Blood in the Water

by Cleo Peitsche

  After dinner, Koenraad reserved two tickets for a show.

  “You’re not coming?” Monroe whispered. Her mother was just in the other part of the suite, and the door was open.

  “Come with me,” he whispered, and he grabbed one of the room keys and pulled her into the hallway.

  Monroe leaned against the wall. She could feel the bumpy textured wallpaper on the back of her arms and shoulders. “Yes, dear?”

  Koenraad slid his sunglasses on top of his head. “This goes against every ounce of good judgment that I have, but the truth is that I want you with me, so yes, please come. Nothing would make me happier. I just ask that you promise to do me one favor. If you get tired of being out there, of living that life, you’ll admit it.”

  Surprised, she nodded. “It’s a deal.”

  “We need to leave tomorrow,” he said. “I promised Brady, and it seemed to calm him. Maybe that’s wishful thinking, but I can’t keep drugging him. It makes me feel…” He didn’t finish the thought, but Monroe could imagine. “I know your mother’s plane doesn’t leave until the evening, so I’m going to take Brady in the morning and will arrange to have you brought out to me.”

  “That will work.”

  The door opened, and her mother cautiously leaned into the hallway. She blinked in confusion when she saw them, and Monroe knew they looked like they were plotting something.

  “What are you two doing out here?” She shook her head. “Never mind. It’s not my business.”

  “I’m being pulled away on a personal matter,” Koenraad said. “It’s going to take up most of my day tomorrow, so I’ll have to say goodbye to you in the morning.”

  Her mother blinked, and Monroe suddenly realized that Koenraad had forgotten to put his glasses back on.

  But her mother wasn’t wearing glasses, either.

  “Ok. Have a good night if I don’t see you when you get back.” She disappeared back into the room and the door closed.

  “She barely noticed my eyes,” Koenraad reassured her.

  Monroe’s pulse fluttered. “Barely?”

  “If she was freaking out, I’d know. There was mild surprise, but that’s it. You might want to just tell her that it’s a congenital condition. Get ahead of it.”

  Monroe hadn’t thought of that, but it made sense.

  She walked Koenraad to the elevators and started kissing him goodbye. Then she found herself on the elevators with him.

  When he stepped off, Dunphy got on to ride back up with her.

  “How did you know?” she asked. She held up a hand. “You know what? Never mind. I can guess the answer.”

  Then she went to the hotel room. Something told her she was about to find out exactly what her mother thought of Koenraad.

  It took her a few minutes to find her mother, who was naked in the hot tub on the balcony. Monroe glanced around in surprise, looking for potential witnesses.

  “Don’t get your panties in a twist,” her mother said. “There’s no one around. Plenty of room in the tub, though.”

  “I’m good,” Monroe said quickly as she sat in a chair.

  “I think I should treat us to a bottle of champagne,” her mother said.

  “Why?”

  “My only child is getting married. Of course I want to celebrate.” But she didn’t sound thrilled.

  “So you approve?”

  Her mother shrugged. “I can tell you now that I like him more than any of the other guys you dated. I don’t claim to be a perfect judge of character. Fred is proof of that.” Fred was a man her mother had dated, off and on, for six tumultuous years.

  Her mother flicked at a leaf that had blown into the tub. “However. I am an expert on you, and he makes you happy. For now. I don’t approve of how fast this is moving, but this is the first man you’ve ever dated where I had the impression that the two of you are friends. Partners. That’s something you can build a strong relationship on. However…”

  “Yes?”

  “I have reservations. That said, it’s your life, and you’re an adult. You don’t need my advice.”

  “Mom,” Monroe groaned. “Of course I want you to approve.”

  “I want you to come home and spend some time apart from this guy so you can clear your head. If, when your head is clear, he’s still what you want, then I’ll support your decision without any reservations.”

  “But—”

  “I also want to meet his parents.”

