Chapter 45
Dangerous?
We climbed out of the car, I stretched my arms up high, my whole body stiff from hours of sitting. The rain had followed us, and the weather was dark and gloomy, thunder shook the mountains somewhere in the distance.
My phone rang, I pulled it from my bag. It was Jodie. I answered as Karson held the door open and I stepped inside. The spicy scent of green curry tickled my nose. Ethan was cooking one of my favourite dishes.
“Hi, beautiful,” I answered.
“Hi, Aims.” She sounded a little stressed.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, placing my bag on the side table.
Ethan sprang to his feet and stood stiffly, a worried expression on his face. He was so tense, I had to look away to concentrate on the phone call. I moved a few steps along the hallway.
“I need to ask you a favor.”
I stopped and turned back. “Sure, anything.”
“Jefferson has a big ball planned for Saturday night. It’s a last-minute thing, something to do with special dignitaries for the development, or some bullshit. And my parents are insisting I have to go. But I don’t have a date and I can’t go on my own, would you come with me? Pleeeaasse?”
Anything but that. “What about Trent?”
“No, we separated. He thinks I’m too high-maintenance, can you believe that?”
I could actually, Jodie’s wealth meant she could buy whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted.
She liked the best of brands. For a guy like Trent, whose family didn’t come from money it was an impossible ask.
I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so I avoided a direct response. Ethan and Karson smirked.
“Seriously, are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, no big deal, it was never going to work out anyway. So, can you?”
“What about Georgie, she loves balls?”
“She’s already representing the hospital and going with Jeff.”
“BJ?”
“No. I have a dress you can wear, it will look amazing on you, and shoes I brought that are a size too small. They’ll fit you, please, Amy,” she whined, “don’t make me go on my own.”
Karson shook his head slowly, no.
That irked me. He didn’t get to tell me what to do, and it might be an opportunity to snoop and see what I could find out.
“Sure, sounds good,” I said brightly, looking straight at Karson and lifting my eyebrows in defiance.
His face darkened, the power of his stare shrunk my stance. Rattled, I pulled my eyes away.
She breathed a sigh of relief. “You’re the best. I’ll come to your house and do your hair and makeup. We’ll get rolling drunk, it’ll be fun.”
Okay, sounds amazing,” I forced a bright tone. “See you later.” I hung up.
“Absolutely not, Amelia, I forbid it,” Karson said, in a disturbingly loud voice.
“Forbid it, really? Well, Karson, lucky for me it’s no longer the 1500’s and I don’t have to do what you tell me.”
“Be that as it may. Until we deal with your little problem . . .” He poured a whiskey. “Time with your friends without one of us with you isn’t an option.”
I gritted my teeth and we eyeballed each other in an unrelenting standoff of wills.
I wanted to argue but I knew it’d be pointless.
I’d never win. Keen to remove myself from his gaze.
I moved over to Ethan. He looked handsome, as usual.
He wore jeans with rips across the leg and a white t-shirt which brought out his tanned face.
He still looked apprehensive, I wondered if he thought I might hold some angst or fear for him now I knew what he was. I couldn’t see him as anything other than the Ethan I knew. If he had fangs tucked away somewhere I didn’t care. I kissed his cheek, lingered for a moment and breathed him in.
“Good to see you.”
He relaxed. “You too, glad to see you back.” He pulled my hair back off my neck. “And with no bite marks.”
“Yes,” Karson cut in. “Only by good luck, rather than good planning.” Oh, the condemnation.
I crossed my arms. “Next time I’ll be sure to consult the book on how to deal with a vampire.”
His jaw muscles clenched, like he was physically biting back a retort.
Ethan shifted his gaze between the two of us, bemused, and perched himself on the arm of the chair.
“What else did you find out about the Tolles that sent you chasing Karson across the country, Amy?”
The air shifted, like a thick, invisible fog weighed us down. I sat down, crossed my legs, then told him everything I knew. After I’d finished, he was staring at the floor, hands steepled in a praying motion.
“You okay?” I asked, which was a stupid thing to ask. Of course he wasn’t okay, he’d just heard horrible facts about his friends’ deaths. He lifted his head. There was a pained look in his eye which twisted my chest. “I mean, I know you’re not, of course you’re not.”
He sat back. “I broke into Jefferson’s house last night.
His laptop wasn’t there, but I found a few paper files on all the landowners.
Katrina and Robert’s had an X on it. Claire’s is labelled ‘unknown’, so she’s safe for now.
