• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

I looked away, trying to control an involuntary smile. “The trip to the bank.” That seemed like a safe topic. “Well, her bank account didn’t have a lot in it, which I figured would be the case. Hadley didn’t have much sense about money. Hadley didn’t have much sense, period. But the safe-deposit box . . .”

The safe-deposit box had held Hadley’s birth certificate, a marriage license, and a divorce decree dated more than three years ago—both naming the same man, I was glad to see—and a laminated copy of my aunt’s obituary. Hadley had known when her mother had died, and she’d cared enough to keep the clipping. There were pictures from our shared childhood, too: my mother and her sister; my mother and Jason, me, and Hadley; my grandmother and her husband. There was a pretty necklace with sapphires and diamonds (which Mr. Cataliades had said the queen had given to Hadley), and a pair of matching earrings. There were a couple more things that I wanted to think about.

But the queen’s bracelet was not there. That was why Mr. Cataliades had wanted to accompany me, I think; he half expected the bracelet would be there, and he seemed quite anxious when I held the lockbox out to him so he could see its contents for himself.

“I finished packing the kitchen stuff this afternoon after Cataliades took me back to Hadley’s apartment,” I said to Quinn, and watched his reaction. I would never again take the disinterestedness of my companions for granted. I found myself fairly convinced Quinn had not been helping me pack the day before in order to search for something, after I saw that his reaction was perfectly calm.

“That’s good,” he said. “Sorry I didn’t make it over to help you today. I was closing out Jake’s dealings with Special Events. I had to call my partners, let them know. I had to call Jake’s girlfriend. He wasn’t steady enough to be around her, if she even wants to see him again. She’s not a vamp lover, to put it mildly.”

At the moment, I wasn’t either. I couldn’t fathom the true reason the queen wanted me at the party, but I had found another reason to see her. Quinn smiled at me, and I smiled back at him, hoping that some good would come out of this evening. I had to admit to myself that I was a bit curious about seeing the queen’s party barn, so to speak—and I was also kind of glad to dress up and be pretty after all the swamp slogging.

As we drove, I almost opened a conversation with Quinn at least three times—but on every occasion, when it got to the point, I kept my mouth shut.

“We’re getting close,” he told me when we’d reached one of the oldest neighborhoods in New Orleans, the Garden District. The houses, set in beautiful grounds, would cost many times what even the Bellefleur mansion would fetch. In the middle of these marvelous homes, we came to a high wall that extended for a whole block. This was the renovated monastery that the queen used for entertaining.

There might be other gates at the back of the property, but tonight all the traffic was moving through the main front entrance. It was heavily protected with the most efficient guards of all: vampires. I wondered if Sophie-Anne Leclerq was paranoid, or wise, or simply did not feel loved (or safe) in her adopted city. I was sure the queen also had the regular security provisions—cameras, infrared motion detectors, razor wire, maybe even guard dogs. There was security out the ying-yang here, where the elite vampires occasionally partied with the elite humans. Tonight the party was supes only, the first large party the newlyweds had given since they’d become a couple.

Three of the queen’s vampires were at the gate, along with three of the Arkansas vampires. Peter Threadgill’s vampires all wore a uniform, though I suspected the king called it livery. The Arkansas bloodsuckers, male and female, were wearing white suits with blue shirts and red vests. I didn’t know if the king was ultrapatriotic or if the colors had been chosen because they were