Ripper (30 page)

She didn’t wait, merely walked off expecting me to follow. I trailed after her silently, gesturing to Gray and Marcus not to follow me. She walked through the kitchen and into the backyard. It was small and neatly kept, with old shade trees and rose bushes along the chain link fence. She turned to me, her eyes so much older than the first time we met.

“You found my daughter. I thank you for that.” Her voice was hoarse. I wondered if she’d screamed when she’d seen the evidence of her daughter’s fate. How long would that image stay with her, obliterating all the good memories. She’d been forced to exchange visions of her daughter smiling and alive for horrors untold.

“I don’t know that you should thank me. I didn’t save her.”

“Likely no one could save her. We’re much like the animals we turn into. Always prey. It isn’t in our natures to fight, to protect ourselves. We try to run, but everyone else is faster. I don’t blame you, dear. I would prefer to know than to be left waiting forever in vain for her to come home.”

How close had my mother come to that fate? It struck me that the world really was filled with predators and prey. Most people didn’t have to face that fact—or learn which side they belong to. Helen Taylor had known from birth. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

 She nodded slowly. “You can be honest with me. You’re the only one I trust.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I knew what she was going to ask me and I knew that I would tell her the truth no matter what councilmen and faery princes and even Gray wanted. This was a contract between me and Helen Taylor, and I would not break it.

“Was my daughter involved with vampires?”

“Yes.”

She took the news with stoic pride. “Do you believe they killed her?”

I let out a breath of relief. If she’d left it there, I would have stopped. I was glad to be able to tell her my thoughts. I was sure Castle had been filling her head with his. “My instinct tells me no. One of the victims was killed during the day and the only two daywalkers in Dallas have ironclad alibis.”

She brushed that off with a wave of her hand. “Only Academics can daywalk. It’s not in their natures to kill in such a manner. A warrior, yes, but not an academic. Castle expects me to believe the king has something to do with this. The king is a good boy.”

Though I hadn’t met the king, simply by his nature he was the baddest ass among badasses, but I liked that docile Helen called him a good boy like he was just another kid on the block begging for cookies.

 “I can’t rule out that some vampire might have an assistant, but it doesn’t add up for me. I’m going to the club tonight and the Council promises me an all-access pass.”

She sighed and her body sagged down into a worn chair. The vinyl used to have a pattern, but the Texas sun had faded it. Grief had faded Helen Taylor’s natural sunniness. “It’s good for you to keep looking. Castle doesn’t want to look past his own theories. Having a vampire slaughtering werecreatures plays to his political ambitions.”

I sank into the seat next to her. It didn’t surprise me that the alpha was making trouble. He’d seemed to be looking for it last night. “What’s he saying?”

“That the vampires have made us their slaves. It’s the same thing he’s been saying since the king forced him to shut down his gambling businesses. It cost him a lot of money,” Helen said wearily. “I think the werewolf alpha is trying to start a rebellion and he’s using my daughter. I don’t care about any of it. I want to know who killed my daughter. I know I didn’t pay you much…”

“It was enough.” I didn’t mention Quinn’s money. I wouldn’t have stopped even if he hadn’t stepped up. I would still be here. “I’m going to get to the bottom of this, Mrs. Taylor. I promise.”

Her hand came out to slowly pat mine. It was a motherly gesture, soothing and second nature to her. “You’re a good girl, Kelsey. Find out who killed my daughter. I trust you. You won’t allow politics to sway you.”

“Ma’am, I don’t know enough about politics to let it sway me,” I admitted.

“Why don’t you go back inside?” She let her face find the sun. “I like the peace out here. I think I’ll sit for a while.”

I started to get up and had made it to the door when her soft voice made me turn once more.

“Kelsey?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“When you find him, what do you intend to do?”

“I intend to kill him, ma’am,” I said because it was the truth.

“Like I said, you’re a good girl. No one fights for us. It would be nice for once to have someone on our side.”

