“Maybe. Maybe not.” He held out a hand. “Shall we go?”
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him to go to hell, but she had a feeling she needed his help far more than he needed hers. Someone out there was setting her up for a fall, and like it or not, he was the only thing that currently stood between her and a prison cell.
Nodding briefly, she ignored his outstretched hand and brushed past him, walking to the door. One thing was certain—Jack had better provide some answers tomorrow night, or she might just be tempted to shoot him again.
SAM CLIMBED FROM THE CAR, shouldering her bag as she stared up at the three-story building in surprise. With its soaring white pillars and vast expanse of windows, the house looked as if it belonged in America’s Deep South, not sitting here among the gums in the genteel suburb of Toorak—although it was part of what was commonly called Millionaire’s Row. And the other houses on this block were even more extravagant in design than this.
She glanced at Gabriel as he moved around the car. “You didn’t tell me your friend was wealthy.”
He shrugged. “It isn’t important.”
When someone was trying to poison him, it was. Wealth was often a motivating factor. “You’ve seen his will? Investigated his beneficiaries?”
His smile was somewhat grim. “There are two. His wife, Lyssa, and me.” He motioned her up the stairs. “And if it is Lyssa, wealth won’t be a motive. This house is hers—it’s been in her family for several generations.”
She raised an eyebrow. He was an heir? Why?
“That’s some friendship you have there, Assistant Director.”
His gaze met hers. “Yes, it is. And I have no intention of losing it.”
He pressed a button near the door. A bell chimed softly in the distance, then the security screen came to life.
“Gabriel.” The woman was young and blond and had a voice that could only be described as sultry. “You’re late.”
“Sorry, Lys. Trouble at work.”
“I see you’ve brought some of it along with you.” The blonde sighed dramatically. “Come on in.”
The door clicked open. Sam glanced up at Gabriel as he ushered her inside. “Is your friend’s wife an actress, by chance?”
His expression, she noticed, was thoughtful. There was something about the woman’s manner that didn’t sit well with him, and she had a feeling it wasn’t her overly dramatic ways. “Anyone would think so.”
“How did she know I was one of your assignments?”
“One cop shooting another is big news these days. Your face has been plastered all over the media, I’m afraid.”
So much for the right to an unprejudiced trial. She took off her coat and handed it to him so he could place it in the cloak closet, but kept a grip on her bag. The hallway in which they stood was all white marble and gold fittings. And it was all real, all worth a king’s fortune. His friends were obviously more than just plain old wealthy.
“This way.” He caught her elbow, his touch light but warm as he led her down the hall. Their footsteps echoed through the silence, and the air was chill, almost stale. Maybe this part of the house wasn’t used much.
It wasn’t until he opened a set of French doors and ushered her into a smaller hallway that any real warmth came into the house. In this section, the walls were a mellow sandstone color and the doorways a rich turquoise. The floor was wood—real wood, not that plastic stuff they’d used in her apartment—but covered by a runner that was red, gold and turquoise diamonds. Even the air smelled different—warm and rich, with the scent of sandalwood combined with a faint hint of lime.
“I like your friend’s taste in colors.”
He nodded. “We spent a lot of our youth in Santa Fe.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Then why the southern influence in the front half of the house?”
“Because that’s the way it’s always been, and Lys doesn’t want to go against tradition. It’s only used for functions.”
He ushered her through another doorway. Heat prickled a familiar warning across her skin and she stopped. He glanced down at her, one eyebrow raised in query.
“Your friends include a vampire and a shifter?”
He nodded. “There’s also a shapechanger and a human.”
There was? Then why couldn’t she sense them? Why was this talent of hers, if indeed it was an emerging talent, picking up some nonhumans and not others?
A man appeared in the doorway, his smile of greeting dying a little when his gaze met hers. “Samantha Ryan,” he said. “What a surprise.”
“I’m sure it is,” she said dryly. Obviously Gabriel hadn’t warned his friend that she was coming.
