This Side of the Grave (Night Huntress, #5)(22)

“Not that.” Timmie’s mouth quirked before his expression became serious and, oddly, hopeful. “When I go back to my apartment, is it true that, uh, your kind can’t come inside?”

I hated to destroy his sense of safety, but believing that would only be dangerous for him.

“Sorry, that’s a myth. Vampires don’t need to be invited to go anywhere they want to.” I didn’t add that we’d already been in his apartment earlier, finding out from his roommate where Timmie would be tonight. Not that the young man remembered Bones and me questioning him once we’d given him a few flashes of our gaze, but I thought that was more information than Timmie could handle at the moment.

He was silent. “Shit,” Timmie said at last, with heartfelt emphasis.

I nodded. Sometimes, that word summed things up better than I ever could.

“Let’s go, before people start to wonder what we’re blathering on about,” Bones said, inclining his head toward the door.

We walked past the crowded parking lot toward the empty one ahead. It was far enough away from the real entrance of Bite that no one should be able to overhear us, aside from Tiny and Band-Aid, who still kept watch in their car. I couldn’t hear his thoughts, but Timmie’s scent was a mix of excitement, fear, and determination. Whatever he wanted to ask meant a great deal to him.

“Look, if your girlfriend vanished after sniffing around looking for proof about vampires, chances are she’s dead,” Bones stated once we reached the chain-link gate.

I winced at his bluntness. Timmie also looked shaken, but then he raised his chin. “Nadia’s not my girlfriend, and I don’t believe she’s dead. You don’t know her. She’s my best freelance reporter because she can charm anyone into doing what she wants.”

Bones snorted. “I don’t care if she was Helen of Troy and Scheherazade combined, obviously someone caught her and wasn’t pleased about her snooping. The fact that she wasn’t sent back to you afterward with her memory erased and a new desire to quit reporting doesn’t bode well for her.”

I winced again, but Bones was probably right. There was a reason the world didn’t know about the undead, and that was because vampires and ghouls were zealous about keeping their existence a secret. Some of them too zealous, like the vampires that had been about to make Timmie a nighttime snack.

“We could check around,” I said, giving Bones a slight shake of my head when he looked like he was about to object. Yes, we had a lot of urgent matters on our plate, but Timmie’s pleading expression made me unable to say no.

“Discreetly, of course,” I added. “We’ll start by asking Verses if he remembers seeing her, then show her picture to your people, Mencheres, some of your allies . . . maybe one of them will know where she is.”

I didn’t hold out much hope for Nadia turning up alive, but at least this way, Timmie could feel like he wasn’t abandoning someone he cared about. From the look on his face, the fact that Nadia hadn’t been his girlfriend wasn’t due to a lack of interest on Timmie’s part.

“Really?” he said. Then Timmie grabbed me in a hug. “Thank you, Cathy!”

We were never going to get each other’s names right.

“I’m not promising that we can find her, but we’ll look,” I said, giving him a light squeeze back.

Timmie let me go, flashing a crooked smile at Bones. “Aren’t you going to threaten to pull my nuts off for that?”

A dark brow arched. “Not at the moment.”

“Cathy, what happened seven years ago?” Timmie asked. “Why did the feds claim you were shot trying to escape after being arrested for killing the governor and your whole family? I knew that was bullshit. You could never kill anyone.”

Something between a laugh and a snort escaped Bones. I shifted uncomfortably. Here’s hoping I never had to explain to Timmie the reason behind my nickname of the Red Reaper.

“Well, the part about the killing the governor . . . that was true, but he totally had it coming. He was involved in some very bad shit and my grandparents were murdered because of him. Then this secret unit of the government recruited me to work for them—”

“Men in black!” Timmie interrupted triumphantly. “I knew they existed. Those creeps have been sabotaging my stories about the paranormal for years!”

I stopped myself before I rolled my eyes. “Uh, yeah, but why are you surprised by that? They couldn’t just sit on their hands while you scared the hell out of people telling them things they’re not ready to hear.”

Timmie bristled. “I can’t believe you’d say that. The public has a right to know—”

“Bollocks,” Bones interrupted crisply. “Governments might lie to their people for selfish reasons most of the time, but this one they’re spot-on about. Think there wouldn’t be worldwide hysteria if the masses knew they shared this planet with creatures from their bedtime stories? A nuclear bomb would cause less devastation.”

“We could handle it,” Timmie said, his chin jutting out further.

Bones let out a derisive noise. “The day your kind stops killing each other over skin color or which god someone prays to, I might believe that.”

I cleared my throat, defensiveness for my former species rising within me. “Considering what’s going on with vampires and ghouls at the moment, I’d say humans don’t have a monopoly on lethal bigotry.”