I took a deep breath, trying to calm my nerves. Was I really driving off into the middle of the night with a perfect stranger? The cop had vouched for him. Still, I kept my hand on the mace in my pocket, though something about Jaxson’s demeanor told me I wasn’t going to need it.
He brooded as he drove, clearly lost in thought, and didn’t even glance at me. When I tried pressing him for information, he dodged at first, but finally, I wore him down.
“It seems like I’m being targeted,” I said. “Do you know why?”
He kept his eyes on the road, avoiding my stare. “No. There’s been no pattern in the abductions. We assume that those who were killed were the ones who fought back.”
“How do you know?
“A woman witnessed an attack three days ago, but she didn’t get a good enough look to identify the attackers. You did. Would you be willing to work with a sketch artist tomorrow?”
Hell, I had enough talent to draw them myself, but that probably wouldn’t be official enough. “Sure.”
Biting my lip, I silently watched the city lights roll by—illuminated old storefronts, artsy shops, restaurants, and blocks of tightly packed red brick walk-up apartments. I racked my brain as to why those monsters might be after me.
The answer I kept coming back to was my parents.
“You said my family—the LaSalles—are dangerous and wrapped up in bad business.”
“Yeah, they deal in illegal arms and materials.”
Crap. Were my parents gun runners?
They sure as hell had made certain I could shoot. Mostly rifles, shotguns, and pistols, nothing heavy. Mainly, they’d hunted deer. My mother had spent a lot of time alone, hunting in the woods. She’d said it reminded her of who she was.
Then they’d died in an explosion. What if it had been ammo? Had I spent my childhood sleeping on a powder keg?
“My family…could that be why people are after me?”
He nodded. “Quite possibly. None of the other victims were related to the LaSalles, but there might be a connection. Your family is…not well liked in the region. You definitely shouldn’t reach out to them, not until this is over.”
Maybe I had gotten very, very lucky that my car gave out. I brooded silently, trying to imagine how badly things could’ve gone.
Ten minutes later, we pulled up in front of Eclipse. There was no parking, and the street was hopping and filled with all sorts of colorful people.
I slipped out of the SUV into the strangely dressed crowd. A woman with pointy ears slung her arm around a man who was wearing contact lenses that made his eyes look catlike. I’d always heard Chicago was wild, but this wasn’t what I was expecting. Was there some sort of costume party going on?
“Do people in Chicago normally dress up like this?” I asked as Jaxson stepped around the front of the car.
He passed his keys to a valet. “Only in Magic Side. We tend to draw the most interesting people.”
Great. He’d taken me to dinner in the middle of crazy town.
I followed Jaxson toward a solitary black door marked with the restaurant’s name in bold white letters. We cut in front of the line of waiting patrons, and a handsome bouncer wi
th rippling muscles opened the door for us. He tipped his head as we entered. What did Jaxson do around here to command so much respect?
The sound of jazz and the aroma of amber and spice overwhelmed my senses. Cocktail waitresses in red wove between candlelit tables occupied by people sipping fancy drinks. Waiters flitted around with trays of delicious-looking food, and my stomach groaned.
Toward the back of the room, several people were swinging their hips and twirling to the beat of the live band that I couldn’t quite see on the stage. The pulse of the music was hypnotic. A sweet riff from the horns sent shivers down my spine. I’d never seen anything like it in my whole life, nor been anywhere even close.
Certainly not in Belmont.
The people were out of this world as well. Absolutely gorgeous, but to be fair, there were quite a few with strange costumes. I had to shimmy out of the way of a weirdo wearing a headband with horns. He’d gone so far as to paint his skin a pale shade of blue. Completely nuts.
I caught the eyes of a man dressed like a vampire, and suddenly, it all made sense: there had to be some kind of Comic Con going on. I knew they held a few big comic and gaming conventions in the city every year, but I wasn’t a big enough fangirl to shell out the money to attend one.
I followed Jaxson to a dark marble bar illuminated with blue lights.