The Darkest Kiss (Riley Jenson Guardian 6)

"Yeah," he said, grinding out a cigarette and almost instantly lighting up again. The foul smoke drifted upward, tickling my nose and making my eyes water.

"That's illegal," I pointed out, taking a step backward.

"It's my fucking restaurant, and I'll do what I please." He sucked on the cigarette for a second, then blew the smoke upward and away from me. At least he wasn't totally inconsiderate. "What can I do for you?"

"I need to know if you had a brother called Jake who went to Beechworth Secondary College."

"Interesting," he said. "You're the second person who's asked me that tonight."

Alarm ran through me. "This other person - was he a man, in his late thirties or early forties, about yea high" - I raised a hand several inches above my own head - "with greasy, stringy hair?"

"Got him in one." He studied me, blue eyes shrewd. "Why is everyone suddenly interested in my brother?"

"The why doesn't immediately matter. Where's your brother, Mr. Cowden? I need to contact him, because he could be in great danger."

"I doubt it. He's dead."

I raised an eyebrow in surprise. "When did this happen?"

"More than five years ago now. Drug overdose, apparently." He paused, and shook his head. "Bit of a waste of air, my brother was. Got into drugs when he was a teen, and never came out of it."

"Was there any particular reason he started taking drugs?" Like witnessing something he shouldn't have? Okay, it was probably a long stretch, but it just seemed odd that Cherry Barnes, Ivan Lang, and Denny Spalding were now all dead, and the one thing they all had in common was being around when Aron Young had disappeared.

"Not that I'm aware of."

"The man who was here before - how did he react when you told him Jake was dead?"

"Well, he wasn't very happy. Thought he was going to slug me, actually."

He was probably lucky that he hadn't been attacked. Young didn't seem to be holding on to a whole lot of sense at the moment, and it was actually surprising he was restrained enough not to attack the brother of the man he was after.

"He left after that?"

"Yep." Cowden puffed on his smoke for a moment, then added, "Security got the plate number of his van, if you're interested."

"He drove here?" Why on earth would a vampire who could fly want to drive anywhere?

And then I remembered that tiny room and the silver mesh that encased it. He might have been able to shift shape, but maybe he never had much of a chance to practice flying. Most shifters didn't gain the skill to change until puberty, so if Young had been a late bloomer, his flight skills would probably be poor - especially if he was a slow learner like me. Maybe that was why he'd fallen to the ground after he'd jumped out of Ivan's window - after being locked up in a small room for so long, he didn't trust his flight skills to get him out of my way in time.

"I'd appreciate the number."

He raised a hand and snapped his fingers. A burly-looking brown wolf appeared. "Yes, sir?"

"Could you get our guardian friend here a copy of the plate number?"

"Straightaway." He took a notebook out of his pocket, wrote down a number, then tore off the sheet and handed it to me.

"Anything else?" Cowden asked.

"No, you've been very helpful." I hesitated, then added, "I'd keep security close, just in case that man returns. He's responsible for several deaths already, and we're not sure what his motives are."

He nodded. I turned to go, then hesitated again. "Tell me, when Jake was in tenth grade at Beechworth, did he ever mention anything unusual happening there?"

Cowden frowned. "Unusual how?"

"Well, did he say anything about disappearances or murders or anything like that?"

"No. I know the cops interviewed him, but they interviewed everyone in that grade after the disappearance of some kid. It shook him up - he was jumping at shadows for weeks."