Lover Unveiled (Black Dagger Brotherhood 19)

Immediately, whoever was on the other line started barking at him, and when he couldn’t stand the noise, he cut the connection and squeezed his eyes shut. The only good news, he supposed, was also the bad news: With the Book gone, it was less likely that brunette was going to show up and play halfsies again with anyone who mattered to Balz.

Or himself.

Sahvage, the lying sonofabitch, had a proverbial tiger by the tail. Chances were very, very good he wasn’t going to live to see another sunset, and not because of whatever the Brotherhood was going to do to him. But his destiny was his own damn fault.

And as Balz worried about his infected soul, he heard the angel’s voice in his head.

True love, Balz thought. What a fucking crock of—

From out of the white-hot agony claiming all of his attention, an image pierced through the veil, cutting the pain away.

It was of that human woman, the detective with the handgun and the cuffs, so orderly, so focused . . . so tired, like she’d been working a hard job for too many hours in a row. Too many years in a row.

But surely that was not his destiny.

Or hers.

Right?

Mae was sitting at her kitchen table, staring into space over her now soggy almost-Cheerios, when the phone started ringing. Thinking it was Tallah checking in, she took her cell out of her pocket—except no one was calling.

When the ringing continued, she got up and followed the sound to the top of the cellar stairs. Descending, she glanced around, and headed for the couch in the sitting area. Tucked behind it . . . was a black duffle. It was Sahvage’s, the one that was filled with guns—he must have gone back to the cottage and retrieved it so he was well-armed over day. As she looked at the closed zipper, things went silent—but almost immediately, the chiming started up again.

Cursing to herself, she knelt down and went into the bag, rifling through the—well, rifles, as it turned out. Down at the bottom of so many muzzles . . . was his cell phone.

The screen showed the number was restricted.

With a swipe, she answered the call—

Before she could say hello, a male voice growled, “You double-crossing motherfucker. You just signed your death warrant and we know where you are—”

“Who is this?”

There was a pause. “Who are you.”

“I’m a—” Friend? How the hell did she answer that. “I know Sahvage. What did he do?”

“Where is he?”

“He went out—” To get ice for my dead brother. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what’s going on here.”

And didn’t that cover so much.

“Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to identify yourself. And you need to know that we have a tracer on the phone you’re speaking into, so we are aware of your location. Sahvage is now an enemy of the Black Dagger Brotherhood. If you safe-harbor him in any way, or you attempt any deception on his behalf, you’re going to be on the wrong side of the ledger, you feel me?”

Mae straightened. “What’s he done.”

“He has something that is ours.”

Stepping to the side, she stared down at her bedroom and remembered them arguing.

As cold dread hit her head, she said baldly, “He has the Book, doesn’t he.”

“What do you know about the Book?”

Sonofabitch.

Hanging up the phone and keeping it with her, Mae took the stairs two at a time and went directly out into the garage—where she dematerialized free of the house. If the Brotherhood had the phone’s location, she didn’t want them anywhere near her home. They’d find Rhoger.

About five miles away, she re-formed behind a strip mall and tossed the cell into the dumpster in back. Then she up-and-outed once again.

Traveling in a scatter of molecules, she followed the blood signal Sahvage emitted, the kind of tracer that only she had access to. And as she zeroed in on it, she was taken to an old part of Caldwell, one that was right on the edges of downtown’s urban blight. Here, the houses were three-story Victorians, of which many had been converted into apartments or were being used as dorms for SUNY Caldwell because they were close to campus.

In order to properly orientate herself, she re-formed in the parking lot of one that had been renovated and turned into a museum. As she stood in a handicapped space and looked around, she was shaking badly, but not because it was chilly and she had no coat. Closing her eyes, she fought the distraction of her anger and concentrated on where Sahvage was. When she had a precise pinpoint on him, she ghosted off again, re-materializing in a unkempt backyard that was fenced in by six-foot-tall planks loose in their arrangement.

Off in the distance, a dog barked. Then she heard an ambulance.