Page 16 of Dead Heat

“It’s your phone voice. It’s higher pitched than your regular one. It’s quite common for people to adopt a different voice tone when using the phone.”

“You agree to never refer to my voice as shrill again, and I’ll agree to stay for dinner.”

Two stunted fangs appeared as he smiled. “We both knowyou’ll stay regardless, but I agree to remove the word ’shrill’ from any and all descriptions of you.”

“Thank you.”

He popped to his feet. “Come. I have a new acquisition I’d like to show you.” The vampire tapped the glass of an adjacent display case. I leaned over for a closer look. It was a porcelain vase with a white and blue color palette that had long since faded to grayish white.

“Nice vase. How old?”

“Nearly two thousand years, which I suppose is inconsequential to a goddess like yourself. Of course, I had my consultant on hand to confirm.”

“Where’d you get it?”

“The vase was discovered in the province of Shanxi. I acquired it the same way I acquire many of my treasures.”

“An auction?”

“Naturally. I met a woman there.”

“Congratulations. Did you win her, too?”

The corners of his mouth tugged apart. “Afraid not. She lost the bidding war for this particular item and wasn’t pleased about it.”

“Did she make a scene?”

“No, she struck up a conversation and congratulated me on my excellent taste. Her name is Petra Kovac.” He paused, as though waiting for me to comment.

“Should that name mean something to me?”

“I thought it might. She works for your friends at The Corporation.”

My stomach tensed. “The minions of an evil organization aren’t my friends.”

“What about Addison Gray? She worked for them, yet you still welcomed her into your home.” He paused. “My apologies. It must be a painful subject.”

“I’m learning to live with it.”

Addison Gray was one of the many names of the avatar of Aite, the goddess of mischief and ruin. She’d recently sought sanctuary in my house after trying and failing to get reinstated with the organization. The Corporation came in search of her, but they weren’t the ones responsible for killing her. That honor went to the leader of the Wild Hunt. Aite had died to protect me. She’d also left a big, fat envelope of cash under the mattress of the bed in my guest room. She may have wronged me at the start of our relationship, but she’d made it right by the end.

I cleared the emotion from my throat and focused on the vase. “Any idea why The Corporation was trying to acquire this piece?”

“I suspect they have an entire team dedicated to attending auctions.”

“They seem to have a department for everything. I bet there’s a team assigned to baking birthday cakes for all their employees.”

Otto tapped the glass again. “I still haven’t told you the most important part about the vase.”

“Let me guess—it’s worth a small fortune.”

“That goes without saying, but it isn’t the point.” He angled his head toward the vase. “This beauty was originally dismissed by experts as inauthentic.”

“Why?”

“Because of the angles. They don’t meet the usual criteria. This shape wasn’t used during the Chinese dynastic period.”

“And yet…”

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