Avenging Angel (The Fallen #4)(9)

“Won’t someone notice,” she asked the question that had to be obvious, “when my body disappears?”

But Tanner just laughed. “This is New Orleans. Do you know how many bodies disappear from morgues here every day?”

And what? Cops just turned blind eyes?

So much madness. This city wasn’t for her. This life wasn’t for her.

Maybe it was time for a new life.

But first, she had to get away.

“They saw you die. You’ll have a death certificate on file,” Tanner continued. “For now, that’s all we need.”

Because the city was used to such madness. No body, no worries.

Swallowing, Marna turned away to pull on the scrubs, and she began to plan her escape.





From the shadows, he stared up at the hospital. The stark walls were bathed in the flashing lights of nearby ambulances. She was inside.

Dead?

Not her.

His hands were shoved deep in his pockets. No one glanced his way, certainly not the handful of cops who milled around the entranceway.

They all bought the story that was circulating among the ranks. A killer . . . taken out by one of their own.

According to the PD grapevine, the lady had gotten violent and attacked two officers. Only she’d been the one to end up on a stretcher as she was rushed to St. Mary’s.

Word had trickled down thirty minutes before that their suspect had died on the operating room table. Cops sure liked to gossip with anyone and everyone.

Tanner Chance hadn’t come out yet. Chance had rushed to the hospital with Marna and stood guard over her like some protective giant. Despite the news of her death, he still hadn’t shown his face.

When he’d first rushed to the hospital, the cop’s fingers had been covered in her blood. Fitting, since Tanner Chance and his brothers had always shown such a taste for violence.

He turned away from the scene. Chance wouldn’t be coming out that front exit. The cop wasn’t exactly new to this game. It didn’t matter, though. Chance wasn’t going to stop him.

Slowly, carefully, he made his way toward the small employee entrance on the far left of the building. An entrance that had stairs that led up to the general floors of the hospital, as well as a stairwell that snaked down to the morgue.

As he approached, he finally caught sight of Chance. Climbing into a black SUV, with a small figure beside him. A figure who’d tried to shove her blond hair under one of those white, cloth caps that doctors wore in operating rooms.

The vehicle’s engine growled to life and it shot out of the lot before he could even take a few steps toward them.

Escape.

Laughter slipped from him. Oh, this was going to be good.

Just how long would it be before Chance’s taste for violence showed itself again? Just how long did the lost angel have before the shifter turned on her?

Not long at all.

Pretty soon, Marna would be exactly where he wanted her, and Chance would be the one growing ice cold in a morgue. Only the shifter wouldn’t be playing some kind of possum like Marna had obviously been doing.

He’d be on his way to hell.





Streaks of dawn’s light were sliding across the sky when Tanner opened the door to his home for Marna. She hadn’t spoken much during the ride over, but once they got inside, he had a feeling the fireworks would be erupting.

He could practically feel the lady’s rage.

And her kind wasn’t exactly supposed to feel much.

The door clicked closed behind them. She walked around the foyer—okay, what would one day be the foyer. Right then, the house was a piece of crap. He knew it. The antebellum had barely survived the last storm, and the ex-owners had been more than ready to dump the place into his hands.

So, yeah, it looked like hell, but if he kept working on the place, one day, it would be something fancy.

Something he could be proud of. Tanner hadn’t exactly been proud of a lot of things in his life.

Not his murdering bastard of a father.

Not his sadistic shifter brother, Brandt.

And he’d sure not been proud of himself. Not with all the blood on his hands. Tanner glanced down at his hands. The skin was a dark tan, smooth, but he knew the blood was still there. Some things just couldn’t be washed away.

“I suppose you want me to thank you,” Marna said, her words drawing his gaze back to her.

She stood at the edge of the would-be foyer, her hands on her hips, eyeing him like he was some kind of disgusting bug that had crawled across her path.

So what else was new? She’d been looking at him that way ever since he found her. Ever since she realized just exactly who—what—he was.

Never good enough for her.

But, hell, who would be good enough? Maybe another angel, one of those lily-white jerks who knew nothing of sin.

And as for thanking him . . . “I did keep your sweet ass out of a jail cell.” He’d gotten her clear, permanently. No one would be looking for a dead woman.

Not that anyone should go looking for her. But just in case, he had friends at the hospital, folks who knew the paranormal score and who owed him favors. They’d make a paperwork trail to show that she was truly dead, and those hospital connections had even set a plan in motion to cremate one Marna Smith.

He’d only been half bullshitting when he said bodies disappeared from the morgue. In this case, she wouldn’t totally vanish—her ashes would be left behind as proof of her death. And with the ashes and death certificate on file, that would be the end of the story.