I sucked air in through my nostrils. “You were their bloodhound, weren’t you?”
He nodded. “The place looked deserted enough, but I was able to pick up your scent. I knew you were there. It took them nearly fourteen hours to find the entrance.”
During which time my arm had been broken and I’d almost gotten away with murder.
“But they found me.”
“They found you.”
“The FBI assumes Kesteral had help removing you, Holden and Maxime from the house, likely through a workers’ entrance. Unfortunately there weren’t any cameras back there to help us find out who.”
“He had plenty of people to choose from. The guy had a bloody staff.” All of whom were probably in an FBI prison somewhere, having their identities erased from public record.
I’d wanted them all to burn, but I’d take what I could get.
“You found me,” I corrected.
Desmond nodded. “I’d go to hell and back to find you.”
I squeezed his hands, worried if I let go, he might vanish. Part of me was still terrified this was all a dream.
“You did.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“Secret McQueen. Two SIG P226 9mm handguns. Seven ammunition clips, silver. One silver knife. One leather holster. One pair leather boots. One leather jacket. One Kate Spade purse…leather. One Samsung cellular phone.”
“Something that isn’t leather,” I said, having picked up some attitude from the woman handing me my belongings.
Holden sat next to me, a stony expression on his face.
The woman continued, unimpressed with my interruption. “Holden Chancery. One iPhone. One pair Armani shoes. Leather.”
“That’s it?” I asked when she passed him a plastic bag with his brown shoes and phone enclosed.
“It was all I wanted back.”
I hugged my jacket close to me and handed my bag of belongings to Desmond for safekeeping.
“I want Maxime’s things too,” I insisted.
“The vampire had nothing of value on his person.” She sneered when she said person.
“And Sutherland Halliston?”
“Why on earth would I give you his belongings?”
“Because he’s my father. And because something in there might save his damned immortal life. Now give me his stuff.”
She frowned but didn’t offer further argument. I was betting someone had told her I had the right to claim on Sutherland’s behalf—Logan or Tyler probably—otherwise she might have argued longer or called a supervisor for permission. Instead she returned with a small baggy.
“Sutherland Halliston. One wallet, leather. One Nokia cellular phone. One pendant, crystal.”
When she said crystal, my pulse jumped. He really did have it, the one thing that might save his life with the Tribunal. I hadn’t known what I was looking for, but when the clerk said crystal, I knew. I knew what he had without a sliver of doubt in my mind.
That stupid broken window I’d found in the closet before the Doctor grabbed me. He’d somehow managed to swap them. Sutherland might be crazy, but it looked like resourcefulness ran in the family.
“Thank you.” All of the surliness vanished from my tone, replaced with genuine appreciation. “Thank you.”
“Desmond Alvarez,” she continued, ignoring me, though I saw her lip twitch into a momentary smile. “One BlackBerry. One wallet, leather.” Since Desmond hadn’t been stripped on arrival like Holden and I had, it made sense he would have the least to collect when we left.
“Sign here,” the clerk said, passing us a clipboard. “You sign twice.” She tapped the line by Sutherland’s name. I obliged her.
“One more thing,” I said, which seemed to surprise her. “Do you have a cellphone charger?”
Seven hundred and forty-one new texts.
One hundred and eighty-seven missed calls.
Ten voicemails, which was the maximum number my phone could accommodate.
I didn’t know where to begin.
I cleared the missed-call log immediately. I knew who I would have missed calls from, and I’d get back to each of them in turn. I skipped the texts for the time being because, well, there were too many for me to go through without an afternoon of free time. I jumped into the voicemails.
Lucas calling to apologize for his behavior.
Desmond. Desmond. Desmond.
Grandmere.
Desmond.
Mercedes.
Tyler.
Desmond. Desmond.
As I cleared the last of the messages, the phone began to buzz in my hand. I didn’t bother checking the screen before answering. It didn’t matter who was on the other end, I was about to get an earful.
“Hello?”
“Just where in the hell have you been?” Aha! So Sig could get angry.
“I can’t really get into it—”
“Don’t. Don’t start. I will not listen to excuses.”
“I wasn’t making excuses.”
