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.
Chapter Twenty
“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.”
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.
“Holy fuck,” I said, showing the photo to Wyatt. “This is Istral. It’s Isleen’s sister.”
“The one Kelsa killed?”
“Yes.” The night old-me was captured by the goblins, I’d gone to see Max, a gargoyle informant, and was blindsided. Max had been arguing with Istral about rising hostilities among the various races. Perhaps to prove she was serious, Kelsa—the goblin Queen who tortured me to death—shot Istral with an anticoagulant round that killed her within seconds. That was a month ago.
So much for Reilly investigating the apartment fire, which had happened over a week later. Four more photos of different Bloods I didn’t recognize followed, the last pictures in the stack. No names, no dates. The backgrounds had no discernible buildings.
“He knew a hell of a lot more than he was letting on,” I said.
I rummaged around in the kitchen until I found a couple of zip ties to secure Reilly. Wyatt’s cell rang. He flipped it open with a terse “Yeah?” A pause. “We have a problem upstairs that needs to be babysat.” He explained briefly, then listened, and I shifted impatiently. “Okay.”
“Kismet?” I asked when he hung up.
“Yeah. She and Milo are on their way up.”
“Nice of her to call first.”
A smile ghosted his face, pinched off by worry. We maneuvered the unconscious Reilly into a dining chair, zipped him, tied him with a length of nylon rope from under the kitchen sink, and gagged him with a stretched T- shirt. Not bad for two minutes’ work. Then we collected the few weapons we’d had on us when we entered.
Wyatt’s phone rang a second time right as the front door opened. He checked the display, then handed it to me and went to shush the new arrivals.
“Stone,” I said.
“It’s Jenner. The money is ready to be transferred. I’ll text the account number to this phone.”
“Thank you, Mr. Jenner.”
“The Assembly will not forget this debt, Ms. Stone.” For a second, I thought he meant the money. Then he said, “You honor your species with your sacrifice, and that will be long remembered.” The vehemence in his words made me want to cry.
“Are your people—?”
“Searching, yes, but the city is vast and he is not likely to be kept in plain sight.”
“Well, with any luck, he’ll be home in a couple of hours.”
“Yes. Good-bye, Evangeline Stone.”
“Yeah.” I closed the phone, and a few seconds later, the account number was saved in the phone’s memory. One hour until we’d need to use it.
Kismet was already poring over Reilly’s photos and notebook. She didn’t try to hide her anger at the surveillance pictures, or the fact that she hadn’t noticed a tail. “Too bad the asshole didn’t follow me up to the cabin. We’d have been saved the problem of dealing with him ourselves.”
I snorted. “He said he was new to the city.”
“He could have been lying.”
“Does it even matter?” Milo asked. “He knows a lot more than is healthy for him, which makes him not our problem. He’s Nevada’s problem now.”
“Nevada?”
“Yeah,” Kismet said without looking up from the notebook. “He’ll be here with his team in twenty minutes to pick up the prisoner and take him to a holding facility for questioning.”
Terrific. Nice to be told pertinent details like that. Only she probably assumed I wasn’t in the need-to-know circle anymore, and she was right. “How’s Felix?” I asked suddenly. How selfish was I that it took me so long?
