I sighed. It didn’t matter if anyone was watching or not. The cops would be here soon enough, their blue and white lights flashing and drawing everyone’s attention to the garage. And when word got out about exactly how gruesome Troy’s murder had been and that there had been a witness to the crime, well, that would only make folks more interested in things, especially Benson in finding and eliminating Catalina.
But Catalina had made her choice to testify, and there was nothing I could do to stop her, even if doing the right thing would probably end up getting her killed. I sighed again, a little louder and deeper this time, stuck my hands into my jeans pockets, and ambled down the street.
I’d only gone half a block when a pair of headlights popped on behind me.
I palmed a knife and whirled around, thinking that maybe Benson had already heard something on the police scanner and had come back with his vamps to investigate.
But the lights weren’t from a car cruising down the street. They were on one already parked at the curb close to the garage entrance—a black Audi with tinted windows.
The Audi’s engine churned steadily, sounding as smooth and silky as a cat’s satisfied purr. I squinted against the glare of the headlights, but I couldn’t make out who was sitting inside through the tinted windows. I doubted it was just a wayward commuter, though, hiding in his car until the scary woman with the knife decided to leave. Oh, no. If whoever was inside was an innocent bystander, he would be calling the cops and racing down the street as fast as he could, instead of sitting there playing a game of chicken with me. Maybe Benson had left some vamps behind to watch the garage for whatever reason. Either way, I wanted to know who was in that car and why.
So I sprinted toward the Audi, coming at the car from an angle, in case the driver decided to floor it, zoom up onto the sidewalk, and try to turn me into a bloody pancake against the side of the garage. I was a hundred feet away from the car and closing fast. Seventy-five . . . sixty . . . fifty . . . thirty . . .
The driver finally did floor it, and I tensed, ready to throw myself out of the way of the sleek hood and churning wheels. But I didn’t have to. The driver turned the wheel sharply to the left . . . and zoomed away from the curb and down the street.
I cursed, whipped around, and ran after the car, even though there was no way I could possibly catch up with it. The Audi rounded the corner. A few seconds later, so did I, but the car was already two blocks away and picking up speed. I cursed even louder as I finally stopped. I hadn’t even gotten the license plate to give to Finn.
It wasn’t until the car had zipped around another corner, completely disappearing from sight, that I realized that the black Audi was an exact match to the vehicle the two mystery women had gotten into when they’d left the Pork Pit earlier this evening.
9
I frowned into the darkness, my mind racing through all the implications.
There was no way that the auburn-haired woman and her giant bodyguard could have followed me here from the Pork Pit. They’d left the restaurant before I did, and I’d cut through too many alleys for them to track me easily. But here they’d been all the same. Why had they been parked outside the garage? How long had they been there? And what had they been waiting for?
If they’d wanted to assassinate me, then one of the women should have rolled down her window, stuck a gun through the opening, and sprayed the sidewalk with bullets—at the very least. Tossed some grenades at me, run me over, pinned me against the garage wall and put a clip full of bullets in my chest. Oh, yes. They could have done any one of those things.
In addition to looking out for would-be assailants, I also spent a fair amount of time imagining exactly how they might murder me. I supposed that it was my professional mind at work, so to speak, since I’d dispatched so many folks myself in such varying ways. I’d pictured all those scenarios before, along with dozens more. But instead of attacking me, the people in the car had just driven off, and I didn’t think it was because I’d spooked them with my killer smile and my gleaming knife.
More theories swirled through my mind, each one darker and more violent than the last, but none of them answered my questions. I had a sinking feeling that there were some new players in Ashland—ones who seemed to know a lot more about me than I did about them.
But there was nothing I could do to confirm my suspicions about the women who may or may not have been in the Audi. Besides, Bria was right. The cops would be here any minute, and it would be better if I was gone.
So I slid my knife back up my sleeve, stepped into the shadows, and disappeared into the darkness.
•
Still keeping an eye out for the mystery car, I headed back to the Pork Pit. I took a few minutes to check the restaurant, but the lights were off, the doors were locked, and no one was hanging out in the alley, waiting to murder me. Everything was quiet, so I walked three blocks east to the side street where I’d parked my own car.
After I’d checked my vehicle for bombs and rune traps, I got inside and circled the downtown loop a few times, looking for the black Audi, but I didn’t spot it. Whoever was inside had probably hightailed it up into Northtown by now. Still, I had a feeling that I’d see the Audi—and the two women—again.
When I was certain that no one was following me, I left downtown behind and headed out into the suburbs that flanked Ashland. Twenty minutes later, I steered my car up a steep driveway, gravel spewing out in every direction, before the vehicle crested the top of the hill.
Fletcher’s house—my house now—came into view. Shadows cloaked the ramshackle structure, softening the harsh edges, odd angles, and obvious seams between the mismatched sections of white clapboard, brown brick, and gray stone.
Engine running, I sat in my car, scanning the entire area from the woods to the left, across the yard, and over to the steep, rocky ridge that dropped away from the front of the house. Just in case whoever had been in the Audi knew where I lived, in addition to where I worked.
But no one was hiding inside the tree line or crouched down beside the house, and the only movements were the breeze gusting through the trees and a few fireflies flitting across the yard, desperately flashing their fluorescent lights before the growing cold killed them. Satisfied that I was alone, I killed the engine, got out, and went inside.
If the outside of the house was a sprawling beast, then the inside was the creature’s clogged heart, only with rooms, hallways, and staircases that curled, snaked, and zigzagged every which way, instead of veins, valves, and arteries. I headed upstairs, took a shower, and threw on some pajamas before padding back downstairs to the kitchen.