The final message was directly from Jeff—a grainy image of the vampire who’d killed Caleb Franklin. You couldn’t see his face, but his approximate height, weight, color, and build were clear enough, as was the beard that covered the lower half of his face. Again, I had the sense of vague familiarity but still couldn’t place him. I’d run into hundreds of vampires in the year I’d been one; it could have been anyone.
As much as I wanted to avoid it, because I had responsibilities, I sent the photograph to Jonah. It was the first communication I’d had with him in a couple of weeks, since the party at Cadogan House we’d used to trap the vampire pretending to be Balthasar, the monster who’d made Ethan. He’d been edgy then, so I hadn’t followed up. As far as I was concerned, he and the RG were the ones with the issues. If they wanted to talk to me, they knew where to find me.
But in the meantime, a mystery was a mystery. PHOTO OF VAMPIRE THAT KILLED CALEB FRANKLIN, I explained. KNOW HIM? OR DOES NOAH?
He’d respond even if he was pissed at me, because that was the kind of guy he was. Or the kind of guy I thought he was. We’d see either way.
With that done, I stretched, climbed out of bed, and shuffled to the apartment door, where Margot left our dusk tray.
Ethan wasn’t the only perk to life in the Master’s suite. On a tray lined with linen, the smell of coffee wafted from a silver carafe. There were croissants in a basket, cubes of fruit in a bowl, and a folded copy of the day’s Tribune.
I brought the tray and unfolded the paper, even as dread settled in my belly. The headline above the fold read, in enormous black letters: SUPERNATURAL CHAOS AT WRIGLEY. There were color photographs of cops, of shifters on their bikes, and of the line of cops and supernaturals who’d protected them while they sang for Caleb. I was in the center of that photograph, my eyes closed and my skin paler than usual. I’d bet money they’d Photoshopped the picture to make me look more supernatural. Tricksy of them, but a good bet financially. Vampires had been a hot commodity since Celina dragged us out of the dark.
I sighed and folded the paper again, realizing we weren’t the only ones to have made it onto the front page in color. Beneath the fold was a photograph of Adrien Reed and his wife, Sorcha, standing in the large, granite plaza in front of the Towerline construction site. A white banner behind them bore the Reed Industries logo in dark green, the dark, pointed spire of a building spearing up between the words. They’d stripped an existing skyscraper nearly down to its steel frame, and had begun to rebuild the new facade around it, layering new steel and glass in alternating stripes up its sides.
Towerline had been spearheaded by my father, Joshua Merit, one of the most powerful real estate developers in Chicago. He’d given Towerline to Reed to cancel a debt owed by Navarre House; Reed apparently planned to take full advantage of the windfall.
Reed cut a fine form—if you ignored the ego, manipulation, and misanthropy. He was tall and broad-shouldered, his dark, waving hair perfectly cut. His tailored suit was deep gray, his tie bottle green. His features were strong—square jaw, straight mouth, gray eyes. He was in his forties, and wore his age and experience well, his salt-and-pepper goatee giving an edge of danger.
His wife, Sorcha, was equally arresting. Tall, thick blond hair, green eyes. She was perfectly slender—and I meant that literally. I wasn’t sure if her body had been created by good genes, hard work, excellent surgery, or some combination of the three. Either way, it was remarkable. Each muscle was defined just enough, her skin smoothly golden. Her fitted green dress, which fell to just below the knee, had an asymmetrical neckline that dipped sideways toward her left arm before rising again to form a cap sleeve. The fit was immaculate. Nary a wrinkle. If I hadn’t seen her in the flesh, I might have guessed her a cyborg with perfectly plasticized skin.
She smiled at the camera, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. She had the same slightly vacant expression she’d worn the night I met her. I still wasn’t sure if she wasn’t interested in what was going on around her, or just didn’t understand it.
MOGUL BREAKS CEREMONIAL GROUND ON MONUMENTAL DEVELOPMENT, read this headline.
My father and I weren’t close, but I still felt a stab of anger at Reed’s self-righteous smile. He hadn’t worked for Towerline; he’d stolen it with violence and manipulation, just like the gangster he was.
I looked at Sorcha again and wondered what she and her gangster talked about at the end of the day. Did she meet him at the door of their mansion with a Manhattan in hand and ask about work? And was she oblivious of the crime that had paid for the luxury in which she lived, or did she just not care?
Frustration giving me a headache, I put the paper back on the tray. A small white card fluttered to the floor.
For a moment, I thought Margot had left a note with the tray to say good evening or make a snarky comment about the headline. I should have known better.
I crouched, picked it up, and went deathly still, the thick cardstock in my hand.
The note wasn’t from Margot or anyone else in the House. There was no name on the paper, but we’d seen the thick cardstock before, the familiar handwriting. It was from Adrien Reed.
I return to Chicago to find you in the news again, Caroline. An interesting tactic in our continuing game, but rest assured—I will have the victory.
I am curious—will he weep when he loses everything?
Will he weep when he loses you? I look forward to finding out.
Frustration boiled into anger, so fierce that my hand shook with it. That would have been Reed’s plan. He loved these notes, these intrusions, these reminders that he could get to us anywhere.
How had he gotten the card into the House?
I glanced at the tray. The paper. It was the only thing that wouldn’t have come directly from the House’s kitchen, and it probably would have been easy to convince the delivery person to slip the note inside. He couldn’t have been sure I’d see it before Ethan, but that hardly mattered. Directing the card to me, implicitly threatening me, was exactly the kind of thing that would get Ethan’s goat.
The shower shut off.
It was easy to see exactly what Adrien Reed had wanted to do—manipulate, irritate, inflame.
“Sentinel?”
Instinct had me crumpling the card into the palm of my hand.
Ethan stood in the doorway, one towel wrapped low around his lean hips, his muscles gleaming with water. “Are you all right? I felt”—he looked around the room, searching for a threat—“magic.”