Must Love Hellhounds

Frowning, she glanced at Blake. Where had he gotten that picture of her and James? And who had told Blake that the faces in the two photos matched? Not Savi, Ames-Beaumont’s fiancée. If she’d hacked Blake’s e-mail, she wouldn’t have seen the picture from hotel security until after Blake had been taken-so they hadn’t had an opportunity to compare notes.

So Maggie was missing a step, not seeing a connection somewhere. And since the hellhound was watching, she couldn’t use the interrogation method she was most familiar with: aiming her gun at him. That meant digging. Finagling.

Which also meant dropping a little more of the formality. Butlers did not initiate conversations, yet Maggie needed to. “You’re not what I expected, Mr. Blake.”

“I gathered that.”

“Not your blindness. Not just that,” she admitted. “I’ve looked at your dossier.”

“Have you?” Both his voice and his expression were neutral.

“Yes.” She had to look away from him to take the bags at the window. She passed the first to him, then set the others on the console between them. “It’s full of reprimands, complaints, transfers. You’ve been shuttled around Ramsdell for almost fifteen years.”

“I’m not very good at my job.”

She recognized a practiced answer when she heard it-a cover story. “Except that, every time you’ve been transferred to a new branch, a problem has quietly gone away. In London, it was embezzlement by a senior executive. Someone in the Paris labs selling research to a competitor. Using Ramsdell warehouses to smuggle cocaine in Florida. A problem with Ramsdell shipments getting to Doctors Without Borders in Darfur.” Those were only a few, but she didn’t need to go on. And if she wasn’t mistaken, there was a hint of surprise-and relief-in his face now. “You go in, act the doofus who yanks out the disability card at every opportunity and lets everyone think you’re getting by on the family name. And while whoever you’re after is feeling secure, because they don’t think they’ll need to pull the wool over the eyes of a blind man, you’re finding what you need to get rid of them. The pattern speaks for itself. Enough that when we heard about your sister, and Mr. Ames-Beaumont said that you were flying in to look for her, I thought it was a good move.”

“But you don’t think that now?”

“Now, I’m wondering how you manage it.”

“You don’t want to know, Winters.”

“I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you?” She let her amusement bleed into her voice, so that he would know she was smiling.

“Something like that.” He didn’t return the smile. “At least, my uncle would seriously consider it.”

A shiver raced down her spine. Whatever he was hiding, it was different from the knowledge that Ames-Beaumont was a vampire. And there were only two reasons Ames-Beaumont would kill without a thought: either his fiancée was endangered, or his family was. He would kill to protect the community of vampires he led, but only after deliberation. With his heart and his family, however, there were no questions asked, no shades of gray.

Since Savi was safe back in San Francisco, chances were that whatever Blake wasn’t revealing could threaten the family.

How incredible it must be to be a part of a family like that. And how terrifying to be considered their enemy.

She held herself steady, pulled back onto the street, and began to make her way to the Manhattan Bridge. As she’d expected, traffic was crawling.

And she was no good at finagling. “Where did the second picture come from?”

“Your previous employer’s files.”

Maggie shook her head. “The agency would have no reason-”

“Not the CIA. Congressman Stafford.”

A knot of dread tightened in her chest. Stafford knew she’d had national security and intelligence experience. But her references wouldn’t have given him that photo. He must have gotten it from another Washington connection… but who? “Where’d he get it?”

“We don’t know.”

And they couldn’t ask him. Stafford had been slain by the Guardians three months ago.

Blake unwrapped one of his burgers and bit in. When Sir Pup whined in the back, Maggie remembered to do the same for him. She twisted her arm back between the seats. Hot breath brushed her fingers before Sir Pup gently lifted the hamburger; even as she heard him gulp it down, two more whines came from the right and left. A hellhound’s appetite, in stereo.

She was in the middle of unwrapping the fourth when Blake said, “Tell me about him, Winters.”

“ Stafford?”

There wasn’t much to tell. Thomas Stafford had been a charming politician and the perfect employer until he’d tried to pin a murder on her. But it could have been worse. Even if he’d successfully framed her, a life in prison would have been better than if he’d maneuvered her into a bargain that bound her in service to him. A bargain that, if not fulfilled, would have trapped her soul in a freezing wasteland between Hell and the Chaos realm.

Yes, she’d take prison over eternal torment any day. Luckily, the Guardians had saved her from either fate.