Personal Demon (40 page)

While she returned to her research, I tried to put the pieces together, but they only slid farther apart.

The lab had found no trace evidence to indicate Carlos had been at any crime scene except the one with the young woman. When I finally wrested a story from him, he claimed that he hadn’t killed our brothers or attempted to assassinate our father. He’d never even been at Hector’s. Nor had he spoken to Troy, much less shot him. Why tell such obvious lies when we had eyewitness accounts?

The death of the young woman was one murder he wasn’t denying. He wasn’t admitting to it either, but seemed to presume his silence answered my questions. He said she’d been a half-demon he’d met a few times, and that she’d lured him into a trap. I was left to assume that he’d realized he’d been tricked, killed her while trying to extract information under torture and hid when the others came.

If he’d caught a glimpse of whoever came after him, he was keeping it to himself. Suspicious, yes. But knowing Carlos, he’d have panicked, been unable to muster the courage to climb out a window and hidden in the closet using a blur spell. He wasn’t about to admit to such cowardice…even if it might help find his brothers’ killers.

There was one piece of evidence that clearly spoke in his favor. The timeline. There was no way he could have traveled to all three locations in the time allotted, demonically possessed or not.

When I looked up from my notes, Paige glanced my way.

“I hate to give you one more thing to do, but have you called your mother?” she asked.

I must have winced, because she hurried on.

“I can do it. I just thought—”

“No, you’re right. It should come from me.” I really didn’t want my mother to hear about the death of my half-brothers on the news.

“Oh, and I spoke to Savannah,” Paige said. “She and Adam want to come down and help out.”

“I’d rather—”

“They stay put and mind the shop. That’s what I told them.”

“Thank you.”

I picked up the office phone to call my mother—I didn’t dare check my cell and see how many voice messages I’d accumulated during my ten-minute recess. Before I dialed more than the area code, I heard “Sir?” and glanced up to see a middle-aged man in the doorway, clutching a file.

“Yes?”

“Warren from the lab, sir. We’ve never met.”

“Warren?”

“Yes, sir. Warren Mills.”

Normally I would have asked more, learning something about him, but today, committing his name to memory was the best I could manage.

“You sent down blood and DNA from an apartment. Not the one from last night. This was from…” He glanced at his notes. “Jaz and Sonny?”

“Yes, right.”

“I think you need to see this.”

HOPE: SCENT MEMORY

W
e went first to Jaz and Sonny’s apartment. Karl didn’t explain, but I knew he had to be second-guessing his memory of the scent he’d picked up from Guy and wanted to return here, where we’d seen him two nights ago.

The apartment was as we’d left it.

Karl inhaled. “Someone else has been here.”

“I think Paige mentioned Lucas had techs come by and collect samples—DNA, fingerprints…”

He nodded and walked to the sofa where the jacket still lay.

“You said this was Sonny’s?”

I nodded.

He sniffed it, and I realized that was why he was here—reacquainting himself with these scents.

“Let me grab you something of Jaz’s.”

He protested that he could tell Jaz’s scent by elimination, but I hurried into the bedroom, eager to be doing something after a morning of following others around.

There were two twin beds in the room, and a laundry basket standing in for a hamper. At least 80 percent of the dirty clothes had made it in.

Lying on top was the shirt Jaz had worn after the sweet sixteen heist. As I lifted it, I saw him again, his eyes dancing with tequila, the fumes on his breath as his lips came toward mine, his hands pressed against my sides, eyes closing, inky lashes curling on his cheeks—

“Is that his?” Karl asked from the door.

I spun, raising the shirt as if to show it off, shielding my face. “It is.”

He didn’t respond. When I lowered the shirt, he was already gone. I grabbed a knapsack from the open closet, stuffed the shirt inside and hurried out. He put the jacket into a separate pouch, then wordlessly took the bag from me.

WE WALKED TO
the car in silence. I fretted that I’d upset him, but he’d been quiet since the morgue.

Making a big deal out of it would only confirm that this visit
had
affected me. That I was still thinking of them. Of him.

We were in the car before Karl spoke. “Sonny was at the warehouse.”

“Probably. I was too new, but Guy trusted them. He’d have taken them there or sent them for supplies.”

