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Then he shrugged, looking Dex in the face as he answered.

“You’re right,” he said. “I didn’t learn shit, frankly. Nothing useful, as far as I can tell. But then, it might help, Dexter, if I knew what the hell I was evenlookingfor. All I really got out of them was more vague shit about doing witchcraft… and ripping off ships in the Gulf and the Caribbean. They werebigon ripping off ships. They worked with some of the freedmen sailors to steal sugar shipments and payments in gold. They acted as the front people in a lot of cases, buying the ships and selling the booty because they were white and could make their ‘business transactions’ look legitimate. They also used the woman in there…”

Nick aimed a thumb in the rough direction of the sitting room.

“…as bait a number of times, rolling seamen and replacing them with their own people on crews. They’d then use their moles to take over the ships more easily when they boarded… usually after the ship was out on the open sea. They also ambushed a number of slave vessels. But that wasn’t some idealism kick, either. From what I can tell, they were in it purely for the money. And like they told us before, the two of them had to leave the city in disgrace, after multiple accusations of witchcraft, and being connected to missing children.”

Dex grimaced.

Nick didn’t look much happier.

“Let’s just say, I’m beginning to understand why Brick is so fucked up,” he added sourly. “His parents were psychopaths and they weren’t even vampires.”

None of us answered.

“What are we solving, exactly?” Nick pressed, clearly unwilling to let that part go. “Are we ever going to talk about that? And aren’t we just kind of wasting time until we figure out what the mystery is that Brick wants us to solve?”

I could see from Dex’s face he agreed with that statement too.

Turning from the fireplace, he frowned around at all of us.

“Nick’s right,” Dex said. “We should talk about that. What do the rest of you think? Is it who killed that dead guy on the carpet? Who these two crazies killed in Louisiana? Whether or not they were child murderers? Whether or not they were serial killers? What?”

Dex tossed the fireplace poker onto the hearth in annoyance.

“Why does that vampirefuckeven care about any of this?”

None of us had an answer for him.

Black took my hand.

I glanced over, startled.

I hadn’t consciously tracked him approaching me, but I’d known he was there. I’d known because I relaxed tangibly whenever he got within a certain radius of where I was. I relaxed even more when he was touching me, standing right near me, or immersed in my light, whether I stopped to acknowledge that fact or not.

“We’re taking a break,” Black told me.

He looked around at the rest of them, then raised his voice.

“We’re taking a break.”

Nick and Dex stared at him. So did Jem, Kiko, and Jax.

“What the fuck does that mean?” Dex asked.

“It means we’ll be back,” Black growled around at the rest of them. He motioned vaguely around the house. “Check upstairs. Or whatever you think. We’ll come find you soon.”

Jax scowled at him, clearly reading something in his light.

He opened his mouth, as if to speak, and Black gave him a look that was an undisguised, open threat.

“I’m still the fucking boss,” he growled. “We won’t be long.”

Black glared around at the others.

“I don’t want to hear a fucking word about it. From anyone.”

The rest of them exchanged looks.