Law and Murder by Mindy Klasky

Author:Mindy Klasky
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Book View Cafe

11

James had lied.

He didn’t arrive thirty minutes after sunset. He arrived fifteen minutes after sunset. I had no idea where his sanctum was, how far he actually lived from my house. But given the low-rent district for my basement apartment, I had to assume he’d risked a pretty serious sunburn to get to my front door as early as he did.

He took my arm as he escorted me to his top-of-the-line Mercedes—black, of course, with leather seats that were more luxurious than a single stick of furniture in my home.

“I’m fine,” I said, pulling my elbow out of his grasp.

For reply, he merely peered into the shadows, focusing the laser intensity of his vampire-enhanced vision. A chill ran down my spine—and not the sort of pleasurable shiver James had been known to raise before.

A trio of sphinxes stood in the shadows. I couldn’t say precisely how I recognized them. They looked like any other muscle-bound, crew-cut bodyguards you might happen to stumble into during a twilight walk. But the instant I saw them, some awareness deep in my own sphinx brain pinged. They were the guards Chris had dispatched from the Den.

And they clearly recognized the Director of Security for the Eastern Empire Night Court, because they did nothing to stop the glaring vampire at my side.

James opened the passenger door of his car with an impatient tug. “Let’s go,” he said. And when I didn’t move quickly enough to satisfy him, he barked, “Now!”

I made pacifying noises as he shut the door behind me. “Relax,” I urged, as he slipped into the driver’s seat and slammed his own door. Okay, so I probably deserved his glare. No one—human, vampire, or sphinx—likes to be told to relax.

He grimaced and turned his key in the ignition as if he were barely restraining his superhuman strength. “I don’t trust Gardner’s men,” he said unnecessarily. “You’re fair game, out here on the open street.”

Fair game. Prey, he meant. My throat was suddenly too dry for me to swallow. My breakfast of toaster waffles sat heavily in my belly. I regretted that extra pour of maple syrup, even if I had splurged and used the real stuff instead of flavored corn syrup.

We arrived at the courthouse a full hour before my usual reporting time. As James guided his car into a reserved spot in the parking garage, I marveled at how the other half lived. An air-conditioned luxury vehicle parked ten feet from the elevator certainly beat walking three blocks to and from the subway in the end-of-day heat and humidity.

Not even James’s first-class access, though, could spare us going through courthouse security. Earl and Bubba greeted us with their usual good humor, gesturing for me to put my purse on the X-ray machine’s conveyor belt. If they thought it was odd for James and me to arrive together, they didn’t say a word. I thought that merited a raise. Or at least a special mid-summer bonus.

Having confirmed that neither James nor I was packing heat, the guards allowed me to collect my bag from the machine.

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