Dark Debt (25 page)

“Maybe that’s the wrong order of things,” I
said. “Maybe he got the money, the connections,
because
of it. But if we’re right, why the attempt on King at Reed’s house?”

“Maybe Reed wanted a bird’s-eye view of King’s downfall,” Catcher said. “Wanted to watch a competitor suffer.”

“Or wanted to confirm the hit had gone down,” Ethan said. “There was, after all, some question whether that would take place. And to let it happen in his
own home, he was incredibly confident King’s death wouldn’t be traced back to him.”

“That could be,” Catcher said. “For now, this is just speculation. We don’t have any hard evidence linking Reed to Maguire, as he’s now known, the Circle, or anything else. But it’s a first step. I have to go. We’re going to look into the King-Reed angle more. I’ll keep you posted.”

By the time I said thanks
and hung up the phone, Ethan had grabbed his suit jacket and was headed for the door.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to pay a little visit to Adrien Reed. And this time, I’m driving.”

FRANKLY, SENTINEL

H
e didn’t give me time to argue, tattle, or grab Brody. In order to keep Ethan from going alone, I had to settle for sending Luc a message as I climbed into Ethan’s Ferrari and he squealed out of the basement parking garage and onto the street, just missing the gate by
a hair.

“What, exactly, is the plan here?” I asked as the engine hummed through Hyde Park.

“I want to talk to him. I want to talk to him about Balthasar. I want to talk to him about Navarre. I want to talk to him about the hell he’s put us and our friends through for the last week. I want to talk to him about attacking my Sentinel and attempting to use her as a hostage.”

“All good
questions,” I said, nodding my agreement. “But keep in mind that we don’t actually have any evidence he’s done any of that.”

“Frankly, Sentinel, I don’t give a damn about evidence right now. I care about this unmitigated asshole having the stones to admit what he’s done so I can begin planning how to destroy him.”

“So this is just going to be a light social call to a millionaire in the
middle of the night, then.”

When Ethan growled, I decided this wasn’t the time to mitigate tension with sarcasm. Seeing as how I didn’t have much else to contribute, I settled back and began to answer Luc’s panicked messages.

*   *   *

The front door was locked, no welcome party tonight, no cadre of limousines in line to drop off visitors. Ethan pressed the security panel beside the
door.

“May I help you?”

“Ethan Sullivan for Adrien Reed.”

“One moment please.”

There was a pause, then a beep, and a woman in a dour black dress opened the door, gestured for us to come inside. The moment we did, two guards stepped forward, scanned us with handheld wands.

Metal detectors?

Looking for weapons and, more likely, recording devices,
Ethan said.

When they
decided we were clear, they gestured us forward. “Mr. Reed will see you in his study. I understand you know the way.”

“We do,” Ethan said through clenched teeth. “Thank you.”

The house had been stripped of its Venetian party decorations, but hadn’t diminished the excessiveness. Every nook and cranny was still stuffed with objects, art, furniture.

“Is he a hoarder?” I asked quietly.

“One wonders,” Ethan said. “That would certainly explain his criminal interest in accumulating more of it.” His voice was dry as toast.

We traveled the ballroom, the stairs, the gallery, made our way to his office. A new guard stood by the door, hands clasped in front of him, gaze suspicious. After a look-over, he nodded us in.

Despite the hour, Reed sat behind his desk, pen in one
hand as he scanned a sheath of papers. “I’m a busy man, Mr. Sullivan,” he said, without looking up.

Ethan walked into the office, his gaze on everything in the room except Reed, his stride dangerously blasé. He walked to the bar cart, poured a finger of liquid into a glass, finished it.

So our Master vampire intended to toy with his prey a bit. If I wasn’t supposed to focus on his safety,
I’d have pulled up a chair to enjoy the show.

Reed’s eyes widened at the move, but the facade snapped quickly back into place. “Help yourself.”

“Done,” Ethan said, putting the glass on the cart, bottom up, with a heavy thud.

Reed put down his pen, the move slow and deliberate. “Your manners leave something to be desired.”

“My manners?” Ethan said, turning back to him. “Do you know,
Adrien—may I call you Adrien?—what isn’t mannerly? Being a loan shark. Facilitating a vampire’s addiction. Extorting murder. Assault. Oh, and leading a criminal enterprise.”

