A Wolf's Heart (Harlequin Nocturne) (19 page)

Chapter 29

“W
hat are you doing here?”

Her hand was shaking as she put it to her throat. Why she should be afraid she didn’t know. But she was. There was no doubting it as her heart hammered in her chest.

He stepped into the kitchen. “What? I can’t check up on my favorite client?” He moved even closer toward her. “Someone’s got to watch over you and make sure you aren’t making any big mistakes.”

She shook her head, feeling confused and conflicted. Here was this man she’d trusted over the past ten years, but something was telling her that she didn’t know him at all. That he was a stranger to her and only now would she find out who he truly was.

“Well, as you can see, Rory. I’m all right. Everything’s fine. You don’t have to be here.”

“Fine.” He shook his head. “No, I don’t think everything is fine, Elise. You seem to be making some errors in judgment, I think. This Bellmonte character, for instance.”

“What does Gabriel have to do with anything?”

“You’ve become too close to him. I don’t think it’s good for you.”

“I will be the judge of what is good for me. And I’ve known Gabriel a lot longer than I have you.” She took a step back from him. He was sweating and his hands were fidgeting at the pockets of his jacket. “I would like you to leave, Rory. I’ll call you when I return to the city.”

Smiling, he shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. I’m going to stay for a while. You need me to be here, Elise. I can see it in your eyes. It’s how you always look at me. Our love is so much stronger than all of this.” He waved his hand in the air.

And that’s when she noticed there was something in his palm.

“What love? We are business partners, Rory. That’s all. Nothing more.”

He frowned. “Now, now, Elise. You don’t have to play coy. There are no cameras here. You can admit the truth. You can admit how much you need me, how much I mean to you.” He stepped even closer to her.

She retreated farther, and cursed under her breath when her back bumped into the counter. She had nowhere else to go. “Rory, you’ve confused our relationship. I do care for you, but not in a romantic way. I’m sorry if you’ve felt otherwise.”

He was still smiling. But it wasn’t a warm comforting feeling. There was something unnerving and twisted in the way his lips curled upward. “That’s okay. We’ll have time to work that part out.”

“What part?”

He pounced on her. She should’ve expected it. She should’ve sensed it in some way. She was able to get her arms up and push at him, but it wasn’t enough to get away.

He grabbed her around the neck and pulled her in close. She clawed at him and bit down on his hand. But he didn’t release his grip on her. He was strong. Stronger than she’d ever given him credit for.

He had her cradled into his chest, but she was still moving forward, dragging him with her. She struggled and kicked and made her way toward the sliding glass door to the patio. If she could get outside, she could get away and shift. He’d never be able to catch her then. No vampire could run as fast as a lycan in wolf form.

She swung her hands back, aiming for his face. Her right fist did connect and she heard the distinctive crunch of cartilage, but it wasn’t enough. His other hand came up over her face.

He had a cloth in his palm and it covered her nose and mouth. There was some sort of chemical on it. She could smell it. A strong, cloying odor that made her gag. But she couldn’t stop herself from breathing it in. Her lungs needed air and she couldn’t stop them from contracting.

She struggled harder, kicking hard with her legs and flailing with her arms. Glass exploded around them, but still Rory held on. And still she breathed in the chemical.

Her head was swimming. Her limbs were turning leaden. Soon her efforts to get away were useless. She could barely lift her arm. Finally, her vision started to blur. Black spots spun around in her eyes. She’d soon be unconscious.

After one final kick with her leg, Elise slumped in Rory’s arms and fell into a deep, drugged sleep.

Elise sat up and screamed.

Everything was coming back to her now. She’d been in and out of consciousness for a while, but now that she was awake, she finally understood what had happened to her and why.

And who was behind it all.

The door to the small fake room opened and Rory Langford stepped in, smiling. He was holding a bouquet of bloodred roses.

“Happy anniversary, my love.”

Chapter 30

T
he judge had no problem giving him a warrant. And now Gabriel was in the living room of Rory’s five-thousand-square-foot bungalow, tearing it apart, looking for anything to lead them to Elise’s whereabouts.

He’d put out an APB on Rory, but so far no one had seen him.

They’d called his office and got voice mail, not even a receptionist. Gabriel sent a patrol to the office, but the door had been locked and no one answered when they’d knocked. It looked as if he’d closed up shop. An officer had asked around, questioned the other tenants in the building, but no one had seen Rory in a few days.

He had vanished. Right along with Elise.

Gabriel was convinced that he was the perp. They just needed evidence now to prove that theory. And they needed a thread to follow to find Elise.

It was past midnight. It was officially the next day and they’d run out of time.

Sophie came out of one of the bedrooms. “I got nothing. It’s clean in there. Too clean, if you ask me.”

“Keep looking. There has to be something. He sent her tons of letters. He had to have constructed them somewhere.”

She went into the next room as Gabriel surveyed the living room looking for the spot to start his search. There was a coffee table with a drawer in it. He pulled it open and searched through the contents. Magazines. Copies of
Better Homes and Gardens, Men’s Journal, OK! Magazine,
and
Time
were stacked together.

All the love letters had been constructed with letter cutouts from magazines.

He took out a copy of
Time
and started to flip through it, searching for any missing pages or cut pages. Nothing in that one. He picked up another. Again, every page was intact. He went through them all but one and found nothing. The last one was an old edition of
OK! Magazine.
There was an article in there about Elise.

