put her hand on her heart and massaged the pain there. She was going to have to get used to a perpetual heavy weight behind her sternum again, wasn’t she.
As she thought about that secret lab and what had been done to innocents there … she prayed that there were no other vampires held in captivity by other research companies.
Dear God, what if there were? How would anyone know, though. Kraiten had been careful to keep what he’d been doing a secret, and so had the people who had worked in the lab. Other corporations would do the same.
With a curse, she looked up at the ceiling and thought of Gerry at his desk in his study above. She had spoken the truth about him to Agent Manfred: Gerry had never told her what he was working on. Never once.
And not even in the evidence he left behind after his death: None of it, after all, had been directed toward her or left for her.
Getting to her feet, she went across to the door into the basement and descended into the cool dark cellar. When she got to the bottom, she flipped the switch.
The fluorescent lights on the low-slung rafters flickered to life and she glanced at the remnants of her college days in those containers. Then she went in the opposite direction away from all that, over to the washer and dryer. Bending down, she pulled the lower panel under the dryer loose and put it aside. With a stretch, she reached in, all the way to the back, pushing through dust bunnies.
She took out the USB drive Gerry had left in the safety deposit box. The credentials that had been with it, the ones she had used to get into her own lab, had been left in Doc Jane’s office area back at the training center—an oversight on her part when she’d been packing up her clothes, one that she’d only noticed earlier in the day.
What did they matter now, though?
Next to the washer/dryer was a shallow wooden worktable that had never been used by her or Gerry. Putting the USB drive on it, she looked around for something hammer-like.
Over on the floor, there was a gallon of Benjamin & Moore latex paint left over from when she and Gerry had done the downstairs. A full gallon.
She picked up the can and held it over her head.
Then she slammed the flat bottom of the thing down on the drive.
Over and over again.
In the dining room of the Audience House, after all the hugging was done, John Matthew took up res next to Butch, the former homicide cop, and Vishous, who as usual had lit up a hand-rolled. Wrath and George had returned to armchair position to the left of the fireplace, and Saxton, the King’s solicitor, was at the desk off to one side. Apart from the Brotherhood and other fighters, there was one further notable addition to the group. Abalone, the King’s First Advisor. From what John understood, the male had deep roots in the aristocracy, but he was a good guy, the opposite of those tight-ass, judgmental types that typically propagated the glymera.
His blooded daughter had even gone through the training program, and was mated, with the male’s blessing, to a civilian.
There was no one else in Audience House, other than the receptionist. Unusual, given that it was the start of the evening. Civilians were typically lined up in the waiting room, ready to present their issues to the King.
“Sire,” Abalone said with a bow to Wrath, “with your permission, I will bring your subject in?”
“Yeah. We’re ready.”
Abalone passed through the open doors and disappeared into the waiting room. When he came back, he had a male with him whom John recognized.
“May I present Rexboone, blooded son of Altamere.”
Boone, as the male was known, bowed deeply even though Wrath could not see him. “Thank you for allowing me to come, my Lord.”
The guy was built big and strong, and was classically handsome in a clean-cut kind of way, reminding John of the marble figures in the Hall of Statues back at the house. He’d gone through the training center’s program and not made a lot of waves, a quiet, watchful presence who, as John understood, had done particularly well in physical challenges.
But other than that, John didn’t know much, although he wasn’t on the ground floor of the training program, either.
“What can we do you for,” Wrath said as he bent down and picked up George.