A weight lifted from me. I couldn’t breathe and pressed my hands to my chest, as if I could keep my heart from exploding with joy.
“Shade, you’re alive!” I started toward him. “What’s going on? Why did you let everyone think you were dead? Why did you let me believe I’d lost you?”
My body felt electrified as I flew forward to fling my arms around my brother…
…and met nothing but air.
Was I going crazy, imagining him? I choked back a sob. Then Shade stepped toward me into the sunlight and his form lost its substance. I could still see him but he was translucent now.
Crying out in despair, I put out a hand to touch him.
Nothing.
My eyes stung.
Shade was here but not.
How could this be? Had I lost my mind? I wanted to believe he was here with me.
“I—I don’t understand.”
“I don’t either. I should be gone.” Shade looked upward. “You know, with the big guy. I should be up there getting busy in his service, doing whatever it is he wants.” He frowned. “Maybe there’s something I left undone here.”
A wave of enervating emotion swept through me. Maybe I was imagining his being here simply because I wanted it to be so. My pulse tick-ticked as I tried to think clearly. If I wasn’t imagining things and Shade’s ghost was here, there was a reason he was appearing to me.
“What happened, Shade? Who shot you?”
The smile faded and his expression turned grim. “Don’t know. I don’t even remember what I was doing.”
He was pacing the room, Boomer next to him. The dog’s love and happiness at being with Shade swept through me.
Ghost. My brother was a ghost. Not so strange considering we’d always had a psychic connection and had communicated without words.
Without words.
“Wait a minute. That guy who broke in here. I heard his thoughts.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like he was talking to me. Only his lips weren’t moving. I don’t hear people, you do.” Suddenly, I realized I should be doing something about the break-in. “Wait! What am I doing?” I felt for my cell phone. “I need to report it—”
“Whoa, not so fast. Let’s see what he took first.”
Getting to my feet, I led the way to his bedroom. Drawers hung open. Shade’s things were scattered across the dresser. His diamond tie clip was still there. A gold ring. A couple hundred in cash.
I shook my head. “I don’t get it. Why would a thief leave this stuff behind?”
“Maybe he was looking for something connected with the case I was working on. Maybe that’s it. Maybe I’m not supposed to go anywhere until I remember. You’ve got to help me figure this out.”
This situation was surreal. I feared I was going to blink and Shade would simply disappear.
“Where do we start? Ethan gave me your personal things, but no casebook.” Shade always had his casebook on him. “Maybe Dad has it.”
“You know he’ll never give it to you. What about my cell phone?”
“Maybe Dad has that, too.”
“You know he doesn’t believe in full disclosure to anyone but another copper. Hmm, my online calendar.” Shade walked into the bedroom that held a desk and a couple of bookshelves.
In something of a daze, I followed. My mind was spinning with this new development. I was still having trouble believing I wasn’t imagining it all.
My ghostly brother tried to open the lid of his laptop. When his hands went right through it, he swore under his breath.
“Let me,” I murmured, sliding into the desk chair and flipping open the lid.
I went through the motions, but my mind wouldn’t focus, kept going back to the fact that this had to be impossible, that Shade couldn’t be here, that I was imagining him out of my grief. But every time I looked up, he was still there, either focused on his computer or on me with a worried expression.
Finally I found his online calendar, and together we deciphered his notes going back a month. Several entries were marked DF at 10 p.m., but each entry cited a different location.
“DF…” Shade murmured. “…DF…DF…DF…”
“Dogfight,” I said. “You were at one the other night. No actual dogs were fighting, though. More like wild animals. And where the heck did they come from?”
“Sorry.” He shrugged. “I don’t remember. Maybe Ethan would know something.”
“I doubt it,” I said, thinking of his denial at the cemetery, “but I can try again.” I started out the door and up the stairs, then turned back one more time to see Shade standing in the doorway, his expression frustrated. “Are you coming?”
“It seems I can’t leave.” He illustrated by trying to enter the hall. Any body part he tried to move through the doorway simply disappeared. “Seems I’m trapped right here. I guess you’ll have to see Ethan alone.”
I wasn’t looking forward to a confrontation with Shade’s partner, who, like Dad, would want me to stay out of anything that was police business.
…
I found Ethan at his desk at the Area office, photographs of murder victims before him.
“How are you doing, Skye?”
I took a deep breath. “I’ll be better when my brother’s murderer is brought to justice. Someone broke into his place tonight.”
“You called it in?”
“No. Nothing seemed to be missing, but the intruder was looking for something.”
“You saw him?”
“I chased him out.”
Ethan sat there for a minute staring at me. “I’m sending a team over there to dust for prints, see if they find anything else that could identify him.”
“Fine. In the meantime, give me an update.”
“There’s been another murder connected with the case Shade and I were working on. A woman. The wounds looked as if they came from an animal. This isn’t for publication, but the ME says it was some kind of canine. The wounds on two other recent murder victims were similar.”
Which made me think about the predators at the fight. That must have been why my brother had been there. Investigating homicides. He’d made the connection and had been following up on it.
“What about Shade’s casebook?” I asked. “And his cell phone.”
