Outside the house, the winter storm raged, winds rattling the shutters, snow lashing at the windows. But that was nothing compared to the frozen chaos inside the silent, still foyer.

Rochelle lifted terrified eyes. “He tried to kill me. Helania . . . saved me . . .”

“Why?” Boone asked. “What the hell was he thinking—”

“He said it was for his master.” The female looked at the body, which had finally stopped twitching. “He said . . . he refused to let shame come unto this household.”

“So he was the one stalking you?” Boone repositioned Helania against him. “He must have found out—”

“About Isobel,” Rochelle finished. “But you and I had already ended the arrangement and she was killed after that. Why did he have to take her if it was already done?”

Boone could only shake his head. “He told me he would do anything to protect this house and my sire. He must have worried that if you were seen with Isobel, the truth would come out and the shame wouldn’t have been solely on you.”

Helania lifted her head off his chest. “He killed my sister for social propriety?”

“And Mai,” Rochelle added. “He said that Mai had been threatening to come forward with details about the killing, details that would prove he was the one who did it. She had been determined to discover who was trailing me and had found him through the coat check girl. Somehow, that human knew him from a self-defense training course they had taken together. He told me he thought that was ironic . . . he was babbling incoherently.”

“Poor Mai,” Helania said. “She was really good to my sister.”

“She was my dear friend.” Rochelle shook her head. “She knew that ever since Isobel died, I’ve been utterly heartbroken. Part of that was not knowing who had killed her and why. Clearly, Mai was trying to solve the mystery and get me answers.”

“I wish she’d asked for help,” Boone said sadly.

“There are too many secrets in the glymera,” Rochelle gritted out.

“Too many things that our class refuses to talk about. And silence is deadly—”

The banging on the door was loud.

“Do not come in yet!” Boone shouted. “Hold on!”

Looking down at Helania, he smoothed her hair back. “Are you okay to stand.”

“Yes,” she replied. “I have my own two feet to hold me up. And they will do the job.”

After dropping a quick kiss on her mouth, Boone went into the study. The workmales who had been fixing the damage there earlier had mostly finished with the window, but they hadn’t completely sealed up the hole before they’d clearly gone home due to the storm. The piece of bright blue plastic tarping had been secured against the panes, and he ripped it free.

“Over here—come in here!” he called through the vacancy in the panes.

Not that the Brothers couldn’t have just materialized in anywhere—but if Butch had taught him one thing during the investigation, it was that crime scenes needed to be protected and he knew it was safer for the Brothers, however many were coming, to gather in his sire’s study first.

And sure enough, one by one, they appeared: V was first. Then Tohr and Phury. Last was Qhuinn. Butch entered from one of the parlor’s French doors when V went over and opened it up for him.

The former cop looked through into the foyer. “What the hell happened here?”

Boone glanced back at Rochelle. When she nodded, he went through it all: Their broken arrangement. Her relationship with Isobel. The stalking. The killing of Isobel to keep the secret. Then Mai’s threatening Marquist and him murdering the female and desecrating her in a fury.

As he spoke, Butch and the Brothers walked over and took a look at the body.

“And then Marquist tried to attack Rochelle,” Boone said. “But Helania . . . took care of the problem.”

Helania looked up from where she’d taken a seat on the floor next to Rochelle. Her face was pale, and she was still shaking, but oh, she had been so brave. So strong. So . . . sure . . . when the moment had really counted.

He had never been so impressed with anyone in his life. And all he wanted to do was hold her and make sure she was still alive. Even though he could see reality right in front of him, his heart was so terrified at the prospect of ever losing her that he kept worrying that somehow the ending had been different and he just refused to see the truth.

“Helania shot him once,” he concluded. “Exactly where she needed to.”

Butch glanced over at the females. “Are you both okay?”

Helania put her hand to the back of her head. “He hit me with something.”

“It was the butt of the knife.” Rochelle reached out. “Are you all right? I should have stopped him, but I didn’t know what to do.”

“We’ll get you checked out right away,” Butch said as he leaned down over the body. “Doc Jane should be here any second.”

As the Brother dropped on his haunches and examined the gunshot wound, Vishous shook his head and lit up a hand-rolled.

“Holy fuck,” the Brother announced, “the butler did it?”

