Circle of Death (Damask Circle 2)

“I have no idea why I’m catching your thoughts so clearly, so I can’t exactly stop it.” He put his coat back on and swept up her bag. “And to answer your question, that wolf was sent here by whoever is after you.”

She frowned. “Sent here how?”

“By magic. Whoever is behind all this has obviously recovered from their exertions last night, and that means trouble for us. You ready to go?”

“Yes.” The sooner they got moving, and the sooner she got away from this craziness, the better. “Where are we going?”

“To find a woman named Rachel Grant.” He ushered her through the door, then grabbed her arm and walked her down to reception.

Not taking a chance on her running, she thought with amusement. Which she would, if he made one wrong move. “Why are we trying to find this woman?”

He hesitated, his gaze considering her for several seconds. Judging her, she thought, and she wondered why it suddenly seemed so important she pass his test.

“We believe she’s the next victim.” He opened the reception door and motioned her through.

A chill ran through her. “Have you told the police?”

“I doubt the police will place a great deal of importance on the words of an old witch.”

Another guy wandered in, his presence stopping her from asking any more questions. Doyle settled their account and chatted cheerfully with the manager. It was hard to imagine his easy grin hid a killer’s instincts.

He flashed her an annoyed look, and she bit her lip, glancing away. Killer or not, he had saved her life. And she’d have to remember to watch what she was thinking when she was around him.

They headed back to his car and climbed in. “The cops will pull you over with a windshield like that,” she commented.

“Then that’s a risk we’ll have to take. I don’t have the time to grab another one right now.” He started the car, then reached into his pocket and handed her the breakfast menu and his phone. On the menu were three addresses. Rachel’s was the first one. “You navigate.”

She punched their location and destination into Google Maps, then started giving directions as he sped off. The wind whipped in through the hole in the windshield, its touch forceful and icy. She zipped up her coat and fleetingly wished she had gloves. Her hands were so cold her fingers were aching.

“Here,” Doyle said, producing a pair of black leather gloves from his pockets. “Wear these. They’ll be too big, but they will at least keep you warm.”

She accepted the gloves with a smile of thanks and pulled them on. “What don’t you keep in those pockets of yours?” Like him, she had to raise her voice to be heard above the wind.

“Lots of things,” he said. “Like answers. Did you or Helen ever try to find out who your parents were?”

Helen certainly had, but now she’d never get the chance. Kirby blinked away the sudden sting of tears and looked out the side window. “No. Why do you ask?”

“Because we thought that was a possible connection between Helen and the other women on the list. That maybe by searching for their past, they brought themselves to the attention of our killer.”

“This list?” she said, waving the breakfast menu.

“Yes. And before you ask, an old witch named Seline did a reading and came up with those names. Helen was the first name on it.”

And now Helen was dead. “But why would searching for her parents have brought such destruction down on her?”

Helen had spoken to the wind many times, but she’d never seen her murder. Kirby crossed her arms and shivered. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. They were supposed to die together in a car crash years from now. Why had fate stepped in and snatched Helen away long before her time? And did the fact that it had now mean she wouldn’t die in a car crash? Or did death still lay in her future, just in a different form?

“We don’t know,” he said. “All we have is four names, and a suspicion these murders have their origin somewhere in the past.”

Bile rose in her throat and she swallowed against it. She didn’t want Helen connected in any way to these other women, and she didn’t know why. “Why in hell would someone want to do something like that for something that happened in the past?”

He

shrugged. “If we knew the reason, we would probably have been able to prevent it.”

She looked at him. His profile was a painter’s dream, classic and stunning. “What do you mean, ‘we’? Who else is working on this with you?”

He hesitated. “I work for an organization called the Damask Circle. There are three of us currently in Melbourne, trying to solve these murders.”