Darker After Midnight (4 page)

And yet that scathing blue gaze stayed rooted on her, even after the last of the three other men was led into the lineup and made to face forward. Those other men slouched and shifted, anxious eyes held low beneath inclined heads or darting around and seeing nothing but their own reflection in the large pane of one-way glass.

“If you’re ready,” prompted the detective from beside her.

She nodded, letting her eyes travel down the line to the remaining three men even though there was no need. The others looked nothing like him. They were a rangy mix of shapes and sizes and ages. One man was rail-thin, with stringy brown hair hanging limply around his shoulders. Another was the size of a bull, broad shoulders and a big belly. He had a mean face framed by thick, dark waves and small eyes that glared out over the swollen red beak of his nose. The third was a balding lump of a man, probably in the neighborhood of fifty, who was sweating profusely under the bright glare of the spotlight.

And then there was
him
 … the intense, almost cruelly handsome menace who still hadn’t taken his eyes off her. Tavia wasn’t the sort to let things rattle her, but she could hardly stand the weight of that stare—even if she was safely concealed in the darkened viewing area behind quarter-inch safety glass and surrounded by half a dozen armed law enforcement officers.

“That’s him,” she blurted, pointing toward position 4. Although it had to be impossible, she could have sworn she saw his mouth lift into a half smile as she raised her hand to single him out. “That’s him, Detective Avery. He’s the man I saw at the party that night.”

Avery gave her shoulder a light pat as the cops in the other room began instructing the men to step forward one at a time. “I know I said this is just a formality, but we still need you to be sure, Tavia—”

“I’m absolutely certain of it,” she replied, her tone crisp as the blood in her veins began to buzz with some kind of innate alarm. She glanced back into the other room just as Number 4 took his two steps forward. “There’s no need to continue here. That man is the shooter. I would know his face anywhere.”

“Okay, then. That’s fine, Tavia.” He chuckled. “What’d I tell ya? Done in no time. You did great.”

She dismissed the praise as unnecessary, giving the officer a mild shake of her head. “Will there be anything else?”

“Ah, nope. It’ll just take a few minutes for us to wrap things up
here, and we can get you on your way. If you’d like me to see you home—”

“No, thank you. I’m sure I’ll be fine.” As she spoke, her eyes clashed once more with the man who might have killed someone at Senator Clarence’s party. If he truly was the mastermind of the bombing downtown this morning too, then he had the lives of several innocent people on his hands. Tavia held that penetrating stare, hoping that he could see through the glass to the depth of contempt she held for him in her eyes. After a long moment, she pivoted away from the viewing window. “If that will be all, Detective, the senator has a big presentation tomorrow morning, and I have a lot of logistics and other work to catch up on yet tonight.”

“Tavia Fairchild.”

The deep growl—the unexpected sound of her name on a stranger’s lips—made her freeze for a moment where she stood. She didn’t have to wonder who spoke. The low rumble of his voice went through her with the same cold certainty of the bullets he’d rained down on the crowd of party attendees the other night.

Still, shocked by what was happening, Tavia swiveled a questioning look on the detective and the other agents and officers. “This room … I thought you said—”

Avery sputtered an apology and grabbed for a wall-mounted phone next to the viewing window. As he spoke into the receiver, the man standing in the number 4 spot kept talking to her. He kept looking at her, as though there were nothing standing between her and his deadly focus.

He took a step forward. “Your boss is in a lot of trouble, Tavia. He’s in danger. You could be too.”

“Damn it! Get that son of a bitch under control right now,” demanded one of the federal agents to the detective on the phone.

The officers in the lineup room snapped into action. “Number 4, shut up and get back in line!”

He ignored the order. Took another step forward, even as the second cop moved in from the other side of the room. “I need to find him, Tavia. He needs to know that Dragos will kill him—or worse. It might already be too late.”

Mute, she shook her head. What he was saying made no sense. Senator Clarence was alive and well; she’d seen him at the office that morning, before he’d left for a full day of meetings and business engagements downtown.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she murmured, even though he shouldn’t be able to hear her. He shouldn’t be able to see her either, but he did. “I don’t know anyone named Dragos.”

Both cops moved in on him now. One on each restrained arm, they tried to haul him back toward the wall. He shook them off like they were nothing, all of his focus zeroed in on Tavia. “Listen to me. He was there that night. He was a guest at the party.”

“No,” she said, certain he was wrong now. She personally handwrote and addressed each of the 148 invitations. Her memory for things like that was infallible. If pressed, she could recite every name and recount every face on the guest list. There was no one there by that name that night.

“Dragos was there, Tavia.” The cops in the lineup room made another grab for him. “He was there. I shot him. I only wish I would have killed the bastard.”

She felt her head slowly moving side to side, her brows pinched as the lunacy of what he was saying sank in. There was only one casualty at the party. The only person wounded by the violence that night had been one of Senator Clarence’s most generous campaign contributors, a successful local businessman and philanthropist named Drake Masters.

“You’re crazy,” she whispered. Yet even as she spoke the words, she didn’t fully believe them herself. The man holding her gaze so improbably—so impossibly—through the glass didn’t seem crazy. He seemed dangerous and intense, utterly certain of what he was saying. He seemed lethal, even with his hands cuffed behind his back.

He kept an unblinking lock on her eyes. Dismissing him as insane would have been easier to accept than the cold knot of dread that was forming in her stomach under the weight of his clear stare. No, whatever his intent the night of the senator’s party, she doubted very much that it had been motivated by insanity.

Still, none of what he was saying made sense.

“This guy is deranged,” said one of the feds. “Let’s wrap this up and get the witness out of here.”

