Page 1 of Truthfinder’s Promise

1

Why did every important man in Meredith Townsend’s life have to have a name that started with J?

Jared Townsend, loving father, deceased. Jace Savage, ex-boyfriend, now married to one of her two best friends. Julian Astor, generally terrible person, currently the scourge of her existence. Jensen King, hotter-than-hell one-month fling who’d dropped her without so much as a farewell text.

Couldn’t she have one, just one, loving family member, arch-nemesis, or ex-lover whose name started with a nice S or T or something? Admittedly, Julian Astor wasn’t an arch-nemesis so much as he was the creepy thorn in her side, but the distinction didn’t make her any happier to see his name flash across her phone screen.

She silenced the call and let her head drop back on the marble sarcophagus beneath her. It was three-thirty in the morning and her insomniac ass was awake and hanging out in her dead mother’s mausoleum.

The space was an opulent affair of white marble, complete with modern-style sarcophagus. Meredith liked to come here because the empty tomb reminded her that once, just once, she’d successfully denied one of Savannah Townsend’s wishes and not paid a price for it.

The woman was dead, had been for over a year now, and Meredith had cremated her instead of laying her to rest in this monument she’d built to herself.

Laying to rest. It sounded so peaceful when put in those terms. If ghosts or spirits or any kind of afterlife did exist, Meredith sincerely hoped her mother’s wasn’t peaceful. Goddess knew she didn’t deserve it.

On nights like tonight, when the little sleep Meredith had managed had been filled with dreams of her father’s dying screams, she came here to remember. Not all of the terrible things her mother had done, but that she had lived through them. She had survived, and she’d managed one final defiance.

It wasn’t the pain of old memories that called her here, but how here, in this barren tomb, she felt a hollow emptiness that approximated peace. That...and something about the place itself kept drawing her back. The feeling was an itch beneath her skin that wouldn’t subside. She’d thought at first that the pull was magical in nature, but every time she swept the small chamber the only magic she found was her own.

Maybe she was growing morbid, all this time spent in graveyards. Any day now she might don a black dress and a cape and demand people start calling her “Mistress.” She snorted at the thought. Her friends were already worried she was losing it, if the number of times Siren and Valkyrie called her “just to check in” were any indication.

Her phone rang again, flashing Julian’s name.

Maybe she should do something about him. One word to her best friends, Siren and Valkyrie, and Meredith had no doubt the Council’s security would make Julian’s life so unpleasant he ceased to function as a normal human being.

She silenced the call, knowing she would never say anything to Siren or Val. She didn’t want other people solving her problems. Wasn’t one of the glories of sobriety supposed to be feeling like you were in control of your own life? Except she’d started drinking at fifteen because she hadn’t had any control. That, and because passing out was how she’d gotten to sleep.

So far all sobriety had done for her was remind her that she was useless, knock her down to an average of three fitful hours of non-consecutive sleep a night, and make her painfully aware that she needed to gain some weight back and maybe take up running for the sake of her cardiovascular health.

Her heels clicked on the marble floor as she swung her legs down. Couldn’t take up running in heels. Not even in the two-inch ones she’d worked her way down to. Any day now she might swallow her pride and let Siren’s Life Aspect fix the fact that if she stood flat-footed it felt like every shortened tendon and muscle in her calves was about to snap.

Sure. Any day now she might also sprout angel wings and go for a nice flight around town.

Her phone’s ringtone started up, echoing off the walls.

Seriously? It was three-thirty in the freaking morning. She hadn’t answered a phone call from Julian since the old Council, of which Julian had been a temporary member, had been disbanded and put on trial for illegal blood magic use. He’d gotten off with easy sentencing on account of not being a full-fledged councilor. He was free to live his life so long as he didn’t leave Seclusion’s town borders, and apparently living that life involved stalking her.

She climbed into her car and pointed it toward home.

Julian had been her mother’s favorite lapdog, so Meredith had been forced to play nice with him when Savannah was alive. She’d continued to play nice after because it had become a habit, one she hadn’t identified until she’d made actual friends again.

When she finally dropped him it only made Julian’s attention increase, until he exhibited textbook stalker behavior. But she’d known there was something wrong with him long before then. It was in his eyes. You knew when he looked at someone he didn’t see them. He saw a thing. An obstacle or tool or prize to be won.

She pulled into her drive and found the gate to her property blocked by a black BMW X5. A sliver of fear kicked her heart into a higher gear, the subsequent flood of adrenaline turning her hands shaky where they rested on the wheel and shifter.

The BMW’s door opened and Julian stepped out. Meredith made sure her own doors were locked, popped the shifter in neutral, and rolled the window down a single inch. Julian stopped next to the driver’s door, a line of displeasure creasing his face.

“Why aren’t you answering your phone?” He was blandly handsome in that way wealth could make almost anyone, burying otherwise unremarkable brown hair and average features under a two-hundred dollar haircut and clothes tailored to accentuate a physique honed by hours in the gym. At first glance he could be any harmless businessman, doctor, or politician. But one look in those eyes, and anyone with a lick of sense would run for the hills.

“Because it’s almost four in the morning.”

“You’re awake. Your phone is on.”

“Do you know who I answer calls from at four in the morning? My friends or my lovers. You’re neither.”

“I could be.”

Not bloody likely.