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“If you say the word asbestos to me, so help me God, I will kick your tiny ass from here to next month. ”
“Uhhhh…”
“You were going to say asbestos, weren’t you?”
I smiled sheepishly. “Maybe. ”
“Asbestos won’t make a building collapse. ”
“I’m sorry, did I miss the secret structural engineering degree in your past?”
He rolled his eyes. “Is there any danger of them finding the pieces of those vampires? Anything to make it look like there are bodies in the rubble?”
“Once the sun comes up, the parts will be gone. If there’s any blood, that stays, but the body parts will poof. Even if they’re intact when they start moving rubble, it disappears so quickly they won’t find anything. ” I fanned my hands out to mimic dust spreading in the wind. “And the blood could be from anything, right? It’s not out of the question for bad things to happen in abandoned buildings in this city. Definitely nothing to build a case on. ”
He tapped his pen thoughtfully, and across the floor the interrogation room opened. Mercedes held the door, and a uniformed officer retrieved Holden from inside, taking him down a hall and out of sight.
Cedes shut the folder in her hand and traipsed across the work floor. After pulling up a chair from the desk next to Tyler’s, she plopped down and faced him, pretending I wasn’t there.
“So Chancery claims they were out for a walk when they heard something inside the building. The building was scheduled for demolition tomorrow—”
“No it wasn’t,” Tyler interjected flatly. “There’s no goddamn way that’s true. ”
“Whether or not you believe it, there’s paperwork to back it up. I just had this faxed over from a night clerk at city hall who was none too pleased with me for cashing in a favor. ”
Cedes handed him what I could only assume was a demolition work order. An order that probably hadn’t existed two hours ago. It helped to have friends in high—or low—places.
“So what, we’re saying that on entering the building they accidentally triggered existing demolition charges?”
Cedes nodded, and Tyler let out an aggravated sigh. “Well…that sounds like a steaming pile of horseshit to me. But it’s a hell of a lot better than what this one was going to suggest. ”
Cedes acknowledged my existence at last. “Asbestos?”
“Guilty. ”
“Don’t say the g-word in here,” Cedes scolded. “Look, we have to book you guys for trespassing and damaging private property. Nothing too major, but it’s going on your record. ”
“Hot damn! I’ve been trying to get something on my record for eons. Apparently the worse the crime, the harder it is to get arrested for it. ” I beamed at her. “I assume we’ll need to pay for the damages, and someone will have to post bail?”
“You got it,” Cedes said. “That going to be a problem?”
“Not if you give me my one phone call. ”
As luck would have it I had my fair share of multimillionaires and people with deep pockets to call. There was a time I’d have defaulted to calling my ex-boyfriend/werewolf husband Lucas Rain. After all, who was better than a billionaire when you needed cash fast?
But I didn’t want to owe anything to Lucas if I could avoid it. I’d asked my last favor of him when my mother showed up in town, and now that it was done, I didn’t want anything else to do with him. I certainly didn’t want to be in debt to him for hundreds of thousands of dollars. It wasn’t the fear of owing him money, but rather being symbolically shackled to him any more than I already was.
Which meant there was only one man I could reach out to and not come out in the red at the end.
I wish I hadn’t been in a holding cell when Sig came through the front doors of the police station. I’d seen how dazzled Barbie had been by Holden during previous visits, and if Holden was impressive, Sig was a force to be reckoned with.
Barbie wouldn’t have stood a chance. She’d probably been reduced to a foaming puddle of drool in the lobby. Sig just had that effect on women. And a lot of men, too, I was willing to bet. He was six-foot-seven and a towering ode to Scandinavian hotness. Lean, blond, with piercing blue eyes and the power to woo with the smallest gesture, Sig was a hell of a man.
He was also the true Tribunal leader, and held the council’s purse strings, so he would be able to get Holden and me out, and pay for the building too. There was no way to know how much the council had paid in the past to cover up the things vampires had done in the city or around the world.
Keeping a secret like ours wasn’t easy—or cheap—but the council had spent centuries amassing wealth. Everything from stock holdings—getting in on both Microsoft and Apple when they went public had helped—to long-term, high-interest savings accounts and bonds, the council was set. Super set. They hid their wealth under the radar by maintaining accounts in different names and foreign countries, but if it were all added up, the vampires would have the gross income of a midsized country.
With almost none of the debt.
