention that the local head vamp has a crush on me? What the hell, Shane?”

He shook his head. “Wasn’t Xavier. I’d have smelled him on it.”

“Um, unless Xavier is smarter and older than you and had either a helper or is just that scary good at killing people.” I snapped my fingers. “Oh wait, he is all of those things. I seriously can’t believe you’ve been keeping this from me.”

Whatever he was going to say died on his lips, and Shane hung his head in dejection. It was his sad, puppy face.
Damn it.
Well, I wasn’t in the mood for it this time.

“I’m going. You’re staying. Period.” I grabbed my jacket.

“What if it
was
Xavier?”

“Well, let’s hope he likes me enough not to kill me, tonight at least,” I retorted with as much venom as I could muster and stormed out of the house.

I really hadn’t planned to go to the meet without some sort of backup, not that I’d admit that to Shane. I had barely turned the first corner before I dialed Tyger.

“What?” His voice crackled through the car.

“Hey, it’s Isabel.”

He grunted and mumbled something to someone on his end that I couldn’t quite make out. “What can I do for you?”

I bit my bottom lip. We’d only just balanced the scales between us. I wasn’t too fond of going into favor-debt with him, but this was a sort of a special circumstance. By special circumstance, I meant, of course, that I was too stubborn to admit that Shane might be right, and I probably did need someone watching my back.

“How did the keystroke recorder work out for you?” I asked.

“Fine. Figured out who was skimming the cash.”

I blew out a breath. “Oh, well, that’s good.”

Tone very cool, he asked, “You wanna tell me why you’re really calling me at almost midnight?”

“I’m going to a meeting tonight. Might be shady. I could use a pair of eyes from a distance. Just in case. You busy?”

He took a long drag of what I assumed was a cigarette before asking, “What happened to your usual wingman, what’s-his-name?”

“He’s unavailable. You up for this or not?”

A long pause, more whispers. “Sure. Where and when?”

I gave him the address. “And, Patrick?”

“Yeah?”

I took a deep breath. “You didn’t happen to leave a dead guy on my porch, did you?”

He laughed out loud. “Nope. What, did Brooks forget his keys?”

“No. This guy tried to kill me, and then ended up on my doorstep as a gift-wrapped corpse.”

His next words chilled me. “Sounds like someone did you a favor.”

“See you soon,” I said after a quiet minute.

“Yep.”
Click
.

I snapped my phone closed and tossed it on the empty seat next to me. Sometimes, Patrick scared the living shit out of me. Other times, it paid to have friends in all the wrong places.

I pulled in to the empty parking lot with one minute to spare. There was only one light. I drove under it and threw the car in park. Stepping out, I took a quick survey of my surroundings, unable to forget what Patrick had said.

The address Xavier gave me was just north of Truxtun Avenue, not far from Storehouse Row. The area was practically a ghost town that late. The only noise was the nearby sound of cars on the freeway.

I sat on the hood of the car, determined to wait only ten minutes before getting the hell out of there, and hoping that somewhere in the unseen darkness, Patrick had my back.

“You came.” Xavier’s deep voice cut through the silence, causing me to whip my head around.

He was approaching from behind, his expensive-looking loafers making no sound as he moved toward me, looking as human as I’d ever seen. He lacked his normal predatory gait, something I wondered if he did deliberately to put me at ease. If so, it wasn’t working. If anything, the unexpected change in his demeanor had me on edge.

“Yeah. You passed me a note in study hall, remember?” I heaved a tired sigh. “It’s late and I’ve had a really long day, so if we could skip the formalities, that’d be great.”

Xavier closed in, uncomfortably close, actually grazing my legs as he passed, and sat on the hood beside me.

He flashed his devastating smile. “You have a knack for asking all the wrong questions. You are aware of that, aren’t you?”

I shook my head. “Or all the right ones, if you’re looking at it from my point of view.”

“Touché. I asked you to meet me because I have a few things I’d like to talk to you about. Privately.”

I frowned, confused. “I thought that was my line.”

He shrugged, and it just looked wrong on him, like he was wearing someone else’s clothes. The thought made me look down from his face for the first time and really take a look at what he was wearing.

Dark blue jeans and a light blue, button-down shirt, the first two buttons undone and the sleeves rolled to just below the elbow.
Vampire casual?
I wondered. It wasn’t that it didn’t look good on him, it did, but it was strange seeing him like that. Was he playing at human, and if so, was it for my benefit? I shook my head.

“What do you want?”

He smirked, as if my question took just a heartbeat too long, and he’d guessed I was checking him out. Which I totally wasn’t—sort of.

“Your investigation has put Shane in a delicate situation. His indoctrination into the Conclave is this weekend. I’d hate to see anything put that in jeopardy.”