Every Which Way But Dead (43 page)

Eyebrows high, Trent said flatly, “What do you want?”

“First, I want you to go to the FIB and tell them Lee knocked out all those people and locked the doors knowing there was a bomb on the boat.”

Trent laughed, his warm voice taking on a biting edge. “What is that going to get you?”

“They'll go looking for him. He'll go underground. A warrant will be filed, and with that, I have a legal right to pick him up.”

Trent's eyes widened. Behind him, Quen nodded. “That's why…” Trent murmured.

I couldn't help my smile. “You can run from the law, but standing up your insurance adjustor?” I shook my head. “Not a good idea.”

“You're going to get in to kill him posing as an insurance agent?”

I wished I could say I was surprised.
God, he was so arrogant.
“I don't kill people, Trent. I haul their asses to lockup, and I need a reason for keeping him there. I thought he was your friend.”

A hint of uncertainty flickered over Trent. “I thought he was, too.”

“Maybe his girlfriend knocked him on the head and forced him into leaving?” I said, not believing it. “Wouldn't you feel bad if you killed him, then found out he had tried to save you?”

Trent gave me a weary look. “Always seeing the best in a person, Ms. Morgan?”

“Yeah. Except with you.” I started making a mental list of who I had to tell I was alive: Kisten, Jenks—if he'd listen—Ceri, Keasley…Nick? Oh God, my mom.
That one ought to be fun.

Pushing his fingers into his forehead, Trent sighed. “You have no idea how this works.”

Affronted, I puffed at him and his smarter-than-thou attitude. “Work with me here, huh? Letting the bad guy live might be good for your soul.”

He didn't look convinced; he looked patronizing. “Letting Lee live is a mistake. His family won't like him in jail. They'd rather have him dead than be an embarrassment.”

“Well isn't that just too bad. I'm not going to kill him, and I'm not going to let you kill him, either, so sit down, shut up, hold on, and watch how real people solve problems.”

Trent shook his head to make his hair float about his redrimmed ears. “What's arresting Lee going to get you? His lawyers will have him out before he can sit on a jail-cell cot.”

“Voice of experience?” I mocked, seeing as I almost had him there last fall.

“Yes,” he said darkly. “The FIB has my fingerprints on file, thanks to you.”

“And the I.S. has a sample of my DNA for identification purposes. Suck it up.”

Quen made a soft sound, and I suddenly realized we were arguing like children.

Looking peeved, Trent settled back in his chair and laced his fingers over his middle. Fatigue pulled at him. “Admitting I was on that boat is going to be difficult. We weren't seen leaving. And it would be hard to explain how we survived and everyone else died.”

“Be inventive. Maybe the truth?” I said cockily.
Pushing Trent's buttons was kinda fun.
“Everybody knows he's trying to jerk Cincinnati out from under you and Piscary. Go with it. Just leave me dead in the river.”

Trent eyed me carefully. “You're going to tell your FIB captain you're alive, yes?”

“That's one of the reasons you're going to file with the FIB and not the I.S.” My gaze went to the stairway as Jonathan's tall form started down it. He seemed irritated, and I wondered what was up. No one said anything as he approached, and I wished I hadn't pushed Trent so far. The man didn't look happy. It would be just like him to kill Lee out from under me. “You want Saladan out of the city?” I said. “I'll do that for you for free. All I want is you to file a complaint and pay for the lawyer to keep him in prison. Can you do that for me?”

His face went empty as thoughts he didn't want to share with me passed through his mind. Nodding slowly, he beckoned Jonathan closer.

Taking that as a yes, I felt my shoulders ease. “Thanks,” I muttered as the tall man bent to whisper in Trent's ear and Trent's gaze shot to me. I strained to hear, getting nothing.

“Keep him at the gate,” Trent said, glancing at Quen. “I don't want him on the grounds.”

“Who?” I said, wondering.

Trent stood and tightened the tie on his robe. “I told Mr. Felps I'd arrange for your return, but he seems to think you're in need of rescuing. He's waiting for you at the gatehouse.”

“Kisten?” I stifled a jerk. I'd be glad to see him, but I was afraid of the answers he would have for me. I didn't want him to have planted that bomb, but Ivy had said he did.
Damn it, why did I always fall for the bad boys?

