* * *
Her boss’s unpleasantness bothered her more than she was letting on. Thomas was partly to blame for the man’s antagonism, but he had the suspicion if he tried to fix the situation, it would only get worse. He’d give it some time, see if it resolved on its own before he got involved. Juliana wouldn’t appreciate his interference anyway.
He strolled across the floor and took her hand to help her to her feet. She swayed in exhaustion and he frowned. His little bride, always trying to save others even to the detriment on her own health.
A muscle worked in his jaw as he debated what to do. Michael still had Raoul under surveillance and could probably take the scum just fine on his own. However, Thomas couldn’t shake the thought that he should see to the capture himself. Raoul had been allowed to escape too many times before. But if he left, who would make sure Juliana took care of herself? Not that she would let him look after her even if he stayed.
He sighed and pulled her against him. She rested her head against his chest and he basked in the sensation. If things ever went their way, he would stay here and hold her in his arms forever. But no, he couldn’t let Raoul get away again. The bastard had so many things to pay for. Attempting to kill Juliana topped the long list. Thomas would just have to trust she could take care of herself for the time it would take him to do his hunting.
He bent his head and brushed a featherlight caress against her lips.
She returned the kiss briefly, then pulled back. “I’ve got to go.”
He dropped his head lower so their foreheads touched. “Are you going to be okay if I leave town for a couple of days?”
She leaned back and looked at him. Her lips pursed and irritation slid through her eyes. “I took care of myself for a long time, Thomas. I think I can manage a couple of days.”
That was his little bride. Always pushing him away. Never letting him know he mattered. Thomas ignored the twinge the thought brought with it and frowned at her. He dropped his arms and took a step back. If she wished to play disinterested, so could he. “Fine. If you need me, call. Feel free to stay here if you wish. Should you require immediate assistance and are unable to get in touch with me, call Carmela.” Carmela sat on the Council with him and had already been given explicit instructions concerning Juliana’s welfare.
Her mouth drew into a sharp scowl.
He arched a brow. “What is it?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
Which only meant she was unwilling to discuss it. “It’s not nothing. Speak.”
Sighing, she ran a hand down her face, then crossed her arms over her chest. “I wouldn’t ask Carmela to throw water on me if I was on fire.”
He blinked several times while he processed that. This was new, but he’d never known Juliana to dislike someone without reason. “Explain.”
“Are you sure?” she asked.
He nodded. Whatever it was, he needed to know, even if it destroyed his friendship with Carmela. She meant nothing next to his bride.
“When you were demon-ridden, the demon called her and told her where it was. She told us it was an anonymous tip. She let us walk in blind.”
“An oversight. I’m sure she wouldn’t—”
“That’s not all,” Juliana interrupted. “Remember that I told you I called when you left and could never get through to you? I recognized her voice when I met her. It was Carmela who answered the phone. The last time she told me you had moved on to a real woman and I shouldn’t trouble myself any longer.”
Fury stiffened Thomas’s spine and he had no doubt that his eyes blazed pure black. That selfish, spiteful bitch. She’d been his friend for decades, had hinted she wanted more, but he’d never been interested. Would never be interested. “Never, in any of my many years, have I been with Carmela.”
“I know that. Now. I didn’t then. All it took was meeting her once to know she was lying. She’s not your type.”
Knowing Juliana believed him calmed him some. Not much, but some. “I will deal with her when I return. In the meantime, she
will
help you if you call. She wouldn’t dare do otherwise.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” she said in a tone that told him she wouldn’t call Carmela if she was gasping her last breath and the vampire was the only one who could save her. Juliana headed for the elevator.
“Juliana?” he said, stopping her. “As much as you hate it, if you get into trouble, drop the shielding between us. I will come for you.”
She looked at him a moment and then stepped into the elevator. He kept his eyes locked with hers until the doors blocked her from view.
