The Wolf Within (8 page)

We danced for a while, shaking off the offers from the guys who flocked around both of us. After half an hour or so, I was getting thirsty. I made a drinking motion to Jase and headed to the bar.

“Water. And two of those green things.”

The bartender nodded then looked past me and batted his eyelashes. I turned to find Jase at my shoulder.

“Sweetie, there are several gorgeous young men waiting for you to return.” He reached past me for the glass beside mine.

I shrugged and sipped my drink.

Jase laughed and waggled the little paper skeleton hanging from his drink at me. “That’s just mean. You can’t go out dressed like that and spend all night dancing with me.”

“Am I cramping your style?”

He shook his head. He wasn’t dating anyone at the moment, having had his heart stomped on a few months earlier. “You’re cramping yours. Why don’t you take one of those guys home with you and work out the kinks?”

Tempting. A few hours of sweaty sex and I might sleep like a baby. I’m not a nun, I haven’t been celibate for four years but somehow I knew whoever I took home, the only face I’d see above me tonight would be Dan’s. And that wasn’t going to relax me at all. “I’d rather just dance.” I swiveled on my barstool, surveying the crowd, which had thinned out even more. “It’s a little quiet here tonight. Is there something on somewhere else?”

Jase looked down at his drink and took a swig. It wouldn’t do him any good, alcohol doesn’t affect vampires, but Jase hadn’t been a vamp long enough to shake all his human habits.

“Jase?”

He hitched a shoulder. “Maybe.”

His tone made the booze in my stomach slosh uneasily. “What does maybe mean? Is something going on?”

“No.”

Which either meant ‘no’ or ‘I don’t want to tell you’. The range of possibilities I didn’t want to hear about in the vamp world was huge. But I didn’t think Jase was avoiding telling me about something bloody going down at one of the dark clubs. “I don’t believe you.”

That earned me a sigh. “I thought you wanted to have fun?”

“I do. I also want to know what the hell is going on.”

“Just rumors.”

“Rumors?” My voice went higher than I’d intended and I gulped some more of the green stuff. It had a kick like a zombie and went a little way toward calming the sudden swirl of nerves in my stomach. “What sort of rumors?”

“Vague ones.” Jase looked serious. “Not even rumors really. People are just . . . nervous.”

By people he didn’t mean humans. Nervous vamps. Wonderful. Not exactly a sign of good times ahead. “About what?” I started shredding the little paper skeleton. I kind of already knew what he was going to say.

“Tate. People are starting to say he’s back.”

Fuck
. The FBI had a fucking leak. Or the vamp grapevine was even better than Aunt Bug’s. I glanced around. I couldn’t see any vamps close by and the pounding music would help stop anyone trying to listen in. Still, I dropped my voice to a whisper. “It’s just one account. It might not be even
be
Tate.”

Jase flashed a smile that was more fang than happiness. “Maybe. But like I said. People are nervous.”

Nervous enough to stay out of the clubs. Tate was a non-discriminatory monster. He preyed on supernaturals as well as humans, if they were foolish enough to get in his way. So from their point of view, staying out of the human clubs would be sensible if Tate was about to resurface. And if the vamps were restless maybe it wasn’t a cold case at all.

I scanned the crowd, all urge to party suddenly gone. Obviously the rumors hadn’t gotten as far as the weres yet but it couldn’t take long. They’d notice the lack of vamps in a couple of days and start to wonder why. Then the humans and, inevitably, the press would get wind of it.

Then Dan would have more than just me making his life miserable.

And people other than me would have a psycho vamp haunting their dreams. The entire population of my hometown for a start.

Great.

I scowled at my drink then drained it.

“Wanna keep dancing?” Jase asked.

I could tell his heart wasn’t in it. “How about we go back to your place?” I didn’t feel like going home to my empty house, agents or no agents. And my place wasn’t set up for Jase. No blood. No windowless rooms if he did want to sleep. His place was better. For one thing, it meant any monsters coming after me would have to go through him.

Jase reached over and squeezed my hand. “It’s going to be okay, sweetie.”

I nodded, not believing it for a second. If Tate was really back then there’d be blood and pain before this was over. I just hoped it would be his, not mine or that of anyone I cared about.

