CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Valdez
Her arm and neck needed attention, but she was in no condition to go anywhere. I should have been concerned with more vampires, but they’d have to wait. Brooks laid dead on the kitchen floor.
There was a heavy rapping on what was left of the front door. “Open up! Police!”
“It’s open, Matthews,” I called back over my shoulder.
Chief Matthews pushed through the door cautiously, his gun still drawn.
“We’re over here. It’s taken care of.”
I heard the safety click on his gun, and the door shut behind him.
“Got a call of shots, Valdez.”
“Kitchen.”
He nodded at me, taking a couple steps past the threshold where he could see the bloody mess. “Jesus, Valdez. Brooks?”
“Roll him over,” I said dryly as Ellie clutched my shirt, and as she tried to get hold of her rapid breathing.
There was the heavy flopping of deadweight being moved as Chief Matthews rolled Brooks over with his boot.
“Son of a— This isn’t good, Sesi. You expect me to fix this?”
“I didn’t call you. I don’t expect you to fix anything.”
Matthews shook his head. “Who’s she?”
“Minnie’s niece.”
“Looks like she needs medical attention.”
“I do,” Ellie bit. There was no hiding the grimace in her voice.
“You do that to her?” he asked as plainly as he could. I was offended. But given my history that week, I understood it.
“No. He didn’t do this to me, officer. That thing lying on the kitchen floor did.” She tried to get off my lap, and I grabbed her waistband.
He nodded at her. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you’re going to have to stay in town a while, miss. I can’t have you just running off if you’re going to be Valdez’s alibi for these last few days. It's going to take a while till everything gets straightened out.”
“I’m not leaving Alaska unless someone forces me too.” There was no hesitation in her statement. “Someone from my family has been with the Sesi family for the last century. I understand why my aunt wanted me here to continue the tradition. I should have never doubted her when she asked me to come up years ago. White snowy hell or not, I’m home.”
My heart soared as I held her a bit tighter. This was not the time to get my hopes up. We’d only spent four days together, I had no expectations of a future together but at least it was a start. She was staying.
Ellie turned on my lap and looked me in the eyes. “And I’m not selling you the house.”
I nodded. “We’ll worry about that later.”
Matthews sighed as I placed a kiss on her forehead. “Sorry to break up whatever the two of you have going on, but can we get back to what happened here? Your truck’s pretty trashed, Valdez. Arrows in the tires. That’s new, even for you.”
“I’ll take care of them.”
“And the grill and headlight?”
“Werewolf the other night. Taken care of. Why are you here? No one has called for shots at the Hayes house in the last five years.”
He sighed heavily and put his gun away. “Yeah. I heard you when I parked the truck. Didn’t see anything run out or in, so I figured I’d better check. I came to see you about your brother. Not all this. But we’ll have to deal with this, too.”
“Sorry. I haven’t gotten there with bail money yet. I’ve been kinda busy. Vampires and all.”
He put his hat on the counter, and leaned against the wall. He never got that comfy during a talk. “Bail won’t work this time. I can’t just gloss over this.”
“I get it. Kinda hard to make an exploded boat and burned pile of crab pots go away. I get it.”
Ellie sank back against my chest, clutching her arm. I needed to get her somewhere. The way she was shivering, I was afraid she’d go in to shock as soon as we set foot outside the door.
Matthews shook his head. “It’s not the boat. I can fix that. Well, sort of, now that he’s dead. I can at least stage it to look like a suicide and he did it for the insurance money. He didn’t pay you up front, did he?”
“You’d have to ask Kenai.”
“Yeah. That’s kinda hard to do.”
I narrowed my gaze at him. “Hard to do? He’s fucking locked up.”
“No. He’s gone.”
“Explain gone,” I snapped. “Is this shit because your guys think he killed River?”
“Gone. Like not in his damn cell where I left him last night.”
“So who let him out?”
He shook his head, lips pursed as he sucked in air. “I don’t have a damn clue. My two guards on duty were knocked out. Neither of them remember who did it. And he’s gone.”
“What did the cameras show? You do have those still, right?”
“Cameras cut out about two hours ago, and still aren’t back online.”
“So inside job?”
“There is no way. They were both knocked out when I got there. But this is what worries me.”
He pulled a tiny, well-worn notebook from his pocket and tossed it at me. It landed beside me on the couch. Without even opening the cover, I knew what it was. It was my brother’s book of names. “He had it on him. Next to last entry.”
I reached for the bound pages, and flipped to it.
47 Unknown male - tattoos, shredded, burned hand, human
“Thought he only put Others in there that you knew? When did you all start killing humans?”
“We didn’t. He had to have a good reason for adding them to his book.” I wasn’t sure I believed myself, but part of me was glad to see that River’s name was nowhere near the last few entries. He may have still killed her, but at least he hadn’t recorded it after a blackout.
I flipped through the last few entries as I waited for Matthews to get his words together. I saw names I recognized. Rory. Andrew. John. Malcolm. I flipped further toward the front. I caught another name I recognized, Simon Sesi, but I refused to read the rest of the entry.
“I don’t know who exactly he killed, but he’s gone. He’s out of the cage, and I don’t think I can keep this under wraps too long. I told the boys I let him out, but I don’t know who saw his book. I don’t know who else might have seen him since. This is bad, Valdez. Bad.”
I leaned my head back against the couch. I would bet money that Willow had let him out. I heard his boots shuffle on the wood.
“But that’s not everything.”
“What?” I couldn’t hide the irritation in my voice. “What else aren’t you telling me?”
“When I went to check out the Gypsy Star tonight, I found a body.”
“So you’re here to bring me in, too? I failed to miss a fisherman before I set the charges?”
Ellie’s shivering slowed, her eyes less glossed over at the mention of finding a body.
“Quit willingly admitting to shit, Valdez. How many times have I told you that?”
“Just what are you implying, Chief?” Ellie’s voice had become calm as the ocean under a full moon. “Dez was here with me last night. You trying to say that he snuck away and killed someone?”
He glanced from me, to Ellie, and back again. “Trust me, girlie. If I could easily believe that, I’d like to. But I’m not implying he did this one. But I do need your help, Valdez. If you can make this new body disappear, and I will do my best to make everyone think that Brooks just had an unfortunate accident when trying to set the boat on fire himself.”
“And Kenai?”
“I can make most of it go away. He’s not on any tape from the docks, and we only have record of him being brought in. For all anyone knows, he was just there for a night in the drunk tank. But the book, that will be harder.”
God damn him.
“Fine. What do you need my help with?”
“We’ve got a mermaid impaled down at the docks. I didn’t know they bled blue.”