Embraced By Darkness (Riley Jenson Guardian 5)

I wondered if she'd sent a letter to Jodie. I hoped so. "What did she say in the letter?"

"That something was going on at some club."

"Did she say what?" I walked across to the ironing basket and got a clean towel out. My arm was still bleeding but I didn't want to shift shape with these two men in the room. They might not be out to get me, but I still wasn't about to trust them. And shifting to wolf form would put me at a disadvantage - one the past had proved Patrin would use.

"She said the owners of the club were using one of the rooms to tape politicians and corporate personnel in compromising positions and blackmail them."

So that was why she'd disappeared? Because she'd been sticking her nose in where it didn't belong and had discovered too much? But what, then, was the connection between the club and the island? Why go up there at all if she was investigating the blackmailing?

"We are aware of the blackmail angle." Though we weren't following it up, because I'd forgotten to tell Jack about it. "Did she say who the owners were? Give a description?"

He shook his head. "But if the club's under investigation, you should already know that."

"What's on paper, and what the reality is, are often two different things. As you should know." Hell, thanks to the hours I'd spent listening to conversations I shouldn't have as a kid, I knew that Patrin and his bastard father owned several manufacturing firms. But for tax purposes, their names were hidden by a long paper trail. I glanced at my watch. "If that's all, I need you to leave. I have stuff to do before I go to work tonight."

He took a step toward me. Part of me wanted to step back. The other part, the part wanting revenge for old hurts, bristled. It was all I could do not to step forward and challenge.

"I want the name of the club." His voice was low, dangerous.

I clenched my fists, but resisted the impulse to lash out. To thump the cold arrogance from his already bloody face, "It's guardian business, and you will keep your stinking little nose out of it."

"Adrienne is my daughter. Her death will be avenged."

"Not on my shift, it won't. Not by you, anyway."

He looked me up and down, the cold arrogance giving way to familiar disdain. "And you're going to stop me?"

I gave him a cool, hard smile, then snapped the shadows around my body and ran forward. Before cither of them could even react, I'd snatched Kye's weapon and had it shoved hard under Patrin's neck.

For the first time there was fear, true fear, in his expression. Maybe he'd finally realized the pup he'd kicked for so long was no longer easy bait.

I shook the shadows free, then said softly, "Yes, I will stop you. And it won't matter how good Kye is, or how many like him you hire, I've learned to use all the skills of my heritage, Patrin, and I'm more dangerous than you could ever know."

Nothing like blowing your own horn, but hey, after years of putting up with his shit, it was the least I deserved. I shoved him, sending him flailing backward toward the sofa, then turned and handed the weapon back to Kye. He didn't say anything, just sheathed the weapon before nodding toward the window. "If your car is the Ford with the shot-out door, there's a couple of people down there looking at it."

I walked across to the window and looked down. I didn't recognize the faces, but the car parked behind mine was Directorate issue.

"It's a Directorate forensic team," I said, and turned around. "Now, is that all Adrienne had to say in that letter?"

"Yes, But this conversation isn't over. I want - "

"I don't give a fuck what you want. Leave, or I'll throw you out." I looked across at Kye. "If I see you or your boss anywhere near the nightclub Adrienne no doubt mentions in her letter, your asses will rot in jail for the next month."

"You can't - " Patrin began.

"Oh, trust me. I can."

He muttered something I didn't even try to hear, then pushed off the sofa and stomped toward the door. Kye gave me a polite nod, and followed.

I slammed the door behind them, then headed for the bathroom and a long, hot soak in the tub. It wasn't just the blood that needed to be washed away - there was also the dirt and anger from the past.

Marg rang at eleven. By midnight, I was standing at Wilson's graveside in the Fawkner cemetery, shivering inside my coat as the wind howled around me and slivers of the dead teased my peripheral vision.

"Here," Marg said, her pale skin giving her an almost ghostlike appearance under the flashlight's not-too-bright light. "Wear this."

"This" was a little sack attached to a looped string. The aromas coming from the sack were a wild mix that had my nose quivering - the sweet, licorice scent of fennel, the reek of garlic, a soft flowery scent I didn't recognize, and something woody. At least it was a better smell than freshly dug earth and old death that was coming from Wilson's gravesite.

A gravesite that had a whole lot of hair scattered around it. At least we finally knew where it had all gone.