Edge of Night (18 page)

“Not that one, the new one.”

Erin
. Luca arched an eyebrow as if he had no idea what Vito might be talking about.

The older vampire’s eyes gleamed. “Ah, you thought I didn’t know about her? I know everything.”

A tinge of panic mixed with—
relief?—
in Luca’s chest. He tried to keep any emotion from showing on his face. He didn’t want news of his affair to get out, and yet it
was
a relief that someone in his life knew about Erin. She wasn’t some meaningless fling. Not anymore. What she did mean to him was still unclear, but someone he cared for at least knew she existed, understood there was a woman who mattered in his life. The acknowledgment was somehow important, but he wasn’t sure why.

“Saw you with her the day you two met, didn’t I? I officiated her cousin’s wedding. Your Normal agent and that elf cop.” Vito’s grin was smug. “I noticed the way you looked at your human girl, not at that werewolf changeling everyone thinks you still want. No, I could tell which way the wind blew, and I saw you at her café a few months back. So. The affair continued long beyond that first night.”

“She’s an excellent chef. I can eat anywhere I want without it meaning anything.” Keeping his tone even and unaffected was a struggle, but Luca managed it.

“It was after closing and you had your tongue down her throat, boy.” The judge slammed his hand against the desktop as if it was a gavel and he was rendering a verdict. “I may have been born a vampire, but last time I checked, that’s not how Normals feed.”

Luca sighed. “Does my father know?”

Uncle Vito made a rude noise. “I have to keep a few over on my brother or else he thinks he’s the smart one.”

Well, thank gods for sibling rivalry. “You’ve told no one else?”

“You’ll do it yourself when you’re ready.” His uncle squinted, his focus turning inward for a split-second. “Which will be soon, I think. You’ll know when the time is right.”

A tingle of premonition went down Luca’s spine, and he suppressed a shudder. Of all the vampires he’d ever met, Vito was the only one who came close to having the sight. It wasn’t a usual gift for their race, and it came nowhere near the level other Magickals could claim, but Vito’s hunches had never proven false in the hundred years Luca had known him.

Definitely not something he wanted to consider now. He had a murderer to arrest. Thoughts of Erin would have to wait.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Rising, Luca snagged the signed warrant off the desk. “Thank you,
Zio
. For everything.”

“Get out of my office.” Vito flicked his fingers dismissively. “I have trials to hear today, which gives me an excuse
not
to tell Salvatore anything about the Hammonds until after you do what you need to.”

“I appreciate it.” With that, he got out before the other vampire decided to change his mind. They both had qualms about this, and it was best not to dwell on them.

“All right, the party is in two hours. With traffic, that should give us just enough time to get there and have everything set up.” Erin kept a watchful eye on the three guys loading racks of food into the restaurant’s delivery truck. It was jam packed, so she planned to take the grouping of five cakes in the back of her car. The hatchback design made it possible to lay the backseat down and create a flat space from the rear window all the way to the front seats. Tina would ride shotgun to keep an eye on the cakes while Erin drove.

One of the men bobbled a loaded rack, and Erin cringed, bracing herself for it to fall. “Careful with the
hors d'oeuvre
trays, Jordie! The spun sugar decorations on those tarts are fragile.”

“Got it!” He managed to right the rack before it tipped too far. She suspected the werewolf used a bit of his superhuman speed and strength to make sure it stayed upright, which was technically illegal since they were out in the open, but Erin wasn’t about to quibble since it spared her a boatload of wasted work and extra stress.

Five more minutes and everything was secured in the truck. “Okay, you guys have the address?”

All three men nodded. Jordie offered a weak smile. “I’m driving. They’re staying in the back to make sure nothing falls.”

She returned a wry grin. “I’m sure you’ll do fine. Tina and I will follow with the cakes.”

“We’ll meet you there, Chef Bates.” Jordie signaled to the other men, and they hopped into the truck.

