a history, and I found it before Reach did."
I dropped the shell into the garbage and leaned over his shoulder, reading the file as I chewed and swallowed the egg. "What is Greyson Labs?"
The kid grinned up at me. "It's the company that paid the salary of Ramondo Pitri, the man you killed in Asheville."
I stopped chewing, and said, "And you figured this out how?"
"I tracked down Pitri's bank records and got a look at his pay stubs. Greyson designs cancer-fighting drugs." He was grinning ear to ear and it was an amazing piece of detective work, but it wasn't much on its own.
"So, is this laboratory tied in to the mob?" Pitri had known New York mob affiliations, with one of the major families there. "Or into the vamps in some way? And how did you . . . You didn't hack into a bank, did you?"
Eli went nearly as still as a vamp. The kid just grinned, and I felt a rubbery dismay waggle down my neck. When he saw our reactions, he laughed. "No. I didn't hack a bank. I could if I wanted to, but it was a lot easier than that." Eli remembered to breathe and I shook my head. "Pitri had a few contacts on social media," Alex said, "and I tracked him through them. I'm tracking Greyson on the international financial markets now, but it's a little slippery. If we can find the top shareholder or owner of the company, we might have your big, bad disease-producing vamp."
"I'll need more than a possibility and a name to take to Leo, and way more than a possibility to act," I said.
"I'll get more and put all current info into a report for you. It'll be ready by lunch and I'll update it as I find new intel." He looked at his brother. "There will be lunch, right? Not just eggs?"
"Protein," Eli grunted. When he did, the iron-hard six-pack abs flexed, visible behind the sweaty tee. Wall dust filtered off him. I considered whether he'd end up with a nickname. Most people of my acquaintance got nicknames, but nothing fit yet. Alex was still in contention for Stinky-Boy, but Kid was slowly migrating to the top of the list.
"I'll pick up steak," I said.
Eli grunted approval, and I figured that grunts made up about seventy percent of the brothers' communication skills. The Kid shook his head. "Pizza? Pasta? A can of Chef Boyardee ravioli?" he asked. When neither of us bit, he sighed and went back to his electronic search. Moments later the printer started. I left the house on my bastard Harley, Bitsa, and picked up groceries. Steak, salad stuff, oatmeal, beer, milk, picked out a national brand of coffee, and a couple of cans of ravioli for the Kid. If he took a shower without me asking again, he got a treat. I figured it might be a lot like training a dog, but I knew next to nothing about raising boys, and what scant knowledge I did have was gleaned from children's home kids who thrived on rebellion, so maybe I was oversimplifying. I tucked the food into the saddlebags and bungee-corded the beer to the seat for the ride back to the house.
Riding slowly, I rested my bones and my mind, feeling the stress of the last few days in the tightness of my muscles and knowing the next few days might get worse. We had a company name that might - might - be connected to the attacks.
Which made me think of Bruiser. No one had called to tell me how he was. Worried about him, about his humanity, I dialed his number, and was shunted to voice mail. "Hey, uh, you know. Um. If you're alive, uh, call me." I looked at the screen and said, "It's Jane." I closed the phone, thinking, Lame. I am so lame.
It was four p.m. when I got back to the house, and upper-eighties, but it's always hot in New Orleans. It was November and it still felt like summer. Though locals had assured me that it gets cold in the winter, I'd yet to see any season but hot, so I didn't really believe it. Muggy, damp, and miserable, yes; cold, no. I kicked off my shoes and unpacked the groceries, to the happy sound of shower water running upstairs. When the water went off, I nuked a bowl of ravioli and met the Kid at the bottom of the stairs with