The Torontos’ had an X, the Bentleys’ had a tick, as did the Jeffersons, and Dicksons. ”
Karson and Ethan exchanged knowing glances.
“We need to talk to Matt, see if he can get access to their bodies and get Page to do a report on them,” I said, with strange, excited anticipation.
People were dead and I was excited, not for their deaths, but at the thought of catching the killer.
I could see now why Mom and Dad had found their jobs so addictive.
“If we can prove the injuries don’t match the medical examiner’s report, or the accident, we can start an investigation. ”
Ethan ran his hand roughly through his hair and grimaced. “It might prove murder, but it won’t prove who did it.”
“We will find a way to prove it, we can’t just let them get away with it.”
“Oh, we won’t, Amy.” His anger flashed. He rose and poured himself a drink.
I was concerned by what I heard. If he was anything like Karson, he’d kill them. I jumped to my feet.
“If they did it, they will go to jail, and they will suffer for the rest of their lives in a cell. You don’t have to—” The words got stuck in my head.
The implications were too shocking to contemplate.
“We need more information. Saturday night could be the perfect night to get it. I can sneak into his office, he’s bound to have his laptop with him in the house. ”
“You will do no such thing, you are not going,” Karson commanded.
“I’ll be perfectly safe, it’s not like anything can happen in a room full of people,” I said, exasperated.
“If that’s what you think you do not understand what vampires are capable of. A trip to the bathroom, a moment in the corner when no one is looking. A millisecond and they could have you gone, out of sight and away without anyone noticing.”
I retreated and tried to reason with him. “I don’t want to argue with you over this, we may never know who killed the dog, they are hardly likely to follow us here knowing that you and Ethan are here.” I paced across the room. “Unless you have a better plan?”
“I trust you will keep an eye on her, Ethan.” And, like a bullet, he was gone.
“Karson,” I yelled out to him as the sound of his car going down the drive hit my ears. “Jesus,” I muttered rubbing my hands over my face. I looked back up, concerned. “Will he kill them?”
Ethan made an annoyed sound through his nose. “If they did it, he won’t have to. I’ll kill them.”
His tone was primal and ice-cold. I didn’t know how to respond to it. I went to the kitchen to check on the curry. Everything rolled around in my mind. He was talking about killing people—bad people, but still—we had justice systems in place for those kinds of people.
“Are you upset?” he asked from behind as I stirred the curry.
I didn’t answer for a long moment. This was so far outside of normal conversation I didn’t know what to do with it.
“Amy?”
I tapped the wooden spoon on the side of the pot and sat it on the bench. “Killing them makes you no better than them,” I answered finally. I turned back slowly to look at him.
A muscle in his jaw clenched, he looked agonized and frustrated. He stared out the window for a long moment then rubbed his chin and looked back.
“Sorry. You’ve just found out what we are, and now I’m talking about killing people. I know it must be a lot for you to take in.”
“A bit,” I said. Which was a mammoth understatement.
Ethan moved over to the pantry and pulled out a bottle of red wine and two glasses. “Want one?”
I nodded.
He poured the drinks and handed one to me.
“Where does this leave us?” he asked, “I mean, do you feel safe here or do you want to move out, or . . .” He trailed off and looked out the window again, watching the clouds roll through the sky, a mist hovered though the foothills of the mountains and buried the landscape.
For reasons that defied logic, I felt safe. I cared for him. Our friendship was strong. But was it strong enough to stand it if he killed someone, even someone who deserved to die?
I took a sip of wine. Shook my head. “I don’t know,” I said at last.
“I won’t hurt you.” He sounded hoarse and pained. “I would never hurt you, Amy.”
His words filled me with bubbly warmth. “I know, I feel safe around you and Karson. I don’t care that you’re a vampire. I don’t care that you drink blood to survive. If anything, I think your skills are amazing. But killing people who should be jailed, I’m not sure I could cope with that.”
This was the point he could say I think you should move out.
It was a get out of jail free card for him.
And it would be for the best. Probably. He was a vampire, he drank blood.
Human blood, and me being human and all .
. . He killed people, maybe. I couldn’t live with a killer.
Probably. I’d be alone again. I’d done it before, lots of times. It was fine. I’d be fine.
I felt everything tighten inside, my chest squeezed like a giant fist wrapped around my heart. It was hard to breathe.
Ethan sighed. “It looks bad for them, but it doesn’t mean they did it.”
“But if they did?”