Deadly Desire (9 page)

He suddenly looked sheepish and made a show of looking at the paper again. “Well, it did, but then Rhoan and I got a little overadventurous, and I think it strained things.”

I snorted softly. “No sympathy from me, then. You want a coffee?”

“As long as you're not going to tell me to get it myself.”

“I'm not that mean.” I made two coffees and carted them across to the coffee table, then went back to grab
the lasagna. I handed Liander his, then plonked down on the other sofa.

“So how's the love life?” he said, after several mouthfuls.

I grinned. “A hell of a lot safer than yours, from the sound of it.”

“No problems on the Quinn front?”

“He's being quite the gentleman.”

Liander snorted. “That'll change once you start acting like a proper wolf again.”

I gave him an exasperated look. “I
am
acting like a proper wolf.”

“Have you gone back to the clubs? Taken other partners yet?”

“You know I haven't. I'm happy as I am, Liander, and Quinn and I do share something special.”

“He's not a wolf, my girl. And your wolf soul will always hunger for its mate, no matter how happy you might be with Quinn.”

“You're not telling me something I don't know. I'm just not ready to venture fully out of the cave yet.”

“You know, if I ever meet Kellen again, he's going to get a very large piece of my mind.”

“Don't you dare. He was doing what was right for us both.”

He snorted softly. I ignored him and continued to eat the lasagna. One of the many good things about Liander coming to live with us was the fact that the quality of the meals we were getting had improved—mainly because he could cook and Rhoan and I couldn't.

I took a sip of coffee to wash it down, then said, “I had something of a close call yesterday, actually.”

“Oh?” He raised a gray eyebrow, amusement teasing the corners of his silvery eyes. “Do tell.”

“You remember Kye? The bodyguard Patrin employed?”

“The one Rhoan reckons was more than just a wolf?”

“Yeah. Turns out he's a bounty hunter, and he sort of saved my butt.”

“Well, it
is
a cute butt.”

I grinned. “Maybe so, but I doubt that's the reason he saved it.”

“So, you got hot and heavy with him as a thank-you?”

“Not intentionally.” Liander's eyebrows rose again, so I added, “I blame the moon heat and the fact that he smelled so good.” He kissed damn good, too, but that was beside the point.

“So why didn't it go any further?”

“It's hard to concentrate on loving when there are a couple of hellhounds wanting to tear you to pieces.”

“I guess.” He took a mouthful of food, then added, “You intending to see him again?”

“No. I don't really like him, and I certainly don't trust him.”

“Hey, I didn't like Rhoan when I first met him, either.”

“I thought you got hot and heavy on the first date.”

“Nope. I thought he had a great body, but a shitty attitude. I still thought that when we had sex a few days
later. Of course, attitude or not, he was the one. And he has mellowed, thankfully.”

“He's never going to be the perfect man.” Even I knew that, and I loved my brother to death.

He waved a hand in agreement. “All I'm saying is you should never write anyone off just because you don't instantly fall in love. Or lust.”

I snorted. “Trust me, I don't expect to—although lust is always handy.” Especially if you had to spend the rest of your life with him. I took another mouthful, then added, “Besides, if I meet Kye again, I'm going to have to arrest him, because it means he's still investigating a case I've warned him off.”

“Well, that probably
would
put a damper on things,” he said, his voice wry.

“Totally.”

I finished the last of the lasagna and picked up my coffee with a sigh. “I'm so glad you came to live with us.”

He grinned. “I think you two are getting the better end of the deal. Do you know how badly you both cook?”

“Absolutely. That's why you and Rhoan are never going to be able to set up house alone. I'd starve on my own.” I rose as my cell phone rang, and walked across to grab it out of my purse. “Hello?”

“Riley? Jack,” he said, unnecessarily. “We've got another vampire dead. One Garrison Bovel.”

I swore softly. “Not someone else you know, I hope?”

“Not personally, no, though I've seen him around
the various bars a few times.” He sounded bone-tired. “He was the head of an accounting firm that handled the taxes for many of the dead. It could mean trouble if they got into his records.”

