Must Love Hellhounds

muscle. “I could easily eat three hamburgers.”
    Of course he could. Maggie tripled that for the hellhound and ordered coffee and a fruit-and-yogurt for herself.
    She paid cash. James might be trying to track their movements, and she wouldn’t make it easy for him. Hopefully, though, he’d make it easy for her.
    You can stop me.
    It wasn’t a question or a challenge. It wasn’t a plea. Just a statement.
    But how would she stop him? And why her ?
    She tapped her fingers against the steering wheel, pondering it. By mutual agreement, she and James had decided not to contact one another again—and, despite the circumstances, they had parted on good terms. Her gut said this wasn’t about revenge.
    What, then? Was it just coincidence that his path had crossed with hers?
    Maggie couldn’t make herself believe that.
    Was it about Ames-Beaumont? Was James acting on his own, or had he been hired? And if someone was paying him, had James told them of his connection to her . . . and to Ames-Beaumont?
    But why go after his family and not make any demands?
    Frowning, she glanced at Blake. Where had he gotten that picture of her and James? And who had told Blake that the faces in the two photos matched? Not Savi, Ames-Beaumont’s fiancée. If she’d hacked Blake’s e-mail, she wouldn’t have seen the picture from hotel security until after Blake had been taken—so they hadn’t had an opportunity to compare notes.
    So Maggie was missing a step, not seeing a connection somewhere. And since the hellhound was watching, she couldn’t use the interrogation method she was most familiar with: aiming her gun at him. That meant digging. Finagling.
    Which also meant dropping a little more of the formality. Butlers did not initiate conversations, yet Maggie needed to. “You’re not what I expected, Mr. Blake.”
    “I gathered that.”
    “Not your blindness. Not just that,” she admitted. “I’ve looked at your dossier.”
    “Have you?” Both his voice and his expression were neutral.
    “Yes.” She had to look away from him to take the bags at the window. She passed the first to him, then set the others on the console between them. “It’s full of reprimands, complaints, transfers. You’ve been shuttled around Ramsdell for almost fifteen years.”
    “I’m not very good at my job.”
    She recognized a practiced answer when she heard it—a cover story. “Except that, every time you’ve been transferred to a new branch, a problem has quietly gone away. In London, it was embezzlement by a senior executive. Someone in the Paris labs selling research to a competitor. Using Ramsdell warehouses to smuggle cocaine in Florida. A problem with Ramsdell shipments getting to Doctors Without Borders in Darfur.” Those were only a few, but she didn’t need to go on. And if she wasn’t mistaken, there was a hint of surprise—and relief—in his face now. “You go in, act the doofus who yanks out the disability card at every opportunity and lets everyone think you’re getting by on the family name. And while whoever you’re after is feeling secure, because they don’t think they’ll need to pull the wool over the eyes of a blind man, you’re finding what you need to get rid of them. The pattern speaks for itself. Enough that when we heard about your sister, and Mr. Ames-Beaumont said that you were flying in to look for her, I thought it was a good move.”
    “But you don’t think that now?”
    “Now, I’m wondering how you manage it.”
    “You don’t want to know, Winters.”
    “I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you?” She let her amusement bleed into her voice, so that he would know she was smiling.
    “Something like that.” He didn’t return the smile. “At least, my uncle would seriously consider it.”
    A shiver raced down her spine. Whatever he was hiding, it was different from the knowledge that Ames-Beaumont was a vampire. And there were only two reasons Ames-Beaumont would kill without a thought: either his fiancée was endangered, or his family was. He would kill to protect the community of vampires he led, but only after deliberation. With his heart and his family, however, there were no questions asked, no shades of gray.
    Since Savi was safe back in San Francisco, chances were that whatever Blake wasn’t revealing could threaten the family.
    How incredible it must be to be a part of a family like that. And how terrifying to be considered their enemy.
    She held herself steady, pulled