"Do you need a ride?" Ethan said, but Noah shook his head.
"I have things to take care of when we're done. I'll meet you there?"
Ethan nodded; Noah had already given us the address of the registration center, a spot in Chicago's Little Italy neighborhood near the University of Illinois at Chicago. "We'll be right behind you."
Ethan, being a senior House staff member, had a coveted parking spot in the House's basement. He wouldn't have to dig his car out of a Chicago snowstorm, have someone hold a spot on the street as he neared the House, or attempt to parallel-park between gigantic cars and a mountain of snow that cemented into a secondary curb.
We took the main staircase to the basement, and he keyed his way into the garage. I stopped short in the doorway.
In Ethan's parking spot, which an Aston Martin had temporarily filled, sat a shiny two-door coupe with a deep red finish and grinning grille.
"What is that?" I asked.
Ethan beeped the security system and walked to the driver's side. "This, Merit, is a Bentley Continental GT."
"It looks brand-new."
"It is."
I glanced around the parking area; his Aston Martin was nowhere to be found. "Did something happen to the Aston Martin?"
"No," he said, frowning. He opened the door. "The Aston just didn't do it for me."
Ethan had lost his former car, a sleek Mercedes convertible, in an unfortunate run-in with the Tate twins before their separation. Tate had thrown the car off the road - with us inside - and the Mercedes hadn't survived the fall.
I understood well the bond between car and driver. I was still driving the boxy orange Volvo I'd had for years. It wasn't much, but it was paid for, and it got me where I needed to go.
Still. He'd had an Aston Martin. A brand-new, right-off-the-lot Aston Martin delivered to him by a very pleased salesman.
"All due respect, a brand-new Aston Martin 'didn't do it' for you? That's James Bond's car."
"I'm no James Bond," he cannily said. "I loved the Mercedes. It fit me perfectly. The Aston just . . . didn't."
"So you traded up?" I asked, walking toward the car and opening the door. "Do you treat your relationships in the same way?"
"Yes," Ethan gravely said. "And I spent four hundred years shopping before I met you."
It was comments like that that kept me around, even when Ethan was being otherwise insufferable. He popped them into conversation just often enough to make my heart melt.
"Then by all means," I said, "let's see what she can do."
CHAPTER THREE
FOUNDING FATHERS
We drove to Little Italy, which was southwest of downtown Chicago.
In all fairness, the Bentley handled like a dream, which I suppose was the point of spending so much money on the car. Along with impressing your friends and intimidating your enemies.
The street Noah had identified was quiet, a weekday neighborhood of small businesses - banks, tailors, Realtors' offices. Most of the buildings were stand-alone and three or four stories tall, their windows bearing signs promising future condos and apartments.
As we neared the street number Noah had given us, Ethan pulled the Bentley into a parking slot in front of a sushi restaurant that now stood vacant. A dry cleaner was next door, and in the next building was the insult to our existence, the vampire registration office. Tonight was a weekend, and the building was dark. But come Monday at dusk, a line of vampires would appear outside the door awaiting the opportunity to give away their blessed anonymity to the bureaucracy of the city of Chicago.
Ethan and I got out of the car and strapped on our katanas. Chicago cops would probably lose it if they realized we were carrying dozens of inches of honed and tempered steel, but I wasn't going to let that stop me. There was no telling what kind of drama we might find, and I wanted to be prepared.
I jumped as a nearby car door slammed shut. Noah, who'd parked on the street a few cars back, walked toward us.
"You all right?" Ethan asked, glancing back at me.
"Fine," I said with a nod. "The sound startled me."
Ethan squeezed my hand supportively. "So Oliver and Eve came here to register," he said, glancing around. "Why this particular center?"
"They lived not far from here," Noah said. "So probably proximity."
"Sentinel? Thoughts?"
"They probably wouldn't have been alone," I suggested. "There would have been other vampires here, or the employees operating the registration center. Maybe they saw something, or could tell us if Oliver and Eve actually made it through the registration process? That might help us nail down the time line."
"That's something to check," Noah agreed.
"There's also no blood," I said. My vampiric instincts would have been triggered if there'd been a quantity of blood around. I hoped that meant Oliver and Eve hadn't succumbed to any harm.
"I'm not suggesting anything untoward has occurred," Ethan said, "but if it did, could they have been targeted because they were registering?"
"Maybe," Noah said. "But registration is supposed to soothe humans. Why punish vampires for doing what you've asked them to do?"
"Perhaps it wasn't humans who did the punishing," Ethan said. "Other Rogues might have been less than thrilled they'd decided to register. They might have seen it as a betrayal."
I thought Ethan had a point, but Noah wasn't thrilled at Ethan's implication. His look was arch. "You're suggesting we've created our own problems?"
But Ethan wasn't intimidated. "I'm asking. Is it possible?"
"I'd like to think not. But I don't control them."
So two vampires were missing, vamps we knew had visited a registration center. There weren't any obvious signs of violence or anything else that linked them to the site, or that suggested where they might have gone - or been taken - afterward.
Hands on my hips, teeth worrying my bottom lip, I glanced around the neighborhood. It was either very late or very, very early, depending on your perspective - and the area was quiet. Across the street from the registration center was another set of buildings: a pizzeria, closed for the night, and a boarded former apartment building surrounded by chain-link fence. But in between them, something interesting - a tidy, narrow, three-story condominium . . . with a suited doorman.
I glanced back at Noah. "Do you have the picture of Oliver and Eve?"
"On my phone, yeah."
I gestured toward the doorman. "He's on the night shift. Maybe we'll get lucky and he was on the night shift two nights ago, too."