Ethan frowned. “The odd thing was that we didn’t find his cell phone on him.”
I narrowed my gaze at him. “Dad already got to you, right?”
His expression was confirmation that I was right, although he said, “I’m telling you the truth. No cell phone.”
That was weird. “He always had it on him. The casebook, too.”
“I know. And Roger said he spoke to him around seven, but Shade said he was late for something and couldn’t talk.”
“So what could have happened between seven and the time he was shot? Maybe it’s in his car?”
“We checked. Not there, either.”
“I didn’t find it in his apartment, either.” I hesitated only a second before asking, “Ethan, what about his casebook?”
“I, uh, have to copy it first before I can release it.”
Thinking he was stalling, I said, “Shade wants me to see his casebook.”
“You can’t yet.” He hesitated a second and then said, “You make it sound like he told you that.”
“As a matter of fact, he did. He’s here. Shade’s here. Not here here exactly. At his place. Apparently he can’t leave the apartment.”
Ethan raised his eyebrows. “Have you been sleeping?”
“This isn’t wishful thinking, I promise you.”
“After my brother Mike was killed, I kept looking in every corner of the house, thinking he would step in and talk to me any minute.”
I took a big breath. “I know my brother is dead. He knows he is. But he’s still here in spirit. Unfinished business. He thinks he needs to crack the case and find his own murderer. With my help, of course.”
“Of course.�
�
“Don’t humor me. My brother is in trouble. He’s stuck here, can’t move on until he finishes what he needs to do. Shade was your partner. Help me help him. Tell me why he was at that dogfight the night before he was shot.”
“What dogfight? He didn’t tell me anything about a dogfight.”
Why hadn’t he? I wondered.
“So Shade was working on a case without telling me anything about it? That isn’t like him.”
“Shade told me how to get into his online calendar and we saw several similar notations on different days—10 p.m., DF. That must stand for dogfight.” Or what my brother had expected to be a dogfight.
“What the hell was he thinking? What did he get himself into?”
“I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
“I can’t let you involve yourself. This could be a dangerous situation.”
“I’m not going to wait for the wheels of justice to catch up, not if I can do something to help.”
“And get yourself killed like Shade did? Stay out of it. Leave it to me.”
I couldn’t agree to that, so I didn’t say anything. I’d thought my brother had shared everything with Ethan, even things he hadn’t shared with me.
So why hadn’t he told Ethan about the dogfight lead?
Chapter Six
Entering the cloaked area of The Ark, Luc stopped at the security station. No guard. Fuck. He swept his gaze over the casino, half the size of a football field. He searched beyond the banks of slot machines to the game tables—blackjack, roulette, craps—and to the sports book area and poker rooms along the back wall.
He spotted the missing guard in an aisle between banks of slots. There was no mistaking him. He had a thick head of silver hair worn long enough that it brushed the back of his collar. The man’s back was turned to the entry, and he leaned in to one of the patrons, a dark-haired woman whose hands were loaded with jewels. Luc reached for the surveillance headset clipped to his collar and tapped the push-to-talk button. “Andreas, report to your station now.”
The guard took a quick look over his shoulder and immediately straightened. He returned to the entry where Luc was fighting to hold his temper in check.
“Why did you leave your station?”
“I was only gone a minute, I swear.” Andreas’s thin lips turned downward. “I could see the door.”
“You didn’t see me come in.” Luc jutted his face into the guard’s. He couldn’t decide if Andreas had been planning to rob the woman of her jewels or if he had darker intentions. “Don’t leave your post. If you can’t do your job, you can always go back to working in the habitat.”
“Yes, sir.” Andreas shook himself. “Sorry, sir.” He rushed back to his station.
A scream suddenly raised the hair on the back of Luc’s neck. A cry prompted not by a lucky streak but by fear. Luc shouldered his way through the crowd and tapped his mike. “Security. Casino floor, now.”
At one of the blackjack tables, a customer was holding a gun on a dealer. Her eyes narrowed as she avoided looking directly at the gun’s muzzle pressed to her temple.
Damn. Andreas was part of his security team, but he’d been too bored to stay at his post and do his job. And that lapse had led to a problem for them all.
“What’s going on?” Luc asked, slowing as the harried-looking man wearing a suit with frayed lapels swung his gun arm toward him. Instinct made Luc want to grab the gun and ram it straight into the guy’s face. Adrenaline shot through him and his body tensed and his breath shortened. He fought the urge to resort to violence.
“I was cheated,” the man cried. “That bitch cheated me.”
Luc flashed a look at the dealer, who was struggling to keep her human form.
“I’m sorry this wasn’t your lucky night,” Luc said to the man, as he edged closer to him. “Why don’t we go to my office?”
“I’m not going anywhere. Neither is anyone else until I get my money back. Don’t come any closer!” he warned, his gun hand shaking.
Luc stopped moving. The man was obviously desperate. Also obviously, he wasn’t wealthy, and he didn’t seem of any importance. Luc didn’t sense any corruption in him, either, so why was he here? Was there some reason his father needed this man? Luc wondered. Or had this one even been invited into the casino?
