Deadly Descendant (9 page)

Just as I thought I was home free and that she would let me pass unmolested, Emma reached out and grabbed the top of my arm in a brutally tight grip, yanking me toward her so hard that half my coffee sloshed out of the mug onto the floor.

“You listen here,” she growled at me, baring her teeth.

“Emma!” Anderson said sharply, and I heard the sound of his chair scraping hastily back. “What are you doing?”

Emma gave me a little shake. “You stay away from my husband. Am I making myself perfectly clear?”

Yeah, she was making it perfectly clear that she was insane. Why did the nut cases always seem to focus on me?

I fought the urge to wince at the tightness of her grip. Maybe humoring the crazy would have been my best move, but I didn’t think things through before I spoke.

“Your husband is my boss,” I said in what I thought was an admirably calm voice. “Are you really going to fly into a rage every time I speak to him? Because you have to know there’s nothing going on between us.”

Her grip on my arm became even tighter, which I hadn’t thought was possible, and this time, I couldn’t suppress a gasp of pain.

“Emma,” Anderson said. “Let go of her.
Now.
You can fight with me all you want, but leave my people out of it.”

I had a feeling he was only making things worse by sticking up for me, and the blackness I saw in Emma’s eyes confirmed it. I was beginning to wish we’d left her at the bottom of that pond, though I felt guilty for the thought the moment it crossed my mind.

“Stay away from him,” Emma repeated, then let go of my arm and shoved me out the door.

Predictably, Emma’s and Anderson’s
raised voices echoed down the hall as I made my escape. The whole incident had completely creeped me out.

Why the hell was Emma jealous of me? I could think of no logical reason, and no matter how closely I scrutinized my own actions, I couldn’t think of anything I’d done that could give Emma the impression I was after her husband.

But what really had me worried was that her hostility toward me seemed to be escalating. If I wasn’t doing anything to fan the flames—and I was sure I wasn’t—I worried that nothing I
did
do or say would calm them. I didn’t get the feeling that Anderson’s people were huge fans of Emma, but she was Anderson’s wife and had been with them way longer than I had. Life in the mansion could get very, very difficult for me if I couldn’t find some way to patch things up.

With those cheerful thoughts in mind, I retreated to my suite to work on the clearer, more manageable task of catching a serial killer. However, fatigue was making me loopy, and my brain seemed determined to obsess over the situation with Emma. I wasn’t getting anything useful done, so I forced myself to turn off the computer and crawl into bed.

Eventually, I drifted off to sleep. I slept late enough that there was no one in the kitchen when I cautiously poked my head in the next morning. Someone had cleaned up the coffee I’d spilled. I’d bet anything it wasn’t Emma. I hurried through making a fresh pot of coffee, wanting to get out of the kitchen quickly. This was one of those times when I really missed living in my condo. It was like the tension of the argument had soaked into the walls, and I was glad to escape back to my room. Maybe I should buy myself a coffee maker to keep in the suite.

When the caffeine hit my system and woke up my still-sluggish brain cells, I realized I’d really needed that sleep. It seemed my subconscious mind had been hard at work mulling over the issue of how to catch the killer while I was sleeping, and I now had the inklings of a plan. Maybe not the safest or sanest plan in the world but a plan nonetheless.

My first impulse was to go haring off on my own the moment I had some idea what to do. For most of my adult life, I’d been an independent operator, doing what I wanted, when I wanted. That was one of the big perks of starting my own business and not joining someone else’s P.I. firm.

I wasn’t an independent operator anymore. I was part of a team—a concept I was still getting used to—and I had a boss to answer to. I knew better than to think Anderson would be okay with me making unilateral plans of action. Not only that, but for once in my life, I had some serious backup available, which was a nice luxury. Nonetheless, it chafed a bit, because talking to Anderson before acting smacked of asking permission, something I’d never been too good at.

I found Anderson ensconced in his study, the one room in his wing of the mansion that the rest of us
Liberi
were actually allowed to enter without special dispensation. He was sitting at his desk, his brow furrowed as he stared at a piece of paper in front of him. I had a feeling he wasn’t really seeing that paper, that he was actually lost in thought, but he didn’t jump when I rapped on the door. He merely turned his chair toward me and raised his eyebrows in inquiry.

I made a show of looking up and down the hall before stepping cautiously into the room. “Is Emma around?” I asked. “Do I need to get us a chaperone?”

As attempts at humor go, it wasn’t my best. The corners of Anderson’s mouth tightened, and he dropped his gaze like he was embarrassed.

“I’m really sorry about that,” he said softly, and I wanted to kick myself for being a smartass. Marital troubles weren’t funny, not to the people involved. As a private investigator, I’d seen more than ample evidence of the fact.

I sighed and invited myself in, dropping into one of the chairs in front of Anderson’s desk like a good little employee.

“You don’t have to apologize,” I assured him. “I’m sorry about the dumb joke. Sometimes I joke when I’m uncomfortable.”

Anderson leaned back in his chair. “I’m sorry that Emma and I have made you uncomfortable. What the Olympians did to her seems to have brought out every insecurity she’s ever had. She’s having a hard time coping, and I’m not making things any easier by fighting with her.”

I didn’t think Anderson had anything to apologize for. From what I could tell, he was acting perfectly reasonable. It was Emma who was the loose cannon, but even with my low relationship IQ, I knew better than to say that.

“She wants me to declare war on the Olympians,” Anderson said. “She can hardly think of anything but revenge.”

“To tell you the truth, I’ve been kind of expecting you to declare war myself. I thought the only reason you weren’t fighting them was that they had Emma.”

He shook his head. “That was just one reason. I hate Konstantin, and I hate the Olympians, and I hate everything they stand for.”

