Nightkeepers

Her good eye, which had been soft and hopeful when he’d opened the door, slowly darkened with disappointment. Her lips turned down, farther on one side than the other because of the scars. She glanced back toward the parking area, like she might head back to her car and take off, but then she squared her shoulders beneath her brightly printed floral shirt and stared him down. ‘‘Awful, isn’t it?’’

‘‘No,’’ he said, but it came out too weak. ‘‘Hannah, no. Never.’’ He moved toward her, but it was too late.

She stepped back on the pretext of bending to pick up her duffel—it was black with turquoise and pink flowers —and slung the strap over her shoulder. ‘‘Where to?’’

‘‘You’re the first to arrive,’’ he said, finally getting his tongue unglued from the roof of his mouth. ‘‘Where’s . . . I guess calling her ‘the baby’ doesn’t work anymore.’’

That got a smile out of her. ‘‘She’d kick your butt for trying. My Patience teaches martial arts. She’s a real warrior.’’

‘‘Now that’s good news. Where is she?’’

‘‘She’ll be here.’’ Hannah sagged a little under the weight of the duffel, but when he moved to take it she shook her head. ‘‘I’m fine. Just point me to a bedroom and I’ll unload.’’

He waved to the mansion at large. ‘‘Take your pick. We stripped the rooms and redid the walls and floors, so you’ve got your choice between drywall and carpet or drywall and hardwood, but you can tap the fund for paint and whatever. Just grab a room and have at it.’’

‘‘Are you in your father’s quarters?’’

‘‘Yeah, I . . . yeah.’’ It’d been beyond difficult to move into the three-room apartment, but it made the most sense, given its proximity to the royal suite. Of course, that was before Strike moved into the pool house, unable to stay in his parents’ quarters—or anywhere else in the mansion, for that matter. Which had made Jox’s room choice sort of pointless.

Hannah gave an of course you did nod. ‘‘Then I’ll take one of the singles in the winikin’s wing.’’

‘‘You don’t have to,’’ he protested. ‘‘There’s room for all of us in the main building.’’

‘‘It wouldn’t feel right. You, of all people, should know that.’’

‘‘What’s that supposed to mean?’’

‘‘Nothing bad.’’ She closed the distance between them and lifted a hand to cup his cheek. She smiled at him, and the expression was a touch sad, but it stripped away the years and the scars, and he could see the girl he’d known. ‘‘Only that your sense of propriety was too bone-deep to have changed, even after all this time.’’ Without waiting for an answer, she brushed past him and headed for the hall leading to the winikin’s wing.

Jox cursed under his breath. That had so not gone the way he’d planned. He should follow her. He should ask for a do-over, ask if he could give her a hug, a kiss— hell, a kidney. He was halfway across the sunken great room, headed to do just that, when the phone rang.

He hesitated. Told himself to ignore it, to do what he wanted for a change rather than what he was supposed to do. He made it two more steps. . . .

Then he cursed, detoured to the kitchen, and grabbed the ringing phone. ‘‘Jox here.’’

‘‘It’s Carver,’’ the PI said. ‘‘I found the last two.’’

Jox closed his eyes. He’d found the twins. Thank the gods. ‘‘Where are they?’’

‘‘Dead.’’

CHAPTER SEVEN

Strike navigated the minivan through a twisty series of increasingly narrow streets made narrower by strategic piles of trash. The slow summer dusk had caught up with him, and he flicked on the rental’s headlights. The yellow beams picked out the last landmark he’d been given— the freshly burned-out shell of an apartment building, with the busted-out windows and debris that went with such an event.

According to Carter, the fire had broken out the night of the solstice. Strike hoped to hell that was a coincidence.

The buildings on either side didn’t look much better than the torched wreck. Their windows were blank, broken, or boarded up—sometimes a mix of all three— indicating that they were empty . . . or at least not occupied by tenants of the paying variety.

Strike parked nose-out in case he had to make a quick exit, and made sure the night dwellers got a look at the autopistol when he climbed out of the mom-mobile. He set the alarm, and the minivan gave an ineffective-sounding beep-beep and blinked its lights twice, like an obedient poodle sit-staying in the middle of a minefield. The lights did that delayed-off thing, lighting Strike’s way to what used to be the front door of the burned-out wreck.

When he heard the slide of footsteps and the clink of metal-on-metal behind him, he said, ‘‘You don’t want to mess with me. It’s been a long damn day and I just want to do my business and get out of here.’’

He didn’t expect a response, so it was a surprise when a shadow detached itself from a doorway and sauntered toward him. It was even more of a surprise to see that it was a woman, and a hell of a sexy one at that.

She was long and lean, her face sharp enough to be interesting instead of pretty. Her hair was blue-black and slicked away from her face, and she wore a white halter top along with tight black leather pants and tall boots, an outfit that would’ve gotten her in trouble in this sort of neighborhood if she hadn’t accessorized it with a Beretta nine-millimeter on one side and a cute little .22 chick gun on the other.

By the time she reached him the minivan headlights had clicked off. In the reflected moonlight, he saw her tilt her head and give him an up-and-down. ‘‘What sort of business?’’

‘‘My own.’’

‘‘Try again.’’

‘‘Don’t have to.’’