"How did you find me so quickly?" Despite her question, she didn't really seem all that surprised to see him there.
He shrugged. "It wasn't all that hard to guess where you might go." He hesitated, hearing movement inside the house. Footsteps, receding slightly. "Suzy's obviously home."
She grimaced. "Yeah. And she's not alone. Can we get out of here?"
"Why? What have you done now?" From inside the house came an odd sound — like someone was scuffling around on the floor. He glanced down at the weapon in her hand. Obviously, she'd used it to immobilize one of Suzy's companions.
"They attacked me. I defended myself." She hesitated, her bright gaze searching his face, lingering a little on the side that held the bruises. "You can't go in there."
"Why not?" Given he was supposed to be in charge of the investigation against her, he was duty bound to go inside. Of course, he and duty weren't often the companions they were supposed to be — not that she knew that.
She hesitated. Deciding, he guessed, whether or not he could be trusted. Something he had a feeling wouldn't happen fully unless he reciprocated. And that wasn't going to happen any time soon. Hell, the only people he completely trusted were his twin and his immediate family.
"I've asked Suzy to arrange a meeting with Jack. If either of them suspects your mob is involved, they won't come."
By "your mob" she obviously meant SIU rather than the Federation, as very few people knew of his involvement with the Federation. But such a meeting could prove very interesting indeed. At the very least, it might just prove how much Kazdan, and ultimately Sethanon, knew about the Federation's infiltration of the SIU.
"Kazdan's smart enough to realize the SIU would have to be involved. He'd be more suspicious if I wasn't there."
She tilted her head slightly, her expression a mix of curiosity and dislike. "You don't like him."
And that was obviously a mark in her bad books, despite the fact that Jack had tried to kill her. "No. I don't," he said, a little sharper than intended.
She raised a pale eyebrow. He rubbed a hand across his rough jaw, wondering where the sudden rush of anger had come from. "Look, I've got a cab waiting out front." He'd arranged for one to be here, so she wouldn't question how he'd arrived. "I think we need to go somewhere and talk."
She nodded. "Preferably somewhere with food. I'm starved."
If she thought it strange he was using a cab rather than an official car, she certainly didn't mention it. "Fine. But first, tell me who's in there with Suzy."
Her hesitation was brief, but nevertheless there. He couldn't say he entirely blamed her. So far, he'd given her no real reason to trust him.
"Two vampires. Guards, I presume."
And somehow, she'd bested not one, but two of them. Something no human should have been capable of — even when armed with a Holcroft laser. The human eye and brain just weren't designed to assimilate the speed with which a vampire could move. That was why most humans thought vampires could disappear into shadows. Fact was, they couldn't and didn't. Humans just couldn't see their movements.
Usually, the only vampires killed by humans were the newly turned, the careless, or those so fed up with eternal afterlife they virtually committed suicide. From what he'd seen of Kazdan, the two guards he'd sent with his wife would be the best. Yet Sam had beaten them.
Maybe Karl was right after all.
"Why did you leave them alive?"
Her eyes widened and color leeched from her face, only to be quickly replaced by a flush that spoke of anger. Her fingers clenched and unclenched around the laser. He watched her warily. Her psych profile suggested her hatred against vampires ran so deep that her response when confronted by one would be to shoot first and ask questions later.
She might have shot, but she didn't kill. A huge difference.
"I wanted to give Jack some reason to trust me."
"If it wasn't for Jack, would you have killed them?"
She glared at him. "What do you think?"
He thought not. Somehow, the profile and the computers had gotten it wrong. She might hate them, but she wouldn't kill them, not unless forced to. As she had been forced to kill Kazdan's clone.
"I think it's time we get something to eat." He stepped back and motioned her to go first.
After a moment, she did. The bright yellow cab waited out front, stopped right behind an old caddy with darkly tinted windows. A vamp wagon, if he ever saw one. He frowned slightly, studying the car as he opened the cab door for her. When he'd walked past it earlier, he could have sworn he'd felt heat coming from the engine. But that didn't make sense — not if the two men inside were vampires.
"Did the vamps arrive in that car?"