Chapter Four
Juliana berated herself all the way to the Agency for being short with Thomas. So he had to leave town for a few days. What was the big deal? Except for the fact she was hunting down a child killer and could use the moral support, there was no reason for him to stick around. No reason at all. But she wanted him to, and she didn’t want to have to ask. Cursed vampire.
She strode through the halls, not paying much attention to those around her. It was getting late but the Agency was always active. All she wanted to do was get this over with, go home and get some sleep. When she reached Ben’s office, she rapped lightly on the door and swung it open without waiting for a response. A file lay open on his desk and she caught a glimpse of her name before he flipped it shut. Interesting. The way her luck had been running, he was probably combing her file looking for an excuse to fire her. The way things had been going, she’d begun to wonder if she’d even care.
Her boss looked like shit. His hair was disheveled and he was paler than normal. And, as usual, he’d gone too long without eating if the exposed fang was any indication. There was a time she would have cared and maybe even asked him what was going on. That was before her last case. He’d put a kill order out for Thomas when he was demon-ridden even though, in her opinion, it hadn’t been necessary. She’d refused to follow through and had in fact gone to the vampire Council for help. They got an injunction to keep Ben from killing her mate and she’d been suspended even though she got rid of the demon. Now she just kept her mouth shut and waited for him to tell her why he’d summoned her.
“Take a seat,” he snapped, gesturing to one of the chairs in front of his desk.
She shifted her weight on her feet. “I’ll stand, thanks.” She’d actually prefer to sit, but since he’d ordered her to do it, she’d hold her ground. Eventually he’d quit being a dick. Or she’d find a new job. In the meantime, she wasn’t about to let him treat her like shit just because he thought he could. Her little dissents kept her sane.
He scowled, his jaw drawing tight. “Suit yourself.” He leaned back in his chair. “Commissioner Phipps wants a task force, a symbol of cooperation between the Agency and the locals. The higher-ups agree it would be good PR and maybe we can even stop this lunatic in the process.”
“We wouldn’t need to worry about PR if it wasn’t for that asshole Phipps in the first place.”
“I’m aware of that, but there’s nothing that can be done for it. Not now anyway. Phipps only wants full Walkers, not agents, so you’re it. You’re to report to the fifth precinct at eight a.m. tomorrow morning.”
He couldn’t seriously be thinking of sending her on her own. “Who else?”
“Grace can go as your assistant.”
“No other Walkers?”
He turned his eyes away from her and down to his desk. “No one else is available at this time.”
“What about Nathaniel?” Nathaniel West was a Walker and a werewolf as well as her friend. He’d hosted a demon during her last case and had been on psych leave ever since. But she didn’t think there was anything wrong with his head that hadn’t been wrong before the demon took up residence in it.
“West is still on leave and you know it. I’m not pulling him in just because you’re afraid to face Phipps alone.”
This had nothing to do with her or her opinion of Phipps. This had to do with what was right. She pursed her lips, thought about arguing for a moment, then turned and strode out of Ben’s office, slamming the door behind her. These games, these power trips, or whatever the hell they were, that her boss and Phipps were playing were bullshit. They were going to end up getting people killed because they were too busy trying to one-up each other.
It was time to call in a favor.
* * *
Juliana pulled up in front of the gray building that served as the fifth precinct. Jeremiah conversed animatedly with a freakishly tall, slightly green-skinned figure. Leo, a Walker from Brazil. She’d helped him out of an intense situation more than once. He owed her, and when she called he’d agreed immediately to help. Sometimes it was good to have a favor or two to call in. Leo was over seven feet of lean muscle and sinuous movement. His face lit when he saw her and his forked tongue flicked out of his mouth in greeting.
A rare serpentine fae from the Amazon, Leo could literally taste a lie. He could get a sense of it in the air, but his gift was most accurate if he licked the skin of the person talking. As invaluable as he would be during interrogations, she was counting on him to help her filter through Phipps’s bullshit.
She smiled and shook his hand. “It’s good to see you, Leo.”
“You, too, my friend. I’m glad I’m finally getting the opportunity to repay you.”