Confirmation bias was one thing, Butch thought as he reemerged from a walk-in freezer the size of a garage.

“But evidence is evidence,” he murmured as he looked down at the meat hook in his hand.

Glancing back into the cold storage, he shook his head at the two sides of beef that were hanging in the center of the room-sized freezer unit, ready to be thawed and hacked. The hooks were exactly like the one Mai had been strung up with.

“Did you find what you required, sire?” the household chef asked. Butch nodded. “Yeah. I did.”

The doggen bowed. “Is there anywhere else I may show you?”

Thomat had been great: Taking him into a suite of rooms just down the hall, showing him the closet out of which Butch had carefully taken a bloodstained cloak. It had been in the butler’s office area that he’d retrieved a small vial of cobbler’s nails. He also had the knife from the front foyer and then the firsthand accounts of Helania and Rochelle, Boone’s former intended.

“I think I’m good,” Butch said as they walked back out into the kitchen proper. “Thanks for the paper bags.”

“My pleasure, sire. May I open another up for you?”

“Yeah, that’d be great. Thanks.”

The chef flapped one free of its folds and Butch put the meat hook in there. Then he grabbed the two that had the cloak and the knife and headed back to the foyer. Rhage had come late and was making up for his delay by doing the duty with his camera phone, taking pictures of the body and the door.

But like the stuff in the Hannaford bags, all of that was kind of belt-and-suspenders irrelevant. The explanation had been provided, the faith in God’s powers of revelation rewarded, the this-then-that-thenthe-other-thing finally spelled out. Still, habits of a professional lifetime and all that malarkey.

Setting the bags down, Butch went into the parlor, where Boone was sitting with the two females and Helania was getting checked out by Doc Jane.

“You’ve got a heck of a knot back here,” the doctor was saying. “And you probably have a concussion of sorts, although I can’t do any diagnostic imaging to prove that. The good news is your pupils are equal and reactive, and you passed your neurological exam just fine, so I think you’ll be right as rain. Just let me know if you see double, feel nauseous, or can’t seem to stay awake, okay? And no . . . you don’t have to worry about any effects on anything else that may be going on.”

“Thank you,” Helania said as her hand found her lower abdomen. “I’m grateful.”

As the doc gave all three a hug and then took off, Butch shook his head. “I know you guys have got to be in shock.”

“That’s an understatement,” Boone murmured as he stroked Helania’s back.

“Listen,” Butch said, “I’ve got a good idea of how things went down tonight, but just so we can close the case, I’ll have to ask that you all come into the training center for something official. But we can wait. Tomorrow is fine for that.”

“Thank you,” Rochelle said. “I’m not thinking straight right now.”

“I don’t blame you. This is tough stuff. Do you have someone who can come and get you?”

Rochelle frowned. “I really can’t bear the thought of going home—”

“You can stay,” Boone said. “With us.”

“Yes,” Helania added. “Please. In fact . . . can we all just stay here for the day? The storm is terrible and my apartment is small.”

“Sure,” Boone offered. “Doesn’t matter to me where we are, as long as we’re together.”

“Thank you.” Rochelle lifted her hands and started pulling pins out of her hair one by one. “That would be . . . thank you.”

As she shook her chignon out, took her high-heeled boots off, and repositioned herself with her stocking feet tucked under her, Butch smiled. Nothing like letting your hair down with family who happened to be friends, he thought.

He’d learned that one firsthand.

“Okay,” he said. “We’re going to remove the body now. I want you guys to stay here, if you don’t mind.”

“No problem,” Boone said as the females nodded.

“And listen, I’m going to get in touch with Mai’s parents before the end of tonight. I’ll go to their house in person. They’re going to want to know what happened.”

“Of course,” Rochelle said. “That’s very good of you. And please feel free to be completely honest. I have nothing to hide, not anymore.”

“You got it.” Butch then hesitated as he looked at Boone. “You know this house is yours now, right?”

“What?” the male said in surprise.

“Marquist is dead. You’re your sire’s living next of kin. It’s all yours. I know it’s not the time to think about it right now, but the law is the law. It is what it is.” Butch waved a dismissive hand in the air. “But like I said, that’s nothing to think about right now. Don’t even know why I felt the need to say something about it.”