H2O? Forget about it. Somewhere he had heard that there were sharks at the mouth of the Mississippi that were capable of surviving in freshwater.
So therefore, it was possible that a mutant version of one could show up in the Finger Lakes of New York. Or Lake Champlain. Or Lake George.
And yet he had gone camping with her the first month they’d arrived in Ithaca. The pair of them had invested in hiking boots and a tent and some sleeping bags. She had promised him it would be a good time. He hadn’t exactly been thrilled, but he’d known she wanted to go and had been determined to make the best of it.
The weather had been terrible for late August. Rain both days.
They’d laughed about sharks falling from the sky. And this had been before the first Sharknado had come out.
Looking at the dried mud on the sole, it seemed unfathomable that he was gone. That this boot that had been worn so casually and then put away without any mindfulness was now in her hand as a symbol of everything that had been lost when he’d died.
She was touching both their history and their unfulfilled future. And the feelings that came up for her, the sadness and mourning, were so powerful, it was just as the pain had been in the beginning for her, the raw absence of him incomprehensible.
According to the calendar, she had had two years to get used to the death. Why then did it still hurt this badly?
Sarah turned the boot over in her hand—
Something fell out and bounced on the carpet.
Frowning, she pointed her little light source at it, and the warm glow of metal was a surprise.
A key. It was an odd-shaped key.
The painting of a French king slid back on the wall of Darius’s drawing room, revealing, just as it always had, a set of narrow, curving steps that disappeared into earth. A torch, mounted on the stone wall, frothed quietly, casting liquid yellow light over the descent. The smell was the same, candle wax and lemon.
As Murhder stood at the threshold, he told himself to go down, take the bedroom on the right, crash in the bed that he’d used before.
Instead, he looked back over his shoulder. Vishous was at a computer at the receptionist’s desk in the room beyond, the Brother’s black-haired head bent forward in concentration, the hand-rolled between his teeth releasing a faint tendril of smoke, the tattoos at his temple distorted from his frown.
Off in the distance, low voices percolated. And there was the smell of bacon. Someone was making a snack.
Four of the Brothers had stayed behind after Wrath had left. Vishous, Rhage, Phury, and some dark-haired, stocky male who had a scent reminiscent of the King’s. Had to be a blood relation, but other than that, Murhder didn’t know anything. Not even the male’s name.
Vishous had been at the computer for hours now, the three letters that had been handwritten and sent to Murhder fanned out next to him. Naturally, they had been read, and in retrospect, he’d been foolish to think he could hide the request that had been put to him from the people he was asking help of. But at least no one had argued about him searching for that son.
Yet.
Murhder had been mostly in the waiting area, his ass getting numb in spite of the cushioned chair he’d been given. Fritz, Darius’s ancient butler, had been as kind and solicitous as ever, insisting on delivering food which Murhder had eaten without tasting. But that had been how long ago?
The chiming of a grandfather clock, slow and laborious, began out in the foyer. Nine in the morning. With all the drapes in the house pulled and the inside shutters in place, it was impossible to tell day or night.
Murhder looked down the stone steps. Took another deep breath through his nose.
Then he stepped back into the drawing room and retriggered the release on the painting, watching the full-length portrait slide back into place.
Pain lanced through the center of his chest, the grief both unexpected and not surprising. “When did Darius die.”
When there was no answer to his non-question, he walked over to the waiting area’s desk. “Well?”
Vishous sat back in the swivel chair, taking a drag and then tapping the ash off the tip into a mug of cold coffee. “Who says he’s dead?”
“His scent isn’t anywhere in this house. Not even down where he sleeps.”
V shrugged. “Fritz is good with a