Turning away, Erin sighed. Catering events wasn’t her favorite part of the job, but it generated good income so it was a necessary evil. Holly wanted to expand that part of the business, but Erin had resisted. She might consider suggesting that Jordie take on those tasks if he continued to perform well, today’s little bobble notwithstanding.

Tina stuck her head out the back door of the bistro. “Boss lady, let’s get a move on.”

“Coming!” After hustling inside, Erin slung her purse over her arm and picked up one of the larger cakes. They’d jigsaw the smaller cakes between the big ones.

She nodded to get Tina to precede her out to the parking lot. “Thanks for volunteering to do this.”

“No problem. A change of scenery is always welcome.” She adjusted her grip on the cake she carried. “Plus, a surprise fiftieth wedding anniversary thrown by the kids and grandkids? That’s so awesome and nice of them. Fifty years of true love. Super sweet.”

“Tina, hon.” Erin chuckled. “Your inner sappy romantic is peeking out.”

Tina just stuck out her tongue, faced forward and didn’t comment further. Then she blinked. “What the hell happened to your car?”

“Huh?” Erin had been watching where she stepped so she wouldn’t drop the cake, but she stopped and took a good look at her vehicle. Her heart slammed against her ribcage while the bottom of her stomach dropped into freefall.

The words NORMAL BITCH were carved into the driver’s side door and the tires she could see were flat. Since the car sat evenly, she could only guess the other two resembled pancakes too. Slashed. Fear clutched at her chest, closed her throat so she could barely breathe. It was the first real, true confirmation that she wasn’t making this all up in her head. Sure, it could still be a prank, but at this point she had to see it as a preponderance of evidence. Jack always said he didn’t believe in coincidences, and it was way too much of a coincidence that she’d been getting crank calls, felt like she’d been watched and followed and now her car had been vandalized.

“Wow, that’s like adding insult to injury. You’re not even an extraordinary bitch, just a plain old normal one.” Tina tittered nervously. “I’m sorry. I make inappropriate jokes when I’m freaked.”

As a human, Tina had no idea that “normal” had other meanings. Erin wasn’t about to educate her.

“Yeah.” She cleared her throat. “Talk about laying it on a little thick. It’s not enough to slash my tires and carve shit into my car, then they have to tell me I’m not even special while they’re doing it.”

Tina clamped her lips together, trying to smother a laugh. “Okay, I know it’s horrible and not funny.”

Erin snorted and shook her head. “Well, then. Since I don’t have four spare tires, I think we’re going to need to borrow Holly’s car. And then she gets to call the police and a tow truck.”

She could only hope that whoever came to take Holly’s statement wasn’t on close terms with Selina, or this would start a family shit storm she didn’t want to deal with. Holly was going to have a cow and a large litter of wolf cubs over this, but she could be trusted to keep her mouth shut. She’d have a lot of questions Erin couldn’t—or wouldn’t—answer. If it was Asher messing with her, she’d have to hear about how dating vampires got you into trouble. If she admitted her fears, and it wasn’t Asher, she’d never hear the end of that either. “Fuck.”

“You said it,” Tina replied. “I’ll go get the other boss lady.”

“I’ll come with you.” Erin jerked to attention and followed the waitress back to the restaurant. A shiver went down her skin—that watched feeling again. There was no way in hell she was staying alone at the scene of a crime that proved she wasn’t totally nuts when she thought someone was screwing with her on a major level.

Rage burned to life in her chest. If this was Asher, she was going to beat him to death. He’d tried to victimize her before, and she wasn’t going to put up with it again. She wasn’t sure yet what she should do to figure out if she was right about his involvement in all this, but one way or another, she was going to make sure whoever was dicking with her sense of safety and sanity paid for what they’d done. She wasn’t normally a vengeful person, but she was making an exception here.

No one
had the right to make her live in fear.

Chapter Eight

Tension ran through Luca’s muscles. Robert Hammond’s house would soon be surrounded by unmarked police and FBI vehicles from the various Magickal units in the area, just in case the man tried to bolt. It was an overcast day, which meant vampires could freely roam without worries of getting torched by the sun. Not a great day to make a vampiric arrest, but Luca didn’t want to wait any longer.