The two men briefly embraced. He was about Gabriel’s height, maybe a little taller. His eyes were a vivid green and his hair was black, but, like Gabriel’s, it had a tendency to flop untidily across his eyes. Maybe they went to the same barber. Their build was also similar, though the loose hang of the stranger’s clothes suggested he’d recently lost a lot of weight. They were alike enough to be brothers—or at least come from the same genetic line—though the stranger’s face was sharper than Gabriel’s, his nose longer and more regal. A man born to be king, she thought with a shiver, and wondered just who he did rule.
“Karl sends his regards,” Gabriel said softly. He took two small plastic bottles from his pocket and handed them to his friend. One looked like it contained water, the other a pale green fluid. She guessed it was medicine of some kind.
The bottles disappeared into the other man’s jacket pocket. Gabriel turned toward her. “Sam, this is my friend, Stephan.”
She shook his offered hand. Despite the almost skeletal appearance of his fingers, his grip was firm. “Sorry to land on you like this. Gabriel should have warned you I was coming.”
Stephan’s expression was wry, as if the unexpected was an everyday event when it came to Gabriel. “Yes, he should have, but you’re welcome all the same. Come in, and meet the rest of the family.”
He ushered her inside. Three people turned to look at her. “This is my wife, Lyssa,” Stephan said. “Then we have Mary, and Martyn’s over there near the fire.”
She nodded politely at the three of them. Close up, Lyssa looked even younger than she had on the com-screen, and she had the figure to match her face and voice—except for a slightly rounded stomach. Pregnant, she thought, and wondered how different birth was for shifters.
Martyn was thin and pallid and looked like the typical vampire. Only he wasn’t the bloodsucker she sensed. That was Mary—an older woman, probably in her mid-fifties, with steel-gray hair, a face that looked well lived in, and kind blue eyes.
“Dinner’s ready,” Stephan continued, “so let’s head into the dining room.”
Gabriel placed a hand on her back, his fingers seeming to burn deep into her spine as he guided her into the next room. As he pulled out a chair for her, she murmured her thanks, and was glad he’d decided to sit beside her. There was a sense of anger in the air that she didn’t like. Oddly enough, the main source was the two women.
Mary sat opposite her and Lyssa to her left—an arrangement that left her with an uneasy feeling of being penned. Something about the two of them felt wrong. Though she couldn’t explain it, the sensation gnawed at her, churning her stomach.
Martyn sat next to Mary, his gray eyes unfriendly as he studied her. Gabriel had obviously misjudged his friends. They were never going to loosen up in the presence of a stranger. Not enough, anyway, for her to be able to glean any real insights about them. Of the four of them, the only one not showing any sort of animosity toward her was Stephan.
“You should have told us you were bringing a celebrity, Gabriel. I would’ve dug out my autograph book.”
Though Lyssa’s tone was even, there was something in her manner that was far from friendly. It was almost as if she knew Sam and hated her.
“I didn’t bring her here to be cross-examined,” Gabriel said, annoyance in his so
ft tones. “No office talk, remember?”
“Oh, come on, don’t be such a pooper.” Lyssa’s sultry tones were lightly teasing, but her blue eyes were sharp, almost icy. “You surely can’t expect to bring along such a controversial guest without us asking a question or two.”
His gaze met hers, and in the hazel depths she saw concern. But she wasn’t entirely sure that the concern was for her. Maybe he thought she’d shoot the lot of them if they said too much. She smiled grimly and nodded at his unspoken query. Questions couldn’t hurt, and they might just give her an insight or two into the people at this table. Although it was already obvious that the only one he was really close to was Stephan.
“Go for it, folks,” she murmured.
Mary shook out her napkin, then asked, “Did you really shoot your partner?”
The older woman’s voice was steeped in concern, and little lines of tension ran around her blue eyes. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought Jack’s fate was somehow important to Mary. But if that were the case and Mary had been involved with Jack somehow, surely Jack would have mentioned it sometime during the last five years. Then again, he’d never mentioned the apartment. Maybe she hadn’t known Jack as well as she’d thought.
