Kelly Meding - Another Kind of Dead

“Arrogance is your emotional tap, right? Just doing my duty as your partner.”

Partner. It was an odd word to use for a man who’d been my boss for the four years I’d known him—save the last month or so of our lives as we’d first become allied fugitives, and then so much more. All in such a short amount of time. Triumph and defeat. Love and loss. Joy and fear. We’d defied death, defeated a demon-possessed elf, protected the future of a were-Clan, saved the lives of countless innocents, and summoned half a truck into a log cabin—not too bad, really.

Wyatt folded me against his chest, and I could have stayed like that forever. Or until restlessness drove me back out into the world, ready to hunt and fight. Knowing I’d be able to return to his arms at the end of the day and be loved and protected all over again.

But I wasn’t able to.

Lips brushed my forehead. “Think we should change the bedding?”

“Be my guest.”

He chuckled. “We should probably get up, though.”

I lifted my head and peered over him. Groaned. The blue neon numbers on the bedside clock announced ten minutes until company arrived. “You’re right.”

“Go clean up. I’ll find some clothes and tidy up in here.”

I gifted him with a soft kiss, which he returned with enthusiasm, then reluctantly climbed out of bed, chilly from the loss of physical contact. I gathered my scattered clothes and went across the hall.

In the bathroom, I washed as best I could, then scrubbed my face and brushed my hair. No time for a proper shower. Everything ached deliciously and for all the right reasons this time. My cheeks were flushed and my eyes bright, and for the first time since waking from that damned coma, I looked somewhat healthy.

I returned to the living area. Wyatt was dressed in someone’s dark blue jeans and a hunter-green polo, not his usual color combo. “What, no black?” I teased.

“Not that looked clean.” He closed the distance between us and settled his hands on my hips. He didn’t have to ask the question lurking in his mind.

“I’m fine. Better than fine, actually. Kind of amazing.” I drew him into a gentle kiss, just enough to put the taste of him back on my lips.

The doorbell rang. I jumped, both of us startled by the unfamiliar chime.

“Gina wouldn’t ring,” Wyatt said.

A second chime, followed by a fist rapping on the door. “Mr. Truman?” a muffled male voice said, oddly familiar.

“Who the hell knows you’re here?” I whispered.

He crossed to the door on silent feet and peered through the peephole. His shoulders tensed. Not good.

“Mr. Truman, I need to speak with you.”

Wyatt turned his head toward me and mouthed two words I didn’t understand at first: “James Reilly.” I stared. Mouthed back: “Who?” Then the penny dropped. The private investigator who’d cornered him at Alex’s memorial last week. Fucking hell. Wyatt waved at me. I bolted into the bathroom (apparently my new favorite hiding place) and closed the door nearly all the way.

The front door creaked open. “What can I do for you, Mr. Reilly?” Wyatt’s voice was icy.

“I was hoping for a few moments of your time,” Reilly said. That same conversational tone, designed to set his interviewee at ease.

“I really don’t have a few minutes today. I’m about to head out on business.”

“Of course, and I apologize for—”

“How did you know I was here?”

The silence was deafening. I craned to see. They hadn’t moved from the front door. Still out of my line of sight.

“I’m an investigator, Mr. Truman. It’s my job to find people.”

“Have you been following me?” We both knew that wasn’t possible.

“No, I’ve been following a red-haired young woman who’s come to this apartment several times over the last week.”

Bastard was following Kismet? Why? Reilly said he was looking into the fire at Rufus’s old apartment building, and Kismet wasn’t involved in—Shit. If she’d gone to visit Rufus recently—

“So you were watching the apartment,” Wyatt said, “and you saw me come inside.”

“Yes, with a rather pretty brunette, as a matter of fact.”

I didn’t have to see Wyatt to know he’d tensed up, even if he’d somehow managed to keep his expression neutral. This Reilly was a major pain in the ass.

“Mr. Truman, may I come inside?”

“No. Like I said, I’m leaving very soon.”

“Of course.”

“I still have your business card, so why don’t I call you—”

“May I speak with Chalice Frost please?” Reilly’s tone had changed completely. Gone was the genial fellow asking harmless questions, replaced with cold determination. “Because unless she has an unrecorded twin roaming the city, she was the brunette I saw come inside with you. So where is she?”

Crap.

“I really think you should leave,” Wyatt said.

“Why?” Reilly asked. “Because you have a dead woman hiding in this apartment? Or because the redhead I’ve been following has fingerprints that match those of a young woman named Virginia O’Malley who died seven years ago?”

Seven years ago—the time Kismet joined the Triads. It shouldn’t have surprised me that she’d changed her name, but it did. This guy was learning too much. There were always detectives or self-important P.I.’s who poked into Triad business, hoping to make a name for themselves or discover some huge cover-up. We had always dealt with them the same way—by making an offer they couldn’t refuse. Reilly was teetering very close to the tipping point.

“Fine,” Wyatt said. “Come in.”

Uh-oh .

The door clicked shut. Shoes shuffled across carpet.

“Might as well come out and show him.”

Trusting Wyatt to have a plan, I emerged from the bathroom and presented myself. Reilly stared wide-eyed, lips parted, as though he hadn’t quite believed his own bluff. He took a step toward me. Wyatt slipped behind him and got the older man in a choke hold. Reilly wheezed, fingers clawing at Wyatt’s forearm, face turning red. He was unconscious in moments, and Wyatt let his body slump to the floor.

“Now what?” I asked.

“He becomes someone else’s problem.” He crouched and searched Reilly’s pockets, producing a small notepad, which he flipped open. It looked nearly full of cramped, precise printing. Wyatt’s eyebrows shot into his hairline.

“Do I want to know?” He continued flipping pages as though he hadn’t heard me. “Hello?”

“Audaìn.”

My stomach knotted. “What?”

“It’s the name of—”

“Of a Blood Family. I know.” Or more precisely, of Isleen’s family. Isleen was as close to a friend among the vampires as I’d ever admit to having. She’d saved my life once by fishing me out of a sunbaked trash bin after I’d been stabbed and tossed into it. We were tentative allies. “Why does he have that name in his notebook?”

“Don’t know, but something tells me he’s not as disinterested in the paranormal side of this city as he seems.” Wyatt put the notebook aside and emptied Reilly’s pockets—wallet, handgun, car keys, an envelope of photographs.

I flipped through the pictures. They were impersonal shots, probably from surveillance. Photos of Kismet and her Hunters outside this building, Phineas outside his apartment building, various people I didn’t know at all, Wyatt at the cemetery with Leo Forrester, Wyatt exiting our old building. Near the end was one that startled me into nearly dropping the entire stack—long white hair, willowy build so slim as to appear sexless, eyes hidden behind sunglasses, pale skin shimmering in what was obviously daylight.