Argeneau Family - The Renegade Hunter Part 21

Jo sighed, but popped the bag to her still-extended teeth. She actually felt a little better after the first bag. She'd been feeling dried out and a little slow in the thinking area since waking, but the one bag had eased some of that. Jo needed all her faculties if she wanted to save Nicholas.

The phone rang as Jo waited for this second bag to empty.

Sam started to move to answer it, but paused when the ringing stopped before she could reach it.

"Mortimer must have grabbed it," she said with a shrug, turning back.

"Here you go."

Jo glanced around as Bricker held out a third bag and then glanced down with surprise to see that the second bag was empty. She tore it away and traded the empty bag for the fresh one and slapped that to her teeth as well. It seemed to go just as quickly as the first two, and Jo had just traded it for the fourth bag when they heard the front door open. Bricker moved to the kitchen door to look up the hall, and she saw the surprise cross his face.

"Thomas," he said, and disappeared from view as he started up the hall, but they heard him say, "What are you doing here?"

They also heard someone answer, "Bastien said Nicholas is back on the radar and I wanted to know how he is and how close you are to catching him. Bastien wouldn't answer any questions though and said I'd have to come out and ask Mortimer myself."

Thomas. Nicholas's brother, Jo realized and unthinkingly ripped the half-empty bag from her teeth, and then cursed when blood squirted everywhere. She tossed the bag in the sink, but didn' t bother about the mess she'd made and hurried up the hall toward the two men in the entry.

Apparently Sam wasn' t too concerned about the mess either, because she was hard on her heels. "I thought you were in England with your life mate," Bricker was saying, a worried frown on his face.

"We travel back and forth a lot on the company jet. It's only seven hours," Thomas answered, glancing curiously to Jo and Sam as they stopped behind Bricker. Raising his eyebrows in question, he said, "h.e.l.lo?"

"You're Nicholas's brother, Thomas?" Jo asked grimly, which made his eyebrows rise even further. They drew down in anger though when she added, "The brother who didn' t doubt for a minute that he was guilty of murder and who won't even acknowledge he ever existed?"

Turning to Bricker, Thomas asked, "Who the h.e.l.l is she?"

"n.o.body," Bricker said at once, taking his arm and trying to urge him toward the door. "You really shouldn't be here, Thomas. Let us deal with-"

"I'm not going anywhere until I find out what the h.e.l.l's going on with Nicholas," Thomas said grimly, shaking off his hand.

"Oh, like you care," Jo said with disgust. "You and everyone else who were supposed to love him turned your backs on Nicholas fifty years ago."

Thomas stared at her with amazement and then turned to Bricker again. "Who is she? And why the h.e.l.l is she barking at me like an annoying Chihuahua?"

"More like a German shepherd I'd say, and her bite is worse than her bark," Nicholas said wearily. They all turned to see him standing at the top of the stairs, peering down at Jo affectionately. And then he frowned and said, "Speaking of which, where is Charlie? "

Jo's eyes widened incredulously as she realized she'd not thought to wonder that herself. She turned to Sam.

"He's at Anders's place," Sam whispered.

Jo's eyes widened even further at this news, but before she could ask why, Thomas had pushed past her to reach the bottom of the stairs, his voice shocked as he said, "Nicholas?

They caught you?"

Jo scowled at the suggestion. "Of course they didn't. He's too smart for that. Nicholas turned himself in... to save me," she added bitterly, and when Thomas glanced to her in surprise, asked, "Does that sound like the actions of a man who'd kill a completely innocent pregnant woman he didn't even know?"

Thomas scowled at her. "No, but then I never thought he did it."

"Then why have you refused to acknowledge his existence all these years?" she snapped.

"I haven't," Thomas said at once, and then frowned. "Who are you?" "My life mate, Jo Willan," Nicholas announced, moving down the stairs with Mortimer and Anders on his heels.

Thomas turned to Jo with amazement. "You're my brother's life mate."

