Page 131 of The Midnight Order
“Drugs. Fed into her system. The only place she was today, besides the manor, was here.”
“Sire, I would never… I know nothing about any drugs. Is she okay?” Her concern is genuine, but Lowell is angry enough to end her just for being near Silver.
I note how he called herhisgirl. Jasper is already worried about how attached Lowell is growing to Silver when we know he won’t complete the testing with her.
He’s more crazed with Silver than he’s ever been before.
“She’s telling the truth,” I add when Lowell leans close to Karen’s throat.
My words cut off her whimper.
I step closer. “You can feel it as well as I can.”
“Leave. You’re closed for the time being.” Lowell backs up to give her a berth.
“What are you going to do?” Karen asks, and I shake my head at her audacity.
“We’re going to search every product, cup, and crevice. Somehow, Silver left here with drugs in her system,” I answer when I know Lowell isn’t going to.
Karen gives us both a curt nod before heading toward the exit. She turns back, pinning her eyes to Lowell’s. “I would never hurt her. You have to know that. No matter what you find here. It wasn’t me.”
Lowell snarls, and Karen’s hurried steps reflect the tone of the threat given.
For the next hour, Lowell and I taste, sniff, and scour through everything in the coffee shop until it’s a fucking disaster. Karen’s going to be pissed when she gets back to open tomorrow.
I’m discouraged that we won’t solve who drugged Silver when Lowell pops up from behind the counter with a snarl and crazed red eyes, holding a pump bottle of pumpkin syrup. “This is it!”
“You’re sure?” I ask, my undead heart beating wildly in its off-kilter way.
“Yes.”
I sigh, dropping the bags of sugar I’d been ripping open to the floor.
“Why do you look like my discovery has solved nothing?”
I bite the inside of my cheek, wondering if it’s better to speak to Jasper before speaking to life about my every thought.
Lowell lives on the edge of sanity, as a rule. I don’t want to rile him up if it’s unnecessary.
“No reason.”
“Do you have something to say?” he presses.
I consider the words trying to burn a hole in the back of my tongue, and I shake my head. “Nothing more than what you’re thinking. Who the hell dosed the syrup if Karen didn’t?”
Lowell eyes the bottle as if it were his mortal enemy before slamming it onto the counter. Some contents spill out and splash onto the speckled countertop. “That’s what we need to find out.”
When I strollinto his office, I see Jasper swirling blood in his glass, staring into the blazing fire in the hearth.
“What a fucking day.” I sigh, grabbing a glass to pour bourbon into from the drink cart before making my way over and plopping down beside him.
He doesn’t say a word, only nods in agreement.
“You don’t come here unless you have something to say,” he mutters, sipping from his glass.
I notice the way his lip curls up as he swallows the blood down, as if it tastes like cigarette ash.
Silver’s slowly becoming the only thing we long to taste around here, which will become another issue once she’s moved on.
