A Wolf's Heart (Harlequin Nocturne) (17 page)

Chapter 24

E
lise tried to regain her feet, but every time she moved, her head would pound and her stomach would roil. Her body didn’t even feel like her own. When she tried to move her leg, her head would twitch. It was as if all her brain messages were going to the wrong places.

She’d been drugged. That much she figured out. But by whom? That she couldn’t nail down.

The last thing she could truly remember was making a salad and calling for…

She couldn’t remember who she’d been calling for lunch. Had it been Gabriel? Surely, if he’d been with her, she wouldn’t be here. No, wait, Gabriel had left to go back to the city. So who had been on her porch?

She rolled over onto her side and tried to scramble onto her hands and knees. Maybe she could crawl to find a door to get out. At first her arms wouldn’t agree with her legs. She tried and fell on her face twice before she was finally able to push up onto her elbows.

From this vantage point, she surveyed the room again, taking in everything she could. Trying to find any clue that could help her escape. She still couldn’t believe she was on the set of one of her movies. Why would someone bring her here? Who had access like this? It had to have been someone she knew and worked with. Diego? She still didn’t know.

Constable Sharpe. That’s who she’d been looking for. The young constable Ron whom Gabriel had entrusted to look after her and to clean up the mess that had been on her front porch.

And that’s when she saw the blood.

She was surrounded by it. Lying in it. It was all over her hands and her arms. It was everywhere. She was drowning in a sea of crimson. It was coming out of her nose and mouth.

Frantic, she clawed at her face trying to stem the flow. It was coming out her eyes and everything was bathed in a dark scarlet hue.

She screamed until her throat ripped from the pain.

Chapter 25

“T
he rest of the team will be here as soon as they can.”

Gabriel flinched a little as Sophie came up behind him. His mind had been elsewhere and he hadn’t heard her approach. He nodded and ran a hand through his already messy hair. “Okay. Let’s get the scene contained and mapped out.”

“I’ll get our kits.” Careful to follow the same path she’d taken in, Sophie went back out the front to the vehicle.

Gabriel returned to surveying the scene.

From the look of the tomatoes and other ingredients still on the counter, he surmised that Elise had been making something for her and Ron to eat. The constable had probably been out cleaning the porch, as Gabriel had instructed him to do. There had been a green garbage bag on the porch, he’d noted.

Their lunch had obviously been interrupted.

Sophie came back in carrying both their crime-scene kits. She set them down in the living room, away from the scene in the kitchen. Most of the mess was in there, so it was assumed that was where Elise and/or Ron had been disabled.

Gabriel snapped on a pair of latex gloves and wandered back to look into the kitchen again. “The intruder must’ve come in through the patio door. Elise was probably in the kitchen, maybe had her back to the door.” He glanced over his shoulder at the open front door. “Maybe she’d just finished making something and was going to tell Ron.”

“The porch is partially cleaned. Ron must’ve been there then when the perp came at Elise,” Sophie added as she glanced out the door to the porch.

“I can’t see how one man could’ve snuck up on two people, both with lycan genes.”

“Maybe Ron was taken out first.”

Gabriel joined her at the door. “I don’t see evidence of a struggle. Ron would’ve struggled. He’s a strong lycan.”

“Then something must’ve gotten his attention and pulled him away. Because he would’ve definitely come running if Elise had been attacked.”

“I’m going to do a perimeter search for him.”

“Okay, boss. I’ll start taking pics and marking evidence.”

Gabriel went back to his kit, shoved some plastic evidence bags, disposable camera and plastic markers into his jacket pockets, and went through the front door. On the porch he looked around for anything amiss. It was hard to tell though since there was still wolf’s blood splattered on the wood. He did notice three sets of footprints, though, in the blood.

One had to be his, one belonging to Sophie and the last to Ron. He crouched down to examine the constable’s print. Then he followed them off the porch and around the side of the cottage. They stopped near the water tap and hose.

Ron must’ve been preparing to turn on the tap and hose off the blood on the porch. But he never got the chance.