“Has his office been raided?”

“Not as far as we know, but we've contacted his partners and told them to check.”

“Why would anyone want to rob an accountant?”

“Because he's been a record keeper for three hundred years, and has amassed quite a fortune.”

God, he had to have loved his job to have done it for that damn long.

“I'll send you the address,” Jack continued. “Mel and her team are already there.”

“Has Cole's report for Armel's murder come through yet?”

“He's still working on it, but he believes there were magical influences.”

I raised my eyebrows. “In the robbery or the murder?”

“Hard to say. Head over to Bovel's straight away. We need to nip this in the bud quick, before the vamp community gets antsy.”

And
that
wouldn't be good for anyone. “Will do.”

“Trouble?” Liander asked as I hung up.

“Another dead vamp. Tell Rhoan I probably won't be home for dinner.”

“Will do.”

I grabbed my bag and headed back out. The address had come through on the car's onboard computer and I drove over to Brighton in record time. The beachside
suburb was the local “it” spot for all those who were more than mere millionaires and, because of this, had its fair share of older vamps. After all, any vamp over a certain age had time enough to amass more money than most humans.

Which didn't mean they were good targets. Most vamps protected their fortunes fiercely, and the wise robber went elsewhere. Especially if he didn't love the thought of becoming a vampire's next meal.

I pulled into the victim's driveway. The house was another of those modern ones that always looked like a big white concrete box—and it still surprised me that vampires chose to live in these places. I would have thought something dark and gothic would be more their style. But then, vampires these days were all about breaking expectations.

A dark van with Directorate plates sat in the tree-lined parking lot and the front door was open. A sticklike figure hovered near it, dusting for prints. It had to be Janny. Mel's other team member—Marshall—was a portly soul.

I grabbed my ID as I walked up the grandly arched steps and showed it to the mobile recording unit that had been set up in the doorway to record all movement in and out of the house. There'd be others inside.

“Afternoon, Riley,” Janny said without looking up. Her voice was surprisingly mellow and rich, though I don't know why I always expected it to be otherwise. Something to do with her insectlike looks, I think.

I stopped and studied the doorknob she was dusting. No obvious prints. “How bad is it, Janny?”

She shrugged. “I've seen worse.”

So had I, but that never made it any easier. “Same method of disposal as the first killing?”

“Seems to be. Mel's inside if you want a fuller report. You'll find her upstairs.”

“Thanks.” I stepped past her carefully and headed for the stairs. The air inside was alive with the flavors of the house—the delicate aroma of rose mixed with the deeper resonance of vampire. Underneath that, the metallic tang of blood. I couldn't smell the wrongness that had been in Armel's. Not on this floor, anyway. I climbed the stairs.

Mel poked her head out of a doorway, brown hair shining in the sunlight streaming in through the windows at the far end. “You want to check the bedroom on the right for me? There's a scent in there I can't define, and I'm wondering if it's the same as the one you found in Armel's.”

I nodded and headed in. The interior of Garrison's matched the exterior, and his bedroom reflected this. The white walls held little in the way of adornment and the bed—with its deep red comforter and matching pillows—was the only splash of color in the room. Even the carpet was white—a bad color for a vampire to have in a place where he fed, I would have thought. Even the smallest of splashes would have been noticeable. The red bed, at least, made sense.

I studied the scents of the room, searching for the one I'd found in Armel's. That powerful sense of wrongness was there, but fading fast. Another hour or two, and there'd be nothing more unusual in this room
than the scent of sex and the musty aroma that spoke of vampire. A vampire who washed, I thought, thinking of the kid's comment with amusement.

I walked up into the other room. This was a library rather than a study, as Armel's had been, but it still had a safe. Mel was dusting it for prints.

My gaze fell on a chrome and glass side table and I noticed the dust gathered there. And it wasn't the powder Mel was using—this stuff was coarser, and reminded me of the dust I'd blown off Armel's wallet. I glanced back at Mel. “You taken a sample of this?”

