“Her last name is Parker, isn’t it?”
I tensed. “Yeah. Janelle Parker. How did you know that?”
“Because I already know her. Because I . . . I knew her older brother.”
“Her brother,” I repeated. “She told me her brother was murdered. That that’s one of the reasons she’s in Toronto, because she wants to avenge his murder. She seemed really broken up about it.”
He swore under his breath. “Sheknew . This whole time. I know it. That must have been why she targeted you. I can’t imagine that Thierry would have known when he hired her. He couldn’t have.
Probably got her through an agency. Butshe knew. She’s wily. I haven’t seen her since she was a kid.
Probably when she was no more than twelve or thirteen years old.”
“What are you talking about? Who is she?”
“Sarah,” Quinn paused, his tone a little strangled. “Janie is Peter’s sister.”
“Peter?” My stomach dropped. “Don’t kid about something like that. It’s not funny.”
“No, it’s not. And I’m not kidding.”
My mind flashed to the horrible dream about Peter I’d had the other day when I fell asleep in Starbucks.
“Oh, I’ll get my revenge, darlin’. And you won’t even see it coming.”
“She’s the one who bombed your apartment,” Quinn continued. “That’s what the hunters here were saying.”
I felt the color drain from my face and I sat down heavily in the chair again. “No.”
“You’re in danger. I don’t know why she hasn’t done anything yet. She must be waiting for the right time.”
I shook my head slowly. This was crazy. It was. It couldn’t be true. But . . . but it was. I felt it. It made a sudden awful sense. And I’d liked her, too. Even though the necklace guy said she wasn’t to be trusted. I hadn’t completely trusted my gut.
She must hate me.
Of course she did, I thought.I killed her brother .
Self-defense. It was self-defense.
But it must have looked as if her brother Peter, the brave vampire hunter idolized by his little sister, had been killed by an evil vampire. And the rumors about me being the Slayer of Slayers definitely didn’t help to clear my name.
She blew up my apartment.
Because I killed her brother.
“Sarah? Are you still there?”
My mouth was dry. “Yeah. I’m here. I don’t understand. We’ve been alone a few times. She’s saved my life. Why wouldn’t she just kill me?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she wants to finish the job of being your bodyguard. Get paid. Before she . . . ” he trailed off.
“Before she really finishes the job her brother started.” I rubbed my forehead hard, frowning, then looked up. “Wait a minute. Her name is JanieParker .”
“That’s right.”
“So that means that Peter . . .” I swallowed. “That his full name wasPeter Parker ?”
“Yeah.”
I burst into tears. “Oh, my God! I killed Spiderman!”
“Sarah, get a grip.”
“I need to go. I need to tell—”
“Thierry?” he said it with a generous helping of bitterness.
“No. I don’t know. I don’t know who to tell. I just need to go now. Quinn?”
“Yeah.”
“Get out of there. Don’t get yourself killed.”
“Yeah, you, too. I’m just going to try to get some more information before I take off.”
He hung up.
Janie was Peter’s sister. There were no words to describe how I felt about that. Wait a minute.Flabbergasted . That was a word. A couple more words would bestunned andbewildered . Right. Scaredandshitless ? Yeah. That pretty much summed it up. I killed her brother. A shiver shot down my spine. It was true. Ikilled him. And now she’d come for a little dose of revenge.
All this time I’d been scared of the hunters, hell, even of this Gideon guy I’d never heard of before. And all the time I should have been the most afraid of the well-dressed blond bodyguard lurking in the shadows.
My grip tightened on the door handle of Thierry’s office and I felt hot fury start to creep up inside my chest.
I might have killed her brother, an act that filled me with major daily guilt, but it had been self-defense.
She’d tried to kill me when I was asleep—in the middle of the night. All she ended up doing was destroying all my worldly belongings including my irreplaceable DVD collection.
Somebody had to pay for that.
So what was that outside today? Our little heart to heart? Her advice on my troubled love life? She must have been laughing at how unbelievably stupid I was.
Real freaking funny.
I just wondered what the hell she was waiting for. She and I had been alone a couple of times. She’d saved me from hunters and from a dangerous bus. Why hadn’t she tried to kill me?
It just didn’t make any damn sense.