Crouching, Gabriel inspected the ground near the tap. At first he saw nothing but fine, packed soil and a few weeds sticking out from the earth. But then he saw a darker spot in the ground. Squinting, he peered at it and recognized it for what it was. A drop of blood staining the dirt black.

He set an evidence marker down beside it and took a picture of it. Then he leaned down even farther and inhaled the rich, tangy odor. Everyone’s blood smelled different. If he knew the person, Gabriel could distinguish their blood from another’s. He took in three good whiffs and got Ron’s scent.

Standing, he lifted his nose to the air and smelled, trying to pinpoint in what direction Ron had been dragged or carried or walked off on his own—which Gabriel highly doubted. The only way Ron had abandoned his post was if he was forced to do so.

After a few more whiffs of the air, Gabriel got a scent trail. He followed it across the field and toward the woods. Almost in the exact location that he’d encountered the paparazzi vampire’s scent. The trail turned then, and continued down the tree line until it came to the road hidden by more trees and a fence.

Gabriel jumped the fence and that’s where he found Constable Ron Sharpe. Dead. His throat slit ear to ear.

He cursed under his breath then crouched down to close the dead lycan’s eyes. “I’ll find him, Ron. I’ll find him.”

An hour later, Gabriel was back in the cottage with his team busy around him examining and collecting the evidence. He had Ron’s body bagged and tagged, and it was now in the back of the SUV ready to be driven back to the city and to the morgue to have an autopsy done. It was obvious what had killed him—he was bled out—but what Gabriel wanted to know was how he’d been incapacitated to begin with.

“Gabe,” Sophie said from near the smashed glass doors. “Check this out.”

Gabriel neared where she was kneeling down. Her flashlight illuminated a clear liquid on the floor.

“What is it?”

She shook her head. “It’s some kind of chemical. The smell is noxious.”

“Chloroform?”

“No. It’s something else.” She took out a Q-tip and dabbed it into the substance. She then slid the Q-tip into a small plastic tube and capped it. She labeled it and handed it to Gabriel.

He set it into her crime-scene kit along with everything else they’d collected, bagged and labeled.

Looking at it all, he didn’t know if it would help. He’d always believed in the evidence before. Always knew it would lead them to solving the case and getting justice for the wronged.

But right now he couldn’t muster anything in his gut, any amount of belief or hope. He felt Elise slipping away from him. And he had no way of getting her back.

Someone patted him on the shoulder. Gabriel turned to look into Kellen’s soulful eyes. “I’m sorry, Gabe.”

He nodded, unsure of exactly what to say or how to behave.

“We’ll find her, my friend. Believe that.”

He nodded again, but his heart wasn’t in it. Because everything inside him screamed of loss and failure. Already his heart was grieving Elise’s death. And it hurt so much he could barely keep on his feet.

Chapter 26

G
roaning, Elise opened her eyes again. After screaming until her chest hurt, she’d blissfully passed out.

She looked down at her hands and arms and saw that there was no blood. Lifting her hand to her face, she ran her fingers over her eyes and nose and mouth and found no sticky residue of blood.

It had been all a dream.

She turned over onto her side and looked around her, her stomach flipping over. No, not a dream. She was still on the set, on the floor, and she still felt raw and hollowed out and nauseous.

“It was a hallucination, Elise, from the drugs I’ve given you.”

She startled at the voice. Pushing onto her elbows, she looked around the room, searching for its source. But she was alone in the room.

“Why…” Her lips were sore and cracked and her throat raw. She swallowed and tried again. “Why am I here? Why are you doing this to me?”

“You know why you’re here. This is where it all started. Don’t you remember?”

“No. I don’t remember.”

“You will. You will.”

Elise rolled onto her back and closed her eyes. The tears rolled silently down her cheeks. She felt very alone. Where was Gabriel? Wasn’t he coming for her? Did he even know where she was?

Chapter 27

G
abriel knew she was in trouble. He felt it the second he walked up the dark, deserted road to their rendezvous spot.

He kicked himself for being late. His father had kept him with another one of his lectures about how Gabriel was disgracing the family by carrying on with “that Leroy girl.” He should’ve told him to shove his words. Then maybe he wouldn’t have been fifteen minutes late meeting Elise.

