Ah, ha! He still hadn’t admitted he had the amulet, but now I knew killing Jack was the real reason he’d hired me. Either the amulet wasn’t important, or as Jack claimed, Darroch already had it. I was betting on the latter.
“And if I refuse?”
He leaned back and for the first time gave me a genuine smile. Frankly, it was a little disturbing.
“You would not like the results. Trust me on this, Ms. Bailey.”
“Let me get this straight. You want me to find an amulet that you already have in your possession and which, by the way, doesn’t belong to you, and you want me to kill a man who is completely harmless. You want me to murder an innocent person and pretend he’s just another monster.” I didn’t actually know Jack wasn’t a monster, not for sure. Not yet. But my gut instinct said he wasn’t.
Darroch’s smile grew even broader as he flashed a perfect set of pearly whites. “I am so glad you are finally grasping the situation. I was beginning to think you were a little slow.”
“You do realize this is illegal. Not to mention morally unethical.”
He shrugged. “And yet, you have no choice. Your own government has ordered you to kill the Sunwalker and return the amulet to me.”
“The amulet you already have. Does the government know that Sunwalkers are not monsters?”
He laughed. “Semantics, my dear. The government can hardly be expected to catalogue every breed of creature in existence, and you can’t prove he’s harmless any more than you can prove that the amulet is in my possession. If the Sunwalker gets killed while you are trying to find my property,” he shrugged, “then what is one to do? Just another monster dead at the hand of a talented Hunter.”
“You are insane.”
“Quite possibly.”
This was going nowhere. Darroch wasn’t going to hurt me. Not yet, anyway. He wanted me to do his dirty work. Though why he insisted on pretending I needed to find that damn amulet was beyond me.
I stood up and strode toward the front door. No way did I want to walk past Clive again. I turned and gave Darroch a measuring look. “I won’t do it. I won’t kill him. And I’m going to get that amulet back.” Brilliant move. Tell the bad guy your entire plan why don’t you?
His laugh made my skin crawl. “Oh, yes you will, my dear. You will kill the Sunwalker or else you and your friends will suffer the consequences. Believe me, it won’t be pretty.”
I turned my back on him and strode down the hall and out the front door into the fresh air, taking a deep, cleansing breath. Then I froze. The priest from my dream was standing in the neighbor’s yard holding a garden hose.
I closed my eyes, pinched the bridge of my nose and counted to ten. When I looked back, the priest was gone. It was just the neighbor giving me a very odd look. I was losing my frigging mind.
I stomped down the front walk to my car. On the way to the office, I nearly blew my speakers out, I cranked Tom Petty up so loud. Sometimes a girl just needed a little Rock ‘n’ Roll.
“We need to talk.”
Kabita just gave me a look. “Hello to you, too.”
I dropped into my usual chair across from her desk. It gave a slight creak in protest of my abuse. “I’m serious. This thing with Darroch is way out of line.”
She narrowed her eyes at me and folded her hands neatly on the desk in front of her. “I told you. Darroch’s connected. We don’t have a choice.”
“There are always choices.” Was I channeling Yoda all of a sudden? Geez. Kabita just smirked at me. It wasn’t a happy smirk.
“Listen, Kabita, I know you’ve been ordered to take this job. No, let me get this right. We’ve been ordered to take this job, but come on. There is something really hinky about all this.”
“Hinky?”
“Yes, hinky,” I said stubbornly. “I talked to Darroch today.”
She rolled her eyes and gave a very exasperated sigh. I have that effect on people for some odd reason. “For goodness sake, Morgan.”
“Well, somebody had to do it.”
“What did he tell you?” She sounded resigned as she leaned back in her chair, folding one slender leg over the other.
“Not much,” I admitted. “I told him I knew he already had the amulet and I that I knew Jack wasn’t one of the monsters. He just kept insisting I find the amulet and kill Jack. He finally as much as admitted he already has the amulet in his possession and that he knows Sunwalkers aren’t evil, but he still insists I kill Jack. I mean, he’s obsessed.”
Kabita just sat there staring at me. It was her stare that told me she knew there was more and was just waiting for me to spill.