Deadly Descendant (26 page)

Emma didn’t like my hesitation. She plucked at her bloody shirt. “I’m asking you to do the right thing,” she said while fixing me with a cold glare. “But if you refuse, I’ll tell Anderson you attacked me. Believe me, I’ll make it very convincing. After all, I’m his wife … and you’re just some stray he picked up from the street.”

I tried not to let her see that she’d scored, but I must have flinched or something, because she smirked. “Oh, yes. Anderson
will
toss you back out on the street without a single regret, and you and your sister will both lose his protection. How long do you think the two of you will last before Konstantin finds you?”

Dammit, she’d just scored again. I felt the blood draining from my cheeks and could do nothing to stop it. Emma’s eyes practically glowed with satisfaction.

“Do you want me to describe in graphic detail what Konstantin likes to do with pretty female captives?” Her lip curled. “
You
he wouldn’t touch, but I bet he’d make you watch while he—”

“Shut up!” I shouted, trembling with rage. Steph had already suffered terribly because of me. My conscience would hate me for letting a crazed serial killer continue his reign of terror, but I refused to put Steph at risk again.

“Okay, fine, you win,” I growled. “I’ll lay off Kerner until Konstantin is dead. But someday, this is all going to come back and bite you in the ass. And I’ll be there to see it.”

Emma smiled at me, so smug in her triumph that I wanted to slap her.

“I’m glad we could come to an understanding,” she said, then frowned down at the bloody shirt. “I guess I’ll have to go change my shirt. But don’t worry; I’ll keep it nice and safe somewhere, in case I should ever need it.”

She waited for my response, but when there was none forthcoming, she sighed in satisfaction and sauntered out of my room.

I’m not a big drinker, but after what had just happened, I
felt that a little alcohol was in order. I found an open bottle of Chardonnay in the fridge downstairs and brought the whole bottle and a wineglass back up to my suite. I hadn’t even eaten lunch yet, but that didn’t stop me from pouring a glass immediately.

What was I going to do about Emma? Sure, I was
caving to her demands, and that would appease her for the moment. However, I had just established my willingness to be bullied, and that was a terrible precedent to set. Not to mention that my reaction to the threat to Steph had amply demonstrated where my weak spot was.

I finished my glass of wine and immediately poured another.

Emma’s threat was a declaration of war.

For now, she was content to bully me, but as long as she misguidedly saw me as a rival for Anderson’s affections, she was going to hate me. And I had no illusions that her hatred wouldn’t turn into an all-out campaign to get me kicked out of the house. And hell, if that didn’t work for her, I had no doubt the threats would escalate. Steph was an obvious, easy target, and I was under no illusion that Emma would hesitate to hurt an innocent bystander. And that meant it was time to start planning for the worst.

From the beginning, I’d told myself that my stay at Anderson’s mansion was temporary. When he’d first offered me shelter, I’d figured my choices were to move in—thereby obtaining protection not only for myself but also for my adoptive family—or to leave everything I knew and loved behind and go into hiding in hopes the Olympians would leave my family alone as long as I wasn’t around. I hadn’t wanted to lose my job, my home, my family, or my way of life, so I’d chosen to accept Anderson’s protection.

Finding Emma was supposed to have cemented
my position within Anderson’s
Liberi
. It was supposed to be the proof of my sincerity, the proof that I was not a secret Olympian spy.

And it might ultimately turn out to be my downfall instead.

Grim reality was staring me right in the face. I was never meant to be part of Anderson’s team, not for the long haul. Believing he and the rest of his
Liberi
could give me the home and the sense of belonging I’d lacked all my life had been a nice fantasy, but it was time to wake up. I would stand on the sidelines and let Kerner continue his reign of terror against the Olympians, and that would keep Emma out of my hair for a while. When Konstantin was dead, I would resume my hunt in earnest, and I would stop Kerner from ever killing again.

But the only way to protect Steph in the long run was for me to get out of her life.

I doubted the Olympians would pick on her if I was gone, but even if they did … I felt sure Anderson and his people would look out for her. Especially Blake, who I thought really did care about her.

To make her safe, I had to give up everything that was important in my life, including her, including my parents … and including the
Liberi,
the only people in the world I would not outlive. I would be alone, in the most fundamental of ways, always keeping secrets, always on the run. At least, when I’d been bouncing around between foster homes, I’d been able to hope for the future, for the day when I would be an adult with the power to control my own destiny and create
my own home. If I fled from the
Liberi,
there would be no hope to cling to.

But Emma was a threat I couldn’t protect Steph from. Not when Anderson refused to see her for what she really was. A threat from the outside I might have had a chance against, but not this. I owed Steph and her parents way too much to reward them by subjecting them to this kind of risk. So no matter how much it hurt, no matter how terrifying my future might be, I had to leave.

My resolve to let
Kerner have his way with the Olympians lasted almost forty-eight hours. Right up to the time I found out he’d abandoned his once-a-week schedule and made another kill already.

I’d spent most of my time since Emma had confronted me sitting at my computer in my room, avoiding all human contact. I didn’t want to get any more attached to Anderson’s
Liberi
than I already was, not when I was planning my escape. Instead of trying to make any progress on finding Kerner, I’d been working on picking a new home and planning the new identity I was going to have to adopt. My work as a P.I. had given me plenty of experience finding people who didn’t want to be found, so I knew what traps to avoid, but it was still going to be damned hard. I was going to have to swallow my scruples and dip into my trust fund, because I was going to need the cash. I would have to find a new job—there was only so
long the cash would hold me unless I wanted to carry suitcases of it—and it would have to be one where I could get paid under the table. And I’d have to find somewhere to live, with a landlord who wouldn’t start asking questions when I paid my rent in cash. All in all, it was a daunting, depressing prospect.

