I’ll Be Slaying You (Night Watch #2)(19)
Author: Cynthia Eden

Simon spun away from her. “Just so you know,” he growled. “I was an idiot the other night.” Should have taken her. Would have made things easier.

“Huh.” A pause. “So what’s your excuse now?”

His head swung back toward her. “The concussion that has you trembling, your eyes dilated, and your speech still slurred.” Okay, not really slurred. He’d just thrown that one out for fun and to make his point. The woman was barely on her feet, if he took her, no—no.

“So, when I’m healed, it’s game on?”

What? His eyes slit. “Count on it.” Was this some bluff? Some tease? She’d learn soon enough he wasn’t the teasing kind.

“Good.” Her smile punched him in the gut and had him almost weaving. “Because I’m tired of waiting on your hard-to-get ass.”

The laughter came from him, a little rusty and a little too hard.

That smile of hers widened, showing her pretty white teeth. Then she laughed with him, even as she put up a hand to touch the base of her head.

Oh, shit. He couldn’t look away from the fullness of her lips. I’m in trouble.

Headed straight to hell, following a woman who would never be an angel.

Antonio entered the Night Watch building just before dawn. Hunters milled around, voices buzzed. The place was always the busiest at night.

The darkness was the best cover for catching prey.

He hurried past the line of back offices, a file gripped tightly in his left hand.

Rounding a corner, he headed down that last, lonely stretch of space—

“Sir? Sir, may I help—”

New assistant. Antonio halted. Great. Leave it to Pak to be breaking someone new in now.

Turning slowly, he eyed Pak’s new PA. The woman looked to be pushing seventy. Her hair was a white mane, and her dark eyes were narrowed behind her wire-framed glasses. Her shoulders had stooped with time, just a bit. The woman looked like a small wind could slam her against the wall.

She also looked like she was someone’s grandmother.

But, knowing Pak and the folks he liked to employ, odds were good that the woman was a witch. A demon. Or…who the hell knew what else.

Flashing his badge in a quick move, Antonio said, “I need to speak with Pak. It’s urgent.” Or else he wouldn’t have dragged his butt across town. He would have been at home, in bed, dreaming of—

“Why you want to see him?” Her head cocked. Her thin lips pursed.

His brows rose. “Can’t say, ma’am. This is a private matter.” For now. But when the news got hold of this story…

“Hmmmph.”

Pak’s door opened down the hallway. A soft creak that had Antonio’s shoulders stiffening.

“Antonio, come on in.”

He inclined his head, casting one last glance at the woman. “Ma’am.”

She moved her head in the faintest of regal acknowledgments.

He marched into Pak’s office. The door closed behind him with that same creak.

Pak didn’t sit. The guy just stared at Antonio with his dark, can’t-read-me eyes. After about thirty seconds, Pak asked, “Where is my hunter?” And Antonio knew they were on the same page.

He handed Pak the file. “Don’t know, but we damn well need to find out.” He exhaled and fought to keep his voice flat, unemotional. Hard, that. Because he cared about Dee. More than he’d ever cared for another woman. “We’ve got trouble, Pak.”

The guy that was Night Watch grunted as his eyes scanned the typed notes. “Her fingerprints were on the murder weapon.”

“Doesn’t mean anything,” Antonio said, even though he knew he shouldn’t. He should at least pretend to be impartial, but—this was Dee. “Someone could have lifted one of her weapons. The lady’s got too damn many stakes. I’ve been telling her that for years.” But Dee always had the weapons. She hid them around her apartment for God’s sake. Not that he really blamed her, with her past.

Pak’s fingers whitened around the file. “Someone saw Dee attack the victim on the previous night?”

Yeah, and that shit was the part that was biting them all in the ass. “I’ve got two witnesses who told uniforms they saw Dee fighting with a woman matching the victim’s description the night before. They were behind Onyx. The bartender there ID’d Dee.”

“She was working a case.” A fierce growl. “You know she doesn’t hurt humans.”

Dee’s number one rule. Yeah, he knew it. That was why he was there. “She left the crime scene. We’ve got hair samples that I’m sure will match her.” Had to match, everything else was so nice and neat. Like it had been gift wrapped for him. “Her leaving…man, that doesn’t look good.”

Pak glanced up at him. Those eyes were as dark as a demon’s. Well, when a demon let the glamour drop anyway. “We’re not sure Dee left willingly.”

What?

With steady fingers, Pak placed the file on top of his perfectly arranged desk. “There’s been no contact from Dee since she was last seen by Zane on the mission. Her car is still at the bar. She hasn’t gone back to her house. She’s made no attempt to contact the agency.”

His stomach knotted. “Is she alive?”

One shoulder lifted. “At this point, I can’t say for certain.” A pause. “I can say that Dee would never kill a human.”

Not intentionally, anyway. “What if things got away from her? What if there was an attack and she was fighting the vampires and the woman—the woman attacked her, too?” Made sense. He’d sure been over all the different scenarios a dozen times. Trying to find a reason, an excuse. “She would have acted to defend herself. She would have—”

“She wouldn’t have left on her own. If that’s the way it went down, she would have stayed, waited for the cops.”

True. That was the way Dee worked. Or so he’d thought. “You’re looking for her,” Antonio said, statement, not question.

A nod.

“We’ve got to be careful with this, very careful.” The wrong word, the wrong ear to hear it, and the town would explode. “The vic, she was the niece of Craig Durant—the senator. He’s already been calling the PD, talking to the DA.” He shook his head. “This case won’t disappear easily.” If at all.

No expression crossed Pak’s face. “Thank you for coming to me with this information. I’ll remember how helpful you were to me.”