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I glared at him, opened my mouth, but Black spoke before I could.

“No,” he said, from where he’d maneuvered the armored SUV around a pick up truck and into the turning lane. He gave me a faintly worried look, like he worried I might be second-guessing my decision to come back to work for him already. “Angel isn’t the source for this. She doesn’t know anything aboutit yet. I figured it was better for our company as a whole if we kept the circle small for now.”

“So basically you and me got hit with the shit stick,” Nick muttered.

Black glared at the vampire in the rearview mirror. “Do you mind?”

Nick raised his hands in semi-apology, but didn’t speak.

I turned to face Black, my arm still on my seat’s backrest.

“Who hired us?” I asked, when he didn’t return my gaze. “A relative of Rucker’s? A spouse?” I noticed what road he’d just turned onto, and did a double-take. “Wait. Aren’t we going to the morgue? Why did you––”

“We’re not going to the morgue,” Black cut in. “We’re going to the crime scene.” Thinking, he added belatedly, “Well.Andthe morgue. Sort of.”

I blinked again.“Sort of?”

How had I forgotten he would do this kind of thing? Regularly?

“Doc.” Black gave me a pained look. “Don’t go there. Not yet. Give this a little time. I warned you it was a complicated case. That’s why I need you.”

I exhaled a breath, fingering my hair out of my eyes where it had fallen down from my loose bun. “You also said you’d explain it once we were physically together,” I reminded him. “Instead you wolfed down a burrito and ordered me into the car.”

“Iwillexplain it,” he promised. “I absolutely will. But I want to know more about the situation myself, first. We’ll debrief after we check out the murder site.”

I thought about that, then nodded reluctantly.

I slid back around and into my seat, and looked out the windshield.

We’d probably been driving for twenty minutes when Nick let out an exasperated sound, and gave Black a frustrated lookin the rearview mirror. Despite the contact lenses, there was still something otherworldly about those eyes. I hated the lenses; they looked nothing like his previous, human eyes. I didn’t mind that he looked different now, as a vampire, notreally,not anymore, but it still bothered me he had to pretend to be human.

“Can you at least explain why those fuckers didn’t call the police?” Nick asked, exasperation clear in his voice.

Black exhaled, sounding annoyed himself. “I would if I knew.”

I turned around in my seat to stare at Nick. “They didn’t call the police?”

“No,” Nick said sourly, folding his arms. “Rucker’s security people found the body last night, somewhere on the property, but they didn’t call it in. They didn’t report the crime, or the death, or the presence of a sniper on their property. They decided to handle it all in-house.Illegally,”Nick emphasized. “So the company’s presumably got him on ice somewhere. Which is what your nitwit husband means by us going to a ‘sort of’ morgue.”

Nick’s voice vibrated with that deeper and more melodious tone he’d had since he became a vampire. It pulled at something in my gut, or just pulled my attention maybe, but it was subtle, just enough that I noticed it, but not enough for it to really affect the way I saw him, or to forget who he was.

I knew it irritated the shit out of Black.

He thought I reacted to it because Nick fed on me when he was a newborn.

“Whomade the decision not to call the police?” I asked. “Was it the company? His family? Both? Does his family even know he’s dead?”

“Unknown,” Black said flatly.

I looked between them.

Was Rucker married? I couldn’t remember. I had some memory of him marryingsomeone,a model or an actress, but hadn’t they gotten divorced?

“So we’re en route to investigate a murder scene and prod at a dead bodywithoutthe police?” I clarified. “We’re going to just traipse all over what should be anactive crime scene,help contaminate that scene, and involve ourselves in anillegalinvestigation that hasillegallygone unreported… and make ourselves vulnerable to loss of license, fines, arrest, and possibleprisonterms for knowingly concealing a crime, tampering with a dead body, and obstruction of justice? Have I got that right?”

Nick snorted.

He clearly didn’t disagree with any part of what I’d said.