Читать книгу Bound By The Night - Меган Харт - Страница 18

Chapter 9

Bastard, Monica thought, even though she knew she’d deserved it. Why did she seem to pick only the men who got bent out of shape about what could be pure and simple passion if only they’d let it? She was still bruised and tingling from the ravishment Jordan had so delightfully provided on his dining room table only an hour or so before, but though her body was sated, her mind was anything but. She’d tried to sleep but couldn’t, and for once, not because she was afraid of the nightmares.

She’d been watching from the window to catch a glimpse of him coming back, but so far, nothing. Instead, she sat on her uncomfortable couch and made more lists. She’d signed in to the Crew database again to compare what she’d been able to find out with what others had logged in their experiences. So far, not much was making sense. Then again, not much ever did.

Dark had fallen, and with her window cracked, she could hear the familiar far-off noises of the animals in their habitats and night-active insects. Low-grade anxiety plagued her. A crackle of tension, as though there was an oncoming storm. Or maybe it was simply that she’d been here two days already and hadn’t figured out what she was looking for.

Or she was fooling herself, she admitted reluctantly, and her need to pace was directly related to the man who still hadn’t come back from his run.

Jordan Leone was trouble. Bad news. Which was probably why she wanted him again, Monica thought with a sigh and a smile so twisted it almost hurt. She rubbed at her face and tried to shake off the lingering feeling of his touch, but all she could think about was the way his mouth tasted.

She wasn’t going to accomplish anything this way. No amount of note taking or database studying could help her if she didn’t get out there in the field and do her own research. DiNero had hired her for a job, and she meant to do it—because the sooner she found out what had been killing his animals, the sooner she could get out of here and away from Jordan.

She put on a pair of thick khaki work pants with a lot of pockets and her heavy waterproof hiking boots, laced tight over thick socks. Her knife went on her belt, along with several others in different utility pouches. She tucked a notepad and pen sealed inside a plastic waterproof pouch into a pocket. She added a flashlight and a package of matches, both waterproof, and a small wax candle. A couple granola bars and a bottle of water went in another. They weighed her down, especially the water, but she’d spent forty-eight hours in a pitch-black cave, desperate enough to drink just about anything; she never went on any scouting mission without at least a minimum of supplies.

Finally, she pulled her hair into a tight tail at the base of her neck, threw on a baseball cap and shrugged into a denim jacket. She’d be sweating in seconds the moment she stepped outside, but the protection for her arms and upper body would be worth it. She didn’t have a map of the menagerie, but DiNero had laid it out to be easily navigated, so it wasn’t as if she had to figure out a maze. All she had to do was follow the paths.

She knew how to move quietly, though she wasn’t trying to be sneaky. She paused at the first cage she came to, peeking inside at the flashing eyes of the silver fox. It yipped softly at her and came close to the bars of the cage, but Monica didn’t reach to pet it. She crooned to it gently, though, watching the fox’s ears flick forward and back.

“You’re okay, pretty girl,” Monica said and moved on.

She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, exactly, just that she’d exhausted her resources and needed to come at this from a different angle. She’d worked on a team once that had set a bait trap, something she hesitated to do because it meant sacrificing an innocent living creature. She didn’t think DiNero would go for it anyway, at least not with one of his pets. Which meant what, she thought as she walked, waiting for another attack?

Fortifying the walls could work to prevent another slaughter, but it was no guarantee. It also meant they’d never find out what had been doing it, unless the thing showed up someplace else...like a playground, Monica thought with a shudder. Sour bile painted her tongue at the thought of a case where the Crew had successfully managed to chase off a Chimera that had been repeatedly ransacking a poultry-processing plant, only to have the thing show up in the backyard of a nearby day-care center. She hadn’t been on that team, but everyone had heard about it. The news had said it was a pit-bull attack.

That was why, she thought as she moved on, people like Jordan didn’t believe.

Following the curving brick path, she caught sight of DiNero’s house. Lights blazing. The sounds of a party inside. She hadn’t been invited, didn’t care. She paused, though, to admire the mansion and wonder what it was like to have so much money you could drop a few grand without a second thought. Most of what DiNero was paying her went back to the Crew to fund travel and other expenses, but she got her fair share. It wouldn’t buy her a mansion but it was enough, as Carl would’ve said, to keep her in Cheetos and beer.

For a moment, grief rose in her throat, choking her. Her husband had been full of sayings like that. Most of them had made her laugh, even when his tendency to try to make everything a joke was making her angry. Suddenly, fiercely, but not unexpectedly, she missed him with a deep and wretched longing that would slaughter her faster than any monster ever could—if she succumbed to it.

There, right there, she almost did. She almost went to her knees on the bricks and wept. It was too hard, sometimes, to keep herself from giving in to sorrow. She had ways to manage the terror that came from the dreams that were really memories, but this...oh, this was something else, and nothing could make it pass but time.

Monica did not go to her knees, though she did close her eyes against the burning slide of tears. At the taste of salt, she let out a low, shuddering sigh. She rode the pain for a moment or two before steeling herself and shaking it off.

Carl had died, and nothing could bring him back. The most she could do was honor him by doing her best to prevent more death. And that was exactly what she intended to do here.