“I’ll deal with the Pakhan,” I said.“Focus on the vampires.If they’re behind this, I need proof before the Pakhan decides to make an example of my failure.”
Viktor held my gaze for a moment longer than necessary.Whatever he saw there made him nod once, sharply, before leaving without another word.
An hour passed.Two.I was reviewing security footage when I caught the movement through the window.
The hotel’s parking lot stretched out below, mostly empty this early in the investigation.But there, near the edge of the property where the lot met the service road, I spotted Michael.
He was talking to someone.A man.Young, well-dressed, gesturing with the kind of agitation that suggested an argument.
I squinted, trying to make out the face.
Joe Bishop.
My wolf snarled, hackles rising.What the hell was Michael doing talking to Lena’s obsessive ex-boyfriend?I watched as Michael placed a hand on Joe’s arm, calming him, speaking words I couldn’t hear but could imagine.The general manager dealing with a pest.Protecting his employer’s wife from unwanted harassment.
Joe nodded at whatever Michael said, his shoulders dropping from their aggressive hunch.After another moment of conversation, he turned and walked toward the street, his head down.
Michael watched him go, then turned back toward the hotel.
Good.At least someone was keeping that pest away from her.
The afternoon ground on.More reports.More dead ends.More questions without answers.
The sun was setting by the time I left the hotel.
Orange and gold bled across the mountains, painting the peaks in colors that should have been beautiful.I didn’t see them.My mind was still in that storage room, cataloguing details, searching for the pattern I had missed.The killer’s scent.The disabled cameras.Why Stephanie had agreed to meet someone alone in a part of the hotel without witnesses.
She had trusted whoever killed her.That was the part that kept circling in my head.Not a stranger.Not a threat she had seen coming.Someone she knew well enough to feel safe with.
The investigation was ongoing.Detective Marsh had interviewed half the staff and would return tomorrow for the rest.My men continued their parallel work, digging into the Diamantis angle while the police chased whatever leads they found.
I had caught glimpses of her throughout the day.Lena on the phone with a reporter, her voice calm and measured while her free hand gripped the edge of her desk.Lena walking a sobbing housekeeper to the break room, one arm around the woman’s shoulders.Every time I looked, she was moving, solving, holding someone else together while her own seams strained.
I had watched her from a distance, never approaching, never intruding.Giving her the space Alice had recommended.But I had seen the moments when her mask slipped.The way her hand trembled when she thought no one was looking.The way she had paused outside the storage room door and closed her eyes before walking past.
She was grieving.For Stephanie, for the safety of her hotel, for the illusion that she was in control of anything.
But that look.The one we’d shared across the hallway, the acknowledgment of last night and everything unspoken between us.I carried it with me on the drive home.
The manor was quiet when I pulled into the drive.Her car was already there.
Alice met me at the door.
“She came home an hour ago.Went straight to her room.”
I nodded, loosening my tie as I walked past her toward my study.Reports waited on my desk, but I ignored them.The whiskey I poured went untouched.
Alice appeared in the doorway twenty minutes later with a plate of food I hadn’t asked for.Roast chicken, vegetables.
“You need to keep your strength up,” she said, setting it on my desk.
I looked at the plate without appetite.“Later.”
She didn’t push, but she didn’t leave either.Just stood there, watching me with those eyes that had seen too much of my life to be fooled by any mask I might wear.
“She’ll be all right,” Alice said finally.“She’s stronger than she looks.”
“I know.”That was part of the problem.She was strong enough to survive without me.Strong enough to hate me forever if she chose to.
