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My throat feels thick. “But it did.”
“You shouldn’t have gone home…”
“Because she’d still be alive,” I snap, the guilt smothering me. “I know! Don’t think that I don’t know that!”
“Easy, Lenore,” he says, gesturing with his cigar for me to calm down. “That’s not what I meant. At all. I meant that you put yourself at risk. You shouldn’t be going anywhere, you shouldn’t even be in that hotel. I told your parents as much, but they’re stubborn just like you.”
His words bring me out of my guilt, and I snap to attention. “What? You’ve talked to my parents?”
“I had to,” he says grimly.
I bli
nk at him, incredulous. The idea of him talking to my parents is insane. They are not friends, they are not on talking terms. “They tried to kill you.”
“I’m aware,” he says. “But they were protecting you. Regardless, when you were sleeping, I had to let them know you were okay. Wouldn’t have been very nice otherwise. I called your father. He’s a little easier to handle than your mother.”
“What did you say?”
“I told them what happened. The truth. About Atlas, about Elle. And I told them you’d be staying here with me.”
My eyes widen, imagining how they would have reacted to that. “That could not have gone down well.”
He sighs tiredly, tapping his cigar into the ashtray. “Not at first. They want to be there for you while you grieve.” My heart sinks, needing my mother’s arms around me in this moment. “But in the end, they know you’re safest with me. I know they hate the idea, and your father will keep the hotel room for you, to give you options, but they can’t help you anymore.”
“But you can?” I give him a pointed look.
“You know I can.” He sticks the cigar back in his mouth, fangs showing.
“So…what about Elle? Surely people wonder where she is?”
He nods. “She was reported missing by her roommate later that night. The whole city is looking for her. Ezra hacked both your Facebook accounts to erase any recent correspondence, including anything since you turned.”
I frown. “But that includes our lunch.”
“I’m sorry. Couldn’t let it stand. They’d then ask around at the restaurant and Hector would say we were there. Better to erase it then to have them sniffing around me as a murder suspect.”
“Well, I’m sure you could compel whoever investigated you.”
He gives me a wry look. “I could. But why invite complication into your life?”
“I don’t know. Seems like the moment I met you, my life’s been nothing but a complication.”
He gives me a brief smile. “They probably will contact you at some point though, I’m sure they’re going through all her friends. Be much easier if they already had a suspect.”
“We know who killed her.”
“We do. But Atlas has a dark history. He’s not sticking around here. His mother killed his father, she later killed herself, and his stepfather was found drowned in a lake in Seattle. Regardless of if what happened to Elle was an accident or not, he’s not stupid. At least we can rest a bit easier knowing he won’t step back into this city.”
“You really think I’ll rest easier?”
He shakes his head. “No.” He gets up. “Do you want a drink?”
“What time is it?”
“Time is a construct,” he says, going over to a table with a bottle of Scotch on it, along with two glasses.
I sigh. “I guess.”
