Slaying It (Chicagoland Vampires)

by Chloe Neill

  “The pleasure is all mine,” he said, and pressed his lips to her hand. And even the unflappable Mrs. Plum looked a little flapped. Ethan’s charms were pretty much universal.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked.

  “It’s fine. But I heard about your incident, and I wanted to make sure you were all right. I was going to walk down to your school and check on you when I finished with the plants.”

  Mrs. Plum had decided Cadogan House was essentially a vampire college. Since we had dorm rooms, a cafeteria, training sessions, and a sexy headmaster, she wasn’t entirely wrong.

  “I mean, I know you’re immortal, but I think that would have scared the pee out of me.”

  “It scared me plenty,” I said. “Mrs. Plum, the vehicle was a dark blue Festival—a small four-door sedan. The vampire was white with brown hair, probably five eleven or so. Medium build. Do either of those ring any bells for you?”

  She frowned. “I don’t know about the car model, but I’ve seen plenty of sedans and plenty of white guys.”

  I bit back a grin. “Fair enough. What about pizza delivery men?”

  “Every once in a while, sure. I’m out watering my plants nearly every morning, every evening, and—wait.” She looked back at me, and there was a gleam in her eyes. “Pizza delivery, you said?”

  “I did say.”

  She glanced down the street toward the corner. “Come to think of it, three or four nights ago”—she put her hands on her hips, frowned as she worked to remember—“No, four. Four nights ago, I was watering the plants and saw this little car pull up. Older car, four doors, and not very big. One of those lights on top that the delivery drivers use, but it just said pizza. Didn’t have a name, and I found that odd.

  “He pulled up to the corner right here”—she pointed—“and I was a little suspicious, mind, because the Ewings are on vacation. They’re in Italy on one of those river cruises, and I’m so glad they finally managed to get away. Anyway, they wouldn’t have ordered a pizza, so he was either lost or had some sort of bad motivation. He got out of the car, walked over, and I kept my hose trained on him, just in case.” She held up her sprayer. “And I realized he didn’t have a pizza box, and that's just odd. White man with brown hair. I said, ‘Can I help you find something?’ He looked surprised to see me. He said, ‘No, ma’am,’ then looked around a little bit like he was lost. And he looked down toward your school, got back in the car, and drove away.”

  Scoping your route, Ethan silently suggested, using the telepathic link between us as he glanced at the streetlight at the corner, glowing orange, that spread a circle of light on the asphalt. The location of the streetlights, the distance from the House, any barriers that might impede his escape.

  Yeah, I said, my discomfort inching up again. Had I passed this man on the street without knowing who he was or what he was planning? Maybe offered a nod or a smile? He hadn’t looked familiar, but without some reason to think he was a threat, I may not have paid much attention.

  “Mrs. Plum,” I said, and pulled out my phone, showed her the sketch. “Does this look like him?”

  She slid on the boxy glasses that hung around her neck. “Somewhat?” She tilted her head as she considered. “I believe his jaw was a little softer. His lips a little thinner, I think. He wasn’t this, I suppose, hard looking, if that makes sense.”

  Given I hadn’t gotten a good look at him and had thought him a monster, it made perfect sense that I’d unconsciously hardened his features.

  “Would you be willing to speak to Merit’s grandfather?” Ethan asked. “The sketch artist could use your information to improve this. That would help us identify him.”

  “Of course I’ll help. Do I need to go see the police?”

  “No, ma’am,” he said. “We’ll take care of everything. I know it’s late, but they may want to speak with you yet tonight.”

  “I’m happy to help.” She slid her gaze to me. “You’ve snagged a very polite young man.”

  I could practically hear Ethan’s sarcastic retort to the “young” comment. But he kept his gracious smile in place.

  “He’s very mannerly,” I agreed.

  She nodded. “I’ll just finish with their drink,” she said, and aimed the soft spray of water on the plants. “You all have a good night.”

  “We will, Mrs. Plum,” I said. “And thank you for your help.”

