She gunned the engine into full roaring life and roared down the winding road, passing through miles of green pasture. Long-horn cattle lifted their heads to watch her, maneuvering their sharp horns with a society matron’s grace. Great oak trees and heavy boulders leaned over the road, providing shade and cover for watchers.
Her mouth twisted briefly. Given how her skin was crawling, there were at least a half dozen men observing her every move. Some were probably using security cameras but at least one or two were physically present, undoubtedly somewhere close to the skyline.
Well, they could relax—she hadn’t come to kill anyone, although she’d surely like to make an arrest.
The road opened out abruptly into a valley, centered on a surprisingly large complex. Steve’s foot came off the accelerator for a moment before she drove on. Boy howdy, the place was big!
An immense ranch house, three stories tall under a deep mansard roof, was solidly built of limestone blocks. The front was covered with a two-story porch, while the other three sides had a multitude of chimneys. It could have withstood a siege, given its steel shutters, especially if the wooden porch was added after the Indian Wars were over.
Pergolas, covered in fruiting vines, framed the stone walkways connecting the dozen other buildings. She could make out a barn, a chapel, at least one dormitory, and more. Was that a pistol range—with an armory beside it—off there to the south? Had she heard automatic weapons firing?
All in all, it was an independent, self-sufficient world, not a small-time, arrogant bastard’s little property.
Her fingers tightened on the wheel, cats’ claws inside her skin urging her to turn around now.
She bit her lip. She’d have to apologize to Ethan somehow about her reaction to Garcia Herrera’s death—or he’d never talk to her. She’d also have to not think about him as a lover—which would be a first when seeing him in the flesh.
Her hands, without any instructions from her brain, stopped the big truck in front of the house and turned off its engine. The sudden silence ripped cold air through her lungs, shocking her back to the here and now.
She sucked in a long breath, reminding herself of who she was and whom she represented. Stephanie Amanda Reynolds, Texas Ranger. Almost two centuries of Texas law enforcement in her veins. Not just a woman who’d been wretched without her lover.
She wrapped her fingers around her father’s battered leather briefcase, which held the cases’ summaries, and unlatched the truck door. It opened sweetly for her, obedient as a bolt-action rifle.
She stepped down to face two men, both with the subtle reserve and smooth movements of those who’ve spent far too long practicing with weapons. They were dressed casually, wearing rock concert T-shirts and jeans above cowboy boots. If they meant to reassure her by not overtly displaying their guns, they failed, given the number of possible hiding places for one on their bodies.
“Reynolds? This way, please.” They took her past the house and into the storm cellar, one walking in front of her and the other behind. They set a fast pace, too, giving her very little time to consider her surroundings, while they went down two, three, four flights of stairs.
Why had she forgotten how much Ethan loathed the sun? Had she truly been foolish enough to hope she’d see him the minute she arrived?
Steve’s lips stretched across her teeth, while she called herself a thousand names for fool.
Except for the lighting, the underground hallways could have been found in any expensive office building or lawyer’s office. Soft carpeting covered the floors, deadening any sound. They were superbly furnished, down to the high-quality maps and artwork which decorated the walls. Snatches of conversation drifted through like smoke from the few rooms before fading away.
Her party passed a pair of metal detectors without pausing, an oversight she decided not to mention. On the other hand, how much chance did she really have of pulling a gun on Ethan, given his superior speed?
Metal detectors were easy to identify. The number of intersections and doors, left and right turns, were not. She’d have bet a month’s pay her escorts were trying to befuddle her.
The few men they encountered, all openly wearing pistols, silently made room for them. Their hard eyes swept over her but they said nothing, simply pressed against the wall or stepped into a doorway. Steve nodded politely to them but kept silent as well. Were they vampiros like Ethan?
They finally arrived at a pair of smoothly polished double doors, gleaming like satin under a single overhead spotlight. Her leader knocked once, paused, and knocked again.
