Biting Bad_ A Chicagoland Vampires Novel(67)

“It’s lovely seeing you so happy,” my mother said, embracing me, apparently oblivious to the change in mood.

“Thanks, Mom. You, too.”

We exchanged hugs and promises to do dinner again soon, then Ethan and I walked down the sidewalk, our hands linked together.

I picked carefully across the ice to the car’s passenger side and climbed in. Ethan started the Ferrari with a tantalizing purr, and his phone began to ring almost immediately.

“It’s Luc,” he said, then put the phone on speaker.

“Ethan and Merit,” he answered.

“You’re on speakerphone in the Ops Room.”

Luc’s voice was tight, which put my nerves on edge. He wouldn’t have called unless it was important, but Luc’s brand of important was rarely good news.

“What’s wrong?” Ethan asked.

“The CPD is done with Robin Pope. They’ve released her.”

“Released her?” I repeated, panic rising in my voice. “Why?”

“Because she’s alibied for both riots,” Jonah said. “She wasn’t at either.”

“But her complaint against Bryant Industries?” I asked. “Her relationship with the Grey House vamp? Those couldn’t have been coincidence.”

“They were,” Luc said. “She hasn’t so much as sent an e-mail to anybody arrested in the riots, surfed a Web page, anything. I realize it’s not much of an update, but I wanted to let you know as soon as possible.”

“Thank you, Luc. We’ll be back to the House shortly.”

Ethan hung up the phone and glanced at me. “Ideas?”

“Not a single damn one. I was certain she was involved, and now we’re back at square one.”

“We will deal with this just as we’ve dealt with everything else. The solution is there, waiting for us to find it.”

I nodded. “We have to go back to the start. Visit Bryant Industries and see if there’s anything to be learned. See what we missed.”

“We spend enough money on their products that they could probably afford to give us a factory tour.”

“It’s late,” I said. “Will they still be around? At least without a riot to attend to?”

Ethan nodded. “Bryant Industries works with us, so Charla tends to keep vampire hours. I’ll send her a message and see if it can be arranged.”

He did so, then updated Luc and pulled into the road and then into traffic. When we’d gotten some distance from my parents’ house, I voiced the question I’d been pondering since Ethan had emerged from my father’s study.

“Out of curiosity, what did you and my father talk about?”

For a moment, Ethan didn’t answer, and I wasn’t sure if he’d heard me.

“Your father wants to become an investor in Cadogan House.”

“He what?” I boggled at the request. I presumed my father had wanted to discuss Ethan’s putting in a good word about Merit Properties with other Houses. This was in an entirely different orbit.

“He has money and connections. He wants to offer us a rather considerable amount of money to join the House’s board of directors.”

I frowned. “We don’t have a board of directors.”

“No, we do not. Which is one of the smaller of many, many problems with his proposal.”

“He wants to pay us to let him control the House?”

Ethan nodded. “Your father has demonstrated very questionable decision making in the past. Which means that power might be used in questionable ways.”

I nodded. “We’d be trading one GP for another.”

“I’m glad to hear you think so.” There was relief in his voice that I didn’t find flattering.

“You can’t think I’d have supported the idea? Giving my father the key to your kingdom?”

“Your father is a powerful man, and with power comes protection. I wasn’t afraid you’d support the idea, but I wondered if you’d find it attractive.”

“I find peace and serenity attractive. Bringing my father into our House is not the way to accomplish either of those. No,” I concluded. “There’s no way.”

I looked out the window, wondering how things had gone so sideways.

—

Charla Bryant agreed happily to another meeting; Ethan was one of her customers, after all. The police tape was gone, the debris had been cleaned away from the lawn, and new wooden studs and plastic sheeting were in place. Charla was definitely a woman of action.

We stood in front of the building for a moment and scanned the scene.

“The damage looks mostly superficial,” Ethan said.

“I think it was. The fire didn’t go very deep into the building, but they spread across the front.”