Dawn blew out a breath. Kiko’s crush, their new friend Jac, had gotten a makeover that had changed the faceless starlet into an Eva Claremont throwback, a bloodcurdling almost-double who was persistent about becoming Dawn’s buddy. She was continually calling with invitations to spar at the fencing studio where they’d met, but Dawn hadn’t taken her up on it yet. Someday she would, just to get past the fears Jac’s resemblance dredged up. Maybe.
“I guess,” Dawn said, “there’s something different about Jac when it comes to the hype. You can tell she’s the real star and Lee’s a poseur.”
Catching on to Dawn’s protective arm cross, Breisi rose to a stand and came over from the mirrored wall to pat her coworker’s shoulder. The other woman had been in the room the day Jacqueline Ashley had revealed her Eva makeover. Just recalling the moment made Dawn dizzy, ill, longing for her mom to come back while, at the same time, hating her for leaving. Hating her for being so beautiful and perfect while Dawn was neither.
“Have you talked to Jac?” Kiko asked, all puppylike. “Is she still doing that ‘buccaneer boot camp’ for her movie?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s my girl.” He performed his rendition of Happy Kiko, reveling in a geeky glow. “Her first big gig.”
“She’s trying to get me a job on the set, but…”
They all nodded. Even though Jac’s movie wouldn’t shoot for another month, Dawn had been forced to call all her industry contacts to tell them she’d be out of commission for a while. Did that finally make her an
ex
-stuntwoman?
Once again, she felt the machete in her hand as she winged it down to terminate Robby.
With one final squeeze to Dawn’s upper arm, Breisi handed her gun over, dug into her cargo pants pockets for beanbags, and gave them to Dawn. “What do you say you muchachos take a run at me now?”
Kiko scrunched his nose. “I’ve gotten into a mental mood with this break, Breez. Unless you and Dawn want to go at it. I’d love to see a good catfight.”
“Gross.” Dawn made as if to punch him, and he flinched, even though he knew she wouldn’t go there.
“I’m just being honest about my all-American, red-blooded maleness.” He grinned.
“Kik,” Breisi said, business in her tone as she moved to the opposite side of the gym. “You want to work or not?”
“Okay, okay.”
As he left, Dawn busied herself by loading a beanbag into Breisi’s gun. By chance, she glanced over, catching sight of Kiko by the far corner, turning away from her. He inspected his gun, slipping a hand to his back, holding it like it was paining him. But in the next second, he was loading a beanbag, acting as if everything was normal.
Frowning, she took off the rubber-soled work boots she’d been wearing for the gym floor, then her socks. Kiko was a big boy and she wasn’t going to tell him to take a rest; she knew damned well that bringing up the subject would only encourage him to prove her wrong by playing that much harder. The best thing would be to keep an eye on him, and that was that.
Waiting until Breisi closed her eyes and settled into a defensive hunch, Dawn changed position, ready to give the other woman a few karma bruises.
But before the first shot could be fired, the TV blipped off, the room going quiet.
Her body readied itself, pounding, heating, because she knew what was coming next.
The Voice eased through the speakers, low and rough, still-of-the-night lethal.
“I need all of you in my office,” he said. “We’ve finally got something.”
I
F
there was one way to describe the joint that housed Limpet and Associates, it was “Vincent Price on mescaline.”
With its grand staircase edged with gargoyle-decorated balustrades, its creaky hardwood floors, its knight-in-creepy-armor sensibilities, the place floated in the twilight area between kitschy and truly haunted. Dawn wasn’t sure which was more accurate because, based on what she’d seen so far, anything was possible.
As the team walked from the back of the house to the front, they passed under a massive iron chandelier that resembled a claw topped by melted candles. Then, while everyone climbed the stairs, she couldn’t help eyeing a painting that hung over the granite fireplace mantel and dominated the room.
The Fire Woman, Dawn had started to call her. A seduction-postured temptress wrapped in a flame-red robe.