“I didn’t shoot Jack. I shot his clone.”
Mary snorted. “And State’s buying that defense?”
“Apparently not, considering I’m still suspended.”
Stephan gave Mary a look that quickly silenced any other questions she might have had, and then he leaned forward, interest bright in his green eyes. “Why was the clone attacking you?”
“I don’t know.” She glanced up as an autocook unfolded from the ceiling, and a large silver tray began to descend. “But Jack had become a vampire, and the clone had every intention of killing me.”
“A vampire?” Stephan glanced at Gabriel. “When did Kazdan become a vampire?”
She raised an eyebrow in surprise. “You know Jack?”
“I know of him.” He regarded her steadily for a minute, his green eyes intense. “Was Kazdan a vampire before he disappeared?”
“No.” There was something in Stephan’s manner that reminded her of Gabriel. Maybe it was the way he leaned back in his chair, casual yet on guard. But there was also an odd sense of disinterest behind his words—it was almost as if he already knew the answers and was simply asking the questions because they were expected. Which made no sense at all.
“Interesting.” He glanced at Gabriel again. “That means Kazdan was cloned after he turned.”
“It would appear so,” Gabriel said quietly.
“That’s not possible.” Martyn’s voice was scratchy, almost harsh on the ears. “To produce a clone the same age as Kazdan in two and a half weeks, they would have had to use a tremendous amount of accelerant—and that in itself is problematic. Even presuming someone has found a way to transfer personality and memories, the clone simply wouldn’t have had the time to correlate everything. Hell, it probably wouldn’t have been able to even speak properly.”
“And it didn’t,” she murmured.
Stephan cast her an oddly amused look as he said, “Perhaps they merely wished the clone to be old enough to pass as Kazdan. Perhaps it was merely a means to an end.”
That end being her charged with Jack’s murder, she thought grimly. Then she frowned.
“Hang on, why does the clone have to have been produced after Jack was turned?”
“Because,” Martyn said, “if accelerants were used on the clone—as his inability to speak properly would seem to indicate—then it would have soon aged past Kazdan and been of no use.”
“Anyone would think you men actually believe her clone story.” Mary hesitated, staring at Sam for a moment. Anger radiated from the woman, a wave so heated it was almost visible. For some reason, her shooting of Jack mattered to Mary. And if Jack was connected to this Sethanon, as Gabriel suggested, then maybe he’d better start investigating Mary. “But if it was a clone she shot, surely the coroner would have picked that up.”
“Given that the clone is genetically identical to the original, no, they wouldn’t,” Gabriel said. “Although they would have picked up any accelerant used.”
“And have they?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“There you go.” Mary sat back in her chair and continued to glare at Sam. “She killed her partner, not some mythical clone.”
The silver tray settled on the table. The rich aromas of fresh breads, spicy curries and fresh vegetables filled the room, but while she would normally have dug in, right now her stomach turned. The feeling of wrongness was growing, gnawing at her like a dog with a bone. She just wished she could figure out what, exactly, was wrong.
Everyone except her and Stephan immediately reached for plates. Martyn produced a small flask from inside his jacket pocket, then poured a dark, viscous liquid into a wineglass. Blood, she thought, a chill running down her spine. If he was a vampire, why hadn’t she sensed it? And why had Gabriel said two of his friends were a shapechanger and a human, when what she was sensing suggested one shapeshifter, and possibly two vamps? She couldn’t even begin to guess what Stephan was, but if he was part of this Federation of Gabriel’s, it was possible he was also nonhuman. So who was the human? Her gaze swept the lot of them. She had no idea, and yet she doubted Gabriel was lying.
“Curry?” Gabriel asked.
His sudden question made her jump. He frowned, but otherwise made no comment.
“No thanks,” she said. “I think I’ll stick to vegetables.” The way her stomach was churning, she didn’t dare try anything spicy.
