Lover Avenged (Black Dagger Brotherhood 7)

"Don't worry about Rehvenge. I'll take care of him. In the meantime, don't kill the other retailers-bring them to a persuasion center. We need their contacts. I want to know where and how they buy." Of course, likely as not they transacted with Rehvenge, but maybe there was someone else. A human who was more malleable. "First thing this morning, you go and get us a safety-deposit box and put this in there. This is seed money, and we're not losing it."

"Yessuh."

"Who sold the shit with you?"

"Mr. N and Mr. I."

Great. The f**ktards who had let Grady bolt. Still, they had performed on the streets, and Grady had met a creative and uncomfortable end. Plus Lash had gotten to see Xhex in action. So all wasn't lost.

He was so going to be paying ZeroSum a visit.

And as for N and I, killing them was better than they deserved, but right now he needed those ass**les out making paper. "At nightfall, I want those two lessers pushing product."

"I thought you'd want to-"

"First of all, you don't think. And secondly, we need more of this." He tossed the scrubby bills back amid the piles. "I have plans that cost money."

"Yessuh."

Abruptly reconsidering things, Lash leaned forward and picked up the bundle he'd thrown back. The shit was hard to let go of, even though all of it was his, and somehow, the war seemed less interesting all of a sudden.

Bending down, he grabbed one of the paper bags and filled it up. "You know that Lexus."

"Yessuh."

"Take care of it." He reached into his pockets and tossed Mr. D the keys to the thing. "That's your new ride. If you're going to be my street man, you have to look like you know what the f**k you're doing."

"Yessuh!"

Lash rolled his eyes, thinking that it took so little to motivate the stupid. "Don't f**k up anything while I'm gone, will you?"

"Where you be off to?"

"Manhattan. I'll be reachable on my cell. Later."

Chapter FIFTY-THREE

As a cold day dawned and clouds dappled across a milky blue sky, José de la Cruz drove through Pine Grove Cemetery's gates and wound around rows and rows of headstones. The tight, curving lanes reminded him of Life, that old board game his brother and he had played when they were kids. Each player got a little car with six holes and started with one peg to represent himself. As the game rolled on, you moved around the road track, picking up more pegs to represent a wife and kids. The goal was to acquire people and money and opportunity, to plug the holes in your car, to fill those voids you started out with.

He looked around, thinking that in the game called Real Life, you ended up plugging a dirt hole by yourself. Hardly the kind of thing you wanted your kids to know right out of the box.

When he came to where Chrissy's grave was, he parked his car in the same place where he'd been until around one a.m. the previous night. Up ahead, there were three CPD police cars, four uniforms in parkas, and a stretch of yellow crime scene tape that wound from gravestone to gravestone in a tight box.

He took his coffee with him even though it was lukewarm at best, and as he walked over, he saw the soles of a pair of boots through the circle of his colleagues' legs.

One of the cops looked over his shoulder, and the expression on the guy's face forewarned José about the condition of the body: If you'd offered the uni an airsick bag, he would have blown out the bottom of the damn thing. "Hey...Detective."

"Charlie, how we doing?"

"I'm...good."

Yeah, right. "You seem it."

The other guys glanced over and nodded, each one of them wearing an identical my-balls-are-in-my-lower-intestine look on his puss.

The crime scene photographer, on the other hand, was a woman known for having issues. As she bent down and started snapping, there was a little smile on her face, like she was enjoying the view. And maybe going to slip one of the candids into her wallet.

Grady had bitten it hard. Literally.

"Who found him?" José asked, crouching down to examine the body. Clean cuts. A lot of them. This had been done by a professional.

"Groundsman," one of the cops said. "'Bout an hour ago."

"Where's that guy now?" José got to his feet and stepped to the side so the cock-sogynist could keep doing her job. "I'm going to want to talk to him."

"Back in the shed having a cup of coffee. He needed it. Shook up bad."

"Well, I can understand that. Most of the bodies 'round here are not on top of the graves."

All four of the unis looked at him as if to say, Yeah and not in this condition, either.

"I'm done with the body," the photographer said as she put the cap on her lens. "And I already snapped the stuff in the snow."

José walked around the scene carefully so he didn't disturb the various prints or their little numbered flaggings or the path that had been made across the ground. It was clear what had happened. Grady had tried to run from whoever had gotten him and failed. Going by the blood streaks, he'd been injured, likely just to incapacitate him, and then moved over to Chrissy's grave, where he had been dismembered and killed.

José went back to where the body was and took a gander at the headstone, noticing a brown streak that ran from the top down the front. Dried blood. And he was willing to bet it had been put there on purpose and when it was warm: Some of the stuff had dripped down inside the inscribed letters that spelled out CHRISTIANNE ANDREWS.

"You get this?" he asked.

The photographer glared at him. Then uncapped, snapped, and recapped.

"Thank you," he said. "We'll call you if we need anything else." Or find any other guys hacked up like this.

She glanced back down at Grady. "My pleasure."

Obviously, he thought, taking a drink from his coffee and grimacing. Old. Cold. Nasty. And not just the photographer. Man, station-house java was the absolute worst, and if he hadn't been at a crime scene he would have ditched the swill and crushed the Styro cup.

José looked around the scene. Trees to hide behind. No lights other than on the road. Gates locked at night.

If only he'd stayed a little longer...he could have stopped the killer before they castrated Grady, fed the SOB his last meal, and no doubt enjoyed watching him die.

"Goddamn it."

A gray station wagon with a county crest on the driver's door pulled up and stopped, a guy with a little black bag getting out and jogging over. "Sorry I'm late."

"No problem, Roberts." José clapped palms with the medical examiner. "We'd love to get an estimated time of death whenever you can."

"Sure thing, but it's only going to be rough. Maybe a four-hour window?"

"Whatever you can tell us would be great."

As the guy sat on his haunches and got to work, José looked around again, then went over and stared at the footprints. Three different kinds, one of which would match Grady's. The other two would have to be cast and researched by the CSI types who were due any moment.

One pair of the unknowns was smaller than the others.

And he would be willing to bet his house and car and the college funds of both his daughters that they would turn out to be a female's.

In the study at the Brotherhood mansion, Wrath was sitting upright in his chair with a death grip on both of the arms. Beth was in the room with him, and he could tell by her scent that she was scared shitless. There were other people, too. Talking. Pacing.

He could see nothing but blackness.

"Havers's coming," Tohr announced from the double doors. His voice quieted the room like a mute button, cutting off every voice and all the sounds of movement. "Doc Jane's on the phone with him now. They're going to bring him in one of the ambulances that has a blackout screen, because its faster than Fritz picking him up."

Wrath had insisted on waiting for a couple of hours before even Doc Jane was called. He'd hoped his vision would come back. Was still hoping.

Praying was more like it.

Beth had been so strong, standing at his side, holding his hand as he struggled against the darkness. But a little bit ago, she'd excused herself. When she'd come back, he'd smelled her tears even though she'd no doubt wiped them clean.

That was what had made him pull the trig on the calling the white coats.

"How long?" Wrath asked roughly.

"ETA twenty minutes."

As silence reigned, Wrath knew the other Brothers were around him. He heard Rhage unwrap yet another Toostie Pop. And V light up with the rasp of flint and an exhale of Turkish tobacco. Butch was chewing gum, the subtle snaps coming rapid-fire, like his molars were tap shoes on a hardwood floor. Z was there, and Nalla was in his arms, her sweet, lovely smell and occasional coos coming from the far corner. Even Phury was with them, having elected to stay the day, and he was standing with his twin and his niece.