Chapter Six

“Late night?” Aunt Bug drawled as she opened her hotel door to me at half past too-goddamn-early the next morning.

I winced. Bug never spoke softly and the noise level made the nails currently spiking my brain spike harder. “Kind of.” Next time I’d find out what was in the drinks. Letting a vamp determine the appropriate alcohol content was not such a good idea. I’d managed a couple of hours sleep at Jase’s before I’d had to go home, change and get into town to meet Bug. Emphasis on the couple. Like two.

Her mouth quirked. “The good kind?”

I shook my head. “Not really.”

“Hmmm.”

She examined my face and I fought the urge to drop my gaze to the floor like a teenager caught crawling in after curfew.

“Well, come in. Room service just brought up some coffee.”

Coffee sounded like heaven. I let my nose lead me into the living room of Bug’s suite and practically inhaled the first cup.

“Better?” Bug asked, pouring a refill.

I nodded as the caffeine started to do its job and the nails retreated a little. “Much.”

“I assume it wasn’t Daniel keeping you up all hours?”

“Not in the way you think. And can we hold off on the Daniel talk until I’m awake?”

She arched one finely drawn eyebrow at me, head tilted to one side. Her gray hair was piled into its usual smooth bun, showing off her still great cheekbones and focusing attention on her nose. The Keenan nose, sharp like a blade. Luckily I’d escaped that little family legacy. Overall, her expression put me in mind of a grandmotherly eagle.

I gulped more coffee, trying not to feel like something small and furry waiting to be pounced on.

“As you wish.” She picked up her own cup. Her movements were, as always, graceful and controlled.

In my current sleep-deprived, hung-over state, I felt like a slob in comparison and straightened on the sofa. “What did you want to do today?”

“I thought CoCA. Then shopping.” Her mouth curved up. “But maybe we should start with a facial?”

Did I look that bad? Oh well. A facial sounded heavenly. Definitely better than contemporary art. The day spa attached to the hotel was wonderful and Aunt Bug couldn’t grill me with a face covered in mud. Plus I might even be able to catch a nap. “Sounds great. I’ll call the concierge.”

Seven hours later I felt much better. After a facial, lunch and a coordinated blitz of the all the best downtown shops, everything was back to normal. I’d coaxed Aunt Bug into getting a makeover at Sephora then giggled as she earned a whistle from a couple of old guys hanging out at the deli near the hotel.

“See, Aunt B. You’ve still got it.”

She rolled her eyes at me but she was blushing. “Don’t be silly, Ashley. Those men should know better.” She stopped in front of a jewelry store and peered in at the display, avoiding looking at me.

I laughed. “They’re old, not dead.”

“And you’re young, not old. Do you want to start talking about
your
love life?”

I saw her eyebrows arch in her reflection in the window and shook my head hastily. “Nothing to talk about. How about you? Is the Reverend chasing you around the pews yet? Or that guy from bridge . . . what’s his name?”

“Stanley. And he’s just a friend.”

“Men never want to be just a friend, Aunty.”

She turned from the store window and pinned me with the eagle eye again. “That’s a very cynical view of life. You and Jason are friends.”

“Jase is gay. And a vampire.”

“You and Dan were friends.”

Yeah for about two weeks before we decided we’d better jump each other before we spontaneously combusted. “And look how well that ended.”

“He loved you.”

“He’s a werewolf. And I really don’t want to talk about him.”

“So you keep telling me.” The tone said she wasn’t really ready to drop one of her favorite subjects but that she’d let me off for now. She looked at her watch. “It’s time to go back to the hotel and get changed for dinner, anyway.”

Three martinis, one rib-eye and a decadent chocolate mousse later, Bug finally returned to the topic of Dan.

“Are you going to tell me about this case you’re working on?”

“I can’t really.”

“It must be serious for the FBI to be involved. You did say Daniel worked for the FBI now, didn’t you?”

I hadn’t but what did that matter? Bug’s grapevine had provided her with the information anyway. “Yes, he does. And yes, it’s serious. But there’s nothing for you to worry about.” I twisted in my seat, signaling for another round of drinks so she wouldn’t see my face as I lied.

