Tall svelte blondes were a dime a dozen in California, so it was no wonder I was darting through them, hesitating and glancing back to search their faces even though none of them were dressed right. Ten minutes and four blocks later, I gave up. Betsy Vincent had slipped through my fingers.
Walking back to my car, I tried to swallow my disappointment. On one hand, I had proof she was alive. On the other, I still had no idea where she was or how to find her. I hadn’t even gotten close enough to get her scent. Failure made me cross as I worked my way through the crowd, stopping to step into the shops to see if I could see any hint of that vibrant blue dress.
By the time I made it to my car, the parking ticket was icing on the cake. Snatching it off and throwing it in the passenger seat, I edged into traffic and vowed to take the trolley next time I made a lunch date, and cursed my thoughtlessness that had put me behind the wheel instead of on the trolley.
After fighting traffic, the surprise waiting for me at home made me start counting to fifty. Ten wasn’t high enough. Across the street, making absolutely no effort to hide, sat a black sedan with two familiar vampires behind the wheel. The driver watched my car turn down the narrow alley with no acknowledgement whatsoever.
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The werewolves were a little more circumspect. If the vampires hadn’t abraded my already frayed nerves, I probably would have missed them. They were standing down the alley past the parking lot, partially concealed by the dumpster we all used for our trash. One of them saw me looking in their direction and both of them disappeared behind it.
Stomping up the stairs, I nearly wrenched the lock and left it open while I disarmed the alarm.
When the final beep of the system sounded, I slammed it with enough force to bring both werewolves out of hiding so I could get a good look at them through the back-door glass. Like the vampires out front, I recognized them by sight but had no name for them.
With Milo’s revelations fresh in my mind, I debated whether or not Kale and Marcus were being overly protective or erring on the side of caution. With a deep breath, I picked up the phone only to put it back down again. Calling either of them meant a fight I wasn’t willing to have. Besides, I wasn’t too proud to take backup despite the fact I’d railed against it, especially since I had no idea exactly how deep this case was going to go.
Without changing, I deposited my bag of goodie boxes in the fridge and headed downstairs with the envelope Milo had given me. Hesitating briefly by the front door, I opted not to turn the sign indicating I was in until I had finished the notes on my brief encounter with Betsy Vincent.
On a yellow legal pad, I wrote all the details I could remember from my brief look. She had appeared in good spirits and excellent health, but if she was feeding vampires, who knew how long that would last? One thing for certain, she appeared to enjoy her walk on the wild side.
With a snap of my fingers, I realized what had bothered me so much about the incident. Even knowing she hadn’t been abducted by force, it seemed strange that she would be out shopping in the middle of the day alone. Or had she been truly alone?
I was still puzzling over the fact when the soft scrape of a shoe on my stoop preceded the click of a key sliding into the lock. There weren’t many people who had keys so I wasn’t surprised to see Peter step through the doorway with Marcus close behind him. For once, I didn’t feel invaded. His uninvited visit saved me a phone call.
“Where does your father live when he’s not harassing his progeny?”
Peter hesitated in the process of going back outside and Marcus actually missed a step in his gliding strut across the room. The question had caught them both off guard. Good for me.
“New York. May I ask why?”
His manner was cautious as he seated himself across from me. I waited until Peter had closed the door before I elaborated. Granted, he could hear us if he stood close enough, but the illusion of a private conversation was appreciated.
“So, Arizona’s weather isn’t to his liking?”
The widening of Marcus’s eyes was the only clue that I might have hit a nerve. Not for the first time, I wished my lioness senses could gauge vampires better. I wondered if his attitude was so cautious because of the subject matter or how we’d last parted. The way he answered my dig made me decide it was a combination of both.
“The weather would suit him well. He likes arid conditions. New York has better hunting and he’s gone lazy with such easy prey. Again, I ask why?”
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Without opening the envelope, I slid it across the desk and waited until he took it and carefully opened it.
“The phone records for my dust problem.”
Even though I knew what he would see, I braced myself as he took the papers out and concentrated on his face. It was doubtful I would catch something he didn’t want me to, but a cat can hope even when hunting birds behind glass.
“That didn’t take long.” Marcus’s comment was bland, but there was an emotion behind them I couldn’t identify. Had he been expecting more time? I watched him flip through the numbers and a slight tightening of the eyes was the direction I needed.
“Who do you know in Phoenix?”
“A friend. Or at least a man I called a friend.”
Obviously, he reconsidered his connections as he stared at the highlighted numbers on the printed page. From the angle he sat, I had a clear view of the highlights if not the numbers or the notes written in the margins in a neat hand. For a moment, I questioned my judgment in letting him go over the pages. Marcus was not my enemy, but at that moment, I couldn’t guarantee his friendship.
Ignoring that nagging voice of doubt, I waited until he shuffled the papers back together and laid them on the desk atop the envelope they had come in. His bright blue eyes rose to meet mine. I felt the chasm between us widen with more than fundamental relationship issues.
The stare lengthened as the tension between us escalated to the point I thought Peter might pop back in my door to make sure I wasn’t about to shift and attack Marcus. He had to feel it outside.
The thought distracted me and I couldn’t hide my startled jump when Marcus finally spoke.
“I’ll call my friend and find out why a vampire from here was using his private service line. While I’m questioning, I’ll find out why your lion patronized his establishment. It could be coincidence that he happens to be here at the same time my father and his stooge are determined to make trouble. It could be his ill luck.”
He didn’t believe it and neither did I. Coincidence? It was possible no matter how unlikely. That Marcus tried to put a nice face on it made me want to forgive him for walking out and leaving me burning. Not willing to bring it up with the frustration so close to the surface, I settled on the closest thing I could say.
“Thank you.”
