Archangel’s Shadows (Guild Hunter #7)(64)
Author: Nalini Singh

“A hunter who melts at the sight of a little snow—” Ashwini began.

“—is a hunter who’ll soon be lying in a nice, quiet grave,” Ransom finished, and then, in a hysterical imitation of the weathered Academy trainer, added, “Is that what you want, princess? Is it? I didn’t think so. Now, move!”

They laughed again.

“If he came out here now,” Ransom said, “and told me I had detention and had to do a hundred rounds of the yard on my crutches, I’d say ‘yes, sir’ and start moving.”

“Me, too,” Ashwini admitted. “I think he’s one of the few people on the planet I’m actually scared of.”

“Only idiots aren’t scared of Bracken.”

“Saki seems to handle him fine.”

“They’re having sex on a regular basis. An option unavailable to us.” Ransom drank some of the coffee he’d brought out in a carry cup. “So, Felicity Johnson.”

“Were you able to find out anything about her? We know she was a club girl who disappeared after hooking up with a rich sugar daddy.”

Ransom took a doughnut from the box of four she’d managed to sneak past the other hunters who were here early—to prep for sessions they were teaching. Biting into it, he chewed and swallowed before answering. “That part is right,” he said. “A few of the working girls I know said Felicity used to be one of them for a couple of months, starting about a year back.”

That fit with when she’d dropped off the grid in terms of more vanilla jobs. “Pimp?”

“No, but the girls said she was vulnerable to male attention, that something in her made her crave their approval.” Taking another sip of his coffee, he continued. “She avoided the pimps because she wasn’t going into the life long-term—she got out fast once she realized the johns might permanently hurt her if she wasn’t careful. Word is she worked under the table cleaning, and was down to her final cents at times, but she didn’t come back to the streets.”

“She knew if she got into it too deep,” Ashwini said, starting to see more of their victim, “she’d be stuck at the low end forever.”

A nod from Ransom. “Working girls have a hard life and it shows. No way to glide into a new, better life if the old one is stamped onto your face and body. The thing is, none of the women I talked to had anything bad to say about Felicity—she got out, but she never forgot her friends.

“She helped out with free babysitting for one of the women two or three times, and when she hooked up with her rich lover, she lent another woman a little money so she could pay for a plane ticket out of town for a family emergency.”

A good person, a loyal one, too. “When’s the last time any of them had contact with her?”

28

“Seven months ago. Visit before that, she’d told them she was going to go with her lover to Europe, so they didn’t worry about it. The other women were happy for her, thought she’d made it, had the life she’d always wanted.” He finished off the doughnut and his coffee at the same time. “They were surprised she dropped them cold, but knowing her as they did, they figured maybe her rich guy had her on a short leash and she’d get back in touch once things had eased.”

But Felicity, Ashwini thought, was likely already in a desperate situation by that time. “Will the women talk to me?” she asked Ransom, conscious how protective he was of his friends on the street.

“Yeah. They want to find out who hurt her—I hope you nail the fucker.” Pulling out his phone, he sent her names and contact numbers, told her the women were waiting for her call. “I know I don’t have to ask, but be careful of them.”

“I will.” She stared out at the training ground, the rucked-up snow glittering under the sun. “Janvier’s working this with me. Can I take him along?”

“No problem. I cleared it with the women—Tower’s not going to have any interest in them aside from this case and, like I said, they really liked Felicity.”

Enough, Ashwini thought, to stick their necks out. That told her a lot about her victim. “So,” she said after a couple of minutes of comfortable silence, “how come you’re in so early? I thought you and Nyree would be celebrating. Hope my request didn’t mess anything up.”

“Nah, I saw your message after our celebration. Easy enough to make the calls while Nyree was catching her breath.” A glow in the green of his eyes, his handsome face happily smug. “Two of the librarians at her work came down with a bad case of the flu, so she went in to cover. I was meant to teach a class this afternoon, but I swapped with Demarco for a morning session so I can take off when Nyree’s shift is over.”

“You better invite me to your wedding.”

“Are you kidding?” Ransom grinned. “I plan to have one hell of a party. Shit, I’m getting married.” He shook his head, like a dog shaking off wet. “And I want to do it.”

Well aware of his dating history, Ashwini squeezed his shoulder. “I’m happy for you, Ransom.”

•   •   •

She met Janvier an hour later, at the little warehouse that housed the blood café in which Ellie had an interest. Blood-for-Less was closed for the day, but there was an employee out back handling donors coming in to sell blood. The stocky male vampire—who looked more like a schoolteacher than someone who should be in the Quarter—let them into the main sitting area and promised to send in the three women when they arrived.

Ashwini had picked the location because it wouldn’t put the women in an awkward position if they were seen. There was nothing strange about a working girl getting a bit of extra cash by selling blood. Right now, however, Ashwini’s attention was on Janvier. Deep grooves marked the sides of his mouth, his eyes dull.

Touching her fingers to his jaw in the muted light inside the blood café, she said, “What is it? What’s wrong?” That was when she noticed he’d showered, changed. His blades sat openly on his back, over a plain black T-shirt, his jacket and scarf discarded on the back of a wine red sofa.

“Sit with me.”

Once they were down, he took one of her hands in his and told her of the horror that had occurred in Masque that morning. “Lacey?” Shock held her frozen; she couldn’t believe that the sweet, friendly woman who’d been so adorably besotted with her lover was gone, murdered at the hands of that lover. “You’re sure?”