It wasn’t until after dinner that I decided to check up on the day’s news to give myself a break from all of the questions and anxieties that pinged back and forth in my brain. The first screaming headline I read rocked me back in my chair:
CAPITAL MAULER STRIKES AGAIN
.

I wondered when the press had started referring to Kerner as the Capital Mauler. Perhaps as soon as the police had admitted that the killings were not the result of wild dogs.

A prominent lobbyist had been mauled in his home sometime after midnight, along with his wife and their live-in maid. Police were called to the scene after neighbors were awakened by the screams, but no one saw anything. They wouldn’t, of course, since Kerner could make himself and his jackals invisible.

I was willing to bet that both the lobbyist and his wife had been Olympians. However, the maid couldn’t have been, because there was no way in hell an Olympian would be willing to do menial labor. The poor woman must have gotten in the way.

Goddammit. I wanted to punch my computer screen. So much for Kerner’s vow that he wouldn’t target civilians anymore. Though perhaps from his point of view, he
was
keeping his promise. It was possible
the maid would have lived if she hadn’t somehow gotten in Kerner’s way, that he hadn’t actively targeted her.

Not that the distinction meant squat to the maid, or her family, or me. Yet another innocent bystander was dead. Maybe I couldn’t have prevented last night’s attack—after all, I’d had no reason to think the next attack would come so soon—but if I spent any more time wringing my hands and worrying about Emma, then the next death definitely
would
be on me. And I couldn’t have that.

Trying to contain my rage, I stomped out of my room and headed for Anderson’s office. The door was open when I arrived, but he wasn’t inside. Which was probably just as well, because I didn’t know what to say.

No matter what, I had to stay on Anderson’s good side, or I’d never be able to stop Kerner. I might be able to
find
the crazy son of a bitch on my own, but I didn’t think I could single-handedly defeat him. Which meant I needed Anderson to keep trusting me, something he likely wouldn’t do if I starting slinging accusations at his wife. Especially not after she started slinging her own back.

Crap. I couldn’t bring Anderson in on this. The moment I started flapping my gums, Emma would bring out her accusations. And if I got lucky and Anderson didn’t believe her, then I would have to worry that she’d retaliate against me by hurting Steph.

No, whatever I ended up doing, I was going to have to keep Anderson out of it. I might have hoped that
Emma would take pity on the maid who’d died and change her mind about stopping Kerner, but I didn’t bother trying to fool myself. As long as Kerner was a deadly weapon aimed at Konstantin, she wouldn’t care who else got hurt along the way.

I took a few deep breaths to calm myself, then left Anderson’s office. I’d felt fairly muddled until the moment I learned of the maid’s death, but now everything was coming clear in my mind.

I couldn’t let Kerner run free, no matter what horrendous threats both he and Emma had made. And I couldn’t take Kerner down alone, no matter how much simpler it would have been if I could. Which meant I needed an ally. Someone who would understand my dilemma and be willing to go behind Anderson’s back to help me.

My first thought was Maggie. She was my best friend among Anderson’s
Liberi,
and her super-strength might come in handy. Asking Maggie would have felt safe and comfortable, but it took only a moment’s thought for me to realize it would be anything but.

I hadn’t known her—or anyone in this house—for all that long, but I knew she was not a rule breaker. She regarded Anderson’s word as law, and if I brought this to her, she would insist we tell Anderson everything. Maybe there was an off chance I could persuade her not to spill the beans once I shot my mouth off, but there was no way she’d risk Anderson’s wrath by helping me.

In the end, there was only one person I believed
might see things my way and might be willing and able to help me. If I was wrong about this, I was massively screwed. So I crossed my fingers and prayed that I wasn’t wrong.

Jamaal wasn’t in his suite. Or if he was in, he wasn’t
answering the door. The next most logical place to look for him was on the front porch, but he wasn’t there, either.

Somehow the whole day had slipped away from me, and the sun had gone down. The temperature had dropped, and I went back inside to grab a jacket. It wasn’t until I was slipping the jacket on that I wondered why I was going back outside when Jamaal clearly wasn’t there. I hadn’t seen him since he’d stormed off after kissing me. For all I knew, he’d never come back to the house.

I decided to treat my impulse to put on a coat as if it were one of my hunches and headed out to the garage to see if Jamaal’s car was there. Sure enough, the black Saab was inside.

If he were anyone else, I would have checked inside the house first, maybe looked in the kitchen or the den, but my instincts were telling me he wasn’t there. I let those instincts guide me and wandered around to the back of the house.

There was a nicely manicured lawn in the back, but Jamaal wasn’t there. From the lawn, I could look through the kitchen windows and confirm my hunch that he wasn’t inside.

Shivering and wishing I’d gone with a heavier
jacket, I crossed the lawn and headed into the woods. The last time I’d been out this way at night, I’d been carrying a lantern to light the path, but tonight I had to rely on the moonlight. Luckily, the night was clear, the moon just past full, and I could see well enough to pick my way through the trees toward the clearing about a hundred yards from the woods’ edge.

It was in that clearing that Jamaal had twice been executed, once by beheading and once by hanging. It was also in that clearing that he’d voluntarily allowed himself to be tied to a stake with kindling at his feet, willing to suffer the torment of burning if that was what it took to convince Anderson of his commitment to controlling himself.

Anderson had never ordered the fire lit, had been satisfied that Jamaal was willing to do whatever it took to avoid being kicked out. Logically, the clearing should be the last place I expected to find Jamaal. If I’d been in his shoes, I would have forever associated the clearing with pain and death. But Jamaal was not me.