When he came around the bend, that’s when he saw her. That’s when he smelled her blood and heard her whimpers of pain.

He lost it then. Without thinking, he ran toward her. The only thing in his mind was to save her. He didn’t even realize it had been Yves on top of her when he pounced on the man hurting his Elise. He hadn’t known it was his best friend until he’d nearly ripped out his throat with one hand.

Leaving Yves to mewl like an injured puppy, he went to look after Elise, to tend to her. But when he looked down at her, she stared up at him, with milky-white dead eyes.

He’d been too late. She was dead.

“Elise!” he shouted. “Elise!”

That was when she sat up, blood dripping from her nose and mouth and eyes, and smiled. “You can’t save me.”

Gabriel jolted from his sleep. He knocked his head up against the car window.

Sophie glanced at him from the driver’s side. “Bad dreams?”

He rubbed at his chin and face. There was a horrid taste in his mouth. He reached down and took a swig from the coffee cup in the cup holder. “Sorry for nodding off.”

“You needed it.”

Sipping his coffee, he looked out the window as they raced back to Nouveau Monde.

The evidence had been photographed, collected and shoved into stainless-steel kits. There was nothing to do now but to take it back to the lab in Nouveau Monde and analyze, study and try to find a connection. A thread to follow. Anything that would give them a lead.

The drive back was torture for Gabriel. Sitting in the passenger seat, he stared out the window and went over every little piece of evidence they already had. He went over every statement they’d taken from the people around Elise and tried to find the one thing he was missing. Because he knew it was there somewhere. It always was.

There was someone in Elise’s life who had both the motive and the means to hurt her. It had to be someone close, to know her schedule and to have access to the soundstage, and know where her secret summer cottage was. Although it did turn out to be not so secret, as the reporter attested to.

But they’d been watching him and so far it didn’t appear that he’d spoken to anyone about it.

So it was someone else. Someone they’d never suspect. Someone who appeared to be a friend to Elise.

Gabriel flipped open his phone and dialed. “Lily? It’s Gabriel.”

“Is Elise all right?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I get feelings sometimes. And this one is telling me she’s in danger.”

“Can you meet me at the station? I have some more questions for you.”

“She’s in trouble, isn’t she?” He could hear the sorrow and desperation in her voice.

He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “Yes.”

“I’ll be there.” She disconnected.

* * *

Forty minutes later, Gabriel was in his office with Lily. The rest of the team was going over the evidence, pushing the lab to its fullest potential.

“I need to know everyone you’ve spoken to in the past week.”

“Do you really think it’s someone close to Elise?”

He nodded.

“I just can’t believe anyone who knows her would do something this awful.” Tears still streaked her cheeks. She’d sobbed uncontrollably for a while after he’d told her that Elise had been kidnapped.

“I’ve been in law enforcement long enough to know that there are those who are capable of horrible, unspeakable things.”

She just looked at him, maybe trying to decide if he was one of those people he was talking about. If he came face-to-face with Elise’s kidnapper, he’d definitely find out just what he was capable of.

“I talked to Elise’s publicist, Monique, and her gardener and housekeeper, to make sure that the house was being looked after in her absence.” She squinted as if trying to remember things. “Rory called me just to see how things were going. I think that was in reference to Elise.”

Gabriel frowned. “Rory is?”

“Her agent.”

“Right.” He recalled meeting the man at Elise’s home. A vampire, if he remembered. And a seemingly nice guy. But hadn’t there been something about him that had rubbed Gabriel wrong?

“How long has he been Elise’s agent?”

“Going on ten years.”

“He’s a good guy?”

Lily smiled. “Oh, yeah, the best. Since signing with him, Elise has gone on to star in many great films. Before that she’d done only a couple of independents. Nothing too noteworthy.”

“So, he’s kind of helped her become the star she is.”

“Most definitely.”

Gabriel looked down at the files he had on his desk about the case. He flipped through the statements from the people closest to Elise, including her gardener and housekeeper. But there wasn’t one statement from Rory Langford.