  She nodded. “Oh, and Merit,” she called out, when I’d reached Ethan’s car again.

  I glanced back.

  There was amusement in her eyes that I liked a lot better than the concern. “They adopted the corgi.”

  7

  We called my grandfather on the way back to the House and coordinated Mrs. Plum’s meeting with Kat. Then we went to the House’s Ops Room—the strategy room in the basement that served as the HQ for the Cadogan guards—and discussed what we knew.

  The Ops Room was the most technologically intensive room in the House. There were wall monitors for reviewing information, a bank of surveillance cameras where guards kept an eye on the house, and, stretching nearly from end to end, an enormous conference table with built-in screens.

  The guards sat at the table, Luc at its head, and were passing around trail mix. I dug out a handful of cashews before passing the bowl to Lindsey, who sat beside me.

  “What is this nonsense?” she said, gaze narrowed at me.

  “What? The baby doesn’t like raisins.”

  “The baby doesn’t care about raisins,” she said flatly, pouring unadulterated trail mix into her hand. “You don’t like them, or anything else, and you just pick out the cashews.”

  “You should buy trail mix without raisins. And sunflower seeds. And those yogurt things.”

  “So trail mix that only consists of cashews.” Kelley sat across from us, and her voice was just as dry.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “So just a bag of cashews.”

  I ignored the tone. “Yes. And it would be delicious.” Unapologetically, I stuffed the rest of the cashews in my mouth, dusted the salt from my hands. “Sorry not sorry.”

  “If we’re done being childish,” Luc interjected, organizing his trail mix into tidy and organized rows on the conference table, “I have some more names—Christine, after Evans, Hemsworth, Pine, or Pratt. Take your pick.”

  “No,” Ethan said, brow arched at the arrangement of nuts and raisins.

  “I like order,” Luc said with a grin, then swept the row of raisins into his mouth. “And that’s just more raisins for me.”

  “We are surrounded by weirdos,” Kelley said to Lindsey. “Normals on the island of misfit vampires.”

  “Vampires are misfits by definition,” Luc said. “And in case you weren’t sure, we are, in fact, done with the funny business.” He glanced at me. “Sentinel, lay it out for us.”

  “We have his car,” I said. “We have his fingerprints, but currently no matching identity. We have garbage from his car that may have DNA, and it’s possible he may have mob friends, or at least visited a known mob hangout. He said he wanted money because he had a debt, so we’re currently speculating he owes money to the mob and was hoping my ransom would pay that off.”

  “Why you?” Luc asked, leaning back in his chair and crossing booted ankles on the conference table. “Not that I don’t think you have your finer qualities, of course, but you aren’t the only person in the city who could earn a ransom.”

  “He’s a vampire,” Ethan said. “And so are we, and relatively famous ones. He probably assumes—and correctly—that I’d pay whatever ransom was necessary to get her back. Shortly before I hunted him down and ripped the limbs from his body.”

  “Of course,” Luc said smoothly, crossing his arms and rocking as he considered. “And presuming Merit didn’t rip his limbs off first. But I still think we’re missing something. We think he did t
he grab, including the pizza delivery routine, because he knew her schedule. Because he knew she went for evening walks. How did he come by that knowledge? The vehicle didn’t show up on the surveillance video, and he’d have needed to be close to see her coming and going in the first place. Otherwise, why even consider the possibility that she’d take an evening walk by herself in the first place?”

  The air began to pulse with angry magic. I glanced at Ethan, found his eyes cold and hard as steel. “You think he has a connection to the Houses.”

  “I think if you’re a Housed vampire, it’s a perfectly natural thing to discuss the first vampire pregnancy with your friends. I think he talked with someone, got the information, and the brain cells started to fire, and he figured he’d found a way out of his current financial trials and tribulations.”

  “He hasn’t tried again,” I said.

  “He hasn’t had an opportunity,” Luc said. “You’ve been either on the grounds or surrounded by cops. Could be he’s laying low—both from us and from the folks to whom he owes money—waiting for an opportunity.”