Now it wasn’t guilt, but responsibility that ate at me. If this really was a vampire—the mysterious Alexander—then the Council would likely want it hushed up.

I couldn’t allow that to happen.

The screen door closed behind me and I could see easily why Helen Taylor wanted to stay outside. The minute I walked into the house, I was struck by the oppressiveness of the grief. I thought it odd that when Helen needed solitude to think and let it all sink in that she was bombarded with people. I walked through the small kitchen crowded with relatives and friends. The table was laden with food. I noted the requisite Jell-O mold hadn’t been touched yet, but then it didn’t seem like many people were eating. Even my appetite seemed to have fled.

I could hear Marcus quietly arguing with Castle in the laundry room. He was trying to keep it down, but Castle had no such qualms. Gray was off to the side, sifting through some papers. It was probably the letter and the photos Helen had received. He would take them into evidence, but she would never forget.

Then I sensed someone watching me. I stopped, not turning. Most people would avert their eyes at that point, but I still felt them on me. I didn’t want a fight, but I also couldn’t walk away. When I turned, I realized a fight might have been better.

“Do you think it hurt?”

My heart sure as hell hurt looking down at Nancy Taylor, aged fifteen, who had seen far more death in her young life than any kid should. She was painfully thin in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt emblazoned with the name of some rock band I’d never heard of. I was sure when she’d gotten dressed this morning she hadn’t been thinking she’d attend a wake.

“I don’t know,” I answered, knowing I was probably lying. In this, I couldn’t give her the truth. It helped no one and offered so much pain. “I hope not.”

“You’re the PI my mom hired, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I need to talk to you about something.”

I cast a short look back at Gray and Marcus. “Okay.”

I followed Nancy down the hall and into her room. It was an explosion of teenaged girl. There were posters of rock stars and actors and cutout photos of the “hot guys” from magazines alongside pictures of girls and their shining, smiling faces. There were several photos of Nancy and her sister. She was neat for a teen, meaning I could kind of see the floor. I wasn’t exactly OCD so I couldn’t complain.

“My mom says you’re a hunter,” Nancy started, her brown eyes wary.

“I don’t hunt like that.” Oddly, I didn’t feel the same rush of shame today. I simply explained to her. I was able to meet her eyes as though the night before had purged the shame I’d always felt. I was able to breathe.

“So you don’t hunt people like me. You hunt bad guys.”

That pretty neatly summed up my new chosen profession. I hunted bad guys. The only way to make up for what my father did was to stop other people from doing it. “I try to.”

“That’s cool,” the teenager said. “My dad was killed by a hunter, but not one like you.”

Again, no rush of guilt, only a deep sympathy for what had happened. “I know. Your mom told me. I’m sorry about that.”

“Mom thinks Jo was doing bad things.”

Wow, how had I gotten into this conversation? It was a veritable field full of land mines. “Your sister was trying to get by like the rest of us. She wasn’t bad.”

The girl shook her blonde hair. The ponytail was like an exclamation point. “That’s not what I mean. I mean Jo wasn’t doing it for the reason you think she was.”

I sat down on the frilly pink comforter and gave her my absolute undivided attention. “I thought she needed the money.”

“It’s true that she lost her scholarship and Mom didn’t know,” Nancy explained. “Jo didn’t want to worry her, especially since she applied to the Council for a loan. With her grades she would have easily qualified. It’s a program the queen set up a few years ago. Anyone under Council protection can apply for a loan to go to school or get training to get a job. You have to pay it back, but not for a while, and Jo said the interest rate was good, whatever that means.”

Every reason I could think of for Jo to be in that club flew straight out the window. “Then why would she work at the vampire club?”

Nancy played with her hair, twisting it around and around her right index finger. “Jo was really good friends with this girl named Britney Miles,” Nancy said and I kept my face perfectly blank. I recognized her as the first victim, but no one else knew she’d been found. “She was a werewolf, but Jo got along with everyone at school. Jo got worried about her when she didn’t make it to their weekly movie date. Everyone thinks she’s bad news and probably ran away with some guy, but Jo didn’t think so.”

