“If they’re good enough for secretaries of the treasury, they’re good enough for vampires. I’m just saying, if you and Clive had it out in some kind of winner-take-all scenario, would he pack up and go home?”
That was along the lines of Uncle Malik’s thoughts. “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I could probably take him one-on-one. His katana skills weren’t that impressive.”
“Not slick enough,” Alexei said.
“Not nearly,” I agreed. “And I’m sure I could provoke him into a fight. But I don’t think that would resolve the other issues.”
“Blackmail?” Connor asked.
“I’m also not above blackmailing a bully,” I said, “if we had any information to use against him. Which we don’t.”
Connor and Alexei looked at each other. “Maybe we could obtain something from the Consolidated Atlantic Pack.”
The shifters of the eastern seaboard. Their territory abutted the NAC’s. “You think they’d be able to dig something up on an Atlanta vampire?” I asked.
“Maybe. Relations between shifters and vamps out east are a little . . . testier . . . than those here,” Connor said. “If there’s information to be found, the Atlantic may be able to find it.”
“I don’t want to damage the AAM,” I said. “Just put a little pressure on Clive.”
“Understood,” he said, and nodded at Alexei, who took out his screen, slipped out of the room.
“If that doesn’t pan out,” Lulu said, “you could go the bargaining chip route. The stalker killed Blake, right?”
“Right,” I said.
“So you find the stalker—and Blake’s killer—first, and we offer him up to the Compliance Bureau. A trade.”
“That’s not bad,” I said, sitting up. “Except that we aren’t any further in figuring out who that is. And we don’t have any leads independent of the OMB.”
“So make him come to you. Lure him out. And when he shows up, kick his ass and deliver him to the AAM for a price—your freedom. And Bob’s your uncle,” Lulu said and mimicked wiping dirt from her hands. “All is well in the kingdom again.”
“My uncles are Ben and Christopher and Derek and Eli,” Connor said with an admirably straight face.
She just rolled her eyes. “Don’t you have a squeak toy to gnaw on somewhere?”
“Ah,” Connor said, stretching out his legs. “Just like being fifteen again.” He slid his glance to me. “Except you aren’t tattling nearly so much this time.”
“I have no idea what you mean,” I said primly, since he was well aware I’d gotten him in trouble often enough as a teenager. “And because this meeting has degraded into childishness or the reminiscence thereof, let’s wrap it up. Alexei is going to check with the Consolidated Atlantic for information we can use on Clive. My parents are trying to reach Nicole. Connor and I are working on the stalker.” I glanced at the wall clock. Two hours until dawn. When I woke up again, we’d be down to thirty-six. “Let’s find something.”
Connor rose, stretched, glanced at me. “Let’s go sit on the patio.”
I looked at him. “What?”
“The patio outside.” He cleared his throat. “Past the conservatory.”
“With the pipe, Ms. Scarlett?” Lulu asked.
Connor’s brows lifted. “You like Clue?”
“The movie? Of course. It’s genius, and I’m a woman of obvious taste and discernment. I’d say I’m surprised you do, but then, you also like comic books.”
“We all have our pop culture weaknesses,” Connor said and held out a hand to me, as if the warmth in his eyes wasn’t enough of an invitation.
I glanced back at Lulu, who stared out the windows, the sadness in her eyes obvious, and worried that Mateo had compounded her sadness.
“Give me a minute, will you?” I asked quietly and looked back at Connor.
“Of course,” he said, and he pressed a kiss to my forehead. “I’ll be outside.”
FIFTEEN
I waited until he was gone, looked over at her. “You want to go past the conservatory, too?”
“I want to not regret having eaten my way through half of China Palace’s menu.”
“Same.” I waited a moment, trying to figure out my strategy, decided to stick with the truth. “Out with it.”
She looked back at me, brows lifted. “What?”
“Out with it. Tell me what’s bothering you—has been bothering you, since Minnesota.”
“Nothing is bothering me.” But she rose, gathered up containers and carried them into the kitchen, began to consolidate rice boxes and toss the empties.
“Yes, I can tell by your relaxed tone and chill manner.”
She looked up, misery in her eyes, and it broke my heart a little. I went to her—taking boxes on the way—and put them on the counter.
“Lulu. Talk to me.”
She looked at me for a minute, then took my hand. “Come with me,” she said and pulled me through the kitchen, the dining room, into the small front parlor with its fireplace and bookshelves. “Look.”
She hadn’t given me the chance to object, but I had no idea what I was looking for, or ought to have seen. “The couch is nice?” It was low and boxy, covered in emerald-green velvet.
Lulu muttered, stalked to the bookshelves, pointed. “Look,” she said again.
Confused, but trusting, I walked closer, looked at the books, the titles. They included The Care and Feeding of Vampires and The Official Guide to Vampire Etiquette.
Connor had been reading about the care and feeding of vampires. And since that had been on his screen, he must have had both electronic and paper copies of the book. While I knew there was no chance in hell he’d willingly follow formal vampire etiquette, that he cared enough to look into it made my heart flutter a little.
But I didn’t think that was the point, so I looked back at her, watched as she settled onto velvet cushions.
“I think Connor might be loaded,” I said quietly, sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of her.
“Shifter money,” Lulu said. “They’re quiet about it, but they’ve got plenty. They rarely buy anything but beer, bikes, and leather.”
Saving plenty for lush town houses, I thought, but didn’t say it aloud. “So what’s wrong?”