Raven Mask (14 page)

“I won’t tell them anything. Why? What is it?”

I told Ethan Nelson my suspicions about his brother. Someone in his family needed to know, and since he was the only one prepared to speak to me without a Bible and some holy water in hand, it had to be him.

Chapter Eighteen

“Detective Kingfisher,” Arthur answered on the fourth ring.

“Arthur, it’s Kassandra. I need you to pull up information on a student named Alyssa Cunningham that attended Timothy’s school.”

“All right, let me get to a computer.”

I waited until I heard him typing. “Alyssa Cunningham?”

“Yes, she’s around Timothy’s age, attends the same school and everything.”

“She doesn’t have a record.”

“That’s a relief,” I said.

“What do you want me to find, Kass?”

“I want her address. We need to interrogate her.”

“Where are you?”

“Still at work. I’m about to go home.”

“You want to do this tonight?”

“Could you make that happen?”

“If you intend to interrogate her, I’m going with you. I’ve got her address. Huh,” he said, “she doesn’t live very far from your girlfriend’s club. Kassandra, do you think she’s connected to the murder?”

“She gave Timothy to the vampires.”

“Can you prove it?”

“I can prove that I know someone that knows Timothy was talking to her before his disappearance, and when I find Timothy, I can prove it.”

“Meet me outside your girlfriend’s club at eight thirty,” he said, hanging up before I could answer.

“Does that mean you have time to give me a ride home?” Rosalin asked.

“Yeah,” I said, “barely.”

I dropped Rosalin off at Lenorre’s. Afterward, I went by my apartment to get the Pro.40 and small-of-the-back holster. I was surprised to see I still had twenty minutes when I got back behind the wheel.

I liked the Pro.40. I’d taken the Mark III out to the shooting range and found it was pretty good, but I didn’t like it as much as the.40. I kept telling myself I would get a Kimber Eclipse, but they were so freaking expensive it’d be a while until I could afford the one I saw in a weapons-and-ammo magazine a few weeks ago. I didn’t even know if Rupert could get me a good discount on it, but I planned to find out. Some femmes collect diamonds, I prefer guns. Seriously, what will the diamond do for me? Sparkle? Unless you’re certain you can temporarily blind an opponent, I wouldn’t recommend wearing anything that sparkles in a fight. Otherwise, you might as well hold a flashing sign over your head that reads: Right here.

I parked next to Arthur’s black sapphire Crown Victoria. He stepped out of it and met me halfway. “She lives with her parents,” he said.

“I figured as much.”

“We have to talk to them first, you realize that? It’ll take away the element of surprise if they tell her we want to talk to her.”

“I know how it goes.” The sign of The Two Points burned more brightly into the night than the few old-fashioned lamps in the parking lot. The asphalt was so dark it looked like black water. I was glad it was Thursday and that the line at the door was surprisingly short. It’d lengthen later in the evening.

I preferred to drive, and I didn’t want to ride with Arthur. Sometimes it’s best to be able to drive away quickly, without worrying about where you have to drop someone off or whether they want to go hunting monsters with you if you don’t have time to dump them somewhere. Arthur gave me the address and was telling me how to get to the house when I heard a woman’s voice call out over the small crowd. “Kassandra.”

I whipped around to find the face that went with that voice, and her sea-green eyes met mine. With the distance between us, it wasn’t the inviting smile that made it hard to look away. It was the outfit. A pair of form-fitting vinyl pants hung low on her hips. A matching corset was cinched at her waist, over a frilly white renaissance shirt that seemed to bloom out of the corset like the petals of some demented flower. Somehow, the outfit worked for her. She managed not to look like a gothic barmaid. I would’ve looked absolutely silly in it, but Eris didn’t. No, she looked the complete opposite of silly.

“That doesn’t look like your…” Arthur stammered, staring in the same direction I was.

I noticed most of the people in line outside the club were staring at her too.

“That’s because she’s not,” I said.

Eris stalked toward us in spiked heels. It took more effort than I’d like to admit not to watch the way her hips swayed. I forced myself to turn and look at Arthur, whose eyes were wide. I couldn’t tell if he was scared, or…well, I really didn’t want to know what the alternative was.

I met the full weight of her gaze and said, “Eris.”

“Kassandra.” She said my name again, this time lower, like silk flowing through my hands. She tilted her head to the side. “To what does one owe the pleasure of seeing you again, so soon?”

“I’m working.” Ignoring the fluttering sensation in the pit of my stomach, I buried my hands in my coat pockets and tried to look casual, but probably managed to look exactly what I was feeling…uncomfortable.

“Business,” she murmured, sparing a glance at Arthur’s car. She trailed one startling white finger across the trunk and looked at Arthur. “Police business, I presume? Have you any lead on the boy?”

