Linus touched my cheek. “We’ll find out who’s responsible.”
“There will always be another incident and another perpetrator.”
For that, he had no answer. There was none. We were targets, and we always would be.
“I’m going to check in with Neely and Cruz,” I told him. “See if they found anything.”
He let me go, and for once, Lethe didn’t follow. I was grateful on both counts for a moment alone.
“Pfft. Pfft. Pfft.”
Bobbing his head and kicking his feet as he walked his perch, the yellow parakeet with his bright red eyes made fart noises to his heart’s content when I joined him in the office.
“Hey, buddy.” I gave him a quick head scratch. “You’ve been watching The Lion King again, huh?”
“Pfft. Pfft. Pfft.”
“Keep up the good work.” I sat behind the desk and called Neely. “Well?”
“She’s not in any local hospitals, or God forbid, the morgues.”
Heady relief swept through me that I wouldn’t have to make those calls after all. “That is good news.”
“Cruz is digging into her financials to see if there’s anything out of the ordinary there.”
Based on the doll, I had a bad feeling we weren’t going to write this one off as work-related or simple blackmail. Good thing Cruz had married a stellar accountant. Between Cruz’s legal know-how and Neely’s head with numbers, they would find any inconsistencies if there were any to find.
“Keep me posted.”
“Will do.”
I ended the call and dialed Boaz.
No answer.
Expecting more of the same, I called Corbin.
“Hey.”
After it registered that he had actually answered, I snapped, “Don’t you hey me.”
“What did I do? You said the party for family was next week—”
“You’re in Savannah.”
“Um.”
“You were at the Grande Dame’s house with Boaz.”
“Well…”
“Either tell me what you know, or I will hunt you down and Nerf you in the face until you confess.”
“I can’t get into it over the phone.”
“Despite the evidence to the contrary, you know where I live.”
With no small amount of satisfaction, I hung up on him.
“Pregnancy looks good on you,” Lethe said from the doorway. “It’s made you so vicious.”
“I have two modes lately.” I flung my cell onto the desktop. “Hungry and angry.”
“More like hangry or weepy, but I’m not here to pick a fight with you.” She held up her hands. “I come in peace.”
“I hate having no control over my emotions.” I kicked the desk for emphasis. “I’m ready to go back to normal.”
“You’ll miss pregnancy when it’s over.” She sat on the edge of the desk. “Believe me.”
A rattle and clank came from the kitchen, drawing my stomach’s attention, and I glanced toward the door as Linus entered with a plate holding a piece of cake as big as my spread hand and a glass of pinkish milk that contained the extra Vitamin L required to keep baby and me at maximum healthiness.
“What did Neely have to say?” He set out my treat and passed me a fork. “Anything interesting?”
“No leads.” I shoveled in a mouthful. “Cruz is searching for clues in your mom’s finances.”
The loosening of his shoulders told me he had read between the lines. Given the calls they had been tasked with making, no news was good news on that front.
Recovering his composure, he refocused on the problem. “Any luck contacting Boaz or Corbin?”
“Boaz didn’t answer, but Corbin did.” I swallowed before choking. “He’s supposed to be on his way over to explain things.”
“Hmm.”
Fork hovering over its next victim, I asked, “What does that mean?”
“I’m not sure yet.” He appeared thoughtful. “Lethe, would the gwyllgi who patrol the property know Corbin’s scent well enough to dismiss him as a threat if they encountered it?”
“The enforcers assigned to Woolworth House have been familiarized with the scents of everyone permitted on the property.” She swung her legs. “Corbin is family, so they wouldn’t have thought twice about smelling him.”
Expression tight, he asked, “Can you check with them?”
“Sure.” She hopped to her feet. “Give me a few minutes, and I’ll track them down.”
Once she left and Linus and I were alone, I waited for him to enlighten me.
“Corbin wouldn’t come to Savannah and not stop by Woolworth House.”
“It’s possible he got in yesterday and hasn’t had time,” I allowed. “It’s unlikely, but possible.”
This was his home. It was always his first stop. He knew how much Oscar worried, and I did too.
Lethe popped her head back into the room. “He’s on the porch. Do you still want me to check?”
