Page 17 of Smokescreen (Knight & Daywalker #1)

“ L et me guess,” Davin said as we got back into the car. “Now we’re going to Charles’s house?”

I winced, but looked at him from the corner of my eye. “Would you mind?”

He waved me off, almost disinterested, and spun the conversation back to Carmen as he turned on the car and headed toward the main road. “You don’t think she did it, do you?”

“Nah. I mean, I don’t buy the innocent ingenue act for a minute, but she genuinely seemed to believe that my mother had killed him.” I peeked in at where Twist was fast asleep in my pocket. “Plus Twist didn’t wake up specifically to tell me that she stunk.”

At that, he laughed. “Was that what she said before?”

I closed my jacket back up and nodded to him. “I mean, she’s not wrong, is she? Forsyth sort of smells like old blood. Vampires never smell like their emotions, not like people, but usually they just smell like...not much?”

He slowed the car, turning to look at me, his eyes narrowed. “You could smell that?”

“Sure. Humans smell like sweat and hormones and all the stuff happening in their bodies, so sometimes you can tell what’s going on in their brains because of how they smell.

Vampires don’t have all that.” I was waving my hands around as I said it like if I spoke with them it would be easier to understand what I was saying.

It was a bad habit I should have broken ages ago, since I knew damn well it didn’t work.

Davin didn’t seem bothered, didn’t duck away or glare at me for it.

Mostly, he seemed deep in thought. After a moment, he shook his head.

“No. I mean, yes, you’re right, humans smell different than vampires.

But when I was human, I couldn’t smell any of that.

Maybe if they smelled rotten, or sometimes if they’d just been exercising, but not mood swings. ”

Huh.

“But you can smell it now, right?”

“Right,” he agreed. “Because now I’m built to hunt humans, so I can smell them, and hone in on little changes in their scents.” He pointed to a spot on the road. “Where am I turning again? That one?”

“No, the next one. So...maybe I somehow inherited that from Mother.” It was a weird thought, but it also wasn’t as though there were a lot of children born to vampires for me to use as examples. I was the only one I was aware of at all.

He shrugged, turning into Charles’s driveway, then tutted and shook his head at the lack of a gate or security. “We’ve really got to drag these arseholes into the modern century. Cameras that upload to the cloud, and we wouldn’t have to be investigating this.”

“Then they’d kill each other in other places,” I pointed out.

I was just helpful like that.

He huffed a sigh and pulled the car to a stop in front of the dark house, then peered at it dubiously. “You sure she’s here?”

I ignored the question and stepped out of the car, looking around. When I didn’t see any movement in the house, I finally pulled out my cell phone to use its flashlight. “Jennings said the servants live in a cottage behind the house, so she’s probably back there.”

“Or she’s hiding right around the corner,” Davin said, loudly, as he joined me next to the car. Then, in the direction of the side of the house, he called, “He’s not alone. You’re not going to take us by surprise.”

A moment later, Charles’s personal assistant, Kate Morton, came around the corner, a baseball bat in her hands, Jennings behind her with a flashlight.

“Master Knight?” he asked, sounding almost hopeful.

“Yeah, it’s me, Jennings.”

Without a further ounce of hesitation, he came out from behind her and marched right past. “It’s so good to see you, sir. Have you found anything about who killed Mr. Mailloux?”

His faith in me was sort of amazing, and I was sorry I was going to have to let him down.

“Sorry, nothing yet. In fact, I came to see Ms. Morton, to see if she had more information about Charles’s murder.

As it turns out, though, Charles did actually have a will.

I believe both of you are provided for in it.

You’ve been with him more than thirty years, haven’t you, Ms. Morton? ”

“I have,” she agreed, then squinted at me. “A will?”

“I guess he had one made around the time I was born.”

Her lips pursed in something like confusion, but then she sighed. “Thank you, that’s...good to know.” She looked at Jennings, then behind herself. “Evelyn, could you take your grandfather back to the cottage? I need to talk to Mr. Knight alone.”

“Of course,” a pretty young blonde woman agreed, coming out of the shadows and taking Jennings by the arm. “I’m sure Miss Morton will be safe with the senator’s son, grandfather.”

He gave me a nod, then one to Davin, and a moment later they were gone.

Kate Morton looked hard at Davin for a moment, then to me. “He’s the Irish one I’ve been hearing about?”

“He is,” I agreed, even though I would have preferred to pump her for information about what that meant. What had she been hearing?

She looked at him again, curious, but not outright angry. “You trust him?”

When we were both silent, she turned back to look at me, a brow raised.

Oh, that question had been for me. She wanted to know if I trusted Davin.

I hardly knew him, but he hadn’t seemed like an asshole so far.

That probably wasn’t the level of trust she was looking for, so I punched it up for her. “I do. What’s up?”

“I’m pretty sure he was planning a coup. He kept meeting with anyone and everyone who disliked the senator, in private. Gerald Forsyth. Wu Mei. I even saw Whisper on his docket last week.”

For a moment, all I could do was blink. Whisper?

Whisper was...well, a whisper. A rumor.

Not really a person. Mother’s predecessor had been one of the people in LA that she’d been forced to kill when bringing the city into control, and the people said that Whisper was one of his children, but no one had ever so much as seen them, let alone given proof of their existence.

They were like an urban legend. Whisper the vampire, the Mothman of Los Angeles.

When I was silent, that seemed to bolster Kate’s confidence, so she continued, drawing herself up.

“Your mother did everything for him, and for this city. It’s not like he could have pulled things into line the way she did.

Fixed the mess with all those out of control children in Hollywood.

He would’ve been a terrible senator and he knew it.

That was why he was still trying to find someone to hide behind, even when he was determined to bring her down. ”

“You really think he was trying to convince someone to kill the senator?” Davin asked, when I failed to prod her.

“I heard him,” she confirmed, nodding and stepping closer to us, so that she could lower her voice.

“He met with Wu Mei two weeks ago right here at the house, and I heard him say that Senator Knight’s time was over, and it was time for someone else to take the reins, even if they had to pry them out of her hands.

I thought...I wanted to intervene. Senator Knight has only done good for all of us.

We all struggled under that ass, Harte, and she’s made all our lives better, but Mr. Mailloux was planning to betray her. ”

“You’ve been planning to speak to the senator,” Davin said, observationally, not an accusation at all.

“Someone had to, before he managed to find a monster who would do it. We would all be worse off without the senator.” She ducked her head.

“It’s just, I work a lot. I didn’t have time before”—she turned and looked at the dark main house, frowning—“someone else decided it was a bad idea too, I guess.”

Frankly, her vehemence toward Charles’s plans made her the best suspect we had so far, but I had a niggling feeling, so I asked, “Were you not here the night it happened? I’d think you would have seen who was coming and going.”

She sighed, long and deep. “This is fucking ridiculous. You’re not even going to believe me, but I swear I can prove it.

” She took a deep breath, bolstering herself, and Davin and I both simply waited until she continued.

“I really was down in San Diego. La Jolla. My great-granddaughter had her first child two days ago.”

I didn’t even have to make a call to confirm, just nodded.

“I do believe you. That would be a ridiculous thing to lie about.” Besides that, I’d have bet that the whole thing had been discussed with everyone Kate could get her hands on, so whoever killed him could have easily known that he wouldn’t have his assistant there to back him up.

It didn’t change the basic facts, though. Charles really had been meeting with my mother’s enemies, trying to find an ally who was willing to overthrow her.

But why?

What the hell could my mother have done to make him completely turn against her?