House Rules - Chloe Neill Page 0,14

*

I had evidence that might help lead us to Oliver and Eve, but I was about to be forced offline. The sun was our ultimate weakness, an allergy that rendered us permanently nocturnal. This being winter in the Midwest, we were out of the investigation game for the next nine hours.

On the other hand, the members of the Ombud’s office—the Ombuddies, as I preferred to call them—who usually adopted supernaturals’ overnight hours, were at least capable of venturing about in daylight. So I used the fancy electronics in Ethan’s car to dial Jeff’s number, hoping he’d be sympathetic to our predicament.

“Yo,” Jeff answered, his voice ringing through the Bentley’s impeccable stereo system.

“Hey, it’s Merit.”

“Merit. Have you finally decided to ditch the zero and get with the hero?”

Ethan cleared his throat—loudly—while I bit back a smile. I didn’t see anything wrong with reminding Ethan that I had other options. Even if they were slightly goofy options I’d never actually take advantage of.

“Jeff, you’re on speakerphone in Ethan’s car. He’s driving.”

There was an awkward pause.

“And by ‘zero,’” Jeff quickly corrected, “I meant, you know, you should . . . um . . . start liking the White Sox. Go, Sox,” he weakly added, as I was a notorious Cubs fan with an unwavering love of all things Cubbie.

“Hello, Jeffrey,” Ethan dryly said.

Jeff laughed nervously. “Oh, hi, Ethan. Hey, look, it’s Catcher. Catcher, why don’t you join us?”

“Vampires?” Catcher asked, his voice a bit farther away in the room.

“Ethan and Merit,” Jeff confirmed.

Catcher made a sarcastic sound, but whether a snort or grunt was impossible to tell through the phone.

“Trouble?” I wondered.

“I’ve got a River nymph panicking about a zoning change on Goose Island and another who’s panicked some Oak Street shop won’t hold a pair of designer heels until she has time to pick them up. Because that’s the kind of work our office does. We are personal assistants for the supernaturals of Chicago.”

Catcher’s tone was dry, and I sympathized. The River nymphs were petite, busty, and fashionable ladies who controlled the ebb and flow of the Chicago River. They tended toward the dramatic, and they liked expressing that drama in public screaming matches and other shenanigans. Catcher might not have liked listening to their quarrels, petty or not, but he was performing a service by keeping them out of the paper, even if it made him grouchier toward the rest of us. And his baseline level of grouchy was already pretty high.

“I’m sorry about the theatrics,” I said. “And not to add to your plate, but we have a problem. Two of Noah’s Rogues—Oliver and Eve—are missing.”

“We’ve just left the last location where we can place them,” Ethan put in. “Near the registration center in Little Italy.”

“Find anything?” Catcher asked.

“What looks like safety glass and Eve’s cell phone,” I said. “We talked to the doorman across the street, and he saw Oliver and Eve go into the reg center, then come out again and approach a car in the alley. No info about the car’s make or model; he only saw the headlights. Oliver and Eve didn’t come out again. The glass and cell phone were all we found.”

“I’m not sure that bodes well,” Catcher said.

“I’m not sure, either,” I agreed. “But at least they’re clues. The sun, of course, is rising, and we’re on our way back to the House. Is there any way you can get your CPD contacts to look at it during business hours? We’re afraid to wait until tonight.”

“Chuck might have to call in a favor, but we’ll get it done. Maybe leave the goods with the fairies?”

I glanced at Ethan, checking for approval, and he nodded. “We’ll arrange it,” he said.

“Noted. Do we know anything else about these kids?”

“They were generally quiet, hailed from Kansas City,” Ethan said. “They seem to have strong connections among Rogues and are well liked.”

“No enemies?” Catcher wondered. “Even though they decided to register?”

“We wondered the same thing,” Ethan said. “But if there’s trouble in that corner, we don’t know about it.”

“Well, I’m sorry to hear they’re missing. I didn’t know them, but if they were friends of Noah’s, I’m sure they were good people.”

Were, he’d said, as if their fate was a foregone conclusion. But I refused to give up.

“We’ll call you as soon as the sun goes down,” I said. “If you learn anything that explains where they might be, you win the bonus prize for the evening.”

“What’s the bonus prize?”

And that was the problem with spur-of-the-moment offers.