Jo scowled at him and then glanced to Nicholas as he reached the bottom of the stairs. He slid his arm around her and kissed her on the nose. Smiling sadly, he turned to his brother and explained. "I was told you won' t talk about me anymore. I thought it meant you too believed I was guilty."

"I won' t talk about you because it upsets the women," Thomas said dryly. "It made Aunt Marguerite and Lissianna sad, and you know how close Jeanne Louise was to Annie. She burst into tears every time your name or Annie's was mentioned after what happened. It was just easier to not mention you in front of them, and then it was easier not to have to explain the whole mess to others. But I never believed you had killed that woman... at least not without good reason. I don't care how messed up you were after Annie's death, you just wouldn't do it. But you weren't around to ask and-"

"Wait a minute," Jo said, interrupting him. "Jeanne Louise was close to Annie? "

"Yes." Thomas glanced to her curiously. "She was always over there visiting with her."

"Always over there pestering us, you mean," Nicholas said with wry affection. "And usually at the worst possible times. I was always throwing her out."

Thomas smiled faintly. "Jeanne Louise was over there all the time when you were off hunting rogues too. She and Annie would shop together and stuff. She even slept over when you were gone for days so Annie wouldn't be alone. They were like Siamese twins when you weren' t around."

"They were?" Nicholas asked with surprise.

"She might know what Annie wanted to tell you then," Jo said, turning to Nicholas with excitement. "We have to talk to her."

Nicholas hesitated, but then frowned and shook his head. "She would have told me if she knew anything."

"Not if she didn't know it was important," Jo pointed out, and then turned to Thomas. "Where can I find Jeanne Louise?"

"She's at Aunt Marguerite's with my wife, Inez," Thomas said slowly. "The ladies wanted a girly day with Inez, so I dropped her there and went to see Bastien, who," he added dryly, glancing back to Nicholas, "brought up the fact that Nicholas had made a reappearance. Then he wouldn't answer any of my questions except to say that if I wanted to know anything I should come to talk to Mortimer at the house."

"He was trying to keep his promise without keeping his promise," Mortimer said dryly, stepping off the stairs and moving to Sam's side. "What promise is that?" Nicholas asked.

"I had to clue him in to what was going on when I called about his sending out the IV and drugs for Jo's turn, but I made him promise not to mention your presence here."

"Why?" Thomas asked with surprise.

"Because I made a promise to Nicholas that if he brought Jo in, he could see her through the turn and have one night with her before I called Lucian. I didn't want word getting out before that promise was fulfilled."

"Thank you, Mortimer," Jo murmured, grateful that he'd kept his word. Otherwise, she could have woken to the news that Nicholas had already been judged and executed and wouldn't now have the hope of saving him. Patting the man's arm, she smiled and then turned to Thomas. "You need to take me to your sister."

"He needs to take both of us to see Jeanne Louise," Nicholas corrected her grimly, and then pointed out, "You have no idea what was happening at that time. I can find out more from her."

"You're right," she agreed and glanced to Thomas. "You need to take us both to Jeanne Louise."

"Just a minute," Mortimer muttered, moving between them and placing a hand on Nicholas as if suspecting he might make a run for it at any moment. "Nicholas isn't going anywhere."

"You said he could have a night with me," Jo said accusingly.

"Well, yes, but here" he said at once. "Not gallivanting around the city."

Jo arched an eyebrow and glanced to Nicholas. "Was there any mention of where that night would be?"

"No. Just one night with you," Nicholas said with a grin.

Nodding, Jo turned to Mortimer. "Are you a man of your word or not? You promised him o ne night with me. I want to go to Aunt Marguerite's. Hence he has to go."

"Jeez," Bricker muttered. "She sounds like Sam when she pulls on her lawyer face."

Mortimer scowled, his voice hard when he said, "I agreed he could have one night with you. I also said that if he came here, we wouldn' t let him leave. The agreement that the night in question would be here was implicit. Whether you choose to spend that night with him here or not isn' t my problem, but I am not letting him leave. I'm already going to have to talk fast when Lucian finds out I let him see you through the turn and spend that night with you here, so don' t push your luck."