While the three men waited, I stood and gathered my things, hesitating before I stuck my hand out. “Thank you for your hospitality…Trent,” I said, pausing only briefly as I tried to decide what to call him. “And thanks for not letting me freeze to death,” I added.

A soft smile quirked the corners of his lips at the hesitation, and he met my firm grip with his own. “It was the least I could do, seeing as you kept me from drowning,” he answered. His brow furrowed, clearly wanting to say more. Breath held, he changed his mind and turned away. “Jonathan, will you accompany Ms. Morgan to the gate-house? I want to talk to Quen.”

“Of course, Sa'han.”

I glanced back at Trent as I followed Jonathan to the stairs, my mind already on what I had to do next. I'd call Edden first, at his home number, soon as I got to my Rolodex. He might still be up. Then my mother. Then Jenks. This was going to work. It had to.

But as I quickened my pace to keep up with Jonathan, a wash of concern went though me. Sure, I was going to get in to see Saladan, but then what?

K
isten had the heat on full, and the warm air shifted a strand of my shorter hair to tickle my neck. I reached to turn it down, thinking he was laboring under the false assumption that I was still suffering from hypothermia and warmer was better. It was stifling, the sensation only strengthened by the darkness we drove through. I cracked the window and eased back as the cold night slipped in.

The living vamp snuck a look at me, jerking his gaze back to the headlight-lit road as soon as our eyes met. “Are you okay?” he asked for the third time. “You haven't said a word.”

Shaking my open coat to make a draft, I nodded. He had gotten a hug at Trent's gate, but it was obvious he felt the hesitation. “Thanks for picking me up,” I said. “I wasn't too keen on Quen taking me home.” I ran my hand across the door handle of Kisten's Corvette, comparing it to Trent's limo. I liked Kisten's car better.

Kisten blew out his breath in a long exhalation. “I needed to get out. Ivy was driving me crazy.” He glanced away from the dark road. “I'm glad you told her as soon as you did.”

“You talked?” I asked, surprised and a little worried.
Why couldn't I like nice men?

“Well, she talked.” He made an embarrassed noise. “She threatened to cut off both my heads if I jerked your blood out from under her.”

“Sorry.” I looked out the window, becoming more upset. I didn't want to have to walk away from Kisten because he had meant for those people to die in some stupid power struggle they weren't aware of. He took a breath to say something, and I interrupted with a quick, “Would you mind if I used your phone?”

His expression wary, he pulled his shiny phone from a belt holster and handed it to me. Not particularly happy, I called information and got the number for David's company, and for a few dollars more, they connected me. Why not? It wasn't my phone.

While Kisten silently drove, I worked my way through their automated system. It was almost midnight. He ought to have been in, unless he was on a run or had gone home early. “Hi,” I said when I finally got a real person. “I need to talk to David Hue?”

“I'm sorry,” an older woman said with an overabundance of professionalism. “Mr. Hue isn't here presently. Can I give you to one of our other agents?”

“No!” I said before she could dump me back into the system. “Is there a number I can reach him at? It's an emergency.”
Note to self: never, ever throw anyone's card away again.

“If you'd like to leave your name and number—”

What part of “emergency” didn't she understand?
“Look,” I said with a sigh. “I really need to talk to him. I'm his new partner, and I lost his extension. If you could just—”

“You're his new partner?” the woman interrupted. The shock in her voice gave me pause. Was David that hard to work with?

“Yeah,” I said, flicking a glance at Kisten. I was sure he could hear both ends of the conversation with his vamp ears. “I really need to talk to him.”

“Ah, can you hold for a moment?”

“You bet.”

Kisten's face brightened in the glare of oncoming cars. His jaw was fixed and his eyes were riveted to the road.

There was a crackling of the phone being passed, then a cautious, “This is David Hue.”

“David,” I said, smiling. “It's Rachel.” He didn't say anything, and I rushed to keep him on the line. “Wait! Don't hang up. I've got to talk to you. It's about a claim.”

There was the sound of a hand going over the phone. “It's okay,” I heard him say. “I'll take this one. Why don't you make an early night of it? I'll close down your computer.”

“Thanks, David. I'll see you tomorrow,” his secretary said faintly, and after a long moment, his voice came back on the line.

“Rachel,” he said warily. “Is this about the fish? I've already filed the claim. If you've perjured me, I'm going to be very upset.”