Dawn felt watched, just like she always did around The Voice’s collection of portraits.
There was a good reason for that, too.
They made their way down the dark hall to The Voice’s office, where the door stood open in dubious welcome. Inside, velvet curtains blocked the windows, books stood sentinel on the floor-to-ceiling shelves, and a magnificent TV surrounded by speakers reigned. There were portraits here, too, but oddly, one of the baroque wood frames enclosed a permanently empty field of fire. The rest of the pictures held the images of females, each of them looking like they’d been caught sliding their clothes off while webbed in an erotic fantasy.
Friends, Dawn thought. That’s what Breisi and Kiko called the women in the paintings. She’d discovered they were spirits, that the portraits were something like beds where they rested. Where they watched. Always watched.
As Dawn took a seat in a velvet-lined chair, the faint scent of jasmine crept over her, the perfume of these ghosts who had fought Robby Pennybaker right along with Dawn and Breisi that horrible night.
Skin alive with sensation, just as it always was in The Voice’s office, Dawn tried to relax. So many things confused her about being here: this new preternatural world, the raging impatience to find her missing dad, the strange ecstasy of what The Voice could do—and had done—to her body and mind.
Who was this man? she asked herself for probably the one thousandth time.
After the Robby incident, she’d done research, visiting an Internet café to bring up articles and images of Mr. Jonah Limpet—The Voice’s real name. She’d found rare photographs of a young guy who held a hand over his face to avoid being caught by the cameras. He had short, dark hair that curled slightly at the ends. His body looked tall and wiry under long, untucked shirts and khaki pants.
Wanting more, Dawn had delved further, finding out that he was the reclusive heir to a medical supply fortune, that he never left any of his houses except to travel between them under a veil of secrecy. His aged parents had passed away years ago, but he’d held the funerals on Limpet property, being so wealthy that he’d never even needed to step foot into the actual world.
How had Jonah Limpet gotten this way? And why had he closed himself off from everything but the Underground?
Dawn crossed her arms over her chest, preparing to block out his well-established hypnotic powers before he could get the jump on her. He liked being inside her, liked solving her, too, bringing her to physical climaxes while lapping up her emotions.
Thing was, she liked it. Hated it.
Loved
it.
Realizing that she was getting all repressed again, Dawn sighed, resting her hands on her lap. All her life, she’d shoved her emotions into an inner box, but lately, she’d been trying hard to keep herself more open. She needed to face what The Voice was, and more important, what he’d become to her.
Nearby, Kiko arranged himself on a settee, sitting bolt upright because of his brace. The sight pinched at her. She was used to seeing him plop into chairs, then collapse into a sprawled mess of comfort.
He caught her sad gaze, his jaw going tight. Dawn glanced away, knowing the last thing he wanted was pity.
“You said you had something?” she said to The Voice.
Now that they’d settled, the TV screen bloomed with color. The Voice had started his meeting in the usual way: silently, arrogantly, efficiently, and with succinct visual aids.
The screen sharpened to reveal a press conference, and a familiar one at that. Dawn had seen Marla Pennybaker’s announcement just days after Robby had encouraged his father to kill himself, then was finally exterminated himself. As the older woman stiltedly talked about her husband’s suicide—a true enough statement, except that it’d been brought on by the man’s refusal to join Robby in a vampire Underground that his son had never fully explained—Dawn evaluated Marla’s body language.
Garbed in a white silk suit, she seemed more put together than Dawn had ever seen her. Back when she’d engaged Limpet and Associates to find Robby, her face had been lined by grief and fear. Yet now…there was acceptance, like she didn’t remember the hell they’d all gone through.
Kiko grunted. “We’ve seen this, Boss. And it
still
looks like she’s reading from a script.”
“That would make sense if she was mind wiped by a vampire,” The Voice said. “I’ve seen this type of reaction many times, though it’s not noticeable unless one is searching for it.”