The room went cold around me as I knew what Nancy Taylor was going to say next, and everything fell into place. I had underestimated Jo Taylor. I had looked at her and seen a sweet little doe. I’d seen prey. But sometimes even the sweetest of prey can turn hunter when something they care about is in harm’s way.

“Jo went to the club undercover,” Nancy said. “She went there to find out what happened to Britney.”

She’d played the hunter and she’d been killed. I wondered for a moment if the same thing wasn’t going to happen to me.

Chapter Twelve

Marcus followed us back to Gray’s house after we left Helen Taylor’s. There was no more talk of me going back to Hurst, no more pushing me aside. Gray was quiet the whole ride home as though he knew he’d lost the fight.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the Taylors. No matter what happened, I had to push on. Even if it meant going against the Council and the king. No one else wanted justice. No one really wanted the truth. Not even Gray. He wanted me safe more than he wanted the truth, but the need burned inside me.

The guilt I’d felt before had somehow morphed, becoming a need. I needed to find this killer, needed to bring him into the light.

Marcus and Gray headed to his office, but I couldn’t sit there and listen to them go over the case again. I still hadn’t figured out what bugged me about the photos and it gnawed at my gut. I was restless. I headed to the kitchen where Syl had again been busy.

If there’s one thing I loved about Gray’s, it was the open-all-day buffet. I didn’t have to rummage around to find a snack. I didn’t have to settle for day-old bread or hustle to a vending machine. Syl always provided. There was a tray of fruit and cheese on the bar along with wine, water, and juice. I poured myself some juice and downed a ton of crackers and cheese.

I sat in the kitchen for the longest time eating and drinking. It was peaceful after the stresses of the day, but I knew I had the night to come.

After a while I heard Marcus leave, promising to return for me in two hours. I sighed because I didn’t want to leave my happy little nest of quiet and food and minty juice. I got up though. I forced my limbs to move because I had a job to do.

Syl had left me two very nice outfits laid out on the bed. The shopping bags said Niemen Marcus, so I probably didn’t want to look at the tags to figure out how much I owed Gray. I could totally leave the tags on the elegant business suit. I didn’t need it at this point. I was going to have to wear the wine-colored sheath dress with an almost Asian looking neckline. I was surprised at the conservative nature of the dress. The neckline was quite high and the skirt would hit me a little past the knee. All in all, I’d expected a bit more trashy chic from a demon, but then I supposed Syl wouldn’t want me to look like a hooker. I was his master’s intended after all. He seemed to take that seriously.

I turned on the shower and pulled off my clothes. Gray’s shower was one of those walk-in masterpieces of plumbing technology. It didn’t have anything so pedestrian as a shower curtain, like my tiny shower-tub combo. Nope this was a little room in itself. I stepped inside and sighed as the hot water hit my skin. I needed to feel clean again.

Heat suffused my skin, finally seeming to penetrate, but I couldn’t relax. I worried that I might not until I solved this case.

“Hey.”

Gray was standing in the doorway to the shower. He’d gotten rid of his shirt and his jeans hung low on his hips. My eyes caught on the tattoo on his chest. Torso really. It covered his left pec and wound around his body. My demon with the dragon tattoo.

“What made you pick the dragon?” Somehow it fit him. I couldn’t imagine him getting drunk one night and stumbling into a tattoo parlor and picking something random. It wasn’t random at all. That dragon seemed to be a piece of him.

His eyes were on my breasts, heat pouring off him, but he was still as he replied. “I didn’t. I had no choice in the matter. I turned thirteen and when I went to sleep that night, I was taken by my father to the Hell plane. It was the first time I met him, the first time I had to go there. When I went home, I had this tat. Well, I had the beginnings of it.”