Gabriel thumbed through the pages. Everything was in order until he came to the article on Elise. The two pages comprising the article had been cut and ripped apart. He spread open those pages, set them on the table and took several pictures. He then slid the magazine into an evidence bag and labeled it.

They had their first real evidence that Rory was the letter writer. But they needed more to ensure a conviction would stick. Right now, though, his main goal was to find Elise. Everything else would have to come second.

Standing, he surveyed the room again. There had to be something else. Something more. His gaze moved over the wall unit. On it were art pieces, a high-tech stereo unit and a long row of books. Gabriel walked over to them and scanned the titles.

He was of the mind that what a person read told a lot about them.

Rory had volumes of Shelley and Stoker. They were like history books to Otherworlders and not fiction, and he also had works of Shakespeare and Marlowe. And it looked like a lot of books of poetry. There was Dante and Chaucer, Lord Byron, and of course, Keats.

Gabriel slid out Keats and flipped through it. He was familiar with some of his work. He wondered if this was where Rory had gotten his material for his letters. He remembered something from the last letter. It had been a poem, he was sure of it. And there had been something familiar about it. Something about scandal. And fame, maybe?

He flipped to the table of contents and skimmed down the list of poems. His gaze stopped on one—“On Fame.” Gabriel turned to the stated page. And there between the pages were many cutout letters. Some of them fluttered to the ground like colorful confetti.

He read the poem. It was long, but his gaze zoned in on one part. It was the same as the poem in Elise’s letter.
Gotcha, you bastard.

“Gabe,” Sophie shouted from one of the rooms. “You’ll want to see this.”

Taking the book with him, Gabriel went down the hall and into the main bedroom. Sophie was standing in front of a wide-screen TV mounted on the wall and a mahogany cabinet underneath it, with a remote in her hand. She gestured to the screen when he went to stand beside her.

On the screen was Elise, larger than life in one of her movies. It was one of her first films in which she played a battered woman. It was also the first film that she’d received many prestigious accolades for, the one that started her rise to stardom.

“This was already in the DVD player.” Sophie paused the movie. “And if you look down there, there’re all her movies, listed alphabetically and no other films. This guy is totally obsessed.”

He glanced down at the lined-up DVDs then back up to the screen. He frowned. “Hey, play that again.”

Sophie pressed a button and the scene played out. He recognized the movie. He’d seen it himself a couple of times. But there was something extra familiar about it.

“Wait. Pause it.”

She did right at a moment where Elise is beaten into submission in the living room of her apartment. Blood seeped from her nose and dripped onto the tile floor beneath her.

“I’ve seen this room somewhere.”

“Like, in person?” Sophie asked.

He nodded.

“Recently?”

He nodded again. He dug out his cell phone and placed a call. “Reginald? This is Inspector Bellmonte.”

“Yes, yes, Inspector, what can I do for you? How is Elise faring? Can we get back to filming soon, do you think?”

“I need to know about the soundstages at the studio.”

“Yes, what do you want to know?”

“Do you keep all the sets from movies?” Gabriel asked.

“Oh, no, that would be impossible. Do you know how many movies have been made here? Thousands. We don’t have that kind of room.”

“Do you still have sets from any of Elise’s films?”

“Maybe. I don’t know actually. Why do you ask?”

“Are there soundstages that are used for storage?”

“There’s a prop warehouse on site. It would probably have some older sets and memorabilia from the sets. Hardly anyone ever goes in it, though. It’s pretty old. I think they’ll be tearing it down soon.”

“What building number is it, do you know?”

“I don’t, sorry.”

“Thanks, Reginald.” He flipped the phone closed.

Sophie regarded him. “What’s on your mind?”

“It’s probably a long shot, but I saw this exact set the day we got the call to the studio. I went into the wrong building.”

“You think he has her there?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s probably a long shot. Just seeing this movie in his player and seeing the exact set only days before.” He shook his head. “I’m grasping at straws.”

Sophie patted him on the shoulder. “What you need is some sleep. When was the last time you took a few hours?”

He shook his head. The last time he’d slept was with Elise in her bed back at the cottage over fifteen hours ago. “I’m okay. I can go a few more.”

“Gabe, I got this. I can sift through the rest of this stuff no problem. You don’t need to be here.”

He ran a shaky hand through his hair. “I’ve got nowhere else to go, Sophie. I need to be here, doing something, or I’ll go insane. It’s taking all I have just to keep it together right now.”

She nodded and put her arms around him. “I know. I’ve been there, not knowing. It’s hard to cope.”

And she did know. Over a year ago, she’d spent weeks not sure if Kellen was going to live or die when he was in Japan undergoing medical treatments. Gabriel remembered how edgy and uncertain she’d been. Much like he felt right now.

She hugged him tight and then let him go. “Follow your hunch. I’ll call you when I’m done here.”

He showed her the book on Keats. “I’ll bag and tag this and put it in my kit.”

“Okay. I’m sure we won’t be more than another hour, then we’ll head back to the lab and try to put this all together. It’s here somewhere, Gabe. The clue is in the evidence. It always is.”

He nodded to her and took the book back into the living room. He closed his kit and set it by Sophie’s. Without another word to anyone, he left the house and got into his vehicle.

He’d take a drive over to the studio. To check. Anything to get his mind off the horrible thoughts that raced there. Thoughts that he was going to be too late. Too late to save her, and too late to tell her that he couldn’t go on without her. That he wished he could be with her every hour of every day. That a moment didn’t go by when he wasn’t thinking about her.

She was his everything.

And he feared he’d already lost her.