Breisi primly crossed her legs as she took notes. “We’ve already speculated that when the Guards kidnapped Marla that night, they made sure she wouldn’t come back with memories of anything relating to them.”
Dawn could still picture the horror of Marla being whisked away by the red-eyes. The team hadn’t seen the older woman again until a few days later, during the press conference. There, she’d insisted that her son’s weird appearance in a film after he’d been dead for twenty-three years—the catalyst for Limpet and Associates to take her case—had been nothing more than a cruel joke perpetuated by a few special effects artists having fun at the Pennybakers’ expense.
Without warning, the TV screen zoomed in on someone in the conference’s audience, a stately man with gray-tinged hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and a natty suit. This was something they hadn’t noticed before; The Voice must’ve been scanning the images closely.
“Who’s that?” Kiko asked.
Dawn knew. “Milton Crockett. He’s a lawyer, a ‘fixer’ around town. Basically, if you’re a celebrity who murdered your mistress or an actor who’s been caught with your pants around your ankles in front of an elementary school, he’s your man. I recognize him because he took some meetings on the
Blades of Spain
set. He was helping Leland Richards when he got into trouble with some gigolo who was accusing our manly star of liking other manly men.”
Kiko raised a brow. “Was it true?”
Dawn shrugged. “I guess we’ll never know. Crockett did his job and the accuser never said another word in public.”
Breisi’s pen stopped moving over her clipboard. “I wonder if Milton Crockett could be the reason Marla would not talk to us after she reappeared.”
Interesting. Upon attempting to contact her, Limpet and Associates had been threatened with a restraining order from Marla’s new “personal assistant,” so they’d never been able to interview her. Once, when Breisi had attempted to wheedle her way around the red tape by intercepting Marla during a shopping trip at The Grove, the assistant/bodyguard had intervened. He definitely could’ve been hired by Milton Crockett’s firm.
Now, the TV whisked over to another newscast: Lee Tomlinson in handcuffs. The screen focused in on a man following in the shadow of the accused murderer.
Hello. “There he is again. Milton Crockett. I assume this is leading up to a big reveal, Voi…?” Dawn stopped herself from saying the old nickname she’d given him. But she couldn’t call him Jonah, even if he’d told her to during one of their more…
intimate
moments.
The TV blinked off, and Dawn’s belly clutched into itself, anticipating The Voice. She despised her weakness in wanting to hear him so badly.
“There’s been another murder,” he said, tone melding with the high-quality speakers until it sounded as if he actually might be in the same room. “A cocktail waitress named Jessica Reese.”
His words, etched with a foreign undertow, scraped over her skin, digging, biting into her with nips of suggestion. Dawn stirred, restless.
“When you say ‘another murder,’” Kiko asked, “are you referring to a second victim, after Klara Monaghan? Is that why you showed us Lee Tomlinson, the guy who did her?”
Dawn thought about the reason The Voice had shown them the Marla Pennybaker clip, too.
Frank. Would the murders somehow lead to her dad and…
“You think this new killing might have something to do with the Underground?” she asked.
“And Klara’s murder, too,” Breisi added. “Crockett is a link between Klara and Marla and, by extension, Lee Tomlinson, the Servant, and Robby Pennybaker, the vampire. Boss, are you insinuating that Crockett is a vampire Servant like Lee?”
“That would certainly be something to go on,” The Voice said.
Kiko came to sit on the edge of the settee. “So—”
“What’re the details?” Dawn blurted, unable to wait.
Breisi glanced over at her, and Dawn knew exactly what she was thinking. Patience.
Knowing the woman was right, Dawn settled her ass down. But who could blame her for urging answers out of a man who rarely gave them? Could anyone fault her for doubting The Voice when he was so damned cryptic?
And when he’d betrayed her before?
A man named Matt Lonigan had told her something similar once: answers. Demand some answers about The Voice.
