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The description of the perpetrators was spot-on.
So when did the second part happen, Xhex wondered.When did I step in?
A sixth sense sent her back into the security footage, and she went to change camera feeds—
There she was. Standing at the head of the hallway. Looking down to the exit the males had taken the woman through. The expression on her face was so intense, it was a wonder the force of aggression didn’t knock her out of her boots. She even took a step forward—
T’Marcus caught her, tapping her on the shoulder. There was a quick conversation—
“I remember…” she said aloud as she watched herself. “The altercation in the wait line last night.”
It felt good to be able to recall a concrete event from those hours: Two men who had been posturing out in front of the club had ended up brawling it up, and though her bouncers had separated them, one of the assailants had popped a knife and used it on the other guy. EMS had been on its way. The police, too.
And Xhex was the contact for the club.
So she had gone to deal with everything—but if she hadn’t? Maybe the woman would have been spared…
Had she done a bad thing? Really? Then again, that wasn’t the point. Her total amnesia was the problem—because what if she picked the wrong victim some night?
Like that new hire, for fuck’s sake.
Refocusing on the gray-toned footage, she watched herself look back down to the exit one last time. After that, she turned and walked off with T’Marcus.
Xhex stopped the feed and leaned back in her chair. What about the bastard’s buddy? Had she killed him, too? Her head started to pound as she glanced to the screen again. The last thing she wanted to do was spend even a second more with the security feeds, and the fucking cameras, and this choking sense of failure she had going on.
But she was not going to find any resolution until she saw her own actions.
This time, when she resumed scanning the footage, she was tracking herself. She followed herself around for—how long was it? Hours, for sure, the counters in the corner of the screen ticking by in a blur as she fast-forwarded: There she was, dealing with the fallout of the stabbing in the wait line, handling the police, fielding other issues with her staff—
And then she went here, to her office.
Before she entered, she looked around, as if she didn’t want to be followed. Then she ducked in. And that was that because there weren’t cameras in here.
Three minutes, twenty-one seconds. That was how long she was inside here. When she reemerged in the video, she had her leather jacket on, and she was decisive in her movements. She strode down the hall and out of view—so time to switch feeds to the one that was in the northeast quadrant of the interior’s open area.
Resuming the tracking from another position, Xhex continue to follow herself, noting the way she moved, with head down, shoulders straight, and lower body in a confident, pointed stride. As she made her way through the dwindling number of patrons, there was plenty of space, no reason to pivot around humans in her way… as she closed in on someone.
It was so clear that she had a finish line, her gaze never wavering—and she even ignored T’Marcus when he tried to approach her: The bar. She went to the bar… to a pair of masculine figures, one tall, one short, both with dark hair.
The male who had drugged that woman turned around like Xhex said something to him. And those eyes of his went to the floor and traveled back up her body.
He smiled as if he were ready for another fun time.
Xhex left with the two males a mere four minutes and twelve seconds later.
Sitting back once again, she stared at the footageshe’d frozen. It was of that back door by the bathrooms, the one he’d used to take the blond woman out earlier in the evening.
The one she was using to lure the males into the darkness.
She must have killed his friend, too… but where was the other body…?
No one had reported anybody missing yet. Vishous had checked that back at the Pit. But those kinds of things could take a little time to develop, depending on who the shorter male had lived with and what kind of job he had. People weren’t always missed right after they disappeared.
And if Chinless had been left for dead somewhere outside? Even if it was cold, or overcast, a vampire body would go up in flames as soon as daylight arrived, nothing but a scorched spot on the asphalt remaining.
She could always go to the location where Tohr had reported finding the male whose remains were in the morgue. Maybe there was a burn mark somewhere around there. Maybe there wasn’t.
The details weren’t the issue anymore.