  “They live in South Africa and rarely get back here.” Like that didn’t sound suspicious. Actually, she doubted that Koenraad’s parents knew about her at all. Monroe stood. “Let me see about that champagne.” Because she needed a drink.

  After she’d placed the order, she saw she had a message on her phone. Her phone didn’t seem to have registered the call; there wasn’t any record of the number.

  Spencer’s friendly voice floated through the speaker. “I’m about to board my plane, but I wanted to let you know that I had time to pass by the lab.” What he said after that, she couldn’t hear; it was garbled.

  She was about to give up when suddenly his voice was clear again.

  “I exposed it to the toxin, and your blood reacted exactly like Brady’s did. It doesn’t make any sense, and I want to retest everything. I’ve got samples with me. I don’t have any time the next few days, but I know I didn’t make a mistake. You, my dear Monroe, have become a medical oddity. I don’t know if it’s because of the transfusion or if something changed when he claimed you, but I’ve never seen anything like it, and I wager no one else has, either. You’re going to have to come up to Boston for testing, poking and prodding. Koenraad, too. This is so spectacular that I almost wish I hadn’t renounced my claim on you,” he said.

  He was referring to the fake claiming he’d made as part of a plan to save Koenraad’s life. But he didn’t quite sound like he was joking. Koenraad had said the man was married to his work.

  “So romantic,” she murmured.

  There was a knock on the door. She looked through the peephole and recognized Dunphy’s expressionless face.

  She opened the door and saw he had a wheeled cart holding a bottle of chilled champagne in an ice bucket and four delicate glasses.

  Poking her head out, she saw a uniformed staff member at the end of the hallway. She wondered how Koenraad had gotten the entire hotel staff to go along with his crazy machinations.

  But maybe it made sense. Rich people often traveled with assistants, and really rich people tended to need bodyguards, too. Maybe it wasn’t such an odd request.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  Dunphy nodded. “Excellent champagne choice. That’s one of my favorites.”

  She smiled uncertainly. He looked more like the kind of guy she imagined drinking cheap beer by the gallon. “I’d invite you in, but—”

  “I’m on duty anyway,” he said with a little salute.

  As she brought in the cart, she wondered what it meant if her blood acted like Brady’s did. Unstable when exposed to toxins.

  Was that bad? Obviously the toxin wasn’t harming Brady too much. Unless that was what had made him aggressive. But Monroe didn’t feel aggressive at all.

  Being told she had shifter attributes was far better than being given unambiguously bad news, she supposed. She pushed it out of her mind. It was something to think about later, when she was alone.

  She rolled the cart toward the balcony, opened the bottle and poured two glasses. She quickly handed one to her mother when she started to get out of the tub for it.

  “Do you want me to buy you a bathing suit?” Monroe asked. “I’m happy to do it. Very happy.”

  “I’ve got a swimsuit, but this is a tub. Do you shower with your clothes on?”

  “If I were outside I would,” Monroe said.

  “Don’t be such a prude,” her mother said solemnly. “Will you come home or not?”

  Monroe closed her eyes.

  “Let me just point out that if you can’t st
and to be apart from him, if you don’t trust him, then it’s not a healthy relationship.”

  Monroe’s eyes flew open. “I trust him,” she said.

  “Then where’s the harm in slowing down a little?”

  The problem was coming up with an answer that didn’t include the words shark, mated, or hiding for my life.

  “You want my blessing? This is what it will take. I’m worried about you, Monroe. You’re not acting like yourself, and while Koenraad seems like a nice guy, so did Ted Bundy.”

  So now Koenraad was Ted Bundy? How the hell did that happen? “I’ll come home for a few weeks if it’ll make you feel better,” she said. She needed to clean out her apartment anyway.

  “Thank you. I checked, and there’s plenty of room on my flight—”

  “Not tomorrow!” Monroe blurted. “I’ve got that real estate job, and I can’t walk out on them.”

  “Did you give Pet Palace two weeks’ notice?” Her mother pursed her lips and took a long drink of champagne.