He nodded, and handed across the platter of vegetables instead. She grabbed a plate, spooned a small selection onto it, then put the platter back onto the tray.
“How long have you known Jack?” Stephan asked, breaking the brief silence.
She glanced at him. There was nothing in his tone but polite interest, yet something in the intensity of his gaze suggested he was judging her. Because she’d come here with Gabriel? Because she’d gained his trust enough to meet his friends? Obviously, Stephan had no idea just how little Gabriel really trusted her.
“We became partners just over five years ago.”
“And you knew him well?”
“Yes.” Or she thought she had. But the dawning of every day seemed to bring out more and more she hadn’t known.
Mary snorted softly. “We all heard the news reports. They were lovers, for Christ’s sake. Of course she knew him well.”
Lyssa shifted on her chair and angrily speared a piece of meat off her plate. The sudden viciousness behind the movement left Sam with no doubt that Lyssa was not the gentle soul she looked. She glanced at Gabriel, and noticed he was once again regarding her with that oddly intense expression.
She switched her gaze to Stephan. For some reason, she sensed it was important that this man, if no one else, believed her. “We were friends—good friends. Nothing more, nothing less.”
He nodded, his green gaze flickering briefly to Gabriel.
Lyssa jumped into the brief silence. “And were you also such good friends with his wife?”
Sam’s smile was grim. “No. She was a total bitch.” Who would probably get on extremely well with Lyssa.
The young blonde pursed her lips, eyes glittering with an odd mixture of jealousy and hate. And the way she held her mouth stirred a memory. They’d met before, though where, Sam had no idea.
“Jealousy speaks,” Martyn murmured.
She abandoned the pretense of eating and pushed her plate away. Mary, she noticed, was the only one who was really making any attempt to eat, shoveling in the food with a gusto that was surprising. While vampires could—despite the myths—consume food, they generally ate only a small amount; otherwise they’d simply regurgitate it. A vampire needed blood to survive, and while food wouldn’t kill them, it couldn’t sustain them, either. So why was Mary eating as though her life depended on it? Was s
he, perhaps, one of the newly turned, and not yet fully adjusted to life as one of the undead?
“My partner’s clone was trying to kill me. I shot him. End of story.” At least for now. She hesitated, sweeping her gaze across the four of them. “Why don’t we talk instead about this Sethanon Jack is supposedly involved with?”
Mary almost choked on her food. Martyn slapped her several times on the back, and then glanced at Stephan. As did Lyssa. It was almost as if they were looking for direction.
Which would make Stephan the leader of this little group, and maybe even of the Federation itself.
“What do you know of Sethanon?” he asked quietly.
“Only what Gabriel has told me.” She looked at the man in question. His hazel eyes gave little away, as usual. “Which was nothing much, believe me.”
Mary stood up quickly, her chair scraping across the wooden floor. “I think I’ve got something stuck in my throat. Please excuse me.”
Lyssa rose. “You okay? Let me help.”
Mary waved the offer away. “I’ll be fine. I won’t be a moment.”
Sam watched her walk out the door, and the sense of wrongness jumped about ten degrees. She shifted, trying to deny the urge to get up and run from this house. She was a police officer, for Christ’s sake. She’d been in a hell of a lot tougher situations than this.
So why did she feel that if they didn’t all move soon, they’d die, right where they sat? It didn’t make any sense. The house was well protected—the security cams and sensors near the front gate and front door were top of the range. No one would get near the house without Stephan being warned.
But what if the threat was from inside? What if the poisoner was about to escalate the game? Her gaze went to the doorway. Maybe she should follow Mary and see just how bad the food lodging in her throat was.
“I need to go to the restroom.” She gathered her bag off the back of her chair and stood.
Gabriel regarded her for a moment. Though there was no emotion in either his face or his eyes, she nevertheless sensed his concern. Or was it mistrust?
“Turn left out the door. The guest bathroom is the third on the right.”