“I mean last night. His scent was as strong as the other boys’.”

My heart thumped. “Maybe they were keeping him there.”

“Maybe.”

“Was there any trace of…anyone else?”

“Jasper? No.” He paused. “I’m sorry.”

THE WAREHOUSE WAS
on the way to the apartment where Carlos had been found, and Karl wanted to confirm Sonny’s presence—now that he had scent samples—and see whether there was a trail.

There was.

We expected it to lead to the street and disappear. Instead, the trail meandered down alleys and back roads.

Despite the serpentine route, it was obvious Sonny had a goal in mind, and was detouring around major arteries.

“He doesn’t want to be spotted,” I said as we walked down a service lane. “Can you tell who he’s with?”

“No one.”

“He’s alone? He must be escaping then.”

Karl slowed, then looked over his shoulder at me.

My cheeks warmed. “I know that’s not the only explanation, Karl. He could be—” I pushed the admission out. “He could have been at the warehouse of his own free will. He could be working with whoever is behind this.

He could have delivered the bottle. I know all that. I just…”

I saw their faces: Bianca, Rodriguez, Max, Tony, Guy. Twenty-four hours, and almost everyone I’d met in the past few days was dead.

“It’s just too much. I…need to hope.”

He turned, stopping me in my path, and rubbed down the goose bumps on my arms. He leaned closer, and I thought he was going to kiss me, but he just leaned in, his voice lowering.

“I’m going to call Lucas and have them send a guard and a car. You should go to that apartment where they found Carlos, see if you can pick up anything.”

“I’ll be okay, Karl.”

“I think you should—”

“It won’t cloud my judgment. I promise.”

One last squeeze. As we walked, he snuck glances my way. Looking for signs that he should insist on doing this without me.

The trail ended at a terraced garden, with notices that confetti and rice were prohibited. Presumably a popular wedding photo site.

Sonny’s trail led across the gardens to the park beyond, which wasn’t huge—maybe a couple of acres—

with playground equipment and benches.

We stood in the shadow of a storage shed beside the garden. I wished I’d brought a jacket. A chill wind blew in from the north, and the sun kept ducking behind cloud cover. Miamians, accustomed to better weather, had forsaken the park, all except a single child and her nanny on the swings, and a man slumped on a bench.

I looked at the man. At his size. At his dark blond hair, ruffled by the breeze. My heart picked up speed.

“That looks like Sonny.”

Karl crept to the garden railing, his head up, sampling the wind. He stepped back into the shadows with me.

“I think you’re right.”

The figure had his back to us, and was leaning against the corner of the bench, chin on his chest. “He could be sleeping.”

“Possible.”

I knew there was a more likely explanation. If Sonny had gone through all that trouble to avoid being seen, he’d hardly nap in a public park.

“I’m going to take a closer look,” Karl said. “I need you to stay here, Hope.”

“I will.”

He glanced my way. “I mean it.”

“I know. I’ll wait here where I can see him, and if he moves, I’ll hit my panic button to warn you.”

“Good.”

As he moved away, he stopped and looked back. His lips parted, but he shook his head. Before I could say anything, he was gone.

LUCAS: 18

“SO WE ANALYZED THE DNA
and blood samples.” Warren kept his gaze on his notes, clutched in both hands. “Let’s start with the DNA. The requisition says it’s supposed to be from two magicians. But, well, sir, we didn’t find any sorcerer genetic markers.”

“They’re human?” Paige said.

“Um, we aren’t sure.” He laid the pages down, his gaze lifting as high as my cheekbones. “We’re running more tests. I wasn’t comfortable bringing you preliminary results, but I thought…”

“I’d want to know this right away. Yes, thank you. So we have two samples, from possible supernaturals—

”

“Probable, sir.”

“Probable. Of one or more unknown types—”

“One, I believe. They share over 50 percent of their DNA in common.”

“They’re brothers?”

Paige pushed her chair back, getting to her feet. “Over 50 percent means
full
brothers, right?” She opened my satchel and took out a file folder. “Then I’d say we somehow got the wrong samples, because genetics can do some wonky things, but there’s no way these two guys—” she put the kidnap photo on the table, “—are full brothers.”

