but I told you what needed to happen before you’re released to go back on schedule. You’re going to have to go talk with Mary and get a mental health clearance from her. Then you’re going to take a couple of nights off until the Fade Ceremony. After that, we’ll reassess.”
Boone dropped his voice because he didn’t want to be overtly insubordinate. “There’s nothing in the handbook that requires—”
“There doesn’t have to be.” Tohrment turned his back to his Brothers and likewise got quiet. “I already made one mistake with you. I’m not making another.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You should never have been out in the field last night. You were distracted for good reason because of where your sire was, and I knew that, but it slipped through the cracks.”
“I took down a slayer just fine.”
Tohrment leaned in, his navy blue eyes nearly black. “You could have gotten killed because you forgot your vest. If you’d been stabbed in the heart and bled out, or had been mortally wounded by a bullet, it would have been on my conscience for the rest of my life—and no offense, that particular car trunk is full enough already without my trying to squeeze in baggage with your name on it.”
Boone opened his mouth. Shut it. Opened it again.
But damn it, what could he argue now?
“You don’t understand,” Boone muttered. “I’m going to lose my mind if I have to sit in that house and stew about—”
“You can help me.”
Boone glanced over at Butch. “With the death at Pyre?”
“Yeah. Bring me over to your cousins, and then we’ll go check the club out.” The Brother held his palm up to Tohr. “He’ll be with me the whole time. I’ll take care of him and accept all responsibility for his welfare.”
When Tohr looked like he was going to argue, the other Brother kept talking. “Come on, man, it’s not out in the field. We’re not going to be looking for the enemy, and before you throw out a line about the risk of us tripping over something we might have to do something about, unless you put him on house arrest, he’s liable to meet a lesser or shadow anywhere in the city—just like anybody else. I’ll make sure nothing happens to him, and have some pity on the kid. You wouldn’t want to be locked up with nothing to do under his circumstances, either.”
“I won’t take any chances,” Boone rushed in. “I’ll do whatever he tells me to.”
“It’s also a good opportunity to share basic investigation protocols.” Butch shrugged. “It’s a skill the trainees should have in case they get called in to respond to a crime. Like how not to disturb a scene. What to watch out for. How to document. There’s a legitimate training benefit.”
Tohr crossed his arms over his chest and cursed. And that was when Boone knew he was going to be allowed to help.
At just that moment, his phone went off with a text. Checking what had been sent, he turned the screen to face the Brothers.
“This is from my third cousin. He’ll see us later tonight.”
“Then let’s go to Pyre first.” Butch took out his phone and dialed something, then held the unit out to Boone. “Here’s the call that came in last night. Listen to it, and you can try that number again while I drive. I’ve already left a message once and no one’s gotten back to me.”
Boone glanced at Tohr as he took what was being offered to him. Putting the Samsung to his ear, he offered a conciliatory smile to the Brother.
Tohr pointed a finger in Boone’s face. “You get yourself killed doing this and I’m going to strangle you again even though you’re already dead. Are we clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Boone said as the recording kicked in. “Crystal clear—”
All at once, the world receded, his senses and awareness supplanted by the sound of a female’s desperate voice.
. . . Hello? Hello . . . I need help—oh, God, she’s dead. She’s . . . dead just like the other one . . .
* * *
Twenty minutes later, Butch pulled his best friend’s R8 V10 Performance Plus into a parallel parking spot downtown. The car was murdered, everything blacked out, and it was sleek as a space shuttle, capable of reaching Millennium Falcon speeds in spite of the fact that it weighed as much as Rhage. The thing was also a dinosaur in the best sense of the word, a throwback to the big-engined