It had been a good plan, a plan to help Lydia after he was gone, a way to connect her with her community. And he’d been really frickin’ urgent about it all. Unfortunately, medical tests, medications, and side effects had wiped him out, and then bad news after bad news had eaten into not just his time but his energy, too. The slog through the various protocols had been a blur and also an eternity, the days and nights flying by at the same time he trudged through them, the end result being that spring, summer, and almost all of the fall had passed without him following through on what he’d intended on doing right after he’d been diagnosed.
And maybe there was another reason he hadn’t met up with that mysterious contact. In a quiet, secret place in his heart, one that he didn’t even let Lydia into, he had hoped that it would all work, that the drugs would do their thing and kill the cancer cells, and he’d be around to participate in her life.
And protect her if she needed it.
Nope.
After all the volunteered-for suffering of the remedies, on top of the not-volunteered-for shit of the disease, he was now here, a bump on a log, unable to smoke or drink, having wasted most of his good quality of life on all kinds of lottery tickets that had scratched off big fat nothings.
But he was alive for this moment and he was done fucking around.
Bringing the phone up, he steadied his elbow on his knee, opened the device with facial recognition, and navigated to the note section with his palsied fingertip. The number he’d received from a clandestine contact back in April was right where he’d left it, the last entry he’d made, the only entry he’d made.
Initiating a call, he made a fist with his free hand and coughed into the thumb end. One ring. Two rings. Three rings. Four—
The recording of a deep female voice cut in: You’ve reached the voicemail of Alex Hess. Leave a message.
Just as the beeeeeeep went off, he saw a pair of eyes staring at him from the tangles of dead underbrush that surrounded the clearing.
Bolting up from the fallen tree trunk, he overpitched himself into a stumble, and with no cane in his hand, his loose-jointed body landed on his knees.
So that he was on eye level with the predator who had stalked him in the night so silently, so competently.
The female wolf had beautiful gray and white and brown fur, and in the moonlight, she blended into her surroundings, the dour palette of pre-winter grisaille camouflaging her position. With her head down low and her ears back, she clearly could have killed him if she wanted to, one good lunge all it would take. But instead of attacking, she retreated quick as a blink, her lithe body executing a tight turn, her paw placement so precise there wasn’t even a rustle as she took off.
Fuck, he thought.
“Lydia!” he called out. “Lydia…!”
THREE
Market and 18th Streets
Downtown Caldwell, New York
AGAINST THE GRITTY soundtrack of Caldwell’s nocturnal symphony of distant honks, sirens, and shouts, Rehvenge swept his full-length mink coat back and knelt by a facedown body that was still warm. Given the single bullet to the back of the skull, he didn’t need forensic training to know that the hit had been a professional job, and before he rolled the dead male over, he glanced around the back alley. The buildings on either side were windowless, one of the cross streets was closed off because of a water main issue, and there was barely enough lateral room to squeeze a car through. You couldn’t get more privacy if you’d put “No Trespassing” signs on the bricks.
“I figured we’d call you, you know?”
He looked over at the male civilian vampire who’d rung the bell. The guy had been using Rehv’s sportsbook business for a while now, and he was a good bettor, regularly putting money on teams and spreads that didn’t work for him, always paying on time, never causing any trouble. And piss-poor picker aside, he was clearly doing well for himself—or had won the sperm lottery: He was dressed nicely and his white Tesla, which was parked about fifteen feet back, was pristine as a hundy right off the Federal Reserve’s printing press. Likewise, the female vampire standing next to him was a pick-me-girl cliché, breasts mounding up over her tight leather corset, her leggings spray-painted on. The smudge on the side of her red-painted mouth suggested she’d also been on her knees on the ground recently, although that was probably a metaphor.
“We were at Club Basque,” the male confessed, like he was talking to his parent. “We saw him get into trouble and get booted. But we didn’t follow him, and we certainly didn’t kill him. We just happened to come here because…”
At this trail-off, the guy put two palms forward, all I’m-totally-innocent, like he was thinking Rehv was jumping to some kind of Colt .45 conclusion. Whatever. Mr. Slim-Cut Slacks with the European tailored jacket, Bally loafers, and rule-abider vibe was never going to be at the top of the list for hired-hand enforcers.
As a siren sounded out close by, Rehv turned the victim over. The instant he saw the face, he had to keep the cursing to himself.
“We figured, you know… oh, God…”
Strangled coughing cut off the civilian’s conversation, and wasn’t that nice.
“This is not my problem,” Rehv announced as he got to his feet.
The male’s eyes went back to the corpse’s face, like he was trying to nut up with the visual—and what do you know, he had to look away again and gag.
After a couple of swallows, he choked out, “B-b-but it’s one of us.”
“So. Why does this have anything to do with me?”
“I thought, well, maybe he hadn’t paid you or something. I was just trying to…”
“Protect me?” Rehv rolled his eyes. “Thanks, but I promise you, if I have to issue a correction to one of my clients, the body isn’t going to be found by anyone.”
The civilian put his arm around his stomach like things were rolling in there. Then he glanced at his girlfriend. Sidepiece. Rando. Whatever she was to him, the female wasn’t sparing him or the dismembered dead guy a glance. She was locked on Rehv, her heavily lashed eyes low-lidded with intent like she was ready for a sexual upgrade.
Don’t hold your breath, sweetheart, Rehv thought.
“What if humans find it?” the male mumbled. “Isn’t that bad for the species?”
Rehv made a show of checking his Daytona Rollie with the rainbow dial. “Won’t be an issue in another seven hours—six and a half if there are no clouds. Daylight is the best cleaning service there is.”
As the male deflated, his good deed not as good as he’d thought it was, Rehv had to ask, “You said you were at the club and you saw him?”
The male nodded earnestly. “He got into some trouble with a human woman in the bathroom, and when he was kicked out by the bouncers, he was throwing punches. Big commotion, but it was handled. We stayed another forty-five minutes and then… found him here.”
Rehv shrugged. “Look, I have to go—”
“It’s the second one,” the female purred, and when he glanced across at her, she deliberately ran her fingertip over her lower lip. “That’s right, there was another.”
“Where?” Rehv demanded. “When.”