“Enter,” called Ethan.
Her throat was ridiculously tight. She straightened her shoulders, threw her head back, and marched inside without waiting for either of her far-too-careful escorts to show her the way.
The buildings above ground came from limestone blocks, as rugged as the men who strode below them. This room was smoothly polished, with satin-soft plaster rippling over the walls. Great wooden cabinets rose from floor to ceiling, intricate and subtle as a boatbuilder’s art. Oversized leather chairs offered comfortable seating near an oval glass table. An oriental carpet warmed the hardwood floor, while skylights and French doors mimicked daylight.
Its sole occupant, even more masculine than the others, was definitely the king of this domain, standing arrogant and tall in his white starched shirt and crisply pressed jeans. His expression was impassive, his eyes green and gold chips of ice under those thick golden lashes. Lord, how she’d always envied him that gaze.
How the hell could she have forgotten how beautiful he was? But he’d changed in the past month. His eyes were deeper set, fine lines fanning from their corners. Deep grooves bracketed his once-curving mouth and his cheekbones were higher, more angular. His stubborn jaw was more blatantly carved from intransigent bone, not soft skin.
Now he resembled a medieval sword, lethally attractive, and not the invitation to sin she’d once thought him.
He nodded curtly and the door clicked shut behind her escorts. No one outside this room would give her any help.
“Good afternoon, Ethan.” Her voice was deep, huskier than she remembered ever hearing it before. Surely she could not be finding this version of him more appealing.
“Ranger.”
She winced slightly at the impersonal greeting.
His eyes swept over her again, impossible to read. “Would you care for some coffee?”
“Thank you.” She couldn’t bring herself to be completely formal, not when she could see his chest rising and falling under the pure white cotton.
He turned toward a small passageway, possibly the door to his private quarters. Her chest tightened. She needed to wipe the slate clean of old business.
“I, ah . . .” This was not the time to start stuttering!
“Yes?” He glanced back at her, raising an eyebrow.
She swallowed hard and blurted her prepared speech, rushing through the unpleasant phrases as quickly as possible. “Thank you for the list of El Gallinazo’s accounts. It’s been very helpful, Ethan,” she added, determined to keep some connection with the man she’d thought she knew. “And I’m sorry I lost my temper when you shot Garcia Herrera.”
Both of his eyebrows went up. Then his eyes narrowed. “Is that all you have to say?”
“Yes.” She planted her feet more firmly. She wouldn’t apologize for wanting to bring him in, no way. But she shouldn’t have lost control of herself. People’s lives could have been placed at risk.
“You’re forgiven—and thank you for your honesty.”
Steve flushed, heating to a more uncomfortable shade than any time since high school. Dammit, why the hell did he have to read her so easily?
“I won’t apologize for shooting him,” Ethan continued, his gaze softer now but still unreadable, “and I’ll never let you put me in jail for it, Reynolds.”
“Understood.” She inclined her head, never taking her eyes away from him, the briefcase heavy in her h
and. She could swallow hard and overlook that killing, if it would help solve the far longer string of deaths.
“Make yourself comfortable; I’ll be back in a moment.” He disappeared and she swung around to consider her surroundings. Any chance she could break into anything? Was there anything which offered her an opening, like a keyboard, a monitor, an open drawer or cupboard? No.
Just a few pieces of sleek modern furniture and equally impenetrable walls. Not that she’d ever expected him to yield secrets easily.
She set the briefcase down on the glass table, absently admiring its gracefully curving edge. It was hugely different from her grandfather’s old oak table, scarred after decades of hand-loading ammunition atop it.
Ethan came back into the room silently, carrying two mugs. “Cream, two sugars?”
“Yes, thank you.” They’d always teased each other how they never met at work so he’d never shared with her a cop’s basic food group—coffee. She tried to drink anything and everything else away from her job. “What’re you having?”
“Coffee, black.” He handed her the far creamier brew. “Black as the Duke of Hell’s waistcoat.”
