My head started throbbing as anger heated my blood and all the domino pieces began to form a pattern. I had been about to put it all together when the soul-thing hit me in the street. And I had forgotten. Memory loss? Maybe part of the head-banging I’d taken in the wreck?
If Adrianna knew about the chained vamp-scions and who they were, then that also meant that Jack Shoffru had learned it all at some point. Jack, who had possibly taken the Damours to Louisiana from their island hell, who might have known about the blood diamond from way back when. I’d bet every dime in the business account that he had been in New Orleans off and on long before he applied to Leo for a safe haven. Leo might not have known that before he drank down Jackie, but he surely knew it now. Which was why he gave me tacit permission to kill the pirate or his people if I thought it necessary.
“Alex?” I asked, my unfocused gaze on the ceiling tiles. “The party where Bliss and Rachael disappeared, trailed by Jack Shoffru. It was a coming-out party for vamps newly released from the devoveo. How many newly risen vamps were there?”
He started keying on his little tablet, his head bent so low I could only see his crown and his curly, lank hair. “Not sure how many actually showed,” he said, “but it looks like twelve were invited,” the Kid said, his tone telling me that he was putting it all together too. “No names on the info we have yet, but young vamps.”
Like the ones turning to dust. The falling dominoes, which had been creating a pattern, stopped dropping. What if Jack Shoffru had been there? In the building. Not just tailing Bliss and Rachael. But in the building itself. And what if Shiloh had been there too? Without Leo’s permission.
“The tail car with Jack Shoffru in it, following the car Bliss and Rachael were in. What if it didn’t lose them? What if the car caught them and took them and then went over the bridge?”
“Checking,” the Kid said.
“And I’m going for a cola,” Jodi said, when she caught a glimpse of the screen on the Kid’s tablet. “There are things I do not want to know.”
I gave her a halfhearted wave as she left the room.
If Shiloh was at the party . . . what if Jack had taken her on the way home too? I took a slow breath, remembering the unknown vamp in the car. What if Shiloh had been the redheaded vamp? “Holy crap,” I whispered. And who was the other vamp? The one with the nose ring?
And Molly? If she knew her niece was in the city and newly risen as a vamp, and if someone had told her Shiloh was in danger, would she have come here? Yes. And without telling Big Evan, in order to protect him. She would have come to New Orleans, and come to get me, just as her note to her husband said she intended. But Molly hadn’t called me.
What if she thought I was mad at her for not calling before and thought the best way to get me over my hurt feelings was to show up on the doorstep? And what if someone was watching for her and took her as soon as she got to the city . . . ?
But why? Why take her? Why take the girls? But Molly had gone back to her hotel room. Slept there. Or . . . someone had switched the pillows. Left the damp towel. Taken her things. Left a note Molly had been forced to write.
“No . . .” The pillows on my first visit to the hotel had been blinding white. On the second visit they had been cream colored. The pillows had been full of Molly’s scent, but I hadn’t bothered to sniff the sheets. Someone had exchanged the pillowcases, and I had been so scent-involved I hadn’t noticed it until now.
It all fit. And I was an idiot. I cursed under my breath.
I turned back to Eli and Jodi. “And Leo was planning a swearing-in ceremony at his soiree, to welcome in all the new scions, but Adrianna caused a scene and someone got in through security, so he called that part off. What if—” I stopped and waved that thought away before it was fully formed. I had been about to ask what if Leo was in on it, but that made no sense and Leo always made sense even if it was only vamp sense.
“What if Shiloh was one of the new scions?” I asked instead. “What if he didn’t know she was an Everhart? Her last name was Stone.” The pieces were there, but still suspended, hanging in space. Waiting for . . . something. But what? “Do you have a picture?” I asked Jodi. “A picture of Shiloh?”
Jodi walked to the center whiteboard and removed the center photograph, one of three she had been studying the last time I had come to see her. Crap. She had been researching Shiloh, probably ever since I mentioned her. The girl in the faded photo was about fifteen, with long straight red hair and dark eyes. And a pointy, not quite perfect nose. I handed it to Alex and the Kid twirled his tablet so I could see the photo taken as the girls rode away from the party. The red hair and the nose were a good match for Shiloh. I pulled my cell and started to dial Del, but remembered that there was no reception in the bowels of NOPD’s woo-woo room. I didn’t ask permission as I picked up a landline and dialed Adelaide’s number.