Some inner urgency forced him to act now. Though Robert had remained at large for several days since his child’s death, Luca felt they hovered on the cusp of some new development in the case. He had a bad feeling that might mean Cecily’s safety was in serious jeopardy. Call it intuition, call it an inkling of Uncle Vito’s premonitions, but Luca had torn out of the courthouse and gathered his team as fast as possible, calling in favors from the Seattle PD’s Magickal Task Force to get backup. They needed to be there
now
, but they couldn’t spook Hammond by going in with the blue lights on, and they had to get everyone in position to do this safely.

“Fuck.”

Jack sat in the seat beside him, and Luca felt his glance. The Normal cleared his throat. “Selina is leading the MTF on this one. I’d say it feels like old times, but considering the last time we worked a case together she almost died, I’ll just say it’s
unusual
to have her reporting to the same scene as me.”

Since some equally banal response seemed appropriate, Luca replied, “She’s good at her job. I’m glad to have her assist on this one.”

“You called us away from breakfast at Sugar Rush. She was none too please, since she hadn’t gotten to finish. She really loves the
congolais
Erin makes.” Jack tapped him fingers against his thigh. “You remember my cousin, don’t you?”

“I remember her,” Luca replied evenly. He pushed the car a little faster, speeding around a corner so Jack had to brace himself. A little distraction seemed to be in order.

Luca’s radio beeped, and Delta’s voice came through. “Boss, we have a report of shots fired at the Hammond residence. One of the neighbors called it in, and it got routed to us.”

“Shit.
Shit
.” Luca shoved the gas pedal to the floor, while Jack slapped the light on the dash and lit it up.

Had Hammond killed his wife so she couldn’t testify against him for his numerous crimes? Luca had worried this might happen, which was why he’d all but arm-wrestled Vito into issuing the warrant when he—and every other Magickal judge in Seattle—wanted to drag his heels and not be involved in messing with Elinor Hammond’s son. No one wanted Medusa’s eye turned on them.

Fucking politics. Luca clenched his jaw so tight he thought his fangs might crack.

The car squealed around the final corner to the Hammond house, and he was out of the vehicle in seconds, his weapon drawn. Three other cars soon flanked his, and he motioned silently for officers and agents to fan around the house. They scurried to obey, and Luca strode to the front door.

“FBI, open up!” He didn’t even bother knocking or waiting for any kind of reply. He slapped a metal charm again the frame that would disable any security system—a small perk of being in Magickal law enforcement—and then shoved his shoulder into the door. The door splintered under his vampiric strength, whipping open so fast it crashed into the wall, embedding what was left of the knob into the drywall.

There was an eerie silence in the house and the scent of death hit his nostrils. At the same time, his gaze took in the crimson that stained the white foyer tiles.

“Too late.” The muscles in the back of his neck locked with anger and frustration. He swore viciously as he stepped into the house, Jack and Selina on his heels. They quickly swept the house while Luca moved toward the prone female form in the middle of the foyer. The body of what used to be Cecily Hammond. A bullet had caved in half her skull, and a gun was clutched in her fingers. Suicide.

He was too late to help her. Too fucking late to be of any use at all.

“Jesus Christ,” Jack breathed from somewhere above him, and Luca glanced up to see the other agent staring into a room on the second floor. “Sir, you want to see this.”

The utter stillness that had filled the house when Luca had entered combined with the pungent scent of Hammond’s blood told him what he’d see before he walked up the stairs. He moved along the balcony above the foyer and drew up next to the Normal.

The master bedroom. The bed was mussed, but otherwise seemed undisturbed. It wasn’t until one glanced through to the en suite bathroom door that the truth became apparent.

“I think Mrs. Hammond got her revenge for what he did to her baby.” Selina’s voice was hard, and she holstered her weapon as she came up to stand on the other side of her husband. Jack set a hand on her shoulder and squeezed.