Darkness indeed. Her smile was a little twisted but she lifted her mug to him. “Thanks.”
He sipped, watching her, and let the silence stretch out. She recognized the tactic all too well, having used it a few thousand times herself: He was going to let her take the risk of starting the true conversation. Dammit, he’d always been more of a gentleman before. But she hadn’t insulted him before, either.
Bowing to the inevitable, she opened her briefcase and pulled out the case files’ copies.
Ethan’s eyes narrowed briefly but he said nothing.
“At least three dozen young women have died over the past month, in cities from San Antonio to Galveston. We’ve ruled out natural deaths, accidents, and suicides. Heavily trafficked urban areas, no signs of violence, no apparent reason for going off alone with their killer.”
She watched him closely for any change in expression but a meditating Buddha would have been livelier. She dug her fingernails into her palms for a moment before continuing.
“Some of their expressions were alarmed, while others had very extended, even arched necks.”
He raised an eyebrow and she paused hopefully. When he said nothing, she said one last prayer for inaccuracy.
“More than one had two small, red papules over the jugular at the death scene. Those papules were not found by the ME during the autopsy. Exactly the same as the ones you left on me time and again, which disappeared—as you promised, Ethan!—within a day.”
His lips were compressed to a thin, white line.
“Why, Ethan? What the hell is going on here?”
He stared at her, green fury blazing out of his eyes, his hands opening and closing like frustrated clamps. “Why should I tell you? So you can try to haul me into one of your prison cells?”
“No! You didn’t do this, couldn’t have done these killings, Ethan.”
“How can you be sure?” he shot back at her. “I’m a vampiro.”
“You’d never murder a total stranger.” She shrugged in frustration, looking for words to explain her certainty. “You’d gain nothing by it and you don’t hate the world that much.”
“You’re not saying that my morals are pure.”
“Are they? Would Garcia Herrera’s executioner make those refined distinctions?”
He snorted. “Hardly.”
“When you kill—which is probably far too often—you do so for a purpose, like Garcia Herrera. Since you lacked a reason—correct?” He nodded, watching her closely. “Then somebody else must have killed them.”
“You are completely certain of this.” His eyes were narrow, laser bright.
“Absolutely.” There was much she didn’t know about Ethan and more she wasn’t sure of. But she had a clear picture on this subject and her gut concurred. No way he’d done these killings, even if she couldn’t prove it.
He relaxed slowly, hiding his expression behind a long drink of coffee. Exasperating man!
“Am I right?” she demanded.
“Yes.” He set down the mug.
“Are there other vampiros?” Her blood was pounding, from her ears through her legs. If she had someone to go after, that’d be a start, no matter how hard it would be to make an arrest.
“Hundreds.”
“Hundreds?” The word faded away like her pulse. She grabbed for the table and held on desperately.
“Probably thousands, if you included the entire hemisphere and Europe.”
Thousands. Great. She could still conduct an investigation, one vampiro at a time. Somehow.
“Texas doesn’t permit foreign vampiros to enter without permission.” He propped his hip against the table. “Given the current war, we’ve closed our borders so we’re limited to the local vampiros. Plus a few, uh, terrorist vampiros who’ve infiltrated Texas.”
“War? Terrorists?” The familiar word brought her head up and she set her mug down with a clang.
“Bandolerismo, to be precise. They’re vampiros who owe allegiance to no patrón or esfera, which are the vampiro rulers and territories. Instead, they live to cause trouble and hope to gain their own territory in the resulting chaos.”
“Terrorists.” What a foul taste saying that left in her mouth.
“Exactly.”
“Do you know who’s responsible?” Her voice deepened, roughened. Her fingers flexed, longing for her guns.
His eyes narrowed and his face hardened into older, darker lines. Just before she would have yelled at him, he opened a concealed drawer in the wall and removed a remote control. “How much history do you remember from your criminal justice degree?”
