I gave Don a nasty glare. “You ran a full background check on Noah the minute you discovered I was dating him. Without my permission, I might add, and no, Noah doesn’t know anything about vampires, what I do, or what I am. This better be the last time I have to assure you of that.”
Don gave a concurring nod, then went on to speculate again. “Do you think this could be Liam Flannery? Did you tell him anything before that he could have used to trace you?”
A cold chill went through me. Ian had connections to my past, all right. Through Bones. Bones knew my family’s old address, my real name, and he used to only call me Kitten. Could this be Bones? Would he have done something this extreme to draw me out of hiding? After over four years, did he still even think about me?
“No, I didn’t tell Flannery anything. I don’t see how he could be responsible.”
The lie tripped off my tongue without pause. If it was Bones, directly or indirectly, I’d deal with him myself. Don and Tate thought his body was packed away on ice in the basement freezer. I wasn’t about to change that.
Juan and Dave arrived. Both of them also looked like they’d been freshly woken. Briefly Don filled them in on the situation and its implication.
“Cat, I will leave you four to it,” he concluded. “Pick your team and plug this leak. The planes will be ready when you are. And don’t worry about bringing me back any stragglers this time. Just eliminate whoever knows about you.”
Grimly I nodded, and prayed my suspicions were wrong.
“Have you been home since you started with this Death Squad from Hell? Think anyone will recognize you?”
Dave had kept up a stream of steady chatter as we circled over the air base before landing.
“No, I haven’t been back since my grandparents died. I only had one friend”—and I was definitely not referring to a certain horny, alcoholic ghost—“and he graduated from college and moved to Santa Monica years ago.”
That had been Timmie, my old neighbor. Last I checked, he was a reporter for one of those “the truth is out there” independent magazines. You know, the kind that every once in a while hit on an incredible, factual story and then made Don’s life hell while he tried to find ways to discredit it. Timmie believed I had been killed in a shootout with the police after murdering my grandparents, some police officers, and the governor. What a way to be thought of. Don hadn’t spared my reputation in making me disappear. I even had a headstone and fake autopsy reports.
“Besides... ” I shook off the past like a wet raincoat. “With my hair shorter and brown, I look very different. No one would recognize me now.”
Except Bones. He’d know me a mile away by scent alone. The thought of seeing him again, even under such murderous circumstances, made my heart pound. How low I’d fallen.
“You’re sure about bringing Cooper?” Dave nudged me and glanced toward the back of the plane. We had our own little area up front. Weren’t we the special ones?
“I know it’s only been two months since we brought Cooper on, but he’s smart, fast, and ruthless. His years as an undercover narcotics officer probably helped there. He’s performed well in training operations, so it’s time to see how he does in the field.”
Dave frowned. “He doesn’t like you, Cat. He thinks you’ll turn on us one day because you’re a half-breed. I think he should be put under the juice and have the last two months wiped from his mind.”
“Put under the juice” referred to the brainwashing techniques Don had perfected over the last years. Our in-house vampires had their fangs milked like snakes. The hallucinogenic drops they produced were then refined and harvested. When combined with the usual mind-fuck method the military used, it left the participant happily unaware of any details regarding our operation. That was how we weeded through the recruits and didn’t worry about one blabbing about a chick with superhuman powers. All they remembered was a day of hard training.
“Cooper doesn’t have to like me—he only has to follow orders. If he can’t do that, then he’s out. Or dead, if he gets himself killed first. He’s the least of our concerns now.”
The plane touched down with a jar. Dave smiled at me.
“Welcome home, Cat.”
THE HOUSE I GREW up in was on a cherry orchard that looked like it hadn’t been harvested in years. Maybe not since my grandparents were murdered. Licking Falls, Ohio, was a place I hadn’t thought I’d see again, and the scary thing was that it seemed like time had stood still in this small town. God, this house would get a sick sort of notoriety. Four people had been killed inside these walls. Two supposedly by their own granddaughter, who’d then gone on a senseless murder spree, and now this couple.
It was ironic that the last time I’d walked up to my front porch, it had also been to a double murder. Pain blasted through me at the mental image of my grandfather slumped on the kitchen floor and my grandmother’s red handprints staining the stairs where she’d tried to crawl away.
Dave and I circled around the kitchen, careful not to disturb anything more than necessary.