That was a quick trip. Ridiculously fast. He had to have already been here, or close, when I called him.
“Yes,” Linus decided. “I want to know if he’s been here without telling us.”
He knew the gwyllgi and their patrol routes and methods. He could sneak onto and off Woolworth land without much effort. He had plenty of practice from using the Nerf gun range with Oscar, Hood, and anyone else up for a game. The question is why he would bother. He had as much right to be here as anyone.
A tiny voice whispered that his stealth would explain how the box got in unnoticed, but I strangled it before the thought grew in volume.
The combination of Linus’s tone and my expression resulted in Lethe deciding to hang around a bit longer.
Woolly flickered her lights, giving us a heads-up, and I listened for the door to open and then close.
“Hey,” he greeted her. “How’s it going?”
The house moaned around us, answering him in her way.
“Glad to hear it.” He chuckled softly. “Where’s Oscar?”
The lights cut out, casting him into darkness to illustrate Oscar was still in a snit from missing the party.
“Okay.” A heavy thread of concern wove through his voice. “Where is everyone else?”
The door to the office swung on its hinges, and the knob rattled to attract his attention.
Seconds later, he strolled in, pulling up short when he noticed the crowd. “Hi, guys.”
A shiver traipsed up my spine, a reminder he was a vampire, as if I would forget, but we mostly ignored the sensation around him. After a few hours of exposure, the warning tingle stayed gone for days at a time before cropping up again.
“I missed my nap,” I warned him. “Things are going to get ugly fast if you don’t explain yourself.”
A nice, vague threat had loosened many a tongue. Maybe it would throw him off balance too.
After shaking hands with Linus and nodding to Lethe, he sat on the edge of the desk in the spot she had vacated, but I snubbed him.
“I received orders through official channels to report to the Grande Dame a week ago.” He stole the fork out of my hand. “I’ve been in town ever since.”
Leaning forward, I glared at him. “Doing what?”
“Promise not to get mad?” He stabbed a piece and shoved it into his mouth. “Whoa, this is good.”
“We used Mallow,” Lethe told him. “Same folks who made that tropical wedding cake you loved.”
Leslie Dunn, the head baker at Mallow, had customers for life in Lethe and me. And, it seemed, Corbin.
“Get your grubby mitts off my cake.” I stole my utensil back. “And, in case you can’t tell, I’m already angry.”
“Hormones,” Lethe mouthed to him. “She’s our little ray of sunshine lately.”
Linus circled the desk to stand behind me and rested his cool hands on my shoulders.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhallle.
Exhallle.
“I didn’t expect to see you until next week,” I said, forcing calm into my voice, “so you can imagine my surprise when Lethe noticed you had paid a visit to the Grande Dame first.”
Wiping the corners of his mouth, he bought a moment to consider what he said next. I could appreciate the move, but I also wanted to stab him in the thigh with my fork if it got things moving along.
“The Grande Dame asked me to keep an eye on you,” he said slowly, deliberately. “She had reason to believe you were in danger.”
“How is that different than any other day of the week?”
“She received a credible threat.” Lips thinned, he hesitated over his words. “We took every precaution.”
“Where does Boaz come in?”
“For what it’s worth, I told her to bring you both into the loop.” He frowned. “She refused.”
“I’m not surprised.” I exhaled. “We’re all here now. Tell us everything.”
And tell us everything, he did.
Six
Linus dug his thumbs into the knots of spasming muscles in Grier’s lower back the way Hood had taught him. It caused the tension to leak from her shoulders as she leaned against him, but his own unease continued to climb.
Corbin wasn’t lying, exactly, but he wasn’t telling them the whole truth. Linus trusted him, but not his prevarications.
There was a simple answer to the conundrum, but Linus had to observe him longer to be certain.
“Boaz was in Savannah when I got here, but I didn’t know that,” Corbin said offhandedly. “Until I bumped into him yesterday, I didn’t realize the Grande Dame had us both on retainer. He was patrolling as I was headed in for my nightly report, and he stopped me to chat.”
Grier asked the question gnawing on Linus. “Why was he there?”
The thought his mother had trusted her wellbeing to Boaz and not her own son made the void howl through his head as old insecurities threatened to rear their ugly heads.