Bitter Blood (Blood and Moonlight Book 3)(38)

Drew was clever, she’d give him that.

Clever and quite possibly insane.

“So how’d you turn out so normal,” Mason asked as Jane crouched down to study the floor of the bathroom. “And your brother is…well, not?”

She rose. “Don’t be too sure I’m the normal one.” If only. Dammit, there was nothing to see in that room. No new clue for her to pounce on. Jane headed for the door.

But then she stilled. For just an instant, she could hear her brother raging at her again.

I didn’t leave you! When the vampire had you in our basement. When he was burning your skin and you were crying, I didn’t leave you. I got you out of there. I saved your life.

“He wasn’t always a monster,” she whispered. Once, he’d been a hero, but that had been very, very long ago.

Mason’s footsteps shuffled closer to her. “In my experience,” he said quietly, “no one is born a monster. Folks just…they become monsters. They can’t deal with the world around them. They change. Not always for the better.”

She looked back at him. Mason had been involved with several of her cases. She could still remember the way the poor guy had vomited when he’d found a young woman’s body on Bourbon Street. He’d been so horrified. “Why’d you become a cop, Mason?”

He gave her a quick, nervous smile. “Because I want to save the world.”

She stared at him. Hard. Looking for the truth, searching for lies.

“I know it’s stupid,” he continued, running a nervous hand over his jaw. “But…I do. I want to help. When my parents were killed, cops helped me.”

Jane blinked. “I’m sorry, I-I didn’t know about your parents.”

“I was sixteen.” He spoke without emotion. “We were all in the bank—my dad’s payday. He was cashing his check and then we were going out for dinner. We did that, you see. Had our weekly family dinners. They were mom’s idea. Said they gave us quality time.” That smile of his was bittersweet. “No one could have predicted the bank robbery. Or the security guard who panicked. No one knew that the guy in the ski mask would start shooting. No one knew my parents…they’d be the first ones hit.”

He spoke with so little emotion, but she saw the grief in his eyes.

“The cops came before anyone else could be hurt. They came in there and they saved me. They killed that shooter—and you know what, Detective Hart?”

She shook her head.

“He was a teen, just like me. Beneath that ski mask, he was a kid.” His lips pulled down. “He was crying when he died. And I was crying when I buried my parents.”

Okay, Mason was making her heart hurt.

“Monsters come in all shapes and sizes,” he murmured. “You should remember that.”

Jane’s brows rose.

“Humans…” He inhaled deeply. “I think we’re the worst of the lot.”

Did he know? Or was he just—shit, was he just speaking in general?

“So, that’s why I’m a cop. Because I know how dangerous the world can be and I want to protect people. I want to help.” His head cocked as he studied her. “What about you?”

I’m a cop because I saw the monsters in this world when I was just eleven. And, believe me, Mason, humans are not the worst ones out there. The worst ones out there were the vamps who ripped out the throats of their prey or the werewolves who lost their sanity and slashed their prey into pieces. While working in New Orleans, she’d faced both of those monsters.

“Same reason,” Jane mumbled. “I want to help.” But she was helping no one by just standing there. Her brother had been far smarter than she realized—the guy had snuck away clean and vanished into the city. Had he fled New Orleans? Was he long gone? Or was he lurking around, planning an attack?

Jane’s lips thinned as she marched out of Hathway. She paused just long enough to pick up her gun from the guard at the check-in desk. Where the hell had the guard been last night? Why hadn’t someone seen her brother slipping away?

She secured her weapon and muttered her thanks as she exited. Her money was on Drew staying in the city, planning an attack. On her. On Aidan. Shit, as if she needed this extra pressure right then. Jane paused on the street outside. The light was too bright. Gleaming sunlight. Not that it hurt her. She wasn’t yelling and burning to ash or anything weird like that. She just felt…weaker.

Jane lifted her hand, shielding her eyes, and when she did, her head tilted back. She found herself staring up at a small video camera. One that was perched on what looked like the second floor of the building across the street.

A building that should have been empty. There was a big FOR SALE sign in front of that building. But…

Mason gave a low whistle. “Security camera!”

So it would seem.

“Owners must have set it up to protect their investment,” he said, voice excited. “Maybe they got footage of your brother leaving on there. We can at least see which direction he took!”

Protecting an investment, yes, that was one idea. But Jane hadn’t exactly been having the best of luck with security cameras lately, and this…it just seemed like too much of a coincidence.

Her hand went to her weapon as she hurried across the street.