Reed’s eyes widened, this time with amusement. “Have I done all that? That’s quite a list of accomplishments.”

“Games are beneath you.”

He clucked his tongue. “I’m sad to say that’s wrong. All the world’s not a
stage, but a game. Most are pawns. Some are kingmakers. Only a chosen few are kings.”

Ethan tilted his head. “Are you a king? Is this your castle?” He paused. “Is the Circle your kingdom?”

Reed went very quiet and very still. “I understand you fancy
yourself a leader of vampires and think highly of your connections and your power. But I’m not sure you have as much of either as you believe,
Mr. Sullivan. That could be dangerous for a man in your position.”

As if Reed had paid him the highest compliment—or been baited right according to plan—Ethan grinned wildly, took a step forward.

“And I’m not sure you understand real danger, Adrien. Celina made a bad business deal? That’s not my business. But you threaten vampires? You attempt to hurt my people? That makes it personal.
And when it’s personal, it will be your house and mine. It will be you and me, and there will be no one to stand in front of you. No one else to fight your battles.
That
is the dangerous situation.”

But Reed knew how to play the game, just as Ethan did. His gaze shifted to me, and the chill in it lifted the hair on the back of my neck. There was nothing soft, nothing compassionate, barely
anything human, about Adrien Reed.

“The personal matters to you, does it?” he asked, the implication obvious. If Ethan wished to battle Reed, Reed would simply target me.

Ethan’s magic seeped forward, a cold and sinking fog. “You’d be wise to keep your eyes on me and your men away from my people.”

“My ‘men’? Unless you’re interested in mergers and acquisitions, which I highly doubt,
I can’t say I know what you’re talking about.”

“We’ve had several unpleasant run-ins with Jude Maguire. He’s one of yours.”

Reed frowned, pursed his lips, feigned confusion. “I’m not sure I know anyone named Maguire.”

“You might remember him as Thomas O’Malley,” I suggested pleasantly.

His smile widened. “Oh, I haven’t heard from Tom in years. I hope he’s doing well.”

This
time, I let my smile bloom vampiric. “Actually, he’s nursing some fairly serious injuries at the moment. Accident with a throwing star.”

Ethan glanced at me, grimaced. “Oh, that sounds unfortunate.”

I nodded. “It was. And bloody. I’d like to get some of those stars.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Reed’s lip curled at the comment and the byplay, but only for an instant. However dangerous
he might have been, he was very well schooled at masking his emotions, playing the businessman. It was an attribute a vampire could appreciate. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“In that case,” Ethan said, “how about Balthasar? Are you aware your companies are paying his way?”

“Don’t confuse me and my companies, Ethan. I don’t oversee every decision made in my expansive, shall
we say, kingdom.”

“You may have money,” Ethan said, “and you may have friends in very high places. But you forget one thing: You are human, and we are not. We are strong, and we are immortal.”

Reed snapped out a laugh. There was no mirth in it, only insult. “You are two-bit celebrities with short memories and whose popularity shifts like the tide.”

Footsteps echoed down the hallway,
drawing nearer.

This time, the smile was all Reed’s and a bit maniacal. “Ah,” he said, lifting his cell phone, wiggling it a bit. “It looks like help has arrived. And lest you think I’ve called them because I fear
you—let me clarify things for you.” He put the phone on his desk and leaned forward. “I’ve called them to remind you that you don’t hold the upper hand. You never have, and you never
will. This city is beholden to me, and its debt has come due.”

I’d thought Balthasar narcissistic, psychopathic. But the crazed desire in Balthasar’s eyes had nothing on the utter malevolence in Reed’s.

With that statement freezing the air, Detective Jacobs walked in, two uniformed cops behind him. Reed pasted on a relieved smile with shocking speed. “Thank you for getting here so quickly.”

“Of course, Mr. Reed,” Jacobs said, glancing at us. “I understand your visitors are unwelcome.”

“What they are,” Reed said, “is harassing me. And I understand the CPD takes vampire harassment very seriously these days.”

“Of course they do.” Jacobs looked at us with disappointment in his eyes. “And my apologies for the delay. A transformer burst, so traffic and streetlights are out.
It’s very dark out, and they’ve had to reroute traffic.”

