Chapter 2
I studied the red Mazda through the rearview mirror. It was just far enough back that I half wondered if I was being paranoid. After all, we were on a freeway, all heading in the same direction, and mostly going the same speed. Well, except for the young idiots in their pimped-out, overly powerful V8s, trying to prove how tough they were by going over the limit.
It wasn't even as if the red car were shadowing all my movements. I moved out to overtake a slower car and red remained where he was, neither increasing nor decreasing his speed.
Imagination, I thought. Or a bad case of nerves.
Except ... the back of my neck prickled uneasily and I couldn't stop checking out the car. It remained in my sight, remained the same distance away, and it just felt wrong.
Well, I wasn't about to ignore my instincts. The last time I'd done that, a friend had died.
Of course, Kade's death was a whole lot more involved than just a case of me ignoring my instincts. And besides, this uneasiness stemmed as much from the warning that Kye had given me before I'd killed him.
A warning that said that Blake - the wolf who'd murdered my grandfather to take over the leadership of the Jenson pack, and a man whom I'd threatened and seriously humiliated almost a year ago - hadn't finished with me yet.
That even now, he was planning his vengeance.
Yet more fucking vengeance.
Just what my already broken world needed.
But by the same token, if Blake wanted vengeance, he knew where we lived. He didn't have to shadow my movements, just hit me where I felt the safest.
Still ...
I touched my ear lightly, switching on the voice part of the com-link. "Hello, anyone there?"
"Well, well," a sultry and altogether too familiar voice said, "isn't it lovely to hear your dulcet tones again."
I couldn't help smiling. Sal and I would never be friends, but we'd moved from barbed insults to droll comments, and from dislike to companionable trust. She was also damn good at her job - my old job - and had saved my ass on more than one occasion.
"You say that with such conviction that I almost believe you," I replied, voice dry. "Want to do me a favor?"
"Oh, I live for such moments."
In other words, she was bored shitless and could use something to do. Either that or she was on her lunch break. And like most vampires working for the Directorate in a capacity other than as a guardian, she tended to restrict her feeding to the times she was off duty, which left her with spare time during breaks. Me, I'd be heading out to shop, but as a vamp, Sal didn't have that option.
"You want to pinpoint my location with the satellites and grab the plate number of the red Mazda three cars back?"
"And why would we be doing this?"
I could hear keys tapping, so she was setting the satellites into motion even as she questioned me. "Because I think it's following me."
"Did you pick him up before or after your visit to the crime scene?"
"After. I couldn't say if he was tailing me from the moment I left the park or not, though." I really hadn't been paying that much attention - although I wasn't about to admit that to Sal. She'd only tell Jack, and he'd probably blast me for not showing good guardian form.
As if I ever had.
"While the satellite is lining up," I added, "have you had any luck with the search I requested?"
"There's one hundred and fifty cars so far with a plate starting with BUK." Her voice was dry. "At least twentythree of those are Toyotas. It's a proverbial needle in a haystack right now."
But it was a haystack that Jack would still want searched. "It might be worth cross-checking whether any of those Toyotas belong to the family of whoever Johnson murdered."
"You think it's a vengeance kill?"
"It sure as hell smelled like it."