The Beast

She opened her mouth to brush things off, but then decided, Screw it. “After I walked out on them and their whole . . . lifestyle . . . they cut me off.”

“That must have been a hard thing to do—leave your family, I mean. Well, and the money.”

Jo swirled her cappuccino around. “I never really fit in with them. My dad—I’m sorry, my father, as he would insist I call him—engineered my adoption because my mother went through a phase of wanting a kid. I guess she thought babies were like purses or something? After they got me, I was raised by nannies, some of whom were good, some of whom were bad. I was then shipped off to boarding school and college—and by the time I got out, I’d just kind of had it with pretending to be who they wanted me to be when I was around them. Outside of that big house, I was my own person. In the presence of the pair of them, I was a facsimile of myself, just like they were constructed versions of themselves.” She batted at the air with her hand. “It’s your standard boring poor-little-rich-girl stuff.”

“Standard and boring unless you’re going through it.”

“Be that as it may, I told them I wasn’t coming back, and they said fine, and that was it. The monthly checks went poof—and honestly, it’s okay. I’m smart, I’m willing to work hard, and I have an education. I’ll make it on my own, just like a whole bunch of people before me have.”

Bill shrugged out of his coat. “May I ask one more personal question?”

“Absolutely.” As she tried her ’cino, she grimaced. Watching that blond man had drained a lot of the warmth out of things. “Anything.”

“You say you were adopted—have you ever thought about looking up your birth family?”

She shook her head. “The records of everything are beyond private—or at least that’s what they told me. I guess my father paid to keep it that way? And it makes sense—I heard that my mother tried to pass me off as hers in the beginning, saying that she had been hiding the pregnancy under loose clothes and then had spent the last month down in Naples or some place like that. As my hair got redder and redder, though, that lie became more difficult to support—especially as she didn’t like the idea of people thinking she’d stepped out on my father.”

“So you never hear from them at all?”

“No, and it’s all right. At this point, hey, my ivy league education’s paid for. If that’s the worst thing those two do to me for the rest of my life, I came out on top of the deal.”

“Well . . .” Bill cleared his throat. “So segue, here—do you want to apply for something at the paper? I know there are a couple of openings and I could put in a good word. You’ve shown me that you’re a helluva good investigator.”

For a minute, Jo just sat there like a lump, blinking. Then she shook herself. “Really? Oh . . . my God, yes. I mean, thank you. I have a résumé I can e-mail you.”

“Consider it done. Like, I know they’re looking for an online content editor right now. The pay has to be about what you’re making as a receptionist, but at least it’s a stepping stone.”

And better than worrying about Bryant’s love life and laundry, she thought to herself.

“Thank you. I mean it.” She flashed him the napkin she’d been writing on. “And on that note, I’ve made a list of the places I’ve visited. I’ve got a couple more to go—I want to check out that closed restaurant where Julio Martinez said he got ambushed by a vampire? And I want to go to this alley where . . . have you seen the footage of the shoot out in the alley? Where there’s this guy up on a roof who kills someone while this other guy runs out into a spray of bullets? There were no fangs in the clip, but it was put up on YouTube by the same guy who posted a lot of the footage of the massacre at that farm.”

Bill took out his phone like he was ready to go ’net surfing. “No, I haven’t seen that yet.”

“Here, let me get it up for you.”

#donteversaythatagain

* * *

Assail waited on the periphery of Naasha’s hellren’s great mansion, tracking the movement of the staff and its mistress in the windows on the first and second floors. One advantage of the female being an exhibitionist was that pulled draperies were an anathema to her, and thus the stages of her dressing were on display for all to see.

At the moment, she was in her bathroom, seated in a make-up chair in front of a window that faced due west. Her maid was rolling her hair in curlers whilst she focused on something in her lap. Perhaps it was e-mail on an iPad. Or a phone.

Taking out his cell, he sent her a text . . . and watched as her head came up and she pointed across the way. The maid put down the roller she’d been about to put to use and scampered out of view. And then she was back, placing a device in her mistress’s hand.

Assail’s own phone went off a second later. When he read what she had texted, he looked at his cousins.

“You know what to do.”

“Aye,” Ehric said. “Is the Brother here—”

“Right behind you.”

All three of them turned about to find Zsadist exactly where he’d said he’d be at exactly the time he’d told Assail he would arrive. Like the rest of them, the Brother had a large backpack on, and plenty of weapons with him.

“Shall we, gentlemales?” Assail murmured.

At his nod, his cousins dematerialized to the back of the mansion, to the infiltration point that had been established beforehand.