Clem huffed behind him. “As much as I hate to agree, he’s right.”
“Grier’s methods are more effective.” Linus smiled, just a tiny bit. “You can always try your hand with him after.”
He passed judgment without a flicker of doubt, and I envied him that. Things hadn’t been so black-and-white to me since finding myself on the other end of a life sentence.
“I can’t think of anything else to ask,” I admitted. “He doesn’t know who hired him, what they wanted with me, or how they knew where to find me. Taking him was a waste of our time.”
Bishop wet his lips. “Not a total waste.”
Thinking my curiosity was about to be sated, I waited for him to elaborate, but he was busy staring down the prisoner like the man was prey who would bolt if given the opportunity.
“Don’t kill him.” Linus drew me toward the stairs. “Yet.”
Linus and I left the vampire sitting in his cell, sedated by the sigil that had yet to wear off.
Color me surprised when both Clem and Bishop followed us back into the control room.
“We need to discuss our findings with the others,” Linus explained at my confusion.
Or the lack thereof. We hadn’t learned anything from him. All we had done was condemn him to a slower death than his fellows. Unless…
Waiting until we were all upstairs, I rapped on the door we had just shut. “Is this soundproof?”
Linus brushed his fingertips over the knob, checking that it was secure. “Yes.”
“What if we plant a tracker on him, let Bishop rough him up a bit, then let him go and see what happens?”
“It’s not the worst plan I’ve ever heard.” Bishop cracked his knuckles. “His comrades will sweep him for bugs before they let him anywhere near their headquarters, but that doesn’t mean I can’t try my luck.” He cut Linus a look. “Escaping from the potentate’s clutches is rare enough to raise eyebrows.” He shrugged. “At least with your head still attached.”
“I was thinking a sigil.” I rubbed reddish-brown flakes off my palm. “I could draw them on in a few places no one would think to look.”
Linus, who wasn’t the jealous kind, turned eyes gone black on me. “Where did you have in mind?”
Biting the inside of my cheek, I kept from smiling. “Maybe it’s best you don’t know.”
I could tell he wanted to press the issue almost as much as he wanted to support my plan.
With a sharp inhale, he drained the darkness from his vision. “I’m sure you’re right.”
The skin on my palm had healed, but I could always pick the scab. “When should we get started?”
“Bishop.” Linus took the out he had been given. “Escort Grier to the cell?”
Once I got down to it, the process was about as much fun as I expected, but at least it didn’t take long.
Thankfully, with the vampire still zoned out, all the cleanup required afterward was a good handwashing.
“Between your sigils and my trackers,” Bishop said, walking up the stairs behind me, “we make a good recon team.”
“Any hope for a shower while we wait?” The clothes I had on were stained with blood and unpleasantness. “This isn’t the first impression I wanted to make on the alpha.”
We were closing in on six a.m. Two hours until our meeting. Two hours until Tisdale decided our fate.
“Bishop,” Linus said as he woke the monitors, “show Grier to the bathroom, please.”
While Linus presided over an on-screen meeting with the rest of the team, Bishop guided me to a large room stacked with enough bunk beds to sleep a dozen people. There was one en suite bathroom, but it was full-size, and it had two enclosed toilet stalls.
Clem shouldered in behind us, taking in the facilities with a sharp eye.
“Why bother with amenities when you’re never all in one place at one time?”
“We break up domestic disputes and all sorts of ugly on the streets. Victims need safe places to stay, even when the shelters are full. We can partition the command center off, containing our guests in the residence area. That gives them access to the bunkroom, the bathroom, the kitchen, and the dining room. There’s a lockbox we can activate as well for remote entry. That way, we don’t see them, and they don’t see us.”
“Clever.” It was just the sort of thing Linus would dream up, well, think up since he didn’t sleep often.
“Linus built his own world within his city, back when he had nothing else.” Bishop kept his voice pitched low. “Now he has you, and you’re bigger than the world he imagined for himself.”
“I don’t know how we’re going to manage,” I admitted. “I can’t abandon Savannah. It’s my home, my whole life is there, but I would never ask him to leave all this.”
Without understanding how potentates were elected, or selected, I wasn’t sure he could set aside his mantle, even if he wanted to.