Luc’s half-brother, Nik, stepped in out of nowhere, accompanied by Doyle Craven, his pale, blond, sycophantic shadow. A tux stretched across Nik’s powerful shoulders, the blue-black material the exact shade of his eyes and slicked-back hair. His only ornament was the heavy gold ring embossed with a wolf, a snake, and a hawk, a gift from Pop when he’d turned eighteen and had been initiated into the upper ranks of the Kindred.
“I’m Nik Lazare, general manager of the casino.” He spoke directly to the man with the gun. “Let these folks go back to their games, no harm done. Come with me and I’ll let you into a private game room, give you the chance to win everything you lost.”
“Nik!” Luc growled. “I don’t think he’s the right man for that game. I’m handling it.”
Nik’s dark eyes flashed with anger.
“Not to this man’s satisfaction,” Doyle murmured.
Luc glared at the toady who never contradicted Nik. “I think there’s been a mistake here.”
“One I’m trying to fix,” Nik said, his thick lips pulling into a grimace.
You’re only making it worse!
Try to stop me, little brother.
Luc clenched his jaw and held himself back against the challenge. His adrenaline was buzzing now, shooting sparks to every inch of his body. He wanted to take Nik up on it, to rip that superior grin from his face.
“Hey, just give me my money and I’ll go.” The gunman’s voice was shaky.
Luc turned on him even as Nuala arrived on scene and stepped between them. “How much did this man lose in the last hand?”
“Five hundred,” the dealer said.
“Give me his chips.”
“Stay out of this, Nuala.”
“Back off, Nik,” she snarled, her features rippling slightly. She suddenly appeared far more powerful than her slender five-foot-five frame indicated. She picked up a stack of chips and held them out to the man with the gun. Her dark eyes held his as she said, “Now take your chips, cash them in, and don’t ever come back.”
Even as the man grabbed the chips from her hand, he lost focus for a second, long enough for Luc to send the gun flying with a wave of his hand.
Looking confused about what had just happened, the man quickly backed off toward the cashier amid a clamor rising among the other patrons.
“That was very generous of you,” Doyle told Nuala, slipping closer to her.
Nik now looked as if he wanted to tear Nuala apart, but she stood her ground.
Fetching the gun and putting it in his pocket, Luc focused his attention on his siblings and reminded them, People are watching.
I’ll deal with you later, Nik promised. He whipped around and walked off, Doyle traveling in his wake.
Certain his brother wouldn’t let this drop—Nik never let anything drop where he was concerned—Luc waited until the man collected his money, then grabbed him by the elbow. “I’m going to escort you out of here now.”
Luc headed for the exit, a special cleansing station for all humans who still had their souls. Once through the room, the man’s mind would be cleared of everything associated with The Ark.
“Never come back,” he said as the man hurried through.
A hand hooked through his arm. His sister had followed him.
“You know Nik’ll think you’re taking my side again,” he said.
“I simply was trying to be the voice of reason.” Nuala’s voice held an anxious note, as it did too often these days. “You are my brother, even though not everyone here appreciates that.”
Half-brother—half-breed, actually—though she’d never held that against him. And he could damn well take care of
himself, even in a den of predators.
“You appreciate it and that’s all that matters to me.”
Nuala shifted her gaze over his shoulder. She stood on tiptoe and brushed a kiss across his cheek. “Gotta get to work. There’s Jonathan Weller. Daddy wants me to give him the very special treatment. Later.”
Luc turned to watch her approach the publisher of the Chicago Daily Record. Weller was a whale of significance to their father, Cezar Lazare, CEO of The Company and The Ark casino boat. As the executive host, Nuala kept the most important gamblers happy—politicians, heads of companies, trust fund babies. She provided them with anything they wanted, from a free dinner to sex with a beautiful companion in the brothel that her mother Beatrix ran in the lower deck.
Anything to keep them coming back, to keep them lightening their bank accounts.
To keep them betting their souls.
Chapter Seven
Since Ethan didn’t want me involved in his investigation, I decided to do what I could on my own. He’d insisted on checking over Shade’s apartment, but rather than going with him, I told him where to find a spare key.
I headed for Lake Michigan.
It was dusk by the time I parked and walked several blocks to the lake. As I reached the concrete walkway along the water’s edge, I tried to find the location the wounded wild dog had shown me after the fight. I was haunted by the memory of the weird encounter with the predators.
How did they fit into the mix? If the fight hadn’t been raided, would those exotic animals have entered the arena next?
And who was the man who’d seemed to have control over them?
For a moment I imagined the mysterious stranger again, long dark hair framing a striking face. There was something about him that drew me. Those eyes that glowed silver against the dark. I shook away a sudden chill that crawled up my spine. I had to force away the memory and concentrate on my task.
I looked across the water to the promontory of Museum Campus. The incoming tide lapped at the pilings of the pier. I took a deep breath, inhaled the faint scent of fish. The wild dog had shown me the Adler Planetarium building, but not from this angle—it had to be from a spot farther out on the lake. Sort of. He hadn’t been on some boat as I’d tried to convince myself, at least not from a top deck. He’d been looking up at the building as if from underwater.
Animal Instincts (Entangled Ignite) Page 4