"Why do you want to talk to Jeanne Louise?" Sam asked quietly, joining the small circle now. "What are you hoping she can tell you?" Jo sighed and then explained. "It all goes back to Annie's death. The night before the accident she called Nicholas in Detroit-he was a rogue hunter then like Mortimer," she paused to add in case Sam didn't already know that. "Anyway, she told him she had something to tell him when he got back. But that night she died in this car accident that decapitated her, one of the few ways an immortal can die. And the beheading on the winds.h.i.+eld was a freak accident,"

she said grimly. "A one- in-a-million type thing they told Nicholas when he got home." She arched her brow meaningfully, satisfied when Sam started to get her narrow-eyed look.

"Anyway, so then a couple weeks later Nicholas sees this gift Annie had bought for her friend at work, this mortal gal named Carol. So he takes the gift and heads over to see Carol, thinking he' ll ask her if she knows what it was Annie had been all excited about. He remembers driving there, and then crossing the parking lot and seeing this pregnant woman who looked like his dead life mate. The next thing he remembers is Decker calling his name, him opening his eyes and finding the pregnant woman dead in his arms, her blood all over him.

"He never connected the two things, but I think it's pretty odd that she died before she could tell him something she was pretty excited about, and then he suddenly finds himself accused of murder and on the run before he can ask this Carol what it might have been about."

Jo paused, and silence reigned for a moment, and then she s.h.i.+fted impatiently. "Don't you get it? Nicholas has absolutely no memory of killing the woman. He remembers nothing between seeing her in that parking lot and finding her dead in his lap. Is that possible if he killed her?

With your nanos, those memories should be there, shouldn't they? I think he was drugged and he and the woman taken back to his place, the woman killed and placed in his lap for Decker to find.

"I think it was all to keep him from finding out what his Annie had to tell him," she announced triumphantly.

"Why not just kill him then?" Bricker asked uncertainly. "Why kill the mortal?"

Jo frowned at the question. She hadn't considered that herself. She did now, but it was Thomas who said, "Because we don' t die easy or often. Annie and Nicholas both dying so close together would have made us all suspicious. But his being executed for killing a mortal in the throes of grief would have been something we all wanted to forget and not think about."

Jo glanced to the man with surprise. "Nice one, thank you."

He smiled faintly, but nodded.

"I suspected Decker was behind it all," Jo announced now. "It was pretty convenient how he showed up when he did, but Nicholas is sure he wouldn't have done something like that."

"Mortimer?" Sam asked, glancing to him. "It's possible Jo could be right. Nothing Nicholas has done speaks of a murderer to me. He has repeatedly risked himself to save others, and even turned himself in to save Jo. What if she's right and Nicholas didn' t kill the woman?" When he remained silent, a frown on his face, Thomas said quietly, "The memories should be there, Mortimer. It's odd they aren' t."

"Maybe they are and he's lying," Mortimer pointed out reluctantly. "We won' t know until Lucian reads him."

"You don't have to wait for Lucian," Bricker pointed out quietly. "If he's anything like you and Decker, his mind should be an open book now that he's met his life mate. Read his thoughts."

When Mortimer glanced to Nicholas, he nodded. "Go ahead. I won' t fight it. I want you to read them."

Jo watched Mortimer, noting the sudden concentration on his face, and then glanced around to see that Bricker, Anders, and Thomas all had the same expressions on their faces as well and suspected all four were reading him.

"It jumps from seeing the woman in the parking lot to her dead in his lap," Thomas murmured suddenly.

"He's angry when he sees the woman though," Mortimer pointed out with a frown.

"But the memory skips from seeing her to opening his eyes and her being dead in his lap, like a record with a scratch. Jo could be right," Bricker pointed out and then muttered, "Jeez, Nicholas try to keep your thoughts on that night. I don't need flashes of a naked Jo in my head."