  Ethan’s phone buzzed, and he pulled it out, checked the screen. “That’s Malik. Catcher and Chuck are here,” he said, rising from his seat. “They’ve got an updated sketch.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Catcher and my grandfather met me, Ethan, and Luc in Ethan’s office. We were joined by Malik and Jonah, who’d been working together on the proposal for the mayor when my grandfather arrived.

  “You worked fast,” I said, glancing at the clock. Barely two hours had passed since we’d left Mrs. Plum.

  “She makes a good witness,” my grandfather said.

  “May we?” Catcher asked, gesturing to the monitor on Ethan’s wall.

  “Please,” Ethan said, and Catcher sent the digital sketch to the overhead screen.

  “That’s him,” I said immediately. Mrs. Plum and Kat had done good work. Just as Mrs. Plum had suggested, the first sketch had been a kind of vague outline. She’d filled in the blanks, including the shape and color of his eyes—hazel—and the set of his jaw.

  “Have you seen him before?” Ethan asked.

  “No,” I said. “Or not that I remember.” I looked at my grandfather. “You’ll use this to canvass the neighborhood again?”

  “We will.”

  “What about the Brown Mule?” Ethan asked.

  “Not surprisingly, no one was willing to talk to the CPD about the vehicle or the owner. But we’ll try again with the sketch.”

  There was a knock in the doorway before Margot rolled in a cart laden, if my nose was right, with delicious food. Ethan must have ordered refreshments. Given Peanut’s interested kick, that was fine by me.

  Margot pushed it to the middle of the room, began removing silver domes and pulling out the tray’s extra leaves, which provided more serving space.

  When she happened to glance up at the screen, her smile fell away. “What is this?”

  I looked back. She’d gone sheet-pale, and there was something hot and angry in her tone and bafflement in the question. She looked from Jonah to me to Ethan, then back to me.

  “What is this?” she asked again.

  “That’s the revised sketch of the perpetrator,” Ethan said, putting down his cup and moving toward her. “Are you all right?”

  “The perp—” She looked at me and seemed to go paler. “You think that’s the man who attacked you? There’s no way.”

  I joined Ethan at her side, put my hand on her arm. “Do you know him, Margot?”

  She swallowed hard, seemed to firm her courage, then nodded.

  “That’s Rowan Cleary. My ex-boyfriend.”

  8

  Angry magic buzzed in the air, spilled by all of us who cared for Margot. Jonah’s expression, I noticed, had gone positively murderous.

  “So that’s the asshole,” Luc said, gaze on the sketch. Then he looked back at Margot. “I didn’t realize I never saw him.”

  “No,” she said. “He wasn’t there when you helped me move back in.” She glanced at me. “This was before you came into the House.” Then she looked back at the screen, and there was misery in her eyes. “I don’t want to talk about the details, if that’s okay.”

  “That’s fine,” my grandfather said, gesturing her to the sofa. “Let’s sit down, and you can tell us what you can.”

  “In broad strokes,” she said, taking a seat. “We lived together. He was emotionally abusive, although he couched it in cleverness, in constructive criticism.” She paused. “He hit me, once. And I ended it.”

  I felt immediately guilty that I’d teased her about romance and relationships. That I hadn’t realized—or respected—the boundary she’d tried to draw. And as if sensing my regret, Margot reached out and squeezed my hand, putting me at ease. That nearly brought tears to my eyes.

  “He called me last night,” she said.

  “Did he?” Ethan asked.

  “It was our anniversary—or would have been. He said he was out of town, but he was thinking about how wrong he’d done me, and he wanted to talk to me about it. He didn’t mention Merit or anything else. Just said he wanted to talk. I told him not to contact me anymore.” She lifted her chin, anger putting color in her cheeks. “He wasn’t out of town.”

  “It doesn’t appear so,” my grandfather said. “When was the last time you’d talked to him before that?”