She snorted a laugh. The last time she helped Leo with a case, she’d been swallowed by a giant, mutated earthworm and had had to hack her way out. She wasn’t sure he could ever completely repay her for that. “Did Jeremiah fill you in?”
Leo’s face fell and he nodded. “I’ll be glad to help you in any way I can.”
“Glad to hear it. For now, it’s enough that you’re a Walker. Let’s leave the details of what you can do between us.” She yanked open the door and then turned back to her friend. “By the way, I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Phipps.”
Leo’s brows shot up, but he said nothing. He gestured with his head for her to continue. She stepped into the building and up to the counter, the men trailing behind her. The din of a busy police station swamped her immediately. People typing, talking on the phone, shouting for their phone calls all coalesced into a symphony of sound. The smell that assaulted her wasn’t quite as pleasant. Burnt coffee and piss wasn’t exactly her favorite combination. She flashed her badge to the officer manning the front desk.
“Top of the stairs. Second door on the right,” he instructed as he buzzed them through.
The walk seemed to take forever and while the noise didn’t change much, the smell improved the further they got from the lobby. Even cops she was familiar with avoided making eye contact when they passed. Either Phipps was in a rampage over the Agency or they knew how displeased she was with this turn of events.
Jeremiah stepped past her and opened the door to the conference room. Phipps sat at one end of the table, face red and sweat-soaked. Apparently, he’d already been in full tirade before they arrived. He sneered when she stepped into the room. The sneer turned into a curl of disgust when Leo and Jeremiah came in behind her. He disliked her, but at least he could pretend she was human. Not so with her companions. “Phipps,” she said in lieu of an actual greeting.
“Commissioner Phipps,” he corrected, as he always did.
She ignored him and glanced around the room. Besides Phipps, herself and her companions, there were four other people seated at the table. Taft was one of them. Interesting. She thought Phipps would have stocked his task force with yes men.
She dropped into one of the empty chairs in front of her at the table. Leo moved around the table to take one on the opposite side and Jeremiah stayed standing, taking up position to one side of the door. The glare of the fluorescent lights caused her to squint and if the one directly over her head didn’t quit flickering, she might be forced to shoot it.
Phipps continued to stare at her, his face ruddy and angry. After a long moment, he cleared his throat and leaned forward in his chair, intertwining his fingers on the table. She knew he was waiting for her to speak first, but she had a much higher patience level than the commissioner. Not that great of an accomplishment, but she’d take what she could get.
“Walker Norris, I of course know you and your ever-present companion Agent Grace, but may I ask who your...friend is?” The last was filled with venom and his mouth even twisted with disgust when he said it. It was obvious to everyone in the room he hated the fact the fae was here.
“This is Leo. He is also a Walker.”
“Leo what?’
“Just Leo.” The truth was Leo’s real name was completely unpronounceable in any tongue but his own. It also consisted of about twenty-three syllables.
“Nichols didn’t mention any other Walkers when I spoke to him.”
She said nothing, simply crossing her arms over her chest and blinking at Phipps. Of course, Ben didn’t say anything about Leo. Her boss didn’t know her friend was here. And if he did, he’d find a way to send him home. She knew enough about Leo to know he would soon prove himself invaluable and they wouldn’t be able to send him back when they discovered he wasn’t officially here. As Phipps proved earlier, even the Agency wasn’t above bad press.
Phipps gave up on getting a response out of her and stood. “Enough of this. All right everyone. You all know why we’re here.”
Because you’re an asshole.
The words pressed against her lips, begging to be let out. She managed to contain them. For the moment. She couldn’t guarantee they wouldn’t make an appearance later.
“So does this mean that you’re officially asking the Agency for assistance on this matter?” Jeremiah asked. Her brow rose. It wasn’t like him to cause trouble. He usually left that up to her.
And she’d thought Phipps’s face couldn’t get any redder.
“I believe that’s clear, Agent Grace. Now that we’ve waited long enough for the Agency to get with the program, I would like to begin. There are copies of the M.E.’s reports on the twins in the middle of the table.”
