2 Blood Trail Read Online Free PDF Page A

onto.”
    “I know. I know.” She forced herself not to sound sullen. She shouldn’t have had to be reminded of that. “You never thought for a moment that I might say no, did you?”
    “I’ve come to know you over these last few months.” His expression softened. “You need to be needed and they need you, Vicki. There aren’t too many private investigators they can trust with this.”
    That was easy to believe. As to her needing to be needed, it was a facetious observation that could easily be ignored. “Are all the wer so,” she searched for the right word and settled on, “self-contained? If my family were going through what theirs is, I’d be an emotional wreck.”
    Somehow he doubted that, but it was still a question that deserved answering. “From the time they’re very young, the wer are taught to hide what they are, and not only physically; for the good of the pack you never show vulnerability to strangers. You should consider yourself honored that you got as much as you did. Also, the wer tend to live much more in the present than humans do. They mourn their dead, then they get on with life. They don’t carry the burden of yesterday, they don’t anticipate tomorrow.”
    Vicki snorted. “Very poetic. But it makes it nearly impossible for them to deal with this sort of situation, doesn’t it?”
    “That’s why they’ve come to you.”
    “And if I wasn’t around?”
    “Then they’d die.”
    She frowned. “And why couldn’t you save them?”
    He moved to his usual place by the window, leaning back against the glass. “Because they won’t let me.”
    “Because you’re a vampire?”
    “Because Stuart won’t allow that kind of challenge to his authority. If he can’t save the pack, neither can I. You’re female, you’re Nadine’s problem, and Nadine, at the moment, is devastated by the loss of her twin. If you were wer, you could probably take her position away from her right now, but as you aren’t, the two of you should be able to work something out.” He shook his head at her expression. “You can’t judge them by human standards, Vicki, no matter how human they seem most of the time. And it’s too late to back out. You told Rose and Peter you’d help.”
    Her chin went up. “Did I give you any indication that I might back out?”
    “No.”
    “Damned straight, I didn’t. She took a deep breath. She’d worked with the Toronto City Council, she could work with werewolves. At least with the latter all the growling and snapping would mean something. In fact, the wer were likely to be the least of her problems. “There might be difficulties. I mean, with me taking this case.”
    “Like the fact you don’t drive.” She could hear the smile in his voice.
    “No. Real problems.”
    He turned and spread his arms, the movement causing the hair to glint gold in the lamplight. “So tell me.”
    It’s called retinitis pigmentosa. I’m going blind. I can’t see at night. I have almost no peripheral vision. She couldn’t tell him. She couldn’t handle the pity. Not from him. Not after what she’d gone through with Celluci. Fuck it . She shoved her glasses up her nose and shook her head.
    Henry dropped his arms. After a moment, when the silence had stretched to uncomfortable dimensions, he said, “I hope you don’t mind that I’ve invited myself along. I thought we made a pretty good team the last time. And, I thought you might need a little help dealing with the . . . strangeness.”
    She managed an almost realistic laugh. “I do the day work, you cover the night?”
    “Just like last time, yes.” He leaned back against the glass and watched her turning that over in her mind, worrying it into pieces. She was one of the most stubborn, argumentative, independent women he’d met in four and a half centuries, and he wished she’d confide in him. Whatever the problem was, they could work it out together because whatever the problem was, it couldn’t be big enough to keep