Sophia blinked her eyes languidly, her expression not altering in the slightest. Finally, she took a deep breath and let it out slowly before saying, “Good.”
Now it was my turn to blink in astonishment. “You aren’t distraught?” I blurted before I could stop myself.
She lifted a slender shoulder and let it drop again. “Perhaps once I would’ve been. But he has been very . . . occupied lately. I do not mind sharing, but he would not let me come along and did not bring his lovers here.”
“Do you know anything about who they were?” I asked, trying to swallow my disgust at her lack of emotion over her dead lover. “What were their names? How did he meet them?”
Sophia turned her slightly feral gaze upon me. “You ask a lot of questions, Ms. Muffet.”
“It’s my job to ask a lot of questions,” I reminded her. “Now, is there anything you can tell us that would help us determine who these women were? It’s possible that his new lovers are the same two women who murdered him. One was a blonde, the other brunette.”
She ran her hand along the edge of her body and over her hip in a seductive motion, and I saw Nicky perk up a little out of the corner of my eye. “No idea,” she demurred. “All I know is that he was introduced to these women by an associate—as a celebration of their new partnership. This associate’s name was not told to me. I know only that the deal was not quite finalized.”
“Do you know if there was anything . . . peculiar about his new lovers?” I prompted.
Sophia batted her eyes at me. “Peculiar? I am a tigress, my dear. There is little I find peculiar.”
“Were they vampires?” Nicky interjected, getting to the point.
Sophia shrugged again, lifting her chin haughtily. “I do not know. I do not care.”
Beatrice. . . . Come to me. . . .
I jumped at the sound of the voice from the car and instinctively glanced around to look for the speaker, but once more I saw no one there. “Um,” I stammered, feeling Nicky’s curious gaze upon me and trying to recover. “Is there . . . uh . . . that is, would anyone else know who these women were?”
Sophia shrugged. “Perhaps Aloysius,” she suggested. “The Sandman had grown very paranoid lately and would not let anyone else around him but Ally. However, they recently had a falling out because Ally was planning to leave and go into business with his lover at the whorehouse.” Sophia’s lips curled into a lascivious smile as she brought her leg forward and ran her hand down her thigh. “Now, if you’re finished pumping me for information, there are other activities the three of us would no doubt find much more enjoyable. . . .”
Time to go.
I jumped to my feet, ready to be away from the hot little feline tramp before she started flashing her little kitty at us. I grabbed Nicky’s hand and pulled him to his feet. “Let’s go talk to Aloysius.”
I dragged Nicky from the room with me and halfway down the hall before he pulled me to a halt. “Hey, hey—slow down. Where’s the fire?”
“In her vagina, apparently,” I muttered.
Nicky chuckled. “Sophia’s always like that. You get used to it.”
I grunted, doubting that very much.
Not having any clue where to start looking for Aloysius in the enormous mansion, we checked with the doormen to request an audience, only to find that the bodyguard had taken off as soon as Sophia was on her way to the study.
“Why would he leave so suddenly?” I asked Nicky once we were back in his Escalade and driving down the lane toward the main road. The afternoon sky was already growing dark, heavy clouds in the sky threatening to dump another round of snow on us. “We weren’t even planning to question him.”
Nicky shrugged. “Got me. But if I was going to lay odds—” He suddenly broke off, frowning as he squinted through the trees.
I followed the direction of his gaze and saw headlights in the distance, coming up quickly. Nicky switched off his own lights and pulled off the road, parking the Escalade in the shadows. A moment later, two black Lincolns drove past, and at the end of the caravan was a black box truck. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered. “What the hell is the Agency doing here?”
Nicky flipped on the lights. “How about we go find out?”
The Agency goons had only about a thirty second lead on us, but by the time we reached Halloran’s mansion, they were already busting in, guns drawn.
Nicky cursed under his breath as he threw the Escalade into park. “Fucking figures.”
I followed his line of sight and saw Freddy the Ferret standing in the doorway, cell phone at his ear, a shit-eating grin draped across his thin lips. But before I could respond, the sound of gunfire erupted from within the mansion.
“Sophia,” I breathed, throwing open the door and leaping out. But before I could get very far, Nicky grabbed me around the waist and lifted me from my feet. I kicked and squirmed, struggling to get out of his hold. “Let me go! We have to help her!”
Nicky’s arms tightened around me. “What are you going to do?” he hissed in my ear as two more loud pops fired off in the house. “You’re not even carrying.”
I instantly went still and waited for him to set me back on my feet. “She’s a tigress,” I reminded him, my voice tight with tears. “She’ll attack them if they barge in.”
“I know, baby,” he whispered.
I sagged against him, glad his arms were still wrapped around me when the agents emerged from the house a few minutes later, dragging Sophia’s body by her white hair and leaving a long red streak on the stone steps.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I shrieked, furious tears hot on my cheeks. I broke out of Nicky’s hold and stormed toward them, shoving the agent who held Sophia’s hair in his grasp. “You didn’t have to kill her, you fucking asshole!” I shoved him again, then grabbed his hand, trying to pry his fingers loose. “Let her go, goddamn it!”
“Turn her loose, Pryor.”
My head snapped up and rage filled my veins with furious fire when I saw Ian Spalding’s smug, indifferent expression. Something between a growl and a scream erupted from my gut, burning my throat as I launched myself at Ian’s throat, fully intending to rip it out. As it was, I was only able to get in a right hook to his jaw before someone grabbed me from behind and pinned my arms.
“Get your hands off her!” I heard Nicky growl. And then the guy holding me dropped to the snow, taking me with him. My head smacked into the ice, making the world go dark for a split second before I saw Nicky’s face before me, his brows drawn together in concern. A shadow loomed up behind him.
“Watch out,” I managed, my words slurred.
Nicky twisted up in time to catch the arm swinging toward him, then turned it with a jerk. The gun dropped and Freddy the Ferret face-planted in the snow next to me, his expression contorted with pain.
“Nicky, you fucking prick,” he ground out. “I’ll kill you for this.”
“Well, I think we’ve had enough fun for one night, don’t you?” Ian drawled, taking my elbow and helping me to my feet.
Nicky stood across from me, his hands raised in response to the three agents whose guns were now trained on his head. But the look in his eye told me he was about two seconds away from taking them down.
“Tell your goons to lower their guns,” I said, my vision blurring annoyingly. “I just want to know what’s going on.”
Ian jerked his head toward his guys, who holstered their weapons and took a couple of steps out of Nicky’s reach. Nicky hurried toward me and took my face in his hands, his worried gaze searching mine. “You okay, doll?”
I smiled in spite of the pounding in my head. Was I okay? How could I not be when he was looking at me that way?