Detective Avery nodded. “I apologize for this, Tavia. You don’t need to be here any longer.” He moved around in front of her. His face was drawn taut with a mix of bewilderment and annoyance as he held his arm out to indicate a path toward the hallway door. The other officers and federal agents slowly regrouped as well and started to fall in behind them.

In the lineup room, Tavia heard the shuffle and grunts of a physical struggle under way. She tried to peer around the detective, but he was already guiding her away from the window.

As they reached the viewing room door, there was a short knock on the other side before it opened ahead of them. Senator Clarence stood in the hallway, snowflakes clinging to his neatly combed hair and navy wool peacoat. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be here sooner. My meeting with the mayor ran late, as usual.” He glanced at Tavia and his friendly expression went a bit dark. “Is something wrong? Tavia, I’ve never seen you look so pale. What’s going on in there?”

Before she could brush off his concern, the senator strode into the viewing room. “Gentlemen,” he murmured, greeting the other law enforcement officials as he walked farther inside.

At his approach to the viewing window, a low growl erupted from inside the lineup area.

It was an inhuman sound. An otherworldly snarl that made the blood go cold in Tavia’s veins. Alarm shot through her in an instant, every instinct clanging with warning. Something terrible was about to happen. She pivoted back into the room. “Senator Clarence, be careful—”

Too late.

The viewing window exploded.

Glass broke and shattered, spitting tiny pebbles in all directions as something huge came crashing through the opening and landed in a heap in the middle of the viewing room.

It was one of the men from the lineup—the dark-haired bull in the Patriots shirt. He was howling in pain, limbs twisted unnaturally. The skin on his face and neck and hands was torn open and bleeding from the impact.

Tavia shot a startled look behind her.

The large pane of one-way safety glass was nothing but air now.

Nothing but air … and, standing in front of its broken frame, a towering menace of hard muscle and deadly intent.

The handcuffs that had restrained him in the lineup dangled useless, one at each wrist. He’d somehow broken free of them. Good lord, how strong must he be if he was able to do not only that but also throw a full-grown man through a plate of safety glass? And how fast must he have moved to have done all of this before any of the officers in the lineup room could stop him?

Cold blue eyes looked past her, rooted like lasers onto Senator Clarence. “Goddamn Dragos,” the man seethed, fury simmering in his gaze and in the low hiss of his voice. “He already got to you, didn’t he? He already fucking owns you.”

His right arm shot forward, reaching through the open space of the window. As swift as a cobra strike, he had the sleeve of Senator Clarence’s coat in his fist. He yanked backward, pulling the senator off his feet. He hauled the man’s entire weight with one hand, dragging him in mere instants through the broken glass and debris.

Oh, God. This man was going to kill Senator Clarence, right here and now.

“No.” Tavia was moving before she realized it. She took hold of the metal handcuff that ringed his wrist and pulled with all she had. “No!”

Her paltry attempt to stop him hardly made him pause. But in that split-second moment, his gaze broke to hers. There was something unearthly in those eyes … something that seemed to crackle with unholy fire. Something that cleaved straight into the center of her being like the sharp edge of a blade, even as it stirred a dark curiosity that beckoned her closer.

Her heart was racing in her chest. Her pulse hammered, as loud as a drumbeat in her ears. For the first time in her life, Tavia Fairchild knew true terror. She stared into those strangely hypnotic blue eyes, and she screamed.

S
HE DIDN’T LET GO OF HIM
, even while her scream tore past her lips. Slender but deceptively strong fingers held on to the metal cuff at his wrist, as though her reflexes were ready for a fight regardless of the fear and panic that vibrated from all around the chaos-stricken room.

Tavia Fairchild was tenacious; Chase had to give her that.

She hadn’t been afraid of him the night of the senator’s party or a few minutes ago, when she’d looked him in the eyes through the one-way glass and condemned him to the cops and feds camped out in the viewing room.

He couldn’t blame her for that. She and law enforcement both believed they were doing the right thing, trying to keep a dangerous man—a confessed killer—off the streets. Their human minds could not comprehend the kind of evil Chase and the rest of the Order were up against.

Nor did Tavia Fairchild have any idea that her boss was a dead man.

Senator Robert Clarence might look unchanged to mortal eyes, but Chase’s Breed senses sniffed out the Minion the instant he walked into the viewing room. The man belonged to Dragos now, obedient to none but his Master. Chase saw the truth of it in the
dull glint of the politician’s gaze and in the utter lack of concern for himself or any other life in the room. Dragos had sent him to the police station. Chase meant to send the Minion back to the son of a bitch in pieces.

He swung his gaze away from Tavia Fairchild and ripped loose from her distracting grasp. “Where is Dragos?” He tightened his fist around the senator’s arm and squeezed until he felt bones crack and pop against his palm. “Tell me now.”

The Minion only howled in agony.

“Stand down!” shouted one of the cops from behind him in the lineup room. There was a scuffle of foot movement, a blur of motion in the viewing room as federal agents and the officers inside hustled to get Tavia clear of the struggle.

Chase squeezed the senator harder, shattering his forearm in a bruising grip. “I’m gonna find him. And you’re gonna tell me where, you goddamn waste of—”

Something sharp slammed into his shoulder from behind. Not a bullet, but the piercing bite of fine twin barbs. Like fishhooks, sunk deep into his flesh. His ears filled with the rapid
clickety-clickety
staccato report of a Taser being discharged. At the same time, his body was pumped with fifty thousand volts of electricity. The current went through him in a violent jolt. The juice lit him up from scalp to heel, making his muscles scream in protest.