“Are you sure you don’t mind me staying at your house?” I asked as we loaded everything into the back of his Escalade.
“Are you kiddin’ me?” he asked. “Forget about it. Like I’m going to let you come back to this place?”
I shoved my hands into my coat pockets and let out a sigh, watching my breath freeze in the air and thinking about the attack on me the night before. “We really should talk to Nate and Red about this.”
Nicky cast a guarded look my way as he slammed the hatch shut.
I cocked my head to one side and narrowed my eyes at him. “You haven’t told Red that you’re back in town, have you?”
“Let’s get going,” he muttered, ignoring my question.
I followed him around to the driver’s side and stood in front of the door, my arms crossed over my chest. “Why not tell her you’re back? Why keep it a secret?”
He zipped his leather jacket, apparently realizing I wasn’t going to be deterred until he answered my question. “It’s complicated.”
I knew Nicky still cared about Red; that’d been clear in the images I’d seen in his thoughts while he was dying. And to see her so happy with Nate—his best friend, by all accounts—must’ve felt awkward at times. Hell, I could relate to that probably better than anyone. Complicated was an understatement.
“Fine,” I sighed. “Just drop me a couple of blocks from headquarters then. I have to check in before someone notices I haven’t made it to work yet. Besides, I need to see what I can find out about our victim from last night, get an ID on the guy.”
Nicky shrugged. “Don’t bother. I know who it is.”
My brows shot up. “How could you possibly—” I didn’t even finish the question. “Who is it?”
“Tim Halloran.”
I blinked at him in disbelief. “The Sandman?”
Nicky’s head bobbed impatiently. “Yeah, now can we get in the car? I’m freezing my nuts off out here.”
Once we were in the Escalade and on our way again, I asked, “Why the Sandman?”
“Not sure,” Nicky admitted. “I got a tip something was getting ready to go down here in Chicago, so I headed back.”
“A tip?” I echoed. “How’d you get a tip on something like that?”
Nicky shrugged. “I know a guy.”
Of course he did. . . .
“And you didn’t do anything to stop the vampires from killing him?”
“There was nothing I could do by the time I found them,” he said, his words clipped.
Tim “the Sandman” Halloran had been Nicky’s biggest rival and one of the most ruthless crime bosses among us. Unlike Nicky’s Outfit, which operated on a system of friendship and loyalty in exchange for protection and the occasional favor now and then, Halloran’s tastes ran to trafficking in fairy dust and financing Tale businesses in exchange for more than his fair share of the returns. And there was certainly no love lost between the two men. During the fifties, they’d had a full-out war going on between them, with Nicky’s Outfit coming out the victor thanks in no small part to the loyalty of those who were lucky enough to call him a friend. In spite of their history, I found it hard to believe Nicky would’ve just left Tim Halloran to die. Even so, I could tell he was hiding something, holding back on me.
“I still want to take a look,” I insisted.
“I’d skip Halloran and take a look at those vampire dames if I were you,” he said. “Those bloodsuckin’ broads had a Tale signature, Trish, but they weren’t from any idiom I recognized. What the hell is that all about?”
“Wish I knew,” I admitted. “Unfortunately, I’m not going to find out any time soon. The Agency took them.”
“Sons of bitches!” Nicky growled, something dark passing over his features.
I blinked at him, startled by his sudden rage. “Nicky, I know it sucks, but—”
“Sucks doesn’t even begin to cover it,” he snapped. He glared at the road in silence for a long, tense moment, then suddenly slammed his palm against the steering wheel. “Shit! I’m this close, Trish. I can feel it. I’m this fucking close to bringing down that bastard Dracula and making him pay.”
“We’ll figure it out,” I assured him. “Right now, let’s focus on Halloran. When I was reading him I saw an image of a woman—
stunningly beautiful with white hair and bright green eyes. Do you know who she is?”
Nicky shrugged begrudgingly. “Sure. That’s Sophia—Halloran’s girl. She’s a shape-shifter from folklore.”
I nodded. “Okay, good. Well, someone should probably let her know what’s happened, right? I’ll make the death notification and see what she can tell us.”
“You can’t just go barging in to Halloran’s compound alone and tell his were-tiger girlfriend he bit the big one—or, more to the point, that a couple of vampire whores bit his big one before bumping him off.”
“You’re right,” I readily agreed. “Guess you’re going to have to come with me.”
Nicky’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. I could tell that making a death notification to the dead crime lord’s girlfriend wasn’t the kind of action he was used to taking. But he nodded. “Fine. Have it your way. But, you’re right—if I’m gonna start poking around out in the open I should probably talk to Red first.”
“Where the hell have you been, you son of a bitch?”
Nicky glanced at me, the look he sent my way conveying “I told you so” loud and clear. “Good to see you, too, kid,” he said, offering Red a grin. Then he nodded toward her belly. “You and Nate have been busy. Congratulations.”
“Don’t try to turn on the charm with me, Nicky Blue,” Red hissed. “You couldn’t take five minutes to send me a fucking e-mail?”
“So you could show up on my doorstep when you had no business—”
“No business?” Red’s eyes went wide. “Are you shitting me? After all we’ve been through together? After I saw you lying there on the floor with your guts hanging out, you have the nerve to tell me I have no business caring what happens to you? Fuck you, Nicky! Get him the hell out of my office, Nate.”
“Tess,” Nate admonished mildly before taking up what had become his usual perch on the corner of Red’s desk and turning his dark gaze on his old friend. “It’s good to see you again, Nicky, but I can’t say I totally disagree with her on this one. You want to tell us what the hell you’ve been doing for the last two years?”
Nicky shifted a little uneasily, casting a furtive glance my way. “I’ve been here and there. You know.”
“No, I don’t know.” Red leaned across her desk as much as her pregnant belly would allow, her blue eyes now bright with angry tears. “Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been, you unbelievable jackass?” She snatched a tissue from the box next to her and swiped irritably at the tears spilling onto her cheeks. “Shit! Seriously? Now I’m crying? God, pregnancy has made me lose my fucking mind!”
Nicky cleared his throat a couple of times, growing increasingly uncomfortable at the sight of Red’s tears. “I’m sorry, kid,” he said, his voice taking on a gentleness that made me bristle. “I never meant to worry you. I just had to get my head together. And, well, I’ve been doing a little moonlighting since I left town that’s been keeping me busy.”
She eyed him warily. “What kind of moonlighting?”
“You know”—he shrugged—“some cleanup work like back in the day.”
Red flopped back in her chair, her face going slack. “Like back in the New York days, Nicky?”
“Somethin’ like that,” he admitted.
I heard Nate curse under his breath before pegging Nicky with a look of warning. “Are you sitting here confessing to a crime, Nicky? You know we’d have to arrest you if you are.”