Adrien made some vague sound, didn’t seem to care much about the CPD’s logistical concerns. But we understood it. That was our code phrase, the signal we’d worked out before visiting the Circle on Torrance Island. Jacobs wanted us to play along.

Jacobs took Ethan by the arm, and Ethan made a good show of shaking him off. “Get your
damn hand off me!”

“You know I can’t do that, Mr. Sullivan. Not when you’ve come into someone’s home, threatened them.”

Ethan’s expression was perfectly superior. “I did no such thing. The housekeeper let us in!”

“Mmm-hmm. Your lawyers can discuss that with you at the
station.” He smiled back at Mr. Reed. “Once again, sir, I’m very sorry for the interruption. Chuck Merit doesn’t appreciate
his reputation being tarnished, and I’m sure he’ll have some choice words for his granddaughter.”

“I hope he does,” Reed said, not bothering to hide the gleam in his eyes as an officer led me to the door with a heavy grip on my arm. “They should learn to respect those who’ve earned their success.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Jacobs said. He glanced at the clock on the wall behind Reed’s desk.
“I hate to inconvenience you further considering the hour. Perhaps I could call you tomorrow for your statement?”

“That would be acceptable,” Reed said, clearly pleased by Jacobs’s apparent deference.

Jacobs nodded. “In that case, we’ll clear out and leave you to your evening. Do take care to lock up afterward. You never know who you’ll find on the doorstep.”

*   *   *

This might
be the worst date I’ve ever been on,
I mused as the officers escorted us silently down the gallery and out of the house.

Oh, I doubt that,
Ethan said behind me.

That’s not flattering, Sullivan.

It wasn’t meant to insult you, but the boys you dated. Had any of them the guile to win you, they’d have done so. But seeing as you’re here with me
 . . .

Just stop there,
I advised him,
before you dig that hole any deeper.

“Put them in my car,” Detective Jacobs said to the uniforms. “I’ll take them back to the station.”

The cops looked at each other. “You don’t, uh, want us to go with you?” asked the one who held me, free hand on his club as if there was a possibility I’d take a swing at a cop.

“Unnecessary,” Jacobs said with a smile. “I’ve handled these two before.”
He patted his coat as if he held a secret weapon there. “And I know just how to do it. I’ll even take care of the paperwork.”

“That’d actually be great,” said my cop, looking very relieved. “I’ve got a pile on my desk. I mean”—he glanced at his partner—“it’s not exactly protocol . . .”

“But, then,” Jacobs said, “neither is coming to the home of a millionaire to arrest vampires he’s apparently
invited through the door.”

“He does have a point,” said Ethan’s cop. Ethan watched the discussion with amusement, apparently nonplussed about the fact that his arrest was the topic of conversation.

“If you could just get them into my car,” Jacobs prompted, and they nodded, opened the back door of a sedate gray sedan, gestured us inside. I squeezed in after Ethan, and they closed the door
with a heavy
thud
.

“Twenty-eight years without so much as a speeding ticket,” I said, glancing at him, “and you get me arrested for trespassing.”

Ethan snorted. Jonah usually accompanied me during investigations, so Ethan didn’t often get the chance to do the fieldwork. He seemed to be enjoying it—both the highs and lows. Maybe he saw it as a break from administration and paperwork. Or
maybe he just appreciated being my partner in the other sense of the word.

Jacobs gave parting instructions to the cops, climbed into the front seat. He watched as the uniforms drove away, then glanced at us in the rearview mirror. “You have anything to say for yourselves?”

Ethan smiled. “Can we throw ourselves on the mercy of the CPD?”

Jacobs humphed. “Now that we’re alone, would
you like to
tell me why you’re here in the middle of the night worrying Chuck Merit?”

I winced, but Ethan didn’t mince words. “There’s evidence Reed’s involved in the Circle. And considering his money, finances, connections, I’m guessing he’s at the helm.”

Jacobs, being a cop to the bone, didn’t so much as flinch. “What led you to that conclusion?”

My grandfather must not have filled
him in on what the Ombuddies had found.

“Jeff and Catcher dug into Jude Maguire’s past,” Ethan said. “He’s actually Thomas O’Malley. O’Malley went off the radar several years ago, and Maguire took his place. Reed and Maguire went to college together. They’re friends; close ones. O’Malley was in Reed’s first wedding.”

Jacobs considered quietly. “That doesn’t link Reed to the Circle.”