I can’t believe we’re doing this, I thought. You’d think anything would be easy after taking down a rehabilitation camp, but the closer we got to the study, the more my stomach twisted into knots.
“What the . . . ?” Jason’s steps faltered and his shoulders tensed as we neared the door.
There were scuff marks around the lock and gouges in the doorframe. The door was closed, but not all the way. “Someone broke in.” It was a clumsy job—the kind Hank would have chastised me for—and the noise probably would have drawn attention if it hadn’t been for the background din of the party. I strained my ears, but couldn’t hear anything inside.
Jason pushed the door open with his shoulder. It groaned on its hinges, but slowly swung inward to reveal a dimly lit ruin.
Bookcases lined each wall, but their contents had been strewn around the room. Shards of broken antiques and torn pages from heavy leather-bound books covered the floor. Near the far wall, a large desk had been turned onto its side. Its drawers had been reduced to kindling—it almost looked as though someone had destroyed them in a blind rage.
“The room is soundproof,” I murmured. Amy had always said her dad needed complete quiet to work. “That’s why no one at the party heard the noise.”
Jason swore under his breath. I thought he was responding to the destruction, but as he strode toward the desk, I saw what had captured his attention.
Bile rose in the back of my throat as I followed him to a crumpled figure half hidden by the desk. It was a man with dark hair and the same sort of suit the security staff were all wearing. He was lying on his stomach in a pool of blood. It seemed impossible that one body could contain so much blood.
The outer edges of the puddle had already started to dry: he had been here for a while.
I reached for the man’s shoulder, and then stopped. Whatever had happened to him, he was obviously beyond help.
Nauseous, I stepped back and turned to stare at the remains of the room. “What do you think happened?”
“Just a guess: we aren’t the only ones looking for something.” Jason nodded down at the body. His voice was even, but he looked slightly green. “He probably walked in on whoever trashed the study.”
A low groan drifted through the room. For a second, I thought the sound had come from the man at our feet, but then the noise came again, from behind us.
“Oh, God.” I ran to the far corner where a familiar, silver-haired figure lay on his side. I pulled off my gloves and let them fall to the floor as I crouched next to Amy’s grandfather. He groaned softly as I pressed two fingers to his throat. His pulse was weak and erratic. “I think he had a heart attack.” I fumbled for his hand. “Senator Walsh? John?”
The old man’s eyes fluttered open. They locked on my face, but seemed to stare right through me. “Amy.” His voice was a rasp but his fingers gripped mine so tightly that it was almost painful.
“No, it’s—” I started to correct him, but couldn’t.
“Stay with me.” He closed his eyes but continued to squeeze my hand.
I looked up at Jason. “You have to go get help.”
“I’m not leaving you alone in here. You go. I’ll stay.”
“He thinks I’m Amy.” A lump rose in my throat. “I can’t leave him.”
Jason ran a hand roughly over his face and stared down at Amy’s grandfather. When he spoke, the words sounded strangled. “Three minutes. I’ll be back in three minutes.”
I nodded and turned my attention back to Senator Walsh. “It’ll be all right,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure it would be all right at all. “You’ll be okay. Jason’s getting help.”
The door clicked shut as Jason left the room.
Amy’s grandfather struggled for breath. When he spoke, each word was labored. “I don’t know how to fix it.”
“Shhhhh. It’s all right. You don’t have to fix anything.”
“Amy . . . I didn’t know.” His voice became a barely audible rasp, forcing me to lean closer. “He didn’t mean to hurt anyone. He’s a good boy.”
A shiver slipped down my spine as I remembered Stephen’s hasty exit from the kitchen and the blood Kyle had smelled. “Do you mean Stephen? Was Stephen here?”
From the other side of the study came the rustle of fabric and a thick, wet cough. “He’s talking about his son.”
Yanking my hand free of the senator’s grip, I twisted around just as the figure by the desk rolled over and struggled to a sitting position.
I stared, horrified, at a familiar face and a pair of flat, gray eyes.
“He’s talking about Ryan Walsh.” Amy’s killer smiled at me weakly. “Hello, Mac.”
15
MY SHOULDER BLADES COLLIDED WITH THE DOOR. I didn’t remember standing or moving.
I stared at Ben from across the room as sweat soaked my skin and my heart thundered in my chest. For a horrible second, I was back in the forest outside Hemlock, my shoulders pressed to a tree as a white werewolf—as Ben—loomed above me.
I dug my nails into my palm, using the pain to keep the past from pulling me under.
Ben was thinner than I remembered, and he had dyed his normally blond hair a rich, deep brown, but it was unmistakably him. The front of his shirt was soaked with blood. It clung to his lower torso and his left shoulder in large patches.
A reg would already be dead from blood loss; given the way Ben stayed on the floor, leaning against the upturned desk for support, the wounds might be too much for even a werewolf to heal.
He didn’t look like he was going anywhere, but I wasn’t taking any chances. My gaze swept over the mess on the study floor and settled on a letter opener a few feet away. Locking my eyes on Ben, I walked over to it and crouched down. My fingers skimmed torn books and the remains of a Chinese vase before closing on the ebony handle.
“Don’t worry: I couldn’t hurt you even if I wanted to.” Ben laughed—or tried to—as I straightened. The laugh turned into a cough as a thin trail of blood ran down his chin. “I don’t want to hurt you, incidentally. What happened that night was never part of the plan.”
I glanced at Senator Walsh. He lay unnervingly still, but I could just see the rise and fall of his chest. “What did you do to him?” I asked, voice steady even as I fought an almost overwhelming urge to run. “Killing his granddaughter wasn’t enough?”