to admire the audacity. If someone killed her cousin to run the Pack, and made a point of being extremely findable afterward, she knew she would instantly rethink strategy. She would assume the new guy wanted to be found, was making a point of it, which made the whole thing smell like a trap. “In fact, you want other vampires to find you. To pay homage or just acknowledge your sovereignty and . . . and . . . what do they do?”
“Drop off bags of blood oranges.” The queen sighed. “Regular oranges symbolize the death of Christ. Blood oranges symbolize the rise of the new ruler, the one who rules after Christ and will for thousands of years. Which, um, is me.”
“Okay.”
“I know how it sounds.”
“Okay.”
“Because first of all, gross, blood oranges? What scary-ass universe did those come from? And second, lame. And third, lame. But! That’s the newsletter story. And hey! I never did get those shoes back from you.”
“Sorry, I was busy with my first-ever kill.”
“Oh, jeez, Roberta!”
“Rachael.” It’s uncanny how the woman is so bad at names.
“Yeah, I know, I was just testing you. How long are you gonna flog that as an excuse? ‘Boo-hoo, I had to shed Pack blood in defense of my den, yadda-yadda.’ You’re lucky you broke her neck, because if she’d bled on those shoes, you and I would be having a very different conversation right now. You know, I got those at a sample sale? And normally I don’t like sample sales, because I think it sets up an unfair advantage . . .”
This woman is either brilliant or deranged. And either way, she’s got good people, which for a leader is more than half the battle.
Brilliant.
“—like anyone could just pop into the store and buy them straight off the rack like that! ‘No way,’ I said. You can’t—”
No. Deranged.
“—get outta town with that shit! Of course, he got all kinds of pissy when I knocked him off the roof. He only fell six stories and the parking ramp broke his fall, so I don’t—”
No. Brilliant.
Fifty-one
“Wait, wait, wait. She went crazy? Mrs. Cain just up and went bonzo nutso and arranged for someone to start killing random strangers and that’s it? That’s the explanation? Because that sucks, Rache. Bad enough it’s about audits.” Edward turned to Nick Berry. “You believe that? Audits. I’m an accountant, and I still almost don’t believe it.”
“Almost?”
“Mmmmm . . . audits can be pretty nasty. But still . . . man, have some perspective!”
She nodded. “I know, honey. When you put innocent lives up against cold numbers, it doesn’t seem just wasteful. Sinful, if you’ll pardon an old-fashioned reference.”
“A classic,” Detective Berry said. When told of Rachael’s smoothie boycott, the laid-back cop had taken a stroll over to the hobbit hole to tie up the loose ends he’d been mulling over.
Rachael hadn’t been at all surprised. In fact, she’d been counting on it . . . Call Me Jim had met Berry at the door with a plate of peanut butter brownies. The pitcher of ice cold milk hadn’t hurt, either.
Now he was on the sherbet porch, wolfing down brownies and peppering her with questions. Even though it wasn’t his jurisdiction, a cop was a cop. And every one Rachael had met had curiosity bumps the size of railroad cars.
“Wait. Wait. Wait.” Nick had stuffed the last of the brownie in his mouth and was holding up both hands like a cop who has just realized he can’t control rush hour in Boston. “Let’s get back to the motive, please. This whole thing. This sinister conspiracy? The murders? Getting Rachael sent to the wilds of Minnesota—”
“St. Paul has a population of about three hundred thousand,” Rachael corrected mildly. “I don’t think wilds is the right word. And despite how it looks, Michael chose me to come out here. No one influenced his decision. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”
“—was all so two guys no one but you ever met could avoid an audit?”
Rachael nodded. “Makes sense.”
Nick rounded on her even as he snaked another brownie off the plate. “What? These things are gonna kill me. You eat like this all the time? Will your landlords let me move in, too? And again: what?”
“Well, it does make sense, from a numbers perspective. You’ve never sat through an IRS audit.”
“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I’ve been in homicide for years. Except I am,” he admitted. “I am surprised. I am very surprised. Murder to avoid