"Sorry," Nicholas muttered, and he actually blushed. "You're the one who mentioned Jo. My mind just reacted."

Jo rolled her eyes. It figured. Mention her name and does an image of her being clever or amusing come to his mind? No. He immediately thinks of her naked. Men.

"All right," Mortimer said with a sigh, his face relaxing. "I' ll agree this needs more investigation. But I don' t know about letting you leave here."

Jo was just winding up to snap at him when he added, "We' ll call and have Jeanne Louise come here so we can question her."

"I' ll call," Thomas offered as Jo relaxed.

"You' ll have to find some way to get her here without mentioning Nicholas," Mortimer warned. "Or we' ll have Lucian breathing down our necks."

Thomas nodded and glanced around. "A phone?"

"My office," Mortimer said at once, and moved to lead the way, saying, "You call Jeanne Louise and then I' ll call the front gate to watch for her. Bricker, keep an eye on Nicholas." Jo watched them go and then glanced to Nicholas, frowning when she noticed how pale he was. "Are you feeling all right?" she asked with concern.

"I'm fine. I just need to feed."

"Come on," Bricker said at once. "There's plenty of blood in the refrigerator. I could use some myself and Jo has another bag to go I think."

"And a mess to clean up," Jo said dryly and moved ahead as Anders and Bricker positioned themselves on either side of Nicholas. She grimaced as she entered the kitchen and saw that a good amount of blood had gotten out of the bag before she'd dumped it in the sink, and then sighed and headed for the roll of paper towels hanging under the counter.

"So, why is my dog at your place, Anders?" Jo asked as she tore off several sheets of paper towel and began to clean up the mess she'd made in the kitchen.

"He followed me home," Anders said dryly, moving to the refrigerator to retrieve several bags of blood.

"Yeah, right," she muttered, swiping at the blood on the floor.

"Actually he did," Sam said quietly as she and Nicholas collected paper towels and bent to help her clean up her mess. "He stuck pretty close to Anders after they got back from the hotel, and then followed him out to his vehicle and hopped in when he went to go home. We figured since Charlie liked him, and Anders didn't mind, he could keep Charlie a t his place until you returned to us."

Jo frowned at this news. Charlie had always been her baby, preferring her company over anyone else's. She wasn't sure she liked the idea that he'd attached himself to Anders in her absence. Still, she hadn't been around and the man had apparently looked after her beloved pet for her, so Jo muttered a reluctant "Thanks for looking after him."

"My pleasure," Anders said as he watched them clean up the last bits of blood. "Although I must say I find it hard to believe he was raised by you. Charlie does as he's told and is much quieter than you. I quite enjoyed his company."

Jo glanced sharply at Anders as Nicholas helped her to her feet, caught the spark of humor in his eyes, and gave a reluctant chuckle. "Yeah, well, they say to trust the instincts of dogs and children, so I guess you can't be as bad as you pretend."

Anders's response was to hand her a bag of blood with one hand and pop a bag to his own mouth with the other.

"You guys have a nice setup here," Nicholas commented as he took the used paper towels from Jo and Sam and tossed them in the garbage. "It's a lot more organized than it was when I was a hunter."

"You still are a hunter from what I can tell," Bricker said dryly. "A renegade hunter, maybe, but a hunter just the same." Nicholas chuckled. "Yeah, that's me, the renegade."

Bricker smiled and said, "But you're right. It is a lot more organized now. We have to be.

We've lost a couple hunters lately and are shorthanded. It makes things a little difficult."

"Lost them how?" Nicholas asked curiously.

"Well, Decker resigned. He doesn't want to leave Dani alone until we catch Leonius. Not that he'd have been any good anyway. You guys are pretty useless for the first little while after you meet your life mates."

"Where are Dani and Decker?" Jo asked curiously. "I thought they were staying here with you guys?"

"The whole Ernie thing spooked him. He took Dani and Stephanie for a trip until things calm down," Sam explained quietly.