“What is it with you thinking the worst of me?” I questioned, miffed. My eyes slid to Kisten as he gripped the wheel tighter. “I made a mistake with Jenks, okay? I'm trying to fix it. But I've got something you might be interested in.”

There was a short silence. “I'm listening,” he said cautiously.

My breath puffed out in relief. Fidgeting, I dug for a pen in my shoulder bag. Opening my datebook, I clicked my pen open. “Ah, you work by commission, right?”

“Something like that,” David said.

“Well, you know that boat that exploded?” I snuck a glance at Kisten. The light from the oncoming traffic made little glints in his stubble as he clenched his jaw.

There was a rattling of computer keys in the background. “Still listening…”

My pulse quickened. “Does your company own the policy on it?”

The sound of keys quickened and vanished. “Seeing as we insure everything Piscary isn't interested in, probably.” There was another spurt of tapping keys. “Yes. We have it.”

“Great,” I sighed.
This was going to work.
“I was on it when it exploded.”

I heard the squeak of a chair through the line. “Somehow that doesn't surprise me. You saying it wasn't an accident?”

“Ah, no.” I flicked a glance at Kisten. His knuckles gripping the wheel were white.

“Really.” It wasn't a question, and the sound of tapping keys started up again, shortly followed by the hum of a printer.

I shifted in Kisten's heated leather seats and stuck the end of the pen in my mouth. “Would I be correct that your company doesn't pay out when property is destroyed—”

“Because of acts of war or gang-related activity?” David interrupted. “No. We don't.”

“Fantastic,” I said, not thinking it necessary to tell him I was sitting next to the guy who had arranged the whole thing.
God, please let Kisten have an answer for me.
“How would you like me to come down there and sign a paper for you?”

“I'd like that really fine.” David hesitated, then added, “You don't strike me as the kind of woman who commits acts of random kindness, Rachel. What do you want out this?”

My gaze ran down Kisten's clenched jaw to his strong shoulders, then lingered on his hands gripping the wheel as if he was trying to squeeze the iron out of it. “I want to be with you when you go out to adjust Saladan's claim.”

Kisten jerked, apparently only now understanding why I was talking to David. The silence on the other end of the line was thick. “Ah…” David murmured.

“I'm not going to kill him; I'm going to arrest him,” I quickly offered.

The thrum of the engine rumbling up through my feet shifted and steadied.

“It's not that,” he said. “I don't work with anyone. And I'm not working with you.”

My face burned. I knew he thought very little of me after finding I had kept information from my own partner. But it was David's fault it came out. “Look,” I said, turning away from Kisten as he stared at me. “I just saved your company a wad of money. You get me in when you go to adjust his claim, then back out of the way and let me and my team work.” I glanced at Kisten. Something had shifted in him. His grip on the wheel was loose and his face was empty.

There was a short silence. “And afterward?”

“Afterward?” The moving lights made Kisten's face unreadable. “Nothing. We tried working together. It didn't work out. You get an extension on finding a new partner.”

There was a long silence. “That's it?”

“That's it.” I clicked my pen closed and threw it and my datebook into my bag.
Why did I even try to be organized?

“Okay,” he finally said. “I'll bark down the hole and see what comes up.”

“Fantastic,” I said, genuinely glad, though he seemed less than pleased. “Hey, in a few hours I'm going to have died in that explosion, so don't worry about it, okay?”

A tired sound escaped him. “Fine. I'll call you tomorrow when the claim comes in.”

“Great. I'll see you then.” David's lack of excitement was depressing. The phone clicked off without him saying goodbye, and I closed it and handed it back to Kisten. “Thanks,” I said, feeling very awkward.

“I thought you were turning me in,” Kisten said softly.

Mouth falling open, I stared, only now understanding his previous tension. “No,” I whispered, feeling afraid for some reason. He had sat there and done nothing as he thought I was turning him in?

Shoulders stiff and eyes on the road, he said, “Rachel, I didn't know he was going to let those people die.”

My breath caught. I forced it out, then took another. “Talk to me,” I said, feeling light-headed. I stared out the window, hands in my lap and my stomach clenched.
Please, let me be wrong this time?

I looked across the car, and after his eyes flicked to the rearview mirror, he pulled off to the side of the road. My gut clenched. Damn it, why did I have to like him? Why couldn't I like nice men? Why did the power and personal strength that attracted me always seem to translate into callous disregard for other people's lives?