“You vanish off the face of the planet, leaving Ingrid in Los Angeles to make excuses for you, while the goddamn Tribunal thinks you’ve made off with some precious artifact. I’ve got Eilidh complaining to me about a window, and she assumes you’ve run off with Holden, while Rebecca would love to know what you’re doing with all her offspring.”
I was glad I was already sitting because it was a lot to hear all at once.
“I didn’t run off. I went looking for Sutherland like the Tribunal requested. It just took longer to recover him than expected.”
“Two weeks longer? And your phone has been off the whole time? I find that hard to—”
“I don’t care,” I snapped. I’d held my composure pretty well over the past several days, all things considered, but I wasn’t about to take a browbeating from Sig because he believed I was shirking my council duties. I would not be guilt tripped or talked down to. Not after what I’d been through. “I don’t care what it looks like, Sig. I don’t care what the West Coast council or Ingrid think. I have been through hell getting my father back, and I refuse to explain myself to them, to you or to anyone else.”
Static filled the line, making me think I’d lost the connection.
“You aren’t going to have a choice. You have to explain it to the West Coast Tribunal, and sooner rather than later.”
“Why?”
“Because this morning Galen Altos issued a warrant for your death.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
I didn’t imagine the first time I’d meet my father would be because I was trying to get us both out of a death sentence.
When I was younger, I’d thought about him a lot, the way I imagined most girls with no parents did. My grandmere warned me about my mother to high heaven, so I didn’t have the same fantasies about Mercy as I had with Sutherland.
The man I’d imagined as a child was not the man I met in the lobby of the military hospital. I’d used what limited pull I had with the FBI—and through them Major Logan—to secure my father’s release. It was amazing what people were willing to do when you explained your life was on the line.
I didn’t kid myself that my wellbeing concerned them. Tyler might have cared, but to everyone else I was a resource they’d invested time and money into. If letting a crazy vampire out of a military hospital was what it took to keep me alive, they were apparently okay with signing him over to me.
He emerged from a back office with an armed attendant. Normally I’d have said it was uncalled for, but given what Logan had told me about Sutherland’s mental state, I wasn’t going to question any precautions the humans wanted to take.
The first thing that struck me was how young he appeared. He’d been fed and had physically recovered from his wounds—whatever they’d been—and now he looked like a boy. It was hard for me to think of this man as my father.
“Hello,” he said sweetly when he reached us, his voice sticky with a Southern drawl much like the rest of my family’s. He nodded to me and Desmond, then to Holden. “Hello.” The o sound was drawn out, and something about the way he spoke was a bit…off.
“Sutherland, do you know who we are?” Holden touched my father’s arm, and seeing them side by side was too bizarre to comprehend. Holden was forever frozen in his early thirties, whereas Sutherland would have to show ID for liquor for the rest of his unnatural lifespan.
“Yes.” Sutherland nodded, his hands clasped in front of him. I followed the bobbing motion of his head but didn’t see any understanding on his face.
If the eyes were the windows to the soul, Sutherland’s were looking in on a vacant suite.
“My name is Holden. This is Desmond. And this…” he nudged me forward so I was close enough to touch, “…this is Secret.”
“Hello.” He didn’t seem to know who we were at all because my name caused no reaction.
“Secret McQueen,” Holden added, placing extra emphasis on my last name.
That did it. My father’s eyes widened, and his hazy expression became clear when he focused his attention back on me, this time as if seeing me anew.
“McQueen?”
“Yes.”
“How old are you?” His brown eyes—the same color as mine—narrowed into slits.
“Twenty-three.”
“Where were you born?”
“St. Francisville, Louisiana.”
He chewed on this for a while, looking to Holden and Desmond as if he wanted them to validate his suspicions before he spoke again.
“Who’s your mother?”
“Mercy McQueen.”
His eyes went wider, and now he looked more excited than suspicious. He took a step closer, but I wasn’t expecting it and stepped out of his reach on instinct.
“Who’s your father?” he asked quietly.
“You are.”
Instead of moving closer, he toyed with his hands, fingers nervously tugging at the hem of his shirt. He was forty years old, but still acted like a teenager.