Sinking lower into her seat, she put thoughts of Matt, a possible vampire hunter and rival PI, on the back burner, where they still simmered no matter how hard she tried to turn them down.
The TV now showcased a grisly picture of Klara Monaghan, a glorified extra whom the team suspected had been murdered because she’d given Limpet too much information about Robby. On the screen, the blood leaked from her torn throat.
Dawn swallowed, going ill at the sight of red plastered over her mind’s eye. Her mother’s own crime-scene photos. Images she couldn’t shake.
“Dawn,” The Voice said gently.
“I’m okay.” Liar.
As Klara’s image hovered over the room, The Voice paused, as if he wasn’t sure she was telling the truth. But he knew Dawn too well to pursue it, so he continued.
“The new victim’s wounds are similar to Klara’s, but with a few differences. Where Lee Tomlinson left DNA residue from saliva, this time the killer used bleach to wash it away. It isn’t an ill-planned crime based on impulse. This one is methodical. So far, there are no helpful fingerprints at the victim’s apartment, although there are some cloth fibers that might be useful. Teeth imprints could be salvaged, as well.”
“The scene has been processed already?” Dawn asked.
“It’s still occurring.”
The Voice didn’t need to confirm that he’d been talking to a paid source who was at the crime’s location. He had connections everywhere.
Kiko shook his head. “So it’s too late for us to do a bust-in on the scene, huh?”
Dawn didn’t even tell him that he couldn’t do bust-ins period. Reminding him of his injuries was overkill, especially since he was worried about other things, like losing his acting agent due to the injury, too. Not auditioning was killing Kiko; she knew that because, during long chats while sitting next to his hospital bed, she’d realized he was a closet overachiever. A GATE student and an honor-roll stud, he’d planned on a law career as a backup to acting, believe it or not.
The TV went dark again. “The authorities have set a tight perimeter around the scene, but let’s see if Breisi can get one of those secret, late-night coroner appointments so we can view the body. Breisi?”
“I’m on it just as soon as you tell us more, Boss.”
The Voice laughed, a sound that scraped through the center of Dawn, stripping her from the inside out. Her tummy seized up, moved by the sparked friction between her legs. She crossed them to dull the hunger he always inflicted.
Dawn…
She knew that she was the only one who could hear him,
feel
him, saying her name.
Pushing the craving away, she ignored his silent supplication and asked, “Are we assuming this is the work of a copycat murderer?”
“It could be.” Kiko stood, blue eyes glinting with the thrill of the chase. “Lee Tomlinson’s DNA tells us that he’s Klara’s murderer, but he’s locked up awaiting trial. He’s been contained ever since the law caught up with him.”
After Klara’s murder, Lee had disappeared. The team had researched him, then tried to track him down for further questioning about the Underground, but to no avail. By then, he’d been found holed up in the very same county, stoned out of his gourd.
“Unless,” Dawn said, “Lee wasn’t the killer in the first place. Maybe someone planted evidence to frame him?”
“Or maybe a rogue vampire took up on Jessica where Lee left off on Klara,” Kiko added.
“We need to lay this out.” Breisi paged through the notes on her clipboard.
When The Voice spoke, it was easy to picture him with a finger in the air, now that she sort of knew what he looked like. “Before we start, we need perspective. Remember, our objective is to use this murder to discover an Underground.”
“How could I forget,” Dawn said. “The good of the many outweighs the good of the few. And if we just happen to solve a crime while we’re at it, champagne for us.”
“Dawn—” The Voice began, his tone reflecting a weariness she’d encouraged with her eternal arguments.
“I know, I know. We’re here to save the world, and that’s all the explanation the team requires.”
She’d been told the vague, noble justifications for The Voice’s secrecy ad nauseam. Limpet and Associates didn’t exist to find Frank or supply Dawn with the answers she’d been thirsting for. No wonder The Voice generally hired people like Kiko and Breisi: salts of the earth with overdeveloped senses of justice, people who fought for good merely on faith alone.