Was it my imagination, or were there literal sparks coming from his eyes?

“But there are a lot more of them than there are of us,” Anderson continued. “And with their stable of brainwashed Descendants, they have far more
deadly weapons than we do. If I start a war, then it’s highly likely all my people will end up dead. It’s not a chance I’m willing to take. Now, if I could get Konstantin somewhere nice and private where there were no witnesses, that would be another matter altogether.”

His smile was fierce and chilling, and I was glad that menace was not directed at me. Then the smile faded and the menace with it. “I know Emma understands my reasons deep down, and I know she’ll come to her senses as her psyche heals. But for now, she’s not thinking straight.”

Personally, I didn’t think Emma was the one who wasn’t thinking straight. I’m no shrink, but I felt pretty convinced that her trauma had caused permanent damage, that she would never go back to being the wife Anderson remembered. Assuming that wife had ever existed in the first place.

“But you didn’t come here to talk about me and Emma,” Anderson said. “What can I do for you?”

“I have an idea for how we might—and I emphasize
might
—catch our killer.”

“I’m intrigued. Tell me more.”

“You know how I told you last night the murders all occurred near cemeteries?”

He nodded.

“They’ve also all occurred on Friday nights.”

“Hmm,” Anderson said, his eyes narrowing. “I’m beginning to see where you might be going with this.” And based on the way he was looking at me, he didn’t like it.

Still, I forged on. “Seeing as this is Friday, I have a strong suspicion our killer will strike again tonight and that the attack will be somewhere near a cemetery.”

Anderson nodded. “Probably true. But do you know how many cemeteries there are in the area?”

“A shitload,” I agreed. “But when you look at a map, you can see that each attack occurred north of the attack before.” I had brought my big map of the D.C. area with me, and I unfolded it on Anderson’s desk, the sites of the three murders numbered and circled. They formed more of a triangle than a straight line, but I still felt there was a definite direction of movement. A pattern I could exploit.

“I’ve highlighted the cemeteries in yellow,” I pointed out, “and I think if his pattern holds true, he’ll hit near the Rock Creek Cemetery tonight.” I pointed helpfully at the cemetery in question.

Anderson looked skeptical. “That seems like an awful lot of conjecture.”

I couldn’t help grinning. “Conjecture seems to be a big part of my power.” My gut was telling me this wasn’t all in my head, that there really was a pattern to the murders. I couldn’t say I completely trusted my gut, but it had certainly steered me in the right direction many times before.

“Even if you’re right, Rock Creek is huge. And if you have to include anything within walking distance in your search, the chances of you running into the killer are really low.”

I grabbed the map and started wrestling it back
into its tidy brochure size. “My chances are better if I go hang around the cemetery than if I sit here doing nothing. I checked the weather and the lunar calendar, and I should have plenty of moon action tonight.” My powers were stronger in the moonlight, though it was difficult to pinpoint exactly what effect the moonlight had. The best explanation I had was that it made my hunches stronger and more accurate.

Anderson looked anything but convinced, and I couldn’t say I blamed him. If I were an ordinary human being, or even an ordinary
Liberi,
my chances of finding the killer with so little information would be almost nil. But I wasn’t an ordinary human being, not anymore.

“Look, it may still be a long shot,” I said, “but what do we have to lose by trying?”

Anderson thought about it a little more, then came to a decision. “All right. We’ll go stake out the cemetery tonight.”

“We?” I’d known he wouldn’t let me go alone, and with his ability to kill
Liberi,
Anderson seemed like a logical choice to go with me, but something about the way he said it told me he didn’t mean just him and me. “Who’s
we?
”

“All of us,” Anderson said, and my jaw dropped. “We can cover a lot more ground if we all go together and then split up.”

“But I’m the only one who’s got a realistic shot at finding him. Maybe.”

“Your shot at finding him doesn’t get any worse if
the rest of us are there looking, too, and our chances of actually
catching
him are a lot better. We don’t know what he can do, and I’m not sure what it’ll take to subdue him.”

It was then that I realized the very important question I had so far failed to ask, had failed even to contemplate. “What are we going to do with him if and when we catch him?”

Anderson was the only one of us who could actually kill a
Liberi,
but I knew without asking that he wouldn’t do it. For reasons I didn’t understand—and was too fond of being alive to want to delve into—Anderson didn’t want anyone to know who and what he actually was. Even Emma didn’t know, and I doubted her finding out the truth would make their marriage any smoother. What Anderson saw in her—other than beauty—was beyond me.

“First, we’ll question him and see how much of what the Olympians told us was the truth. There’s nothing he can say to excuse what he’s done, but if the Olympians are hiding something, I think it’s important we find out what it is.”

I had to agree, though given the ferocity of the killer’s attacks, I wasn’t sure how much reliable information we could get out of him. He seemed several eggs short of a dozen to me.

“Okay, so we question him,” I said. “If we can. Then what?”

Anderson looked at me warily, and I knew I wasn’t going to like whatever was coming next. “Then we hand him over to the Olympians.”

I was right: I didn’t like it.

“No way in hell I’m handing
anyone
over to those sons of bitches,” I said in what I hoped was a calm voice.

I thought my statement might piss Anderson off, but there was no sign of it.

“What do you suggest we do instead?”

And that, of course, was the problem. Dogboy couldn’t be allowed to run around ripping innocent bystanders to shreds, and Anderson wouldn’t tip his hand by killing him.

“We can lock him up,” I said weakly, though I already knew the suggestion sucked. We had some rooms in the basement that were basically prison cells, but it wasn’t like we were equipped to be the killer’s eternal prison guards.