Demon Marked

afternoon, he completed the business-related calls and sent the e-mails that he hadn’t the day before. No need to hide his electronic trail now. He tried to think of any way to contact the bed-and-breakfast without giving Ash away.
    If they were watching him, he couldn’t. Goddammit. He couldn’t. There was absolutely nothing that they couldn’t hear or trace or follow.
    Was Ash still waiting in the room as he’d instructed? How long would she wait? She’d been desperate to know what had happened to Rachel’s parents. If Nicholas didn’t bring back answers, would she stay in the room? And even if she did, how long until the innkeepers worried and contacted the authorities? Probably overnight, he thought. Maybe into the next evening.
    Maybe by then, he’d figure out whether she’d killed the Boyles, and whether her desperation had been an act.
    An act? God. That he even considered the possibility it wasn’t proved how she’d already gotten to him, somehow made him believe that she was different from other demons, made him wonder if the amnesia had affected her nature so strongly. But, Jesus—when she’d seen the Boyles’s living room, she’d seemed so shattered. Lost. He knew that emotional reaction had to be a lie. Maybe the Boyles’ murder had been her plot all along, and bringing Nicholas in to see the aftermath was just the icing.
    But if that were true, why the hell would she still be playing along? Why would she pretend to care what had happened to them? Why wasn’t she gloating?
    He didn’t know. But he needed to figure it out. And if she had been responsible for the Boyles, he’d let the Guardians have her—his bargain and his soul be damned.
    Searching through his e-mails, he found Cooper’s report, verified the investigator’s timeline. A month ago, Ash had escaped from the hospital. Cawthorne had hung himself a week later; the same night, someone had entered Madelyn’s town house. A few days after that, Rachel’s ghost had begun visiting Steve Johnson. Then the previous night—Saturday night—Nicholas had found Ash at the house in London.
    The Boyles had been murdered Saturday morning. Even accounting for the time difference, a demon could have easily watched Johnson kill them, then flown across the Atlantic to London.
    Ash could have done it. But Nicholas couldn’t make himself believe she had.
    He tried. At the window overlooking the lake, he recalled how she’d stood here while he ate dinner, plotting to see him naked, with amusement and mischief taking their turns lighting her usually emotionless expression . . . and later, tempting him with her nudity and her claim that she wanted him. Jesus. That lust had to be a lie, too. But she hadn’t lied about Nightingale House—and why would any demon stay there for three years? Why didn’t she try to tear him apart with every opportunity? Why didn’t she imitate Rachel more perfectly? Aside from a few mannerisms and her accent, nothing about the two women was similar.
    He’d go mad trying to make sense of her. Demons were supposed to be creatures of habit, but there was nothing that he could see in Ash that resembled any other demon he’d heard of. Certainly not—
    Oh, fuck. Creatures of habit. What the hell had he been thinking, wasting time worrying about one demon when he should have been hunting another? He knew someone else who preferred hotels like this—and there weren’t many of them in Duluth.
    And that someone might be looking for Ash, too.
     
    Nicholas didn’t have to go far. The clerk at the registration desk recognized Madelyn’s picture. She wouldn’t tell Nicholas the name Madelyn had checked in under, but he learned that she’d left two days before.
    Fuck. He’d missed her by only a day.
    And she had some balls, still using his mother’s face. He scanned the hotel lobby and the adjoining bar. Shape-shifted, Madelyn could be any of the people here. The Guardians could be any of the people here. Just waiting for him to lead them to Ash. If Madelyn had waited a day, she’d have just run into Ash at the hotel, and wouldn’t have needed to—
    Realization hit like a punch to the stomach. Two days. Saturday. She’d left the hotel the same day the Boyles had been murdered.
    Oh, goddammit. Now that made sense, sick as it was. Ash had escaped from Nightingale House, and if Madelyn knew Ash was searching for answers, she’d have assumed that Ash would eventually make her way to America and the Boyles’