She’d never give up pushing and prodding at me if she got the faintest hint there was something to worry about. And she wouldn’t stop worrying for a second if she had any inkling Tate might be back on the scene.

She’d given me my freedom as a kid. In fact, she’d practically forced me out the door and back into some semblance of a normal life. Still, it had definitely cost her at times. She stayed up ‘til I got home and she very rarely slept before I was safely tucked up in bed, the doors were all locked, and the alarms switched on.

She worried about me. Worried I wouldn’t ever get over losing my family and have a normal life. Worried more about what might happen to me if I did. She’d been overjoyed when I’d fallen so hard for Daniel straight out of college.

Maybe that’s why she hadn’t quite let go of him yet; she was looking for someone who’d protect me as fiercely as she had. Who loved me as much as she did. Someone to keep me safe when she couldn’t any longer.

The waiter brought two more martinis, dirty, the way Bug liked them. I’d rather have a margarita any day but the martinis were our thing. Bug sipped hers slowly and just watched me.

“Daniel’s fine,” I said at last, more to get it over and done with than anything else. We had this conversation at least once every time we hung out. At least this time, I had some information other than “I have no idea”. It might mollify Bug into letting me off the hook. “He’s doing well at the FBI.”

“Is he seeing anyone?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”

“Why not? If you’re over him, you wouldn’t care if he was dating.”

Ouch. That hit a little too close to home. I stabbed at the olives in the bottom of my glass with a toothpick. “I don’t care. I just don’t want to know. I’m helping him with a case. That’s it. So don’t go picking out wedding colors or anything crazy in your head.”

She pursed her lips, shook her head a little. “I’m not.” She wasn’t? Why not? Just because I wasn’t dating Dan any more didn’t mean I’d never marry. I’d dated a couple of other guys since—granted, not for a long time, but I’d tried. I just hadn’t hit the jackpot yet. “I’m only twenty-seven. There’s plenty of time.”

“Time goes faster than you think,” she said owlishly then drained her martini.

I sighed. She was right, I knew that. Just like I knew she only pushed me because she loved me. I knew just how fast things could be taken away. But time, slow or fast, wasn’t going to fix Dan and I. The only thing it might do was let us both let go of the pain.

***

I was getting closer. I could feel it. There’s an element of luck to what I do. Or instinct, maybe. Sometimes there’s nothing else to explain the feeling telling you to follow one trail and not another. To chase down one name in a list of company directors or try a certain account number when there are hundreds to choose from.

It doesn’t happen often but when it does, I’ve learned to listen.

And today, after a lazy Saturday with Bug and a Sunday spent mostly running into brick walls at work, certainty that I was making progress had filled me. No Monday-itis for this little accountant. I hummed as I typed in the last six digits of a complicated account number and hit enter. But instead of the log-in screen I expected, my screen went black.

‘I’m watching you’. The letters that flashed up next were huge and blood red. Then they changed to the photo of me at my parent’s funeral. Startled, I squeaked and pushed my chair back. Jase was in the room before I could blink.

“What?”

“The screen.” I sucked in a breath, trying to convince myself I was being stupid, and then laughed. But even to my ears it came out high and strange.

Jase looked at me, concern drawing his eyebrows together. Then he stepped between me and the desk, bending down to look at the monitor. “It looks normal.”

I peered around him. He was right. Just my normal island wallpaper and my browser page. “O-kay.”

Jase turned back to me, leaning against the desk with his arms crossed. “Ashley, what did it do?”

“It said. . . .” I tried another laugh—surely this was someone’s idea of a sick joke—but it came out more like a yelp. “It said ‘I’m watching you’.”

“I’m calling Agent Gibson.”

“No.” I grabbed for Jase’s arm but he avoided me easily, twisting with unnatural speed to move around me. I turned to face him. “Don’t do that. And don’t panic. I’ve come across this sort of thing before.”

I had. People hiding their tracks often set up booby traps to scare off anyone who tries to find them. This was just one of those.

Yeah, right
, said my subconscious.
If it’s a generic booby trap, then why was there a photo of you?
Something
not
to think about. I tried to shake off the vaguely queasy feeling in my stomach.

Jase took advantage of my distraction to get between me and the computer again, breezing past me in a waft of expensive aftershave. He started tapping at my keyboard.