  Margot’s brows lifted. “I honestly don’t remember. More than a year, I’d guess.”

  “Did he have any other friends in the House?” Catcher asked. “Or other Houses?”

  “He’s a Rogue, but he has vampire friends. A couple of people in Navarre, and a vampire or two in Grey, or at least he did while we dated.”

  Plenty of Cadogan vampires had friends in Navarre and Grey. It wasn’t much of a stretch to assume they’d talked about my pregnancy and how I was dealing with it.

  “I don’t really know them specifically,” she said. “We didn’t go out much with other vampires, and I don’t remember him naming names. Just general talk about a friend here or there.”

  “Did he ever mention a place called the Brown Mule?” my grandfather asked.

  “Not that I remember.”

  “What about the mob?” my grandfather asked.

  Margot’s brows lifted. “You cannot be serious. Why would the mob be interested in him?”

  “What did he do for a living?” my grandfather asked.

  That angry flush rose again. “He called himself an entrepreneur. He kind of moved from project to project. Always had a plan or idea, a business he wanted to start, some clever way he could invest money. When we first started dating, he said he’d had a run of bad luck. Once he told me he’d had this great idea for some kind of GPS widget, but his boss had stolen the concept and fired him. He had a lot of stories like that. In hindsight, it was obviously bullshit. I can’t imagine the mob would be interested in him.”

  And how were you? I wanted to ask.

  “He was charming,” she said, as if answering my unspoken question. “Fun and engaging. Until he wasn’t.”

  “It sounds like you figured out he was a bad guy, and you ended it,” my grandfather said.

  She nodded. “Yeah, but there was nothing like this. His plans were always financial. Not this violent. Not this . . . felonious.”

  “Perhaps he’s escalated,” Ethan said. “The pressure of owing money to dangerous people might have pushed him into something he wouldn’t have ordinarily done.”

  While I knew he was trying to soothe Margot, and circumstances could certainly drive people to crimes they wouldn’t have ordinarily committed, kidnapping a pregnant woman seemed to fall in a different orbit.

  “Can you tell us where he lives?” my grandfather asked, and Margot provided an address and apartment number.

  �
��It’s in Beverly,” she said, and my grandfather and Catcher shared a glance. Same neighborhood as the car and the Brown Mule.

  “I don’t know if he’s still there,” Margot added. “He moved around a lot—always had an excuse about the landlord not liking him, or someone being jealous and getting him kicked out. He had a lot of excuses, always something out of his control, or that wasn’t his fault.”

  “You have his phone number,” Ethan said. “If we don’t find him at the address, we can use that. Either way, we’ll get him, and he won’t bother you anymore.”

  “I’m glad you kicked him,” I said, angry and sad on her behalf, then squeezed her hand again.

  She nodded, her irritation putting a buzz of magic into the room. “Mind if I step out for a minute? I need a little air.”

  “Take as much time as you need,” Ethan said, and we watched as she walked to the cart and made a nervous adjustment to one of the serving trays before moving into the hallway. Jonah’s gaze followed her intensely, anger and sympathy mixed in his expression.

  “Sounds like this was a chapter she wanted to keep closed,” my grandfather said.

  “It’s not her fault,” Jonah said, but there was no heat in it. I had the sense he was less arguing with my grandfather than saying what he’d have liked to tell Margot.

  I looked back at Ethan, found the same emotions in his silvered eyes.

  “I take it you didn’t meet Rowan, either?” I asked.

  It took a moment for Ethan to shift his gaze back to me. Then he shook his head. “I found it odd that I hadn’t, but I don’t meet everyone’s partner, so I didn’t think much about it.”

  But he’d thought something about it. That was clear in his pained expression.

  “I suppose that confirms one connection between Cleary and the House,” Ethan said. He looked at my grandfather. “What’s next?”

  “We go to his house,” my grandfather said, “just in case he’s there. We’ll get fingerprints and DNA, and we’ll run those against the samples we found in the car.”