“Where?” My stomach parachuted to my knees.
“At the bar. He met those men. Sven said he looked surprised to see them, then sat with them. That was...that was the last time the men were at the bar. The last time Sven said anything about them, anyway.”
Her voice faded away to a whisper, or maybe I just lost the ability to hear her clearly over the pounding of my blood. Ryder was there. Ryder was with the suspicious, funny-smelling men. Which meant Ryder was linked to Sven. Again.
I didn’t have to look at Rossi to know what he thought about all this.
Ryder was there. Ryder’s blood was on Sven. Ryder was guilty.
Ryder wasn’t guilty unless proven so. That was my job. To prove or disprove his guilt. It occurred to me that maybe I wasn’t the best person for this job. But who else would be?
Myra and Jean both had opinions on Ryder, on him dumping me. Would they be able to push that aside and treat the case fairly?
No, I could do this. If Ryder was guilty...everything in me tightened, like a deep string in my soul had been plucked. Still, if Ryder was guilty, I could keep a clear head about it. The law, my job came first, no matter what my heart wanted to believe.
“Did Sven mention if Ryder left the bar with them?”
She shook her head.
“Okay. One more question, Etta, and then this will be over. Did you see or hear Sven’s death?”
Her pupils went wide until black nearly swallowed the thin ring of brown. Her nostrils went hard, her mouth tightened. “Yes,” she hissed.
I ignored the ice encasing my nerves and the very real instinct that was screamingdanger, danger, run, run. “What did you see?”
“Hands of death. Blood of death. Eyes of fire.”
Old Rossi sipped in a quick breath. Those words didn’t mean a lot to me, but they meant something to him.
“Did you see who was there?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see his killer?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know who it was? Can you describe the killer?”
“Ryder Bailey. The last person Sven saw was Ryder Bailey.”
Well, crap.
Chapter 8
Keeping ice cream cold at the bottom of an active volcano would be easier than trying to make Old Rossi agree not to end Ryder’s life right then and there.
The only thing that made Rossi back off was the very real promise that I would throw him, and the entire Rossi clan, out of Ordinary if he killed Ryder before I had a chance to prove him guilty or innocent in the court of law.
Yes, I could throw all the vampires out.
No, some of the other creatures wouldn’t like it.
Yes, certain creatures, such as the Wolfes, actuallywouldlike it.
Maybe I could get most of the gods on my side to back me up.
But the threat of being exiled from town didn’t mean a lot to a furious vampire. A furious prime.
