Keystone (Crossbreed #1)(46)

Wyatt licked salt off his finger. “Maybe he lost it in a bet. I don’t know. I still need to dig.”

Claude patted him on the head. “Good work, Spooky. Find out if he owns any other land… now or then.”

Wyatt gave him a peevish look. “Any volunteer helpers?”

Gem flashed out of the room.

Claude turned to look at me and held out his hands. “Your hair is perfection.” In a burst of action, he ran at Chitah speed out of the room.

“I’m serious!” Wyatt called out. “Aren’t we a team?”

Blue casually strolled toward the door. “I’ll give Viktor an update.”

Wyatt dunked some fries into the cheese dip and spun around to face me. “When the going gets tough, they leave skid marks on their way out the door. There’s no way I can get this done as fast as Viktor wants it.”

“Don’t you have enough evidence?”

He tossed a fry back onto his desk. “It could backfire on Viktor if we can’t at least provide a solid motive. We’re not allowed to ignore any new evidence, even if it slows down the case. We still have to follow protocol before we move in.”

Wyatt’s monitors suddenly went black.

“Son of a ghost. That’s the second time today.” He leaned back in his chair.

“I don’t believe in ghosts.”

His eyes skated off to my left as if he were looking at someone. “That’s okay, buttercup. They don’t really care.”

“What if you just have a mental condition, like schizophrenia? I mean, I believe you can locate people buried alive, but the rest is probably just self-induced fears from spending so much time in graveyards.”

Wyatt laughed and ended it on a snort. “Who do you think keeps shutting down my computers? They get mad when I don’t talk to them.”

I shook my head. “Power failure.”

He pointed his finger at the lamp. “But the lights are still on.”

Wyatt held the can of cheese dip and swirled two fries around. “It’s a crazy world when a half Mage, half Vampire doesn’t believe in the afterlife. How did you get tape in your hair?”

I paused in the doorway, turning to answer in a playful tone. “Gem tied me to the clearance rack.”

“I always knew she was kinky.”





Chapter 13





“Mr. Bane, you have a phone call in your office.”

Darius threw five more punches at the bag and then stepped back, wiping the sweat from his brow. He caught the reflection of his secretary in the wall mirror. Darius didn’t really need a secretary. He’d only hired Camille because it was nice to have a woman in a skirt around the house. He didn’t get out much, and the only people who kept him company were a bunch of male guards. But lately Camille had been wearing slacks and a lot less makeup.

“Who is it?” he asked, removing one of his wrist wraps. “And why aren’t they calling my cell?”

Darius had a landline for routine calls, not for business. And routine calls were not important enough to interrupt his workout session.

Camille shifted her hips, and somehow her perfume managed to fight its way through the musky air. “He says he’s your Creator.”

Darius unwound the second wrap. “Tell him I’ll be just a moment.”

After she closed the door, he gulped down a bottle of imported water and then wet his curly black hair with a second bottle. He had a modest gym no bigger than the average living room, equipped with a punching bag and weights. It would have been nice to have something larger with high ceilings, but there wasn’t enough room on the floor.

He tossed the empty bottle into a wastebasket. He didn’t tolerate anyone disturbing his private time, but a man didn’t ignore a call from his Creator, especially when his Creator was a member of the higher authority.

Darius took long strides down the narrow hall toward his office. Most of the rooms in the building were closed off, leaving long hallways like one might see in an office building. It gave him another level of security knowing his guards wouldn’t have anything to distract them from their duties.

When he entered the tiny room, he shut the door and took a seat in the leather chair behind his desk. A short towel hung from his neck, and his thin T-shirt was drenched with sweat and water. He braced himself as he watched the blinking red dot on the phone.

Darius was a low-key individual who spoke in a modulated voice and preferred people who kept the excitement level down. Patrick, on the other hand, was an extrovert who had a politician’s knack for steering the conversation and talking over people.

“This is Darius.”

“Have you been hiding from me?” Patrick asked. He possessed a pleasant Irish accent that was light and lyrical, making everything he said sound wonderful. “I had a little trouble when your number was no longer in service, but I had a good friend of mine look you up. Staying out of trouble?”

Darius leaned back in his leather chair, his gaze shifting to an old photograph on the wall of him standing in front of a building. His face was obscured with a fedora, but he remembered that day like it was yesterday. “I was in the middle of negotiating a contract for a piece of property.”

“Is that so? I’d love to hear the details.”