Juliana clenched her teeth together to keep from responding to Phipps’s jab at the Agency. There was no point. Everyone in the room knew the way things really were. And if they didn’t, she worried about their intelligence level. She leaned forward and snagged one of the reports. She skimmed through it, her eyes quickly finding the cause of death and the approximate time of death. The M.E.’s guesstimate on the time frame had been accurate.
“They were suffocated?” one of Phipps’s men said.
“Yes,” she answered as she read from the report. “But there no were no signs of bruising on the nose or the mouth or any indication of foreign bodies as there should have been if something was held over the face.” She tossed the report back on the table. “And given the time frames we’re talking about. He killed them and kept them somewhere before leaving them for us to find.”
“Not necessarily,” Phipps said. “With that spell on them, they could have been up there for several days before they were found.”
She shook her head. “Unlikely. As much as the overlook gets used by teenagers and wayward spouses, someone would have seen something.” She didn’t bring up the countless druggies who used the place to shoot up or otherwise get high. Phipps had an abominable record against drugs and doubtless wouldn’t like the reminder. See, she could be diplomatic if she tried.
He narrowed his eyes at her, undoubtedly wanting to argue but knowing she was right. “And I don’t suppose you have any idea as to how precisely he accomplished the suffocation?”
“Not a clue.”
His smug look irritated her. He didn’t have any more idea than she did. Leo flicked his tongue out for the third time since they’d entered the room. It was the first time Phipps noticed though. He curled his lip and narrowed his eyes at her friend. The corner of Leo’s mouth curled in a little smile. He was antagonizing Phipps on purpose. Normally, she only saw his tongue a couple of times a day, more if he was in an interrogation or excited about something. There was no reason for him to be doing it as frequently as he was except to irritate Phipps.
“There are a couple of things I’d like clarified if you don’t mind,” she said, drawing Phipps’s attention to her.
“Like what, Norris?”
“Like exactly how long you believe the Thief has been in operation, where and when you obtained this information and why you are suddenly so interested in gaining our assistance. Other than to cover your ass of course.”
Leo coughed and used a hand to cover his grin. Okay, so maybe that wasn’t as tactful as she could have been, but she’d been getting jerked around by Phipps and his politics since this case started.
Taft leaned forward as if to answer. Phipps put a hand on the detective’s shoulder and pressed him back in the chair. “I don’t answer to you, Norris. But in the spirit of cooperation I’m preparing copies of dossiers for you on thirteen additional children we believe are the work of the Thief.”
Her heart sank. “Thirteen?” How had so many children gone missing from the New Hope area without them noticing the connection before the twins? “And they’re all from New Hope?”
Phipps’s eyes narrowed. “I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to find some excuse to take this case away from me. It won’t happen. This is my jurisdiction. My case.”
Leo coughed again and she glanced at him. He shook his head. Phipps was lying.
She focused on Taft. “How did we find these children, Detective?”
Phipps nodded at him to answer.
“I fed a series of search parameters into the computer. Several matches turned up going back at least six months,” Taft explained, eyes darting between her and Phipps. She got the impression he was choosing his words carefully.
She was missing something. “What did you tell the computer to look for?”
“Any cases of missing children where there were no eyewitnesses when there should have been or where there was evidence of magic being used.”
“And when did you do this?”
He cleared his throat and glanced at Phipps again. “I fed the information I was looking for into the system a couple of weeks ago. Then I had to go through the hits and get them cleaned up and narrowed down.”
“And in what areas did you conduct your computer search?”
“Taft,” Phipps snapped, and shook his head once. A warning.
Juliana leaned forward in her chair. If the Thief was operating outside the New Hope area, this was no longer Phipps’s case. If he’d known that and had proof, she was going to nail his ass to the wall. As much fun as that would be, she was really hoping she was wrong. She didn’t want to be in charge of this case. Didn’t want the responsibility. “Where, Detective?” she asked again, her voice sounding tired even to her own ears.