College? She’d spent as little time as possible in classrooms. Continuing education was easier since it didn’t last for months.
He was clicking a series of buttons. One of the cabinets opened and the lights dimmed. “Well?”
“Not much,” she admitted. The computer screen hummed into life, revealing it was actually made of four smaller screens. How many toys could a man fit into one room?
He chuckled, his face brightening. “Lovely. The university would be devastated to hear that. Have a seat.”
She sat, her eyes fixed on the immense monitor. An old mug shot appeared of a young man—average height, probably Caucasian, brown hair, brown eyes. Unremarkable features schooled into dutiful obedience, which was probably a mask.
“Recognize him?”
She started to answer and stopped. Ethan’s voice had been too casual.
She studied the photograph again, considering the expression. He looked obedient but who really felt that way in an old-fashioned prison uniform? She’d have rated him more toward the very-angry-but-intelligent-enough-to-hide-it end of the scale.
“Louisiana?” she guessed, squinting at the old labels. “Uh, 1920s?”
“Very good. Care to try for a name or his crime?”
The fellow didn’t look violent unless you studied the eyes. “Murder.”
“Mass murder, to be precise.”
“Mass?” She stared at Ethan, then swung back to the monitor. She frowned, her mind rapidly scrabbling for old class notes. “Is he Devol?”
“Bingo! Georges Devol, murderer of thirteen highly respectable women.”
“He killed an orphanage’s entire board of trustees during their quarterly meeting, very messily. Didn’t it destroy the orphanage, hurting a lot of people?”
“It was the largest secular orphanage in Louisiana at the time,” Ethan said neutrally. A series of clicks sent the monitor dissolving into grainy newsprint photos. “Of course, some also called it a workhouse and a brothel.”
“An orphanage?” Her voice rose to a near shout before she dragged it back under control.
“Yeah.” His voice was clipped and harsh, his throat working hard. “Taking in children from infancy through high school.”
“T
he bastards. Dammit, if I’d caught those responsible—”
“Not many such laws on the books back then, Steve, and fewer prosecutors, especially when the suspects are from the finest families in Louisiana.”
“Son of a bitch!”
“Actually, the bitches themselves.”
She gaped at him, unable to fathom such treachery on the part of women toward children.
His lip curled. “Even so, Devol’s methods of killing them were noticeably sadistic. Rape and strychnine.”
Steve fought not to gag. There were some crime scenes she didn’t mind missing. Then she remembered something from an old textbook.
“But he’s dead, isn’t he? Went to the electric chair at Angola for the killings.”
Ethan raised an eyebrow. There were very few interpretations of that expression and she chose the most obvious.
“Did he escape? Over the hills? But they’re nearly impassable.”
“No, he went into the Mississippi during spring floods.”
“That’s insane!”
“No, he’s one of the smartest criminals you’ll ever meet. He gambled they wouldn’t look for him there and he was right.”
“Shit. And now he’s a vampiro.” A sadistic brute, with a proven track record as a mass murderer? She was cold, very, very cold. “Is he the one who’s killing the girls?”
“He and the rest of his bandolerismo.”
The pieces assembled themselves into a picture.
“But the bandolerismo are terrorists and those guys want to overthrow a government. You’re in the middle of a war. Are they trying to kick you and your friends out of Texas?”
“Got it in one, Steve. Got it in one.” He tossed his hair out of his eyes and came gracefully to his feet. “I’m the alferez mayor—the military commander—not the patrón.”
“Vice president of security?” She joined him by the monitors.
“At your service.”
She considered and rejected going to the top. “You’re probably the guy who actually gets things done, not this patrón fellow. I’d rather talk to you.”
Ethan’s jaw dropped before he slowly closed it. Unholy glee began to replace the stunned shock on his expression. “We’re trying to boot them out of Texas but it’s damn hard for us to find them.”
Bond of Darkness Page 16