Marcus’s laugh made me shiver, but his words would have made my fur stand up. “Oh, don’t thank me. When this is settled, I’ll take my services out in trade.”
Before I could muster a suitably witty reply, he was up and striding for the door with a sense of purpose he had lacked on arrival. I called after him, proud of myself for steadying my voice so it lacked the breathless quality I felt. “What? No goodbye?”
He stopped and turned back to me with a smile I remembered from the days when our relationship was new. It stopped the breath in my chest.
“No goodbye. That would imply I’m leaving, but I’m not. I’m setting off for a quest to resolve this so we can move on to more important matters. It’s an entirely different situation. Questing knights never bid farewell because they always plan to return to reap their rewards in fair maidens.”
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A sharp rap on the door had it opening and he was gone before I managed to stop gaping and close my mouth. Marcus waxing poetic? It was almost scary to consider. The ringing phone jerked me from my musing. I snatched it up and growled a greeting.
“Whoa, someone’s grumpy today.”
I closed my eyes and counted to ten. Frank LeCroy was not someone I felt like dealing with today or any day, really. Putting on my most professional telephone manners, I leaned back in my chair and stared at the cracks in the ceiling.
“Rougarou. What a surprise. What do you want?”
The man laughed at the nickname. He liked to boast over drinks at the seedy taverns around town that he was a direct descendent of a Rougarou werewolf waiting for the right situation to trigger the change. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that Rougarou werewolves always bred true. If he had one ounce of that blood he bragged about, he would have been howling at the moon years ago. The family-guardian nonsense he liked to throw in wasn’t even worth thinking about. Frank wanted to think he’d still get that chance to howl at the moon if he felt threatened enough. The nose doesn’t lie. He was so human that he didn’t need to bathe every day to avoid being rank to the feline senses.
“You really are grumpy. Could it be that your secret network hasn’t revealed anything specific on that special case I sent you?”
His tone was smug and fairly vibrating with eagerness to share whatever he knew. Of course, it was stating the obvious that he was calling me for a reason. He didn’t waste time picking on me worse than the tiny pricks, which meant it was probably a juicy tidbit.
“I’m making headway. Have you called to tell me what you truly held out of the file?”
Sounding bored wasn’t an effort. I was going to have to take some of my windfall from Dr.
Vincent and have the plaster fixed on the ceiling. Maybe I’d add a fresh coat of paint to the walls while I was at it.
“Well, since you mention it, I do know something that might break the case for us.”
“There is no us, Frank. You sent the file to me. That meant you were done with it.”
“You wound me. Here I thought you were a team player.”
“No one goes into this business as a team player. Share if you want to, but if you’re going to yank my chain, I’m hanging up.”
“Wait. Wait. Don’t hang up. I know where our girl is. The Cosmopolitan Hotel.”
That brought me upright in my chair. It was up the coast a bit from Carvelli’s, in a more secluded area that catered to the idle wealthy. More than one police investigation had died in the lobby.
“If you know that much, why haven’t you trotted in and fetched her back to her husband. I’m sure he’d be generously grateful.”
“Because I don’t have a vampire army willing to come in to get me if I don’t walk out again.
Whatever relationship you have with the king, he’ll come after you if you’re hung up in there.” His voice had lost the jovial, teasing tone.
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“What makes you think the vampires care where I go and what I do?” This time, it was an effort to sound bored. My heart raced as I tried to think of how much Frank LeCroy knew about the deeper recesses of the underground. If he knew too much, someone might think it was more expedient to silence him permanently rather than count on his rather dubious discretion.
“Because there’s suddenly vampire and werewolf bodyguards hanging around your doorstep. I was going to have this conversation face-to-face, but decided that a phone call would do.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“Destiny, I don’t know you well enough to trust you. Why do the monsters answer you when they laugh in my face? Could it be that you’re more than what you seem? What brand of shapeshifter are you?”
That was putting the dart in the bull’s eye. I was so surprised that I hesitated and I heard his intake of breath over the line. Having lost my chance to convincingly lie, I changed tactics.
“Guess and I’ll tell you if you hit it. If not, you have to let it rest.” I was tempted to hum the Jeopardy theme song while I waited. One minute stretched into three before he spoke.
“Feline. You’re too graceful to be a werewolf like your friend. I’ll guess lion or cougar simply because of the color of your hair.”
He waited and I didn’t contradict him. “Now that your curiosity has been satisfied, talk to me about Betsy Vincent. You obviously have a plan.”
“I knew it!”
I smiled when he presented his plan and even I had to admit it was a good one. By the time the conversation ended, I felt like my old self again.
Who said humans couldn’t rise to the occasion when they had to? Maybe Frank LeCroy had a little more of that guardianship instinct than he realized.
The Cosmopolitan Hotel sat on a hill overlooking the city with a majestic view of the bay. It catered to the famous, wealthy, connected, and generally untouchables in town. I jumped when the door to my rental car opened and Frank LeCroy slipped in with a grin. I turned to him and demanded, “This is your plan? Seriously?”
His plan had sounded so logical over the phone, but in reality, it was something else altogether.
Sure, stroll in and ask to see Betsy Vincent. It sounded reasonable enough, but in the hour I’d been watching the general comings and goings from the parking lot, no less than a dozen vampires had walked out and looked around acting like security personnel. I had a better chance surviving a hit on Fort Knox than this place. It wasn’t nearly as carefully guarded.
“It’s a public place. What harm can come from it? You go in, have the front desk call Betsy down to the lobby, and invite her into the bar to set her straight. It’s simple. What could go wrong?”
He honestly believed it was that simple. It proved how little he knew the world he was trying to
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dabble in. The depth of his sincerity and naïveté melted away my ire.
“Frank, Frank, Frank. What’s to keep him from deciding no one needs to remember I walked into the place and add me to his collection of toys?”