Diana Rowland - Blood of the Demon

“Tough bitch,” Ryan commented.

“No shit! So Rachel had Davis drive her over to Brian’s house.” I paused, trying to fit it all together.

His frown returned. “She convinced Davis to kill Brian?”

I shook my head. “I still think Rachel did it. I don’t think Davis would have supported his buddy to that extent—especially after he’d found out about Harris and Elena. And it would have been easy for dear stepmom Rachel to get close enough to Brian to shoot him and make it look like a suicide.” More pieces started to fall into place. “In fact, I don’t think Davis had any idea that Rachel killed Brian until the next day, when it hit the news.”

Ryan’s mouth twisted. “At which time he proceeded to freak the fuck out.”

“Exactly. He confronted Rachel about it and ended up dead. But before that, I think Davis called Elena and told her what happened. It’s the only thing that would explain Elena’s panic. And I’ll bet you anything that if we check Davis’s phone records, we can confirm it.”

Ryan shook his head as he pulled onto the highway. “So why didn’t Elena spill what she knew to the police? It would have saved her from being a suspect in her husband’s murder.”

I thought for a few seconds. “Elena was never a strong suspect, and she knew it. At first she was afraid that Rachel might have known that Davis had spilled the beans to her, but after I paid Elena a visit, I bet she realized that it would take only one phone call from her to finish Rachel off …”

“More blackmail,” Ryan stated.

I gave a nod. “Yeah, that’s what I think too. But I bet it wasn’t for money.”

Ryan flicked a questioning glance my way. I gave him a thin smile in return. “Elena Sharp loved being a society wife,” I explained. “With Rachel’s cooperation and assistance, Elena could return to Beaulac and play the tragic widow—”

“—and remarry as soon as she found a new sugar daddy.”

Streets whizzed by as Ryan drove, a frown wrinkling his forehead. “So what is Rachel going to do now? We don’t have any evidence to prove she killed Brian, so it’s going to be assumed that Davis did it.”

“Yeah, but you’re forgetting one important detail.”

He cocked an eyebrow at me.

“I’m a tenacious, stubborn bitch,” I said. “We can prove that Harris killed Carol. Easy. DNA. I’ll get the phone records to prove that Harris called Davis. And I’ll find a way to prove that Rachel was in the car with Davis if I have to track down every piece of surveillance video in this city. And I’ll grovel and apologize to Detective Fourcade in Mandeville and work with him to pin Elena’s death on Rachel as well—surveillance, trace evidence in the condo, whatever it takes.”

Ryan’s expression turned grim. “She’s going to know that we’re figuring it out and that she can’t walk away from all of this. It’s blowing up in her face.”

“Shit. It all makes sense now. Rachel did pro bono work at the neuro center and nursing homes, not out of the kindness of her heart but—”

“—to be near people whose essences she could slurp up,” Ryan finished for me.

“And when she killed Brian, she couldn’t pass up that juicy essence—”

“—and then she ran into one of those psycho pixies and got a lot stronger.”

“Yes,” I replied, “and stop finishing my sentences. It’s starting to—”

“—get annoying?” His eyes flashed with humor.

“Smart-ass. She must have wondered why Tessa didn’t have any essence, so she came to the house and she ran into a psycho pixie.” I sobered quickly. If I hadn’t taken all the wards down, she’d never have been able to get in. “And this means that she doesn’t need any weapons to kill.” A horrible thought struck me. “Oh, fuck. The ambulance—”

Ryan was dialing his cell phone before I could even finish the sentence. I listened, nerves on edge while he told the dispatcher that he needed a bolo—a be-on-the-look-out alert—on the subject that the ambulance had transported from Judge Roth’s house, explaining that Rachel Roth was a murder suspect and considered to be extremely dangerous. I watched his face as he listened, seeing his eyes narrow.

Finally he hung up. “They can’t raise the ambulance.”

They’re dead . A spasm of guilt twisted through me. I’d been too focused on Harris; I’d avoided seeing anything that could have allowed me to stop Rachel sooner.

“It’s not your fault,” Ryan cut into my thoughts.

“That’s up for debate,” I countered, worrying my lower lip. I could see the hospital a couple of blocks ahead. “Wait! Stop!” I pointed to a parking lot across from the hospital, where I could see an ambulance parked crookedly.

Ryan whipped the car over, somehow managing not to get clipped by the sedan behind him. He bounced over the curb and screeched to a stop beside the ambulance.

“You check the back!” I ordered. I jumped out of the car and ran around to the front of the ambulance, gut tightening as I saw the driver slumped in her seat belt. “Shit,” I breathed, looking with sick dread at the dark-haired young woman and her open, staring brown eyes. I didn’t need to check for a pulse. I could feel what had happened.

I stepped back as Ryan closed the back of the ambulance, face grim. It was too easy for her. One was in the back with her, and then she reached through to the cab for the other one . I was distantly aware that Ryan was on his cell phone again, calling it in to the dispatcher, but my attention was suddenly focused elsewhere as I realized where we were.

We were in front of the neuro center.

I started toward the door, but Ryan grabbed my arm to stop me. “Wait,” he said. I looked back at him, a little surprised by the force in his grip. It wasn’t painful, but it was solid, and it was pretty damn obvious that he wasn’t going to let me go until he could say whatever he needed to say.

“Don’t put me through thinking you’re dead again,” he said, voice low and just as strong as the grip on my arm.

I almost came back with something flippant—a smartass remark to lighten the mood—but the look in his eyes stilled that line of thought. I suddenly realized how terrible the aftermath of my death must have been for him. He’d seen me eviscerated, my chest and stomach sliced open by the claws of a demon. He’d watched me bleed out onto the white tile floor, and there’d been no reason to believe that he would ever see me alive again. And for nearly two weeks he had lived with the knowledge that I was dead.

I could see the naked emotion in his face. For this one instant he’d dropped his careful guard, letting me see that he couldn’t lose me again, that he wouldn’t be able to survive it a second time.

But as a friend losing a friend or as something more? I wished I could tell.

“I won’t,” I replied quietly. “I promise.”

The tension in his eyes eased, even though we both knew that there was no way to ensure that such a promise would be kept. But I knew that it was more than that. He wanted me to promise that I wouldn’t make the self-sacrifice that I’d been willing to make before.

I put my hand over his and squeezed briefly. “This bitch is going down. That I can promise.”

He smiled, but I could see the flicker of unease in it. He knew I hadn’t given him the promise he wanted, but at the same time he knew that it wasn’t a promise I could give. Rachel wasn’t as big a baddie as a demonic lord under the control of the Symbol Man, but I still had to stop her.

But he didn’t say anything, just released my arm. There was an insane part of me that wanted to grab him and hold him and tell him what he wanted to hear, but there was no time and I had no idea what could be said.