The Darkness in Dreams (Enforcer's Legacy, #1)(26)

And someone was ready to follow her every keystroke, Lexi concluded. But the desire to open her computer was overwhelming. She sat down, pulled the laptop closer. When she lifted the lid, the familiar welcome screen—the one with the kittens—greeted her. She tapped in her password, waited with her fingers resting on the keys. Sucked in a deep breath before navigating to the email system.

It took her a few minutes to clear several days’ worth of emails. After working through the various business-related messages, Lexi sent replies to a few, and realized how many people wanted to sell her products she didn’t need. There were no personal messages. Ever.

She navigated to the second email account, the one she kept open after her grandmother died. She clicked on the connection, waited. After five minutes, she closed the screen. Marge curled her hands around Lexi’s shoulders, bent to press a kiss to the top of her head.

“Why do I keep hoping?” Lexi asked, her throat tight.

“Hope is hard to kill.”

It had been difficult, working through the financial details of her grandmother’s life. Lexi found the records she’d never known existed. Realized her grandmother sent checks every month to an active bank account. All those years, and never had her mother once responded. There was a new life in Nevada, a husband and two children—so children were not the issue, only the timing, and the fact that Lexi had resulted from a one-night stand filled with meaningless, unprotected sex.

But she’d hoped. Believed her mother would respond to the obituary. To the brief note Lexi included, regarding the checks that would no longer be deposited, since there was no money to fund them. Her grandmother’s retirement benefits had ended with her death.

There had been nothing. The slate wiped clean. And as Marge said, her life could no longer be a pity party because her deadbeat mother left her alone.

Lexi navigated away from the email accounts with efficiency. Searched various data banks. After thirty minutes, Marge leaned in. “You’re good, Lexi, but you won’t find anything.”

“Everyone leaves some kind of electronic footprint.”

“Not Arsen. And not the immortals. They’ve been operating beneath our notice for centuries.”

“There has to be something, some way they support themselves.”

“There are corporations he controls, and even if I gave you the names, all you’d find is the public information.”

“Arsen is that good?”

“His tech team is that good. If you want to know about what he does, you’ll need to ask him. He’ll probably tell you a little of it, but not all.”

“I thought he was a surfer boy.” Lexi leaned back in the chair, rubbed eyes gritty from a sleepless night and an email account that never received mail. “You said there were enemies.”

“An old war heating up between Three and Six.”

Marge walked back to the kitchen, turned on the water in the sink. Suds bubbled up, smelling like lemons. It was the homey, comforting normal Lexi rarely experienced.

“Do you know what it’s about?” Lexi asked.

“Power and murder, what else?”

Lexi leaned in and pulled up her favorite fringe sites. “There might be clues, odd things people notice and post to the paranormal blogs. Events I can string together with common elements. What should I know about Kace?”

“He’s been an enemy for a long time.” Marge was drying the dishes now, putting them in an upper cupboard. Lexi wondered why she kept her back turned. “He never found a human mate or developed human empathy, so he’s very much the immortal. Don’t trust him, Lexi.”

Lexi ignored the warning about trust and asked, “What makes someone an enforcer?”

“Enforcers earn the rank because of the powers they possess; that’s why they’re so terrifying. Kace belongs to Six the way Christan belongs to Three. And yes, immortals believe they own them, own all the warriors, because they created them.”

“Barbaric.”

“It’s what they are, Lexi. The immortal world runs parallel to ours, overlaps and interweaves, but it’s still separate. They have their own laws and customs. The hardest part for me was accepting that reality. I suspect it will be hard for you too.”

“Can I get rid of the thing Christan put in my head?”

“No. Once it’s done, it can’t be changed.”

“I’m starting to really hate him for doing it.” Something of an understatement, considering what the one word did, but Lexi didn’t want to fight with Marge about it.

“He’s immortal, Lexi, he thought the solution would satisfy you.”

A sharp pain pressed behind Lexi’s eyes. She felt unaccountably sad, then angry, and asked, “Did Robbie ever do that to you?”

Marge chucked. “Heavens no, I wouldn’t let him. I’d block any kind of mental influence if he ever tried.”

“I might have liked that,” Lexi said as she navigated through a series of blogs filled with vampire sightings on the Olympic Peninsula. “It might have been helpful, knowing how to stop the crazy immortal before he went ballistic.”

“What about those psychic energies you pull from the ground?” Marge asked, chuckling. “You told me you can shield yourself from the worst of it—can’t you use the same techniques?”