Page 100 of Embrace Me Darkly

“A neck wound,” Sara said slowly.

“Caris has reason to increase the number of vampire attacks around town. Or at least to make it appear that they have increased. And the more offensive, the better. She wants to finish what her team started. And she wants to thumb her nose at the vampire community for foiling the Therians’ original plans.”

“How can we find her?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Yet.”

Sara nodded. “Thank you.” This was a solid start. She could find this Caris, and with any luck, they would find Stemmons and the next child, too. “I need to go.” A humorless smile touched her lips. “I have a hearing to prepare for.”

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t wish you luck.”

She smiled and was reaching for the button to summon the ogre when his voice stopped her. “Tasha is missing.”

She turned, saw the flash of worry on his face. “I’m so sorry. Can I help?”

He reached for her hand, and she gave it. “You help simply by asking.”

“I could speak to Missing Persons,” she said, wishing she had a cure, a fix, some way to ease his fear. “I don’t know if the PEC has a section like that, but I have friends in the LAPD. They could—”

He pressed his palm to her cheek, the touch affecting her more than it should. “Thank you. All I ask is that you contact Nick. Tell him I need to speak with him before the hearing.”

“All right. Of course, I will.” She hesitated, thinking about propriety and her position and the whole damned mess. She didn’t care. She leaned forward and brushed a quick kiss over his cheek. “I really am sorry,” she said. “I’m so terribly sorry.”

“Sara,” he said, heat flaring behind the pain in his eyes.

She stepped back, her hands shoved into the pockets of her suit jacket, not quite believing she’d just leaped gleefully over that line. “We’ve been investigating Braddock,” she began, thinking of the report she’d just received from Agent Doyle. “Luke, did he harm Tasha?”

He drew in a breath, then slowly released it. “Welcome back, Counselor.”

She flinched, but held her ground, staying silent as he moved back to the concrete slab that served as a bed.

“Unless I am mistaken, this subject is forbidden without the presence of my attorney.”

He was right, of course. “In that case, you can speak freely without fear of your words coming back to bite you.” She tried again. “Is that why you killed him? Revenge for Tasha?”

He smiled thinly. “I have admitted things to you that I never should have spoken of. But Sara, never once have I admitted to killing Marcus Braddock. Though I do not deny an intense joy that the bastard is in fact dead.”

“That’s hardly a denial.”

“As I said, we’re only talking in hypotheticals. Unless you want to summon Mr. Montague?”

“I imagined killing Stemmons,” she admitted. “I wanted him to suffer the way those girls did, and even with the death penalty, he wouldn’t experience their pain and their fear. But I would never do it. Justice is found in the law, not on the streets.”

“Always?”

She lifted a shoulder. “There are tradeoffs for living in a civilized world.”

“Perhaps those like me fill the gaps between what is just and what is right?”

“Or perhaps you’re trying to absolve yourself of guilt.”

His brows rose. “Guilt? No.”

She studied him, this man who knew her so intimately. Even now, she wanted to go to him. To fold herself in his arms and let him help shoulder the weight of those dead children she longed to avenge.

Avenge.

If it came to that, could she go outside the law to put Stemmons back in a cage? Or in the ground?

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