Page 80 of New Blood

“No, no, I’m the one who should be sorry,” he said, lifting his hand apologetically. “I didn’t mean to disturb you during your break. I just wanted to ask you a question.”

“Oh. Okay?”

“Can you tell me if Violet is an early riser? I mean, does she get up early to maybe run in the woods or work out?”

“Violet?” Priscilla shook her head. “I never see her before eight. She always sleeps in.”

Jude let the words sink in. This definitely cast suspicion on Violet.

“Is this about Violet coming out of the garage this morning?”

Jude’s heart skipped a beat. Had he heard correctly? “She was in the garage this morning?”

Priscilla nodded eagerly. “Heath and I ran into her when we walked up to the house this morning.”

“What time was that?”

“Around seven.”

“Did she say anything to you or Heath about why she was in the garage?”

“No. Just good morning.” She leaned in and lowered her voice. “This is about the accident, right?”

He hesitated, and she quickly withdrew.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t want to be nosy, but when you asked my brother to check out the car, I just figured… I mean, it’s none of my business, but I care about Danielle…”

“Thank you, Priscilla. Can I trust you to keep this conversation between us?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you.”

He turned on his heel and headed back to the house. With every step, his suspicion deepened. Both Heath and Flora had mentioned before the oath ceremony that Violet was quite handy with fixing a car. In fact, Flora had been proud of her daughter’s skills. This gave her the means. The opportunity was clear now, too: as per Parker, she’d left the house around 5 am, and Priscilla and Heath had seen her come from the garage at 7 am. That gave her plenty of time to tamper with the brakes. But what about a motive? Did Violet have a strong enough motive to kill Danielle?

His thoughts went back to his first morning at the Gallagher estate. He’d come out of his ensuite bathroom, dressed only in a towel, when Violet had surprised him. She’d claimed to want to supply him with fresh towels, when she had to know that Danielle had done that the night before. Besides, why would Violet do servant work? Had she done it so that she could get close to him? Had she assumed—or perhaps even known—that Eve wasn’t keen on mating with him? Had she, too, overheard Eve and Byron talking? Had this given Violet the idea that she would be his choice, knowing that Eve wanted to reject him as her mate? And with him mating with Danielle, he’d thwarted Violet’s plans. He should have seen this, but he’d never thought that Violet presented any kind of risk to him, Danielle, or his men. She was too nice on the surface, congenial, sweet, and friendly. It was the perfect cover, he realized that now. Violet was much more dangerous than she looked. But he wasn’t fooled any longer. She would pay for what she’d done.

His cell phone rang and pulled him out of his thoughts. Without looking at the display, he pressed answer and put it to his ear.

“Jude Beaumont.”

“Jude, it’s Hendrick.”

Jude stopped in his tracks.

Fuck! The Werewolf Alliance. He hadn’t expected them to call. Not yet anyway. Normally they left it up to the team leader to report on the progress of the mission. Besides, he’d spoken to the elders during the video conference only yesterday.

“We need to talk.”

Jude swallowed the lump in his throat. Conversations starting with those four words were rarely ever about something positive.

44

Danielle placed the last pair of her socks in a drawer in Jude’s walk-in closet. Jude’s clothes only filled about a quarter of the hanging space, plus a few T-shirts on a shelf, and socks and underwear filled only two drawers. She didn’t have many clothes and shoes either. As a result, the closet felt too big for her. She’d never had that kind of luxury.

A knock at the door made her exit the closet and open the bedroom door. Violet stood there, a hesitant smile on her face.

“Oh, hi, Violet.”