Oh. “Okay, good point. How long until Nolan’s people arrive, and where the hell are you that someone else will get to the hotel first?”
“I’m trying to convince the police that you won’t start slaughtering people in the streets and you really will be useful to the investigation.”
“I thought we’d settled all that before I got on the plane.”
“So did I,” he said, and he sounded tired and frustrated, and underneath that was anger. Eventually, if they kept pushing him, they’d get to his anger and stay there.
Nicky’s phone rang. He listened and then hung up. “Donahue and Brennan are downstairs to escort us where we need to go.”
“How did they get your number?”
“I told Edward to give it to whoever needed it.”
“Good thinking.” I looked around the room. Everyone looked dressed and ready to go. Jake, Kaazim, Ethan, and Domino were waiting out in the hallway for us. Fortune stuck her head out of her room long enough to kiss Nathaniel and me good-bye, and then she went back to sleep. She had Echo in her room still waiting for nightfall. She couldn’t leave Echo unprotected, and we didn’t need the whole crew for this. Magda and Socrates were still at Nolan’s compound trying to make friends with the rest of his people. After what she’d done to one of their new superstrong cells, I really hoped Nolan had a plan B.
Donnie met us in the lobby, smiling. Brennan, a lot less happy, was behind her. Honestly, I was surprised to see him, but I did my best to just take it in stride. Apparently, medical had cleared him, and Nolan thought he could handle the assignment. “Forrester says you need an escort,” he said.
“Actually, he said babysitter,” Donnie said, grinning.
“I appreciate you keeping us legal,” I said, and kept walking toward the door. They fell in behind and to the side of me.
“What’s the emergency?” she asked.
“We may have inadvertently let the bad guy know we were contacted by a local today.” Jake and Kaazim did the bodyguard thing at the door, checking for safety and holding the door for me.
“Unless you know something we don’t, we don’t know who the villain of the piece is yet,” Brennan said.
“Let me rephrase, then: the suspected bad guy.”
“Who do you suspect?” he asked.
“Where are you parked, and will it hold all of us?” I asked.
“Not far and yes,” Donnie said.
“Lead us to the car.”
“You do know that you don’t outrank us, right?” Brennan said.
Donnie went to the left and kept walking. We followed her with Brennan keeping up, but not happy about it. “Are you deliberately ignoring my questions?” he asked.
“I’ll answer them in the car on the way, Brennan, but I’d really like to find our local informant before he ends up tortured and killed.”
“Tortured and killed? What are you talking about, Blake? You’re here to help us with our vampire problem, not to get involved in another crime.”
“I’m hoping to stop another crime from happening—if that’s okay with you?” I walked past him with Nicky at my back. Brennan stopped asking questions and just caught up with Donnie. I fought the urge to start jogging down the sidewalk. We didn’t need to attract that much attention yet. It was still daylight. Riley would probably be safe until nightfall. Of course, Damian was awake already, and about the time I had decided to jog, Donnie had stopped at a van. I could save the running for later.
53
WE COULDN’T FIND Riley. We couldn’t find his girlfriend. It was like the harder we tried to locate them, the more lost they became. Our last hope was that Flannery’s aunt would come through, but the last info from him was that Auntie Nim didn’t have much to do with the Roanes, because they weren’t her creatures. It was as if people refused to do business with the werewolves in St. Louis because wolf was Jean-Claude’s animal to call, and their Ulfric was his moitié bête. I still thought it was interesting that Flannery’s Fey relatives had known about the vampires in Ireland all this time, but they hadn’t shared the news with him, not even after vampires had started showing up in Dublin. I actually asked him why they didn’t tell him sooner. His answer: “I asked them if they knew anything about the new vampires in Dublin. I didn’t ask them if there were other vampires in Ireland outside the city.” Apparently the Irish Fey answered direct questions, but what you didn’t ask, they didn’t answer, even if logically it was connected. An important safety tip to remember if I had to question any of them on this trip.
I’d set my phone alarm to the time when Jean-Claude typically woke for the night in St. Louis, but I didn’t need an alarm. I felt him wake for the night, thousands of miles away. I knew when his eyes opened for the first time to stare at the ceiling, felt the warmth of the body curled beside him, one arm flung across his stomach. I knew by the size and weight of the arm that it was Richard, because I had the only other men in his life who had that kind of size and muscle. He knew I was sitting in the back of the van with Nathaniel beside me. I saw, felt, smelled the warm darkness of his bed and Richard’s body fever warm beside him. His shoulder-length hair in a wild tangle hiding the handsome face. I couldn’t remember the last time Richard had slept over with any of us. Jean-Claude’s voice whispered through my head, “Ma petite, what have you been doing while I slept?”