Beside it, she set the close-ups of their faces that I’d requisitioned from the computer lab. Even if one looked past the obvious coloring and ethnicity differences, there was nothing in the two young men’s faces to suggest familial relationship.

“Hey, that’s Jason.” It was the younger of the researchers. She turned to the other woman and poked a finger at Jaz’s picture. “Doesn’t that look like Jason?”

The older woman glanced at me first. Only when I nodded did she walk over. She peered at the photo, then, after another glance at me and a reciprocal nod, she picked it up and studied it.

“It looks like him, but the eyes aren’t right. Or the mouth. And the hair’s curlier.”

The younger woman took the photo. “Yeah, I see it. This guy’s even hotter than Jason.” An embarrassed giggle as she handed the photo back to Paige. “Sorry.”

“Who’s Jason?” Paige asked.

The younger woman opened her mouth, but her colleague beat her to it. “He worked in the library. Grunt work mainly—running books and reports around, filing them back on the shelves. Then he was transferred to…”

“Security division,” the younger woman said with a sigh.

The other woman cast a knowing look at Paige. “Some of our younger staff were quite taken with him. Not that it did them any good. A sweet kid, but he kept to himself.”

“Do you remember Jason’s last name?” Paige asked as she swiveled her chair to the computer behind her.

“Dumas. But he isn’t here anymore. He left about six months ago.”

Paige paused, the human resources directory on the screen, and looked over at me. I was already on the phone. As I spoke to the HR department, I typed in the proper access codes.

A moment later, Paige was sending a page to the printer. She retrieved it and set it in front of the women.

“Is this the guy you knew as Jason Dumas?”

They nodded. The staff photograph showed a young man, perhaps in his early twenties, with a somber face, dark eyes and dark wavy hair, fashionably long.

This man was not Jaz. But there was little doubt he was a relative. A close one.

I moved the two head shots side by side. “Jasper and Jason.”

“Jaz and Sonny,” Paige murmured. She picked up the kidnap photo of Sonny. “But there’s no way, even with prosthetics, that this guy could be—” She pulled over her laptop. A minute of frenetic key tapping. “The answer isn’t in there—” She waved at the books littering the table. “It’s in here.”

I moved behind her. On the screen was the interracial council database.

“Armen Haig,” she said.

“Armen…?”

“I have to call Elena.”

HOPE: TRUTH

I
stood as close to the railing as I could get without stepping from the shadows. I caught glimpses of Karl as he circumnavigated the park, approaching from the side opposite the playground. A couple of times he looked my way, even shading his eyes once, and I’d lifted my hand, but I could tell he hadn’t seen me. The next time I’d slip into the light just long enough to reassure him. That is, if the sun would cooperate. It had gone dark again and—

“Hello, Faith.”

My chest constricted at the voice, but I didn’t move. Another auditory hallucination. Being here, seeing Sonny, triggered the memory, the voice, the words.

“You don’t answer to that anymore? Hope, then. I think I like Hope better. Nuh-uh. Don’t reach into your pockets. Hands up where I can see them, as the cops say.”

As I pivoted toward the voice, I kept my eyes half closed. Bracing myself? Or denying the obvious as long as I could? Even through half-lidded eyes, though, there was no mistaking who stood before me, though his curls had been cut to just below his ears and his face was devoid of expression in a way I never imagined it could be.

I licked my lips and swallowed hard, trying to conjure up enough moisture to form words.

“Jaz.”

The mask shattered then. He smiled, and it was that same smile I knew, slow and sexy, his eyes lighting up.

Jaz.

My chest tightened again and my gaze slid down to his hands. To the gun pointed at me. He pulled it back, as if to hide it.

“Sorry, but I figured you might need a little incentive. And I might need a little protection. You may be tiny, but you’re fast.”

That jaunty tone was so familiar, so Jaz, that my fists clenched and I wanted to fly at him, to pummel him until I couldn’t recognize him. The thought, the hate in it, made my bile rise.

“You’re upset. I get that and I don’t blame you. So here’s what we’re going to do. First, hand me your purse.”

I did.

“Now, empty your pockets.”

As he stepped toward me, my fists flew up, but he caught my arm and yanked me into the shadows.