Etched in Bone Read Online Free PDF Page B

determination.
    What about Wallace? Take her out too?
    Gillespie sighted in on the attractive redhead, his hands sweating around the binoculars. An FBI agent with a stellar career—until she’d met Dante Prejean and been corrupted. Gillespie remembered the words Wallace had spoken to him a couple of nights ago in the motel parking lot outside Damascus, Oregon.
    They’re lying to you. Ask about Bad Seed.
    I know about Bad Seed. I know what Dante Prejean is.
    I doubt that.
    Wallace had been right. He’d had no idea. But that had changed. He also realized it was too late to save the lovely fed; she was lost to Dante-fucking-Prejean, body and soul. And that was a goddamned shame.
    He’d make sure that Prejean paid for her too.
    But the question now was, what the hell were they doing in the cemetery?
    Gillespie breathed in the cool, moist scent of dew-slick grass and sweet cherry blossoms as he studied Wallace and Prejean. The redhead, wearing a purple tank top and black leather pants underneath her unbelted black trench, dropped into a crouch in front of a crypt, her expression perplexed as she studied the path. What were they looking for?
    Prejean bent and scooped something up from the path. Gillespie frowned. A rock? His heart slammed against his ribs when blue flames flickered to life around the vamp’s pale hands, sparked from the rings on his fingers and thumbs. Prejean bowed his head, his glossy black hair swinging forward to curtain his face. Wallace stood beside her lover, her expression concerned.
    What the hell is the little shit doing now?
    “Don’t move,” a woman’s low voice said from behind Gillespie. A familiar voice. One he couldn’t quite place. Something hard jabbed into the base of his skull.
    Gillespie froze, his fingers still wrapped around the binoculars. Sweat broke out on his forehead when he heard the click of a trigger easing back. “I’m not moving,” he managed to say in a level tone.
    “Must admit, I’m surprised to see you here, Chief Gillespie,” the woman said. “I expected someone lower on the totem pole to be sent to safeguard SB interests. Or is this Underwood’s idea of punishment? Have a few beers too many on the job?”
    Safeguard? Relief washed through Gillespie. Whoever this woman was, she thought he’d been assigned to protect Prejean. She knew his name and his reputation for boozing, knew just how low he’d fallen in Special Ops Director Underwood’s regard.
    A fellow Shadow Branch agent? If so, as much as he didn’t like it, he would have to kill her before she reported his presence in New Orleans.
    But she’d said “ SB interests,” not “ our interests.”
    “I haven’t yet discovered what constitutes too many beers,” Gillespie replied, allowing his brain time to root around in his memory for a face to match the familiar voice. “Whose interests are you safeguarding?”
    “Certainly not Dante Prejean’s.”
    Interesting. “Perhaps we have something in common, then.”
    The woman snorted. “Oh, I doubt that.” She pressed the gun barrel harder against Gillespie’s skull. “Lower the binoculars, but keep your hands up.”
    Gillespie did as instructed, looping the binoculars strap around his neck, then lifting his hands, slow and easy. “I’m not safeguarding SB interests, ma’am,” he said quietly, still trying to place her voice. He felt her gaze burning a hole through his skull. “And Underwood doesn’t know I’m here.”
    At least not yet. But time was running out.
    “If that’s the case, what are you doing here?” she asked.
    “Safeguarding human interests by killing Prejean.”
    “And what are your plans for Wallace?”
    The woman’s voice clicked then, a slot sliding into place inside Gillespie’s mind. And the knowledge shocked him like a screwdriver into an electrical outlet.
    Monica Rutgers. FBI. Assistant Director in Charge. His mind scrabbled for a reason why she would be in New Orleans instead of at her desk in FBI