  Chapter 16

  At eight the next morning, Koenraad started the tour of a luxury yacht.

  Ten minutes later, he transferred the full price to the broker.

  The mega yacht was too large to explore at the moment, but he’d seen photos of the rest online.

  The idea to invest in a mega yacht had come to him the night before, while he sat outside Brady’s tank and watched his son. The tranquilizers had surely worn off, but Brady wasn’t flipping out. It had almost been enough to make Koenraad reconsider leaving so quickly. He faced a crushing number of logistical odds and ends.

  But he’d promised Brady that they’d leave in the morning, and he was going to make that happen.

  Now he wished more than anything that Spencer was still around. Spencer could have kept an eye on Brady for a few hours or even a day, giving Koenraad precious time to pull everything together.

  As he’d watched his son, who’d always been obsessed with boats, he’d decided that using a mega yacht would solve several problems. It would give Monroe space. The Good Life was large, but Koenraad could do better.

  The new yacht, auspiciously named Second Chances, was a real beauty. She was designed for crossing the open ocean in luxury.

  Second Chances was three levels. There was a fitness center and a pool, a game room and a dance floor. Among many other things.

  While he didn’t love her on first sight, he’d known she was perfect. That she was immediately available cemented his decision. Sometimes the former owner needed to remove all variety of personal effects.

  As Koenraad walked down the dock, he wondered how the hell he was going to find a crew on such short notice. Because that was the problem with mega yachts, and it was the one thing that had given him pause. He could handle a lot on his own, but something of this size required help. He’d need a crew with a lot of experience, and people like that tended to have plenty of work lined up.

  They’d also need to be shifters who could be trusted to keep their mouths closed about Brady.

  Some problems couldn’t be solved with money. But some, luckily, could be. He just needed to find some employees who were unhappy with their current positions. He’d up their salaries until they couldn’t turn him down.

  He also made a decision. He didn’t need to take the boat halfway between the Americas and Africa. That had been his plan when he thought he and Brady would be on their own, but with Monroe in the equation, he didn’t see the necessity of going out more than 300 nautical miles.

  Which meant he didn’t have to engage the crew for an extended period. If need be, he could take a temporary crew—

  Koenraad’s thoughts were cut off when he pulled into the aquarium’s parking lot. It was already nine in the morning, and the center had just opened to the public, which meant the lot was already full of employee vehicles and rental cars.

  There was one convertible, however, that didn’t belong.

  With a sinking feeling in his stomach, he stepped out of his car and strode to the entrance.

  The ticket keeper didn’t recognize him, so he handed the girl some money.

  “You have to buy a ticket at the counter,” she protested. “I don’t have change.”

  He ignored her and hoped over the turnstile.

  The jellyfish exhibit was straight ahead and to the left. Koenraad knew better than to make a beeline for it. He didn’t want Darius to know that he suspected anything.

  Halfway to the tank, Koenraad stopped.

  Why did he care? The sick in the water wasn’t his problem. As he reminded himself dozens of times a day. Let the Council worry about it. Let the tourism bureau deal with it—they’d lifted the travel ban after mapping out safe beaches, so the problem was manageable.

  And whatever Darius and Victoria were up to probably had to do with greed and power plays. Darius cared about power and not much else.

  Anyway, Koenraad’s nose told him the egomaniac had only passed through this way without lingering.

  Koenraad tracked him to the arena where spectators could watch the aquarium’s two hippos swim underwater. Darius stood on the steps, his pose casual, his arms folded across his chest. He was dressed in a neat linen suit topped by a fedora. All he needed was a pocket watch and a monocle.

  “What brings you here?” Koenraad asked.

  Darius looked up, surprised. The older shifter hadn’t realized he was there.

  But Darius quickly buried his reaction. “Would you believe me if I said I haven’t been by the aquarium often enough lately?”

  “No,” Koenraad said honestly.

  Darius smiled. If Koenraad hadn’t known better, he really would have bought the whole avuncular act. But he did know better.

