Frost Line Read online

  The Tilleys were on their knees, both of them holding on to Elijah for dear life. He hung on to them, too, first one and then the other and then a tight, three-way hug. Elijah hugged the way he ran, with complete enthusiasm, the way kids do. Everyone else stood back and allowed the little family their reunion. There would be a lot for them to do in the next few days: interviews, legal stuff, investigation. But for now, there was just this, loving grandparents and their grandson.

  Derek experienced a rare rush of sympathy, maybe even empathy. His own childhood hadn’t been all that great. He’d seen kids who lived a lot worse lives than he had, but seeing other people miserable didn’t help your own misery; it just gave you company. He could have done with less company.

  Elijah had been through a lot in the last few days, more than he should have. Yeah, better Markham than Elijah. The kid was going to be okay.

  Derek looked for the blonde in the crowd, and swore under his breath when he didn’t see her. There wasn’t anything he could do with so many witnesses around, but he at least wanted to locate her, follow her. There were a lot of women standing around, and a few of them were blond, but that particular one—the kicker—wasn’t here. He’d have recognized her right away, even if she’d had a hood pulled over her head. She was the kind of woman who would stand out in a crowd, something about the way she moved, the way she held herself, as if she’d never got over being prom queen or something. He could still clearly remember her face, and he didn’t normally pay much attention to a woman’s face.

  She could be anywhere: at the police station, giving a statement, or at a television station, giving an interview. Or she might be in jail, for keeping the kid for so long while everyone and his brother had been looking for him. He liked the idea of that.

  But wherever she was, she’d be describing in great detail the man she’d seen in Elijah’s kitchen.

  If Derek hadn’t been forced to kill the senator, he might go on about his business and take his chances. But between Sammy and Markham, the odds were there was some overlooked evidence floating around. Maybe someone had glanced out a window at the wrong time, maybe he’d left a footprint in the dust—something, anything. Sammy wasn’t much of a problem. Even if the cops realized that Sammy had been murdered, they probably wouldn’t look too hard for his killer.

  Markham, though, was another story. He’d been a state senator, well respected even though he was a complete shit—a murdering shit, at that. His killer would be hunted from now until the end of time. Derek didn’t think there was anything to connect him to Markham, he had always been certain there was not, but what did he know? How could he be sure? He couldn’t, damn it. The senator might have all sorts of paperwork or electronic trails linking him to his own “anything you need, boss” private investigator. Maybe he even had a damning letter somewhere marked, “To be opened in the event of my death.” People who were involved in illegal shit sometimes threatened to have such a letter in anonymous hands. Derek suspected that people who really did that wouldn’t bother to warn anyone. It would be a surprise.

  He hated surprises.

  He put his car in Reverse, backed into the street, and headed slowly and cautiously out of the neighborhood. The excitement was behind him—literally and figuratively. Ahead there was an unplanned future, a world of possibilities. It was time to start over, to change his name and embrace the world of semiretirement. Maybe he’d open a small bar somewhere, maybe in Florida. On a beach. Some place where he could see people coming from a good distance. That sounded like a plan, one of the best he’d ever had.

  But he knew that, in the back of his mind, he would always be on the lookout for that blonde …

  “You know what I have to do,” Caine said. He wanted Lenna to be prepared. She wasn’t helpless, but she wasn’t a Hunter. He wouldn’t worry so much if she would show some of the legendary temper for which she was famous, but hell, he hadn’t seen any real temper in her at all. Maybe it was all a hoax. In general, she was as reasonable as he could have asked; stubborn, but reasonable, so long as he defined reasonable as not being nasty-tempered, because she didn’t step back from her chosen position much at all.

  “You have to let Esma find me,” she said, no fear at all in her blue gaze as she looked up at him. “I know.”

  “Yes. I’ll have to get far enough away from you that you’re unshielded. But we get to choose the place and the time. We get to choose your position, and mine. You have to be ready to fight as hard as you’ve ever fought.”

  “I have faith in Esma. I do. She’s one of mine.”

  “She might not want to hurt you, but never forget that she’s a Hunter first. And what if she isn’t the Hunter who first targets your energy? We have no way of knowing how many there are, or who they are. One of us has to retrieve the Moon card from Esma—whatever we have to do—then I’ll get to you. Somehow, if I have to destroy everything in my path, I will get to you, and we’ll teleport to Aeonia.”

  She nodded, accepting. This could be a death trap, for both of them. It didn’t matter, because they had no choice. Lenna had to go back to Aeonia.

  “Are you ready?” he asked, though the question was rhetorical. They had talked about this, they’d planned as best they could, and nothing was to be gained by putting off the inevitable. She nodded, made sure the bag that held the cards was securely fastened and draped crosswise across her body. Caine had reinforced the strap so it couldn’t be cut, even with a Hunter’s knife.

  He put his arms around her, kissed her, and while they were still kissing teleported them to one of the abandoned factories they’d searched when they’d been looking for Markham. Not much had changed, though it was daylight now instead of dark. All the snow had melted, but the air was still cold and the empty buildings and lots looked even more decrepit in bright sunlight than they did at night.

  So far as they knew, the senator’s body hadn’t been found yet. If it had been, the police were staying very quiet about it, and given all the hoopla over Elijah and the fact that the senator was a person of interest in Amber Tilley’s murder, secrecy wasn’t very likely. They were some distance away from where they’d found him, because Lenna hadn’t wanted to be anywhere near the ugly energy that had lingered around him.

  The inside of the abandoned building was stale and icy cold; dust motes floated in the shafts of sunlight. Caine looked around, selecting their best positions. They each needed not to be taken from behind, and they needed to restrict the directions from which they would be attacked. Neither of them doubted there would be a fight; the biggest unknown was how many Hunters would come.

  She stood in his arms, her eyes closed as she nestled against him. He was oddly reluctant to move away from her, and going by the way she clung to him she was just as reluctant. Then she opened her eyes and looked up at him with an expression he couldn’t quite read. It might be longing … or regret. Or … he didn’t dare examine all the ors that passed through his mind.

  “Don’t drop the shield just yet,” she murmured. “I have something to say before …”

  “Before all hell breaks loose?” he finished for her when she stumbled.

  She sighed, then nodded. “I don’t know what will happen next. I know what I want to happen, but life is uncertain, more uncertain than I ever realized. You …”

  She stopped speaking again, as if she had lost her words, as if that was even possible for someone like her.

  “You …” she began again, only to hit the same stumbling block. Judging by the expression on her face, what she wanted to say, what she couldn’t bring herself to say, was better left unsaid, anyway.

  She took a deep breath, steeled herself, and took a step away from him. Caine held out his hand. “Give me one of the cards.” It was a command, not a suggestion.

  Her eyebrows lifted slightly.

  “If Esma appears and touches you, you have the deck and she has the Moon. Together, you complete the deck. She can teleport you to Veton. Do you trust him with the d