Ripper (Hunter #1)(77)

I sat down on the frilly pink comforter and gave her my absolute undivided attention. “I thought she needed the money.”

“It’s true that she lost her scholarship and Mom didn’t know,” Nancy explained. “Jo didn’t want to worry her, especially since she applied to the Council for a loan. With her grades she would have easily qualified. It’s a program the queen set up a few years ago. Anyone under Council protection can apply for a loan to go to school or get training to get a job. You have to pay it back, but not for a while, and Jo said the interest rate was good, whatever that means.”

Every reason I could think of for Jo to be in that club flew straight out the window. “Then why would she work at the vampire club?”

Nancy played with her hair, twisting it around and around her right index finger. “Jo was really good friends with this girl named Britney Miles,” Nancy said and I kept my face perfectly blank. I recognized her as the first victim, but no one else knew she’d been found. “She was a werewolf, but Jo got along with everyone at school. Jo got worried about her when she didn’t make it to their weekly movie date. Everyone thinks she’s bad news and probably ran away with some guy, but Jo didn’t think so.”

The room went cold around me as I knew what Nancy Taylor was going to say next, and everything fell into place. I had underestimated Jo Taylor. I had looked at her and seen a sweet little doe. I’d seen prey. But sometimes even the sweetest of prey can turn hunter when something they care about is in harm’s way.

“Jo went to the club undercover,” Nancy said. “She went there to find out what happened to Britney.”

She’d played the hunter and she’d been killed. I wondered for a moment if the same thing wasn’t going to happen to me.





Chapter Twelve





Marcus followed us back to Gray’s house after we left Helen Taylor’s. There was no more talk of me going back to Hurst, no more pushing me aside. Gray was quiet the whole ride home as though he knew he’d lost the fight.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the Taylors. No matter what happened, I had to push on. Even if it meant going against the Council and the king. No one else wanted justice. No one really wanted the truth. Not even Gray. He wanted me safe more than he wanted the truth, but the need burned inside me.

The guilt I’d felt before had somehow morphed, becoming a need. I needed to find this killer, needed to bring him into the light.

Marcus and Gray headed to his office, but I couldn’t sit there and listen to them go over the case again. I still hadn’t figured out what bugged me about the photos and it gnawed at my gut. I was restless. I headed to the kitchen where Syl had again been busy.

If there’s one thing I loved about Gray’s, it was the open-all-day buffet. I didn’t have to rummage around to find a snack. I didn’t have to settle for day-old bread or hustle to a vending machine. Syl always provided. There was a tray of fruit and cheese on the bar along with wine, water, and juice. I poured myself some juice and downed a ton of crackers and cheese.

I sat in the kitchen for the longest time eating and drinking. It was peaceful after the stresses of the day, but I knew I had the night to come.

After a while I heard Marcus leave, promising to return for me in two hours. I sighed because I didn’t want to leave my happy little nest of quiet and food and minty juice. I got up though. I forced my limbs to move because I had a job to do.

Syl had left me two very nice outfits laid out on the bed. The shopping bags said Niemen Marcus, so I probably didn’t want to look at the tags to figure out how much I owed Gray. I could totally leave the tags on the elegant business suit. I didn’t need it at this point. I was going to have to wear the wine-colored sheath dress with an almost Asian looking neckline. I was surprised at the conservative nature of the dress. The neckline was quite high and the skirt would hit me a little past the knee. All in all, I’d expected a bit more trashy chic from a demon, but then I supposed Syl wouldn’t want me to look like a hooker. I was his master’s intended after all. He seemed to take that seriously.

I turned on the shower and pulled off my clothes. Gray’s shower was one of those walk-in masterpieces of plumbing technology. It didn’t have anything so pedestrian as a shower curtain, like my tiny shower-tub combo. Nope this was a little room in itself. I stepped inside and sighed as the hot water hit my skin. I needed to feel clean again.

Heat suffused my skin, finally seeming to penetrate, but I couldn’t relax. I worried that I might not until I solved this case.

“Hey.”

Gray was standing in the doorway to the shower. He’d gotten rid of his shirt and his jeans hung low on his hips. My eyes caught on the tattoo on his chest. Torso really. It covered his left pec and wound around his body. My demon with the dragon tattoo.

“What made you pick the dragon?” Somehow it fit him. I couldn’t imagine him getting drunk one night and stumbling into a tattoo parlor and picking something random. It wasn’t random at all. That dragon seemed to be a piece of him.

His eyes were on my breasts, heat pouring off him, but he was still as he replied. “I didn’t. I had no choice in the matter. I turned thirteen and when I went to sleep that night, I was taken by my father to the Hell plane. It was the first time I met him, the first time I had to go there. When I went home, I had this tat. Well, I had the beginnings of it.”