“Good to see you.”
He relaxed. “You too, glad to see you back.” He pulled my hair back off my neck. “And with no bite marks.”
“Yes,” Karson cut in. “Only by good luck, rather than good planning.” Oh, the condemnation.
I crossed my arms. “Next time I’ll be sure to consult the book on how to deal with a vampire.”
His jaw muscles clenched, like he was physically biting back a retort.
Ethan shifted his gaze between the two of us, bemused, and perched himself on the arm of the chair.
“What else did you find out about the Tolles that sent you chasing Karson across the country, Amy?”
The air shifted, like a thick, invisible fog weighed us down. I sat down, crossed my legs, then told him everything I knew. After I’d finished, he was staring at the floor, hands steepled in a praying motion.
“You okay?” I asked, which was a stupid thing to ask. Of course he wasn’t okay, he’d just heard horrible facts about his friends’ deaths. He lifted his head. There was a pained look in his eye which twisted my chest. “I mean, I know you’re not, of course you’re not.”
He sat back. “I broke into Jefferson’s house last night. His laptop wasn’t there, but I found a few paper files on all the landowners. Katrina and Robert’s had an X on it. Claire’s is labelled ‘unknown’, so she’s safe for now. The Torontos’ had an X, the Bentleys’ had a tick, as did the Jeffersons, and Dicksons.”
Karson and Ethan exchanged knowing glances.
“We need to talk to Matt, see if he can get access to their bodies and get Page to do a report on them,” I said, with strange, excited anticipation. People were dead and I was excited, not for their deaths, but at the thought of catching the killer. I could see now why Mom and Dad had found their jobs so addictive. “If we can prove the injuries don’t match the medical examiner’s report, or the accident, we can start an investigation.”
Ethan ran his hand roughly through his hair and grimaced. “It might prove murder, but it won’t prove who did it.”
“We will find a way to prove it, we can’t just let them get away with it.”
“Oh, we won’t, Amy.” His anger flashed. He rose and poured himself a drink.
I was concerned by what I heard. If he was anything like Karson, he’d kill them. I jumped to my feet.
“If they did it, they will go to jail, and they will suffer for the rest of their lives in a cell. You don’t have to—” The words got stuck in my head. The implications were too shocking tocontemplate. “We need more information. Saturday night could be the perfect night to get it. I can sneak into his office, he’s bound to have his laptop with him in the house.”
“You will do no such thing, you are not going,” Karson commanded.
“I’ll be perfectly safe, it’s not like anything can happen in a room full of people,” I said, exasperated.
“If that’s what you think you do not understand what vampires are capable of. A trip to the bathroom, a moment in the corner when no one is looking. A millisecond and they could have you gone, out of sight and away without anyone noticing.”
I retreated and tried to reason with him. “I don’t want to argue with you over this, we may never know who killed the dog, they are hardly likely to follow us here knowing that you and Ethan are here.” I paced across the room. “Unless you have a better plan?”
“I trust you will keep an eye on her, Ethan.” And, like a bullet, he was gone.
“Karson,” I yelled out to him as the sound of his car going down the drive hit my ears. “Jesus,” I muttered rubbing my hands over my face. I looked back up, concerned. “Will he kill them?”
Ethan made an annoyed sound through his nose. “If they did it, he won’t have to. I’ll kill them.”
His tone was primal and ice-cold. I didn’t know how to respond to it. I went to the kitchen to check on the curry. Everything rolled around in my mind. He was talking about killing people—bad people, but still—we had justice systems in place for those kinds of people.
“Are you upset?” he asked from behind as I stirred the curry.
I didn’t answer for a long moment. This was so far outside of normal conversation I didn’t know what to do with it.
“Amy?”
I tapped the wooden spoon on the side of the pot and sat it on the bench. “Killing them makes you no better than them,” I answered finally. I turned back slowly to look at him.
A muscle in his jaw clenched, he looked agonized and frustrated. He stared out the window for a long moment then rubbed his chin and looked back.