My body shifted forward and back when he came to a sudden halt. The car shook as traffic continued to pass us at eighty miles an hour, but here it was still. Kisten shifted in his seat to face me, reaching over the gearshift to cradle my hands in my lap. His day-old stubble glinted in the lights from the oncoming traffic across the median, and his blue eyes were pinched.

“Rachel,” he said, and I held my breath hoping he was going to tell me it had all been a mistake. “I arranged to have that bomb strapped to the boiler.”

I closed my eyes.

“I didn't intend for those people to die. I called Saladan,” he continued, and I opened my eyes when a passing truck shook us. “I told Candice there was a bomb on his boat. Hell, I told her where it was and that if they touched it, it would detonate. I gave them plenty of time to get everyone off. I wasn't trying to kill people, I was trying to make a media circus and sink his business. It never occurred to me he would walk away and leave them to die. I misjudged him,” he said, a bitter recrimination in his voice, “and they paid for my shortsightedness with their lives. God, Rachel, if I even guessed he would do that, I'd have found another way. That you were on that boat…” He took a breath. “I almost killed you….”

I swallowed hard, feeling the lump in my throat grow less. “But you've killed people before,” I said, knowing the problem wasn't tonight but a history of belonging to Piscary and having to carry out his will.

Kisten leaned back though his hands never left mine. “I killed my first person when I was eighteen.”

Oh God.
I tried to pull away, but he gently tightened his grip. “You need to hear this,” he said. “If you want to walk away, I want you to know the truth so you don't come back. And if you stay, then it's not because you made a decision based on too little information.”

Steeling myself, I looked at his eyes, gauging them sincere, and perhaps carrying a hint of guilt and past hurt. “You've done this before,” I whispered, feeling afraid. I was one in a string of women. They had all left. Maybe they were smarter than me.

He nodded, his eyes closing briefly. “I'm tired of being hurt, Rachel. I'm a nice guy who just happened to kill his first person at eighteen.”

I swallowed, taking my hands back under the pretense of tucking my hair behind an ear. Kisten felt me draw away and turned to look out the front window, placing his hands back on the wheel. I had told him not to make my decisions for me; I suppose I deserved every sordid detail. Stomach twisting, I said, “Go on.”

Kisten stared at nothing as the traffic passed, accentuating the point of stillness in the car. “I killed my second about a year later,” he said, his voice flat. “She was an accident. I managed to keep from ending anyone else's life again until last year when—”

I watched him as he took a breath and exhaled. My muscles trembled, waiting for it.

“God, I'm sorry, Rachel,” he whispered. “I swore I'd try to never have to kill anyone again. Maybe that's why Piscary doesn't want me as his scion now. He wants someone to share the experience, and I won't do it. He was the one who actually killed them, but I was there. I helped. I held them down, kept them busy while he gleefully butchered them one by one. That they deserved it hardly seems justification anymore. Not with the way he did it.”

“Kisten?” I said hesitantly, pulse fast.

He turned, and I froze, trying not to be frightened. His eyes had gone black in the memory. “That feeling of pure domination is a twisted, addictive high,” he said, the lost hunger in his voice chilling me. “It took me a long time to learn how to let go of that so I could remember the inhuman savagery of it, hidden by the jolt of pure adrenaline. I lost myself with Piscary's thoughts and strength flooding me, but I know how to wield it now, Rachel. I can be both his scion and a just person. I can be his enforcer and a gentle lover. I know I can walk the balance. He's punishing me right now, but he'll take me back. And when he does, I'll be ready.”

What the hell was I doing here?

“So,” I said, hearing my voice tremble. “That's it?”

“Yeah. That's it,” he said flatly. “The first was under Piscary's orders to make an example of someone luring underage kids. It was excessive, but I was young and stupid, trying to prove to Piscary that I'd do anything for him, and he took enjoyment from seeing me agonize about it later. The last time was to stop a new camarilla from forming. They were advocating a return to pre-Turn traditions of abducting people no one would miss. The woman.” His eyes flicked to me. “That's the one that haunts me. That's when I decided to be honest when I could. I swore I'd never end another innocent's life again. It doesn't matter that she lied to me…” His eyes closed and his grip on the wheel trembled. The light from across the median showed the lines of pain on his face.