Page 43 of Dukes Are Forever
Which meant there was something out of the ordinary about this one.
Malloryn took a hack through the hubbub of the late afternoon street, accompanied by Byrnes, who was uncharacteristically quiet. Only the cracking of Byrnes's knuckles broke the silence.
A wall of Nighthawks had cordoned off the street ahead of them, so they were forced to disembark and walk the rest of the way.
He could scent the blood before he even arrived.
Garrett Reed, the Guild Master of the Nighthawks, strode forward to meet them, wearing his harsh black leather body armor. Though young, he held himself with the confidence of a man who knew what he was doing, and Malloryn had been one of the first dukes on the Council to approve his posting.
"Your Grace."
"Master Reed," Malloryn said, tilting his head.
"Byrnes." This greeting was a touch more effusive.
The pair of them clasped hands—old friends—as Malloryn peered impatiently past them.
"Garrett. I hear you need a little help solving a case?" Byrnes drawled. "Getting rusty in your old age?"
"Hardly." The Guild Master's mouth thinned. "But we thought you'd want a look at this one."
"Why?" Malloryn asked.
The Guild Master and his wife were aware of the work the Company of Rogues undertook.
This had to be Balfour's doing.
"Because it's a message for you, Your Grace," Garrett said. "This way."
He led the pair of them past a doctor, waiting with his mortuary trolley, and the crime scene investigator who'd replaced Ava at the Nighthawks.
Fog clung to the alleyway, and blood scented the air.
The stale scent of death filled Malloryn's nostrils as everything fell quiet. He'd seen death in many incarnations, but he knew this one would be bad, judging from the way several of the Nighthawks wouldn't meet his gaze.
"We don't know who she is," Garrett murmured. "But we will."
Malloryn knelt in the alleyway beside the dead girl's body, fog wafting away from his knees as he examined her and the crime scene. He'd been wrong. This wasn't vicious or overly violent, but strangely clean. Almost economical. No, it wasn't the manner of death that had made the others drop their eyes.
Barely hours old, judging by the congealed blood staining her white gown. She'd been shot right through the heart somewhere else and placed here, for him.
He looked at her face then.
Smoothed the black hair from her forehead so he could get a better glimpse of her.
Heart-shaped face. Blue sightless eyes, staring forever into an overcast sky. Pretty white gown that reminded him of something a debutante might wear.
It was like looking at a ghost.
Even now, seventeen years later, guilt flayed him like a lash, and Malloryn closed his eyes for a second.
After all this time, it was difficult to conjure Catherine's face, but he saw the flash of her smile, the haunted blue of her eyes. Saw them widen as Balfour turned his pistol from its lock on Malloryn's chest to settle upon her.
Crack.
He flinched as the memory of the pistol firing cascaded through him. It was the same memory that had haunted him for years; the moment Balfour set this vendetta into play forever.
Oh yes, it was bad. But no one watching would ever understand why.
