with wrinkles cutting deeply into his face, kind blue eyes, and a smoking gun.
“My father told me about you over three weeks ago,” he said to (ulp) me. “How you left him for dead on that God-?awful farm.”
“Wh-?what are you – ?”
“I was just a boy when he disappeared – and died the first time, best I can tell. By the time he came back years later – last month, in fact – I was a police chief.”
“But I don't understand why you – ”
He was staring at me with exhausted eyes. “You were all he could think of. He was the gentlest man I'd ever known, and all he could think of was hurting people. Hurting you.”
“So you set him to work,” Nick said shakily. “You sicced him on perps we couldn't put away. Pretended to figure out the pattern – which I bought, because you've got a great rep as a detective. Gave your dad cold guns, so we wouldn't think it was a vampire.”
“But these guys had a caretaker at the farm/mansion place.” I was having a terrible time puzzling this out. “She never noticed your dad kept slipping off the property?”
“Silly boy. They killed her a month ago.”
That explained why Tina and Sinclair couldn't puzzle out Alice's remains. They hadn't been fresh. And it was entirely possible they had known and kept the info to themselves. It would be typical behavior. I bit the inside of my cheeks, so I wouldn't start shrieking at them.
Secrets, secrets. Cripes. My life was stuffed with them.
“Jeez, jeez,” Nick was saying, his hand on his hip. I could see his fingers wanted to pluck at a gun he wasn't wearing. “Your only mistake was sending him to me when you gave me the fake tags to check.”
Chief Hamlin shook his head. “I didn't send him. He had been following your Betsy. And when he saw her on the street – ”
“He snapped, and – ” I almost said, “My sister killed him,” but rapidly rephrased. I didn't want any of this fallout to poison Laura's life. “I killed him. But you didn't count on Nick getting his fingerprints off my purse strap. Once he had that info, it wouldn't have taken long until he knocked on your door.”
The chief's lip trembled. “He was my father. He would not have hurt me.”
I shook my head. “Oh, man, you're so wrong. Like, the earth is flat kind of wrong. I don't even know how to explain it to you. You don't understand what he had become.”
“He was my father,” the chief repeated. It was clear he was trying to convince himself, more than anyone else. “Back – miraculously – from the dead. And only I could help him.” He shuddered at whatever memories of his father he had and looked past my shoulder. “A shame about your friend. I've never seen anyone move that fast in my life.”
I didn't dare turn to find out whom he was talking about. “She'll be okay,” I said bravely, hoping that was true. “And you won't get a second chance.”
“No,” he said politely. “She won't be okay. I used twenty-?two longs, you see. But you're right about me. I won't get a second chance. I have only the one gun, you see – and by my count, one bullet left. I figured I'd never get the chance to reload, given the size of your entourage.” He looked down at his gun. “I wish I had hit you and finished what my father started. I'll have to settle for hurting you. I hope your friend was important to you. Very, very important.”
I still refused to turn around. Tears began to well in my eyes. “You're going to regret what you've done, asshole.”
“No, I'm not. I have no intention of letting you turn me into what my father was.”
Then he tucked the barrel under his chin and pulled the trigger.
Nobody tried to stop him. In fact, before his body hit the floor, I was already turning to find out who had taken the bullets meant for me.
Chapter 46
I first realized who it was when I saw the cascade of black waves blowing in the chill Minnesota wind – our front door was still open. The body lying face-?down beneath that hair did not move.
Tina was lifting one pale hand, checking for a pulse. Garrett was holding the other.
“Why isn't she getting up?” I asked, rushing to Tina's side. “What kind of bullets were these? Were they silver?”
“They didn't have to be silver,” Tina guessed as she examined Antonia's body. She knew more about guns than anyone I'd ever met. “Twenty-?two longs, as he said, quite perfect for the job. They ricocheted around her skull but didn't exit. That particular ammunition lowers the innocent bystander rate. He may have expected civilians – or perhaps Detective Berry – to be near you when he shot you.”
“But she's a werewolf!” I shook Sinclair's comforting hand off my shoulder.
Tina looked up at me, eyes almost black with sympathy. “Her brains are all over the floor, Majesty. There will be no coming back from this.”
I barely noticed Garrett get up and slip out of view.
“But she – she's Antonia!” Foulmouthed and smart and strong and invulnerable. And alive – always so vibrantly, shockingly alive. “She can't be – I mean, shot? It's such a mundane way for someone like her to – ”
“No.” Jessica staggered as if the shock was going to knock her on her ass, and Nick steadied her. “No, she can't be. You're wrong. She's not.”
And the worst part was – “She jumped in front of me. She – saved me.”
“Everybody saves you,” Nick said neutrally. He tried to slip his arm around a sobbing Jessica, but she knocked it away.
Then we heard the splintering crash come from the stairwell.
I stood, trembling at the subsequent silence, and peered into the foyer. I choked back a sob at what Garrett had done to himself.
The regretful Fiend-?turned-?vampire had kicked the banister off a stretch of curved stairs in the foyer, leaving a dozen or so of the rails exposed and pointing up like spears. Then he had climbed to the second floor to a spot overlooking the stairs and swan dived onto the rails, which had gone through him like teeth.
“See?” the Ant said sadly as we stared down at the second body of a friend in less than a minute. “I warned you.”
“Yeah, well.” I wiped my face. “You could have been a lot more specific.”
“I didn't know exactly. But I had a feeling. This stuff is pretty inevitable around you.”
“Please go away.”
“Yes, I think so. You wouldn't believe how depressing all this is. Good-?bye, for now.” And like that, she was gone.
“We'll take care of the bodies,” my husband told me quietly.
Jessica kicked the wall and wiped tears from her cheeks. “Take care of the bodies? Just like that? It's not that easy, Eric. You can't just snap your fingers and make vampire minions clean up the crap. Not this time. What about Chief Hamlin? How are we going to explain that?”
“Don't worry about it,” Nick said, clearly uncomfortable. “I can fix that.”
“You can fix that,” I spat. “Like you helped us fix things with the Fiends. Like you wanted me to fix your problems. You're going to fix this.”
Sensing my lack of faith, he coughed and softened his tone. “Yeah. I can. I promise. Um, Betsy. You've had a rough – I mean, maybe you should, uh, go lie down.”
“I agree,” Sinclair said, too quickly. 'Elizabeth, let us handle this for you.
I wanted to leave. God help me, I wanted to run away from this house and never, ever come back.
But I'd settle for fleeing to my bedroom and dropping the mess in my husband's lap. And the cop who hated me.
“It was all just so – so stupid,” I said. And preventable , my conscience whispered. If only you'd been paying attention to business...