“You’ll figure it out.” He cocked his head, hearing something I had missed. “They’re asking for me.”
“I’ll get cleaned up and be right out.”
After Bishop left, Clem followed me into the bathroom, and we stood there for an awkward moment, jostling for space, before I caved. “Um, I don’t think there’s room for two?”
“You wouldn’t be saying that if I had red hair and freckles.”
I hid my blush by digging through the bags of supplies Neely had arranged for our doomed trip to see my grandmother and selected clothing fit for groveling. The tone ought to be fitting for the alpha, considering both women were leaders.
“Give me a minute.” He shuffled me out the door and shut it behind him.
“All you had to do was ask if you needed to go.” Worried he might decide to demonstrate his newfound aim, I elected to check and recheck my outfit choice. The toilet didn’t flush, and no water came on, but Clem opened the door looking mighty pleased with himself. “What did I miss?”
“A camera and two tiny speakers.” He opened his hand to reveal the small devices and the fine tangle of cords that had powered them. “I figured they would want to keep tabs on the occupants in a place like this.”
“Thanks.” A shiver blasted down my spine. “Bishop did say people let themselves in. I can see why they would want to protect their investment, even at the cost of their guests’ privacy.”
“People do all kinds of things in restrooms because they believe it’s the one place no one is watching.”
“Bishop won’t be happy you broke his toys.”
“What about Linus?” He closed his hand over the knot of electronics. “What will he be?”
“Not happy he didn’t remember to warn me.” I traded places with him. “Since this is Bishop’s domain, Linus might not have known.”
“It’s possible,” he allowed. “There are no trapdoors for you to fall through or secret passages that could swallow you whole. Even you should be able to manage getting clean without being kidnapped and/or murdered.”
When he turned, I stuck my tongue out at his back. Too bad he caught my reflection in the mirror.
Fiddlesticks.
By the time I finished scrubbing myself clean, wrapped up in a surprisingly plush towel, and got my hair dried, a heated argument had broken out in the bunkroom. Tired of the bickering, I shoved open the door. “What’s going on in here?”
“Bishop and Clem have a difference of opinion,” Linus informed me, a cord dangling from his hand.
The towel earned a raised eyebrow and a more thorough examination that set off butterflies in my tummy.
“Your friend here could have asked me about the cameras, and I would have told him I already shut them down as a courtesy to you.” Bishop made certain to look anywhere but at me. “He didn’t have to rip the equipment out of the walls.”
“I didn’t rip anything.” Clem swung the camera in a lazy circle by a single black wire. “I clipped each one, nice and tidy. You can reinstall them in ten minutes a pop if you’d stop crying and do the job.”
The growl that revved up Bishop’s throat was animalistic, and it sparked interest in Clem’s eyes.
“You’re not brawling in here,” I warned before he threw the first kick. “Apologize to Bishop, Clem. Better yet, help him with the reinstallation. Maybe you can offer tips on better hiding places.”
Linus shut his eyes, and it took me a second to grasp what I had said wrong.
“I didn’t mean to imply you didn’t place them well.” I winced under Bishop’s withering stare. “I just meant…”
“Go on.” Clem waited. “Tell him what you really meant.”
“You’re not helping,” I snarled between clenched teeth.
“I’m here to protect your ass, not kiss it.”
“Out.” I pointed at the door. “I need to get dressed, and you two need to cool off.”
Not bothering to wait until they cleared the doorway, Clem and Bishop resumed their argument while Linus continued his referee duties.
Ten minutes later, I emerged in a navy pantsuit that matched the color of Linus’s eyes. The cream blouse was thin to compensate for the trim jacket. I expected to sweat buckets, but Neely had proven his taste reigned supreme when I didn’t so much as dew.
The matching jewelry I told myself was paste. They had to be. Otherwise the sapphire and diamond combo were going to cause tears to well and ruin the eye makeup I had applied with a light hand since I couldn’t remember what went where and how much to use.
Linus, who had been watching the dominant gwyllgi on screen over Bishop’s shoulder, glanced up when I walked into the control room, and the look in his eyes as he swept them down my body made me hot in ways I couldn’t blame on the fabric.
“You clean up nice, Woolworth.” Clem wolf-whistled at me. “What do you bet that fashion designer friend of yours packed a matching tie for Linus?”