She looked across to see what I was pointing at, then nodded. “Don't know what it is, though I don't think it's regular house dust.”

“It looks similar to some dust I saw at Armel's.”

“Then we'll add it to the priority list.”

“Thanks.”

I finally let my gaze move to the body. Garrison, or what remained of him, sat in a plush leather chair next to the side table, a book slumped across his chest and the remains of a glass underneath the fingers of his right hand. Wine stained the carpet, its color almost as rich as the bloody pool that had formed under what remained of his legs.

“Where's his head and the end of his legs?” I asked, suddenly realizing what was missing.

“Your guess is as good as mine at this point,” she said, catlike green eyes bright in the semishadows. “But there's a couple of rather large Dobermans in the backyard, and the window behind you is open.”

I looked at the window, then back at her. “You
haven't checked whether the missing bits are out there?”

She smiled grimly. “We have two bird shifters and a cat shifter on this team. Sorry, tackling dogs is off all of our to-do lists. But you could always try.”

I could, but if those dogs out there were guarding the remains of their master, I wasn't going to interrupt them. The only reason a vamp would have a couple of Dobermans would be for protection, and I rather suspected these two would be trained to tackle most nonhumans. I also doubted that one lone werewolf would faze them, even if that werewolf had alpha tendencies and could back down most canines.

“Have you called in a dogcatcher?”

“Yep. But the vampire's bits would have turned to ash very soon after they hit the sunlight, and they could have been thrown in any direction from that window. It can wait.”

I turned away from the window. “Any idea how these people are getting into the house?”

She shook her head. “Marshall can't find any obvious—or nonobvious—methods of entry. But they appear to be walking out the front door with their hauls.”

That raised my eyebrows. “They would have to have been covered in blood, wouldn't they?”

“You'd think so. Cutting off someone's head and legs while he's alive would have created spurts of arterial spray, even in a vampire, but other than the pools of blood near the remains of his legs and neck, there's nothing.”

“So they used a screen or something?”

She wrinkled her nose. “I doubt it. Arterial spray is something of a misnomer—it comes out with a lot of force when a main artery is cut. Even if they'd used a screen, there would have been residual drips.”

“And they couldn't have used any sort of floor cover, because then we'd not have the blood pools.”

“Exactly.”

My gaze ran around the room, then came to rest again on the pools of blood underneath Garrison's body. They weren't nearly big enough for a body that had been bled out. “Maybe they were collecting the blood.”

“Maybe. Hard to imagine anyone sitting still through that sort of thing, though, and they don't appear to have used restraints of any kind.”

“Could it have been magic?” I asked, looking at Mel again. “Cole thought there might have been magical influences over at Armel's murder.”

She frowned. “If it is, it's not one that I've smelled before. And it would have to be an extremely powerful magic to restrain someone when you're hacking him to pieces.”

“Well, there's at least one thing that
is
obvious,” I said grimly. “These people have a serious grievance against vampires.”

And if they
had,
maybe Armel and Garrison weren't their first kills. Maybe they had a history of it. It was certainly worth checking into.

“You'll get the report to me as soon as possible?”

She nodded. “Won't be tonight, though. The lab is
severely backed up at the moment. Even the priority stuff is going to take longer than usual.”

“As soon as you can, then. Thanks, Mel.”

She nodded and got back to her fingerprinting. I dug my phone out of my pocket, ringing Jack as I headed back to the car.

“Anything?” he said.

“Just the same odd smell that I noticed at Armel's. Have the magi checked out Armel's yet?”

“They're there now.”

“Which means we probably won't have an answer for a while yet.” I gnawed at my lip as I opened the car. “Had another thought—”

“That's always dangerous.”

Despite his dour tones, he was obviously getting back to some sort of normality if he could throw barbed remarks. Well, as normal as one could get after losing a longtime friend.

“It might be worth checking for similar murders in other states,” I continued, “just to see if this is an established pattern. These murders are well practiced, Jack. We're dealing with professionals, not novices.”

“Sal's already on that. There's nothing yet, but it's going to take a while. You got anything else?”