Danger oozed from him, thickening the air in the room.
Karson stood silently a few feet away, making no attempt to intervene, observing him. There was no fight.
Ethan had torn the place apart in a rage. He let out another roar and shoved the couch onto its back. It cracked and let out a loud groan.
My shoulders jerked. “What’s going on?” I ran down the stairs. Ethan turned his back so I couldn’t see his face.
“I told you to stay in your room,” Karson snapped.
I ignored him and slipped on a pair of sneakers I’d left by the door.
“Ethan?” I headed towards him, stepping over a smashed frame, glass crunching under my feet. “What’s wrong?”
Karson held out an arm, stopping me from moving forward. Rain hammered on the roof. But the silence in the room was thick and seemed to go on for an eternity. A large part of me wanted to bolt forward and comfort him. One look at Karson’sstaunch face told me he wouldn’t allow it. I stayed still and waited apprehensively for Ethan to respond.
“Do I have to worry about you?” Karson’s eyes were assessing, his tone was measured, as if no matter the response, he knew he had total control. He wasn’t asking me. He was talking to Ethan. What he was asking was, could he trust him not to hurt me in his rage? A vampire’s rage could be an uncontrollable beast. No matter how angry Ethan was, he would never hurt me.
Ethan thrust his hands through his hair. His breathing slowed. His fists clenched and unclenched. His shoulders moved down. With obvious effort he made himself calm down. Sensing the danger passing, Karson dropped his arm down and I scurried over.
“Hey,” I kept my voice calm, though my stomach was in knots. He refused to meet my eyes. I reached for his hands. “Talk to me.” I could smell the alcohol seeping from his breath. His eyes had regained their normal color, but the whites were bloodshot, and the pupils weren’t entirely focused. Maybe it was caused by excessive drinking, maybe not, maybe something harder. “I’m here for you, just talk to me.”
He flinched like my words had physically stabbed him, then he pulled his hands away. They shook, as if still fighting an urge to keep himself under control. He rubbed his forehead, causing his hair to stick up awkwardly. It took a long few moments before he spoke.
“The order to get the bodies re-examined just came through, but Katrina and Robert’s bodies have already been cremated.” His voice came from the bottom of his gut. “A mistake apparently.” He lifted his head, his eyes dark with anger.
I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply. Fury, disgust and guilt crept through my veins. The mistake wasn’t a mistake atall. It meant we couldn’t prove murder, and Cole would get away with it. Like the asshole seemed to get away with everything.
I felt nailed by the revelation, unable to think my way around it to say something to ease his hurt. I opened my eyes. I wanted to smooth down his hair and take him into my arms, but I didn’t know how he’d react. I swallowed and clutched my hands in front of me.
“It gets even better,” Ethan said bitterly, moving away, stepping over the mess almost soundlessly and pouring himself a whiskey from the side cabinet. One of the few things left untouched by his outburst. “Raynor’s examination reports on their bodies seem to have disappeared.”
Karson moved over to him and placed a hand on his shoulder in a comforting gesture. “There are other ways to make Cole pay, as you well know, Ethan.”
I knew what he meant. My knotted stomach clenched even tighter.
“He’s left the country,” Ethan said bitterly, slugging back the drink, and pouring another.
“He will come back, you know he will, and when he does . . .” Karson stopped and glanced at me, his lips twitching, as if he was visibly repressing what he wanted to say. He moved his eyes back to Ethan and dropped his hand off his shoulder. “We will be waiting for him.”
He was right. Jefferson’s computer didn’t give us much more information, but it did hint he knew there was something in the mountains of value. Which meant Cole knew too. The proposal would give him complete access and control of it. The development was still pressing forward. Sooner or later Cole would be back.
The one thing we did find in Jefferson’s deleted emails were descriptive love notes between him and Lucy Collins. Lucy had mentioned the mountains, and a change in her writingsuggested she, too, knew something was up there, but never said outright what it was. The revelation brought a few thoughts to light. If Mike wasn’t oblivious to the affair, there were a few other possibilities, outside of a tragic accident, to consider in her premature demise.
Mike, in a fit of rage, had killed Lucy. Jefferson had killed her to keep the waters a secret. Mike suspected it, and his accusations on Karson were just a ruse, and he killed Jefferson in retribution.
Mike had warned me away. He was outside that night. I was hesitant to jump to conclusions, but it was plausible. Or, if history was anything to go by, Cole had killed her to keep the secret, unbeknown to either of them.
If Dad was here, he’d be all over it. I missed watching how he’d pour his heart and soul into the cases he worked on. Missed listening to my parents speaking in hushed tones over a case, while Nerida and I hid in the hallway, listening. I missed him. I’d gone to ring him many times, but fear of not knowing how I’d be received had transcended the urge. I’d enough rejection to last me a lifetime.
“But wait, there’s more,” Ethan said. It was beginning to feel like a television commercial. “Boris Thompson has gone missing.”
He downed his drink.
Karson’s eyes hardened. “When?”
Ethan’s hand fluttered. “No one seems to know. The security guard said he hadn’t seen him for a few nights but the lights were on every night, so he thought nothing of it. There were two daytime guards who swapped a few days ago. Neither had seen him, the first guard said he was sure he heard the tractor yesterday but when I questioned him further he didn’t know it if it was Boris or the neighbors.”
“Did you check it out?” Karson asked, the fury seemingly draining away. He poured a drink and held it out for me. I shook my head. He sat the bottle on the table and took a sip.