“As a matter of fact, it’ll be ten years to the day come tomorrow.”

His head snapped up at that. “Are you sure?”

She nodded. “Yeah, Rory’s always been celebratory with Elise on their ‘anniversary’ so to speak. He sends her tons of flowers on that day.” She sniffed. “He’ll be heartbroken when he finds out she’s been kidnapped.”

Gabriel picked up his phone and made a call. “Francois? I need you in my office right away, and bring the reports from the vandalism case at Elise’s charity ball.”

It was no more than five minutes before the young male witch and analyst extraordinaire popped into Gabriel’s office.

“
Oui.
You beckoned.” He glanced at Lily, smiled and extended his hand. “
Bonjour.
I am Francois.”

Smiling, she shook it. “Lily.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“Francois, just give me the files please.”

He bowed a little. “As you wish.” He set the files down on the desk, then made himself comfortable in the chair next to Lily.

“The guest list from the party is in here?”

“Should be at the top.”

Gabriel opened the file and rifled through it. He found the guest list and scanned it. He found Rory’s name in seconds.

“Was every single guest questioned that night?”

Francois nodded. “Yes, as far as I know. All their statements should be in there, in alphabetical order.”

Gabriel thumbed through the multitude of pages. But when he got to the
L
s, there was no paper with Rory Langford’s name on it.

“There isn’t one for Rory.”

Francois shrugged. “Everything should be in there. I made sure the constables had everything together before they gave it to me.”

“Do you know the constables who completed the reports?”

“Good guys, good cops. All of them.”

Gabriel chewed his bottom lip. Something wasn’t adding up. Through all of this, all the investigations, there was one person who seemed to be exempt from everything—the questioning, the suspicions. Rory Langford.

That didn’t seem right. Or normal. And his people didn’t make mistakes. Something was definitely wrong.

“Have Rory and Elise ever been involved?” he asked Lily.

She looked shocked at the question. “Goodness, no.”

“Did you ever get the sense that Rory had a thing for Elise?”

She shrugged. “Doesn’t everyone? I mean she’s gorgeous and kind and charming. Who wouldn’t fall a little in love with her?”

“Do you need me for anything else?” Francois asked as he stood.

“Thanks for this, Francois.” He touched the file on his desk. “And could you do a search on Rory Langford? He’s a big movie agent, there has to be information on him somewhere. I don’t care what it is. A parking ticket, an article in a newspaper, a Blockbuster movie rental card. Anything to get a bead on him.”

“No problem.” He looked at Lily and smiled. “It was my supreme pleasure to meet you, Lily.”

“You, too.” She fluttered a little like her namesake at his devout attention.

When he left, she sighed. “He’s extremely nice.”

“Who?”

“Francois. He’s so charming. I bet he could charm a hungry man out of his last meal.”

“Yeah.” But Gabriel wasn’t thinking about Francois. He was thinking about the vampire Rory. Could he possess some power that charmed people, persuaded them? Maybe even get them to do things they didn’t necessarily want to?

“Lily, have you ever heard of a vampire with the power to persuade?”

“As in so charming you want to sleep with them at first glance?”

“No, like you’d jump off the tallest building in Nouveau Monde if they asked you to.”

She shook her head. “That would be some power.”

“Yes, it would.” He scratched his chin where stubble was quickly becoming whiskers. “How old is Rory, do you know?”

“I don’t.”

“Okay. Thanks, Lily. You’ve been a big help.”

She nodded. “You’re going to find her. Right?”

“Yes. I’m going to find her.”

She stood, reaching across the desk and taking his hand. “I believe in you, Gabriel. Because I know how much you love her. And I know how much she loves you.”

He met her gaze and saw the truth there. His wall came crashing down. “Did she ever talk about me?”

“In a way. I always knew there was someone out there that she was missing. She never said your name but I knew, once I saw you two together, that it was you she’d been longing for all these years.” She squeezed his hand. “Call me to keep me up-to-date. I’m going to go to Elise’s and try to do something that will keep my mind distracted and the tears away.”