  He also knew he’d be wise to play along. Maybe Darius would accidentally spill something of use.

  Unlikely, but possible.

  “You’d be right,” Darius said. “In fact, I’m meeting Victoria here.”

  Koenraad repressed a shudder. He didn’t want to run into her. “Why here?”

  Darius smiled. “How often do you see shifters here? Never. The island is overrun with shifters, and this is the one place I can have a conversation without being overheard.”

  “How about your house? Your office?” He looked around. “Where are your bodyguards? Or don’t you trust them anymore?”

  “It’s family business,” Darius said. “I don’t want rumors.” He looked at Koenraad as if he were contemplating telling him something important.

  Koenraad decided to take the bait. “Rumors about what?”

  “I’m dying,” he said.

  Koenraad didn’t believe it for a second. “You don’t look like you’re dying. And you don’t smell like you’re dying.”

  “Nonetheless, I am. I’ve had four heart surgeries in the last five months. My body tries to repair the damage, but it’s working from a flawed blueprint, according to my doctor. Each surgery tries a more drastic correction.”

  Koenraad nodded. Yeah, this was the biggest load of whale shit he’d heard in a long time. “So it’s a secret, and you’re meeting with Victoria out here?”

  “She’s my only heir,” Darius said, sounding disappointed about it.

  “That doesn’t explain the location. You could have gone a million other places.”

  “Why not here?” Darius asked, irritated. “It’s soothing.”

  Koenraad was trying to decide on a follow-up question that might anger Darius into giving something away when an ear-piercing scream shattered the calmness of the morning.

  Koenraad recognized the voice immediately.

  He knew exactly where it was coming from.

  And he knew he was so very screwed.

  Victoria had found Brady.

  Chapter 17

  Victoria’s screams reverberated in Koenraad’s skull. She sounded like she was on the edge of complete hysterics.

  Employees rushed toward the area, but Koenraad and Darius pushed past all of them. For a
shifter with a supposedly bad ticker, Darius was awfully light on his feet.

  Koenraad plowed through the door to the room containing the holding tank. “Out!” he said to the employees who were already there. “Out, now!”

  Their obedience was proof that giving an order in a commanding voice was enough to compel people to listen.

  Koenraad ushered out the last of the employees and locked the door.

  Darius was already on the upper level. When Koenraad got up there, Darius turned to him, and Koenraad had to admit that the shifter looked helpless.

  Then Darius stepped aside, and Koenraad saw Victoria.

  She was doubled over, naked and soaking wet. Her hunched shoulders shuddered with ragged breaths.

  When she saw Koenraad, fury transformed her beautiful face into a nightmare.

  “How fucking dare you!” she screamed as she staggered to her feet. Her voice caught on itself, so great was her emotion. She was also starting to shift, her brow receding, her teeth sharpening, and it gargled her words.

  Darius suddenly pulled himself together. He covered the distance to his niece in a short moment, drew back his hand and slapped her hard enough across her face that the impact sent her sprawling to the floor.

  When she looked up, her anger was just as fierce, but she’d mastered control of herself.

  “You fucking bastard,” she hissed to Koenraad. “He was here all along. You let me think he was lost.”

  “What are you talking about, Victoria?” Darius demanded.

  “Can’t you smell anything?” she snapped. “I caught Koenraad’s scent and followed it to this room.”

  “Yeah, I come in here,” Koenraad said. If Darius couldn’t smell Brady, then Koenraad was going to use that to his advantage. He would deny everything, let Victoria look insane. Darius already thought she was obsessed, so the battle was half won. “I was here yesterday,” he admitted. “My parents asked me to—”

  “And Brady was also here, in this tank,” she said to Darius. “Koenraad moved him within the last hour.”

  “I just got here,” Koenraad said. It wasn’t hard to sound confused. Brady couldn’t have gotten away. The idea was preposterous. There was nowhere for Brady to go.