Dark Queen (Jane Yellowrock #12)

He spoke slowly, as he might to a small child. Or someone he didn’t want to upset. “I had Alex do a search of traffic cams. This car has been patrolling the area between St. Philip Street and your home. That area also encloses St. Peter Street and the streets between. However, no one knew you would be walking toward St. Peter Street.”

“Okay.” And then it hit me. Bruiser lived on St. Philip Street. Maybe they hadn’t been searching for me. Maybe they had been after Bruiser. They had said something like, “Give me the woman.” Had I been nothing but a lever to get to Bruiser? “They weren’t after me, exactly?”

“It’s possible that you were the means to an end, not the end itself.”

I sat down on the hard chair, going back over everything that had happened. They wanted Bruiser? Not me? Bruiser. Rage flared up in me like a torch. Why Bruiser? And then it occurred to me that Bruiser had been Leo’s flunky for decades. Together they had hunted and killed werewolves; I’d once seen a photo of them standing over a dead werewolf. There had been werewolves in sub-five when the cats tried to steal the SOD. Those wolves had wanted to steal Brute, who had been biting the SOD and who had timewalking abilities. I hadn’t been able to explore that aspect of this puzzle, thanks to Brute’s inability to shift to human and talk to me. Bruiser might have been involved in “questioning” the werewolves who hurt Rick. This could have been a snatch-and-grab attempt. Or it might be a more complicated situation than a simple kidnapping.

“Right,” Brandon said, seeing my reaction. “I’ll let you think for a bit and see if Andromeda wants my services.” He left and came back moments later. “Are you absolutely certain that you want me to represent her?”

“Yeah. Why do you ask? Again.”

“She told me I was pretty. And that she likes to sleep with lawyers. She suggested a list of positions and toys and games we could play.” I tried to hold in a grin. It must not have been successful because Brandon frowned. “I like sex as much as the next guy, but some of the things she said are downright scary.” His eyes narrowed at me when I laughed. “And her tattoos are Razor tats.”

“Her brother runs with the Raz. Didn’t know about her. Don’t care. This is vamp business. Leo pays her legal fees.”

Brandon gave me an abbreviated shrug and sat, placing a briefcase on the table between us. He pulled out a pad and pencil. The Roberes were old-school. “Tell me what happened again. Leave nothing out, no matter how seemingly insignificant.” Which was when I remembered the open window and the barrel pointing down at me. I talked through the sequence of events and when I reached the part about the possibility of a shooter, Brandon left the room again and said something to the guard. Moments later, a detective appeared and Brandon invited him into the room. He was dour, tired, and supposed to be off shift two hours before. I think he blamed me for keeping him on the clock, but really, he should be blaming the dead guys and the furry guy.

“Tell Detective Kerlegan what you told me. Be specific about directions, locations, everything.”

I did as I was told. Kerlegan took notes, had me draw out the building across the street, and pinpoint the window where I had seen activity. I was specific and detailed, if not artistic. I couldn’t draw a stick figure, but I could count windows. I circled the window where the gun barrel, if it was a gun barrel, had tracked me.

Kerlegan left and I told Brandon everything else. “What happened to the wolf?” I asked.

“LaFleur called some people and hauled him off.”

“And?”

“PsyLED and weres are not my concern,” he said.

“They should be. There were three werewolves in sub-five basement less than twenty-four hours ago, and they seemed to be having an argument.”

“What kind of argument? Bighorn Wolf Pack or the new Montana Red Pack?”

“I got no idea,” I said. “One wolf drew a gun on two others, but I can’t tell one pack from the other. They came in with Dominique and a witch under an obfuscation spell, a good one. The lasers detected it, but not in time to catch the witch.”

“Leo parleyed an agreement with the Bighorns but Montana recently split off from them. It’s possible that Montana came here with the intent of helping the Europeans.”

“I overheard the wolves say they were there to rescue Brute, who wasn’t pleased at the statement, by the way.”

Brandon frowned, his brow crinkling, confused.

“They were on sub-five,” I said, “with the werecat delegation from PAW and the IAW, who were there because of the SOD. You didn’t know? About an attack by the werecats?”

He cursed succinctly. “No. I’ve been working on legal briefs for two days. Debrief me.”

I did, and ended with, “Asad may have wanted to start a cat-wolf war, or a vamp-were war, or the kitties and pups might have joined forces temporarily to steal the SOD and Brute. Or something open-ended or more twisted. I don’t know and I have no idea how we can find out.” Brandon used his cell phone to call vamp HQ and knocked on the door as if alerting someone on the outside, like a prearranged signal. Detective Kerlegan reentered about the time that Brandon finished his conversation with HQ, and we three sat at the table. Upon advice from counsel I answered all the detective’s questions, at length. Three times.

After the third time through the events, I said, “I’m done.” I stood up and looked down at my lawyer. “Get me out of here.”

“Charge my client with a crime or let her go.”

Kerlegan sounded tired and jaded when he said, “She’s both a person of interest and a possible suspect in the deaths of two humans and the injury of a werewolf.”

“You have video of the shooting,” Brandon said. “You have police corroboration of the threat of the gang members. She has been totally cooperative. Jane Yellowrock is not a flight risk and she hasn’t eaten in hours. You have a mountain of evidence saying that the deaths were self-defense. And she told the senior officer on scene that there was a werewolf on-site, one who was shifting and could have posed a danger to the officers and to the public. She was helpful in keeping local law enforcement safe.”

The detective placed his open hands on the table. “We can keep her for seventy-two hours.”

I shot him a look that said, No you can’t!

“All that will get you is her clamming up and refusing to help NOPD ever again.” Brandon leaned in, over the table. “That would create a danger to the city and you know that. She’s helped officers in the past. She saved the life of the chief of police. She helped those officers today. Don’t screw up a system that works.”

Kerlegan stood and knocked on the door, which opened immediately. “Make sure she doesn’t leave town,” he said as he left the room.

“I have to go see Andromeda,” Brandon said. “God help me.”

I just smiled and let him lead me out of the interrogation room. I accepted my weapons and put them into the tote bag that Kerlegan magically produced for me. Checked my cell to discover Alex had sent a dozen texts while I didn’t have access to my phone. The only one that mattered was the one that said T. Antifreeze and the guards who had been injured when the weres went to sub-five were okay, healed by vamp blood and downtime. That put me in a better mood.

I left the Eighth, exited into the chill and the early dusk, and told Shemmy to take me back to Andromeda Preaux’s jewelry shop. Traffic was horrid and after I texted Bruiser to meet me there, I took a speed nap in the backseat.

Bruiser and I went into the building across the street from Andromeda’s and up to the unoccupied second floor to inspect the hide used by the possible shooter. The building had been cleared by the cops, and as we searched I told him my concerns about the gangbangers and the wolf with the gun, and the were-creatures in sub-five, also one with a gun. And how the wolves seemed to be at odds. We talked over other possibilities, some far-fetched, some downright scary. Together we concluded that there was nothing we could do and no way to discern the truth for now.