I said, “No,” and Arthur said, “Yes, ma’am.”

I wanted to get in his face and call him an idiot. I didn’t know Eris enough to trust her. Why was he being so compliant? And “ma’am”? Come on!

Her face fell into a blank mask, and even though her features were expressionless, her eyes burned intensely.

“You do not trust me.” Something in her tone made me feel bad, like I had sincerely hurt her feelings.

I took a step forward, one step, placing my body daringly close to hers. “What game are you playing?”

Arthur wouldn’t have noticed it, but I noticed her very slow, deliberate blink.

“Kassandra, if I was playing a game with you, you would know it.”

My cell phone rang and I jumped, which kind of ruined the tough-werewolf attitude I was trying to project.

“That is most likely Lenorre,” Eris said.

“I doubt it.” But sure enough, the number on the caller ID was Lenorre’s.

“Yeah?” I answered, knowing I sounded utterly bitchy.

“Kassandra.” Lenorre’s voice made my stomach swan-dive. I walked away from Arthur and Eris.

“What is it?” I said angrily, without really meaning to sound that way.

“I take it Eris has found you?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Take her with you.” It wasn’t a command, but sounded pretty damn close to one.

“Why?”

“Rosalin has informed me of what you and the detective plan to go do. I want Eris with you.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Kassandra, do not be stubborn. Just listen to me. I want Eris there.”

“Lenorre, I’m working,” I said more strongly. “This is police business.”

“It is also vampire business. If something happens I want you to have more than just one human detective on your side.”

Eris leaned against Arthur’s car, crossing her arms over her chest. She wasn’t smiling and didn’t look amused. It looked like she was waiting to hear what her orders were.

“We’re just going to ask questions. Why do I need your backup? Give me a good reason to take her with us, and I’ll take her. If you tell me because you said so, I’ll leave her ass where she’s standing, because we don’t need her. If anything, a vampire will make people uncomfortable, and when people are uncomfortable answers are hard to come by. Why should I take her?”

“Can you smell another vampire? Are you capable of perceiving if the girl is marked or has been bitten? You may have the supernatural ability, Kassandra, but if you do not know what to look for, you will not see it.”

“Lyall,” Arthur said, and I turned to him with narrowed eyes. He’d never called me Lyall, not ever.

“What?”

“Tell your girlfriend it’s not a big deal. We’ll take her super vamp with us.”

“You’re not serious.”

Arthur said nearly the same thing Lenorre had. “Hey, if we’re out of our league it’d be nice to have a vampire along. She can hear and smell things we humans can’t.” He spread his arms out, trying to appear reasonable. “Come on, it won’t hurt us any to have the extra muscle.”

“Are you happy now?” I grumbled into the phone.

“I am not happy you are displeased with me, but I am happy to know you will be far safer with Eris than without her. As you did not ask me to join you, then I believe you should take her.” Her words were careful, so careful. Which meant she wasn’t
trying
to piss me off. “At the least,” she said, “keep in mind I did not send Zaphara.”

The thought almost made me cringe. I would’ve really freaked if she’d sent Zaphara, but at least with Zaphara my insides didn’t feel like they were twisting and falling from a great height. At least with Zaphara I was absolutely sure I could tell her to shut up and leave me the fuck alone.

I hung up the phone, and Arthur gave me a pat on the back.

“Chill out,” he said. “The more the merrier.”

I shook my head and went to the car. I was fastening my seat belt when Eris slid into the passenger seat and buckled up without being asked. I tried to ignore her presence. At night, the car seemed darker, more private and intimate than it would have during the day. What was Lenorre thinking? Hell, what was I thinking? My eyes flicked to the vampire beside me before I made a right turn onto the main road. I sucked in a quick intake of breath when her gaze met mine.

Shit
… I was attracted to her.

How not? She was gorgeous. The thought that probably a million other people were attracted to her made me feel better. Maybe Eris was just one of those women that everyone thought was beautiful? Yeah, that had to be it.

Chapter Nineteen

Gwen and Dennis Cunningham’s house was small with white siding and yellow trim along the edges of the roof. Probably a three-bedroom, one-bath home. Arthur pulled into the driveway behind the Cunninghams’ old red-and-white pickup. I didn’t fret too much about parking the Tiburon at the edge of the yard because a few other parked cars already hugged the curbs in front of other yards. If someone hit my car, they’d have to take another one out with it. It wasn’t the greatest part of town, but it wasn’t the worst.

I stepped behind Arthur onto the small porch. It was almost nine o’clock, a little late to go question a school-aged girl, but I was with Detective Arthur Kingfisher. As if they would get the luxury of complaining about time restraints? Yeah, right. I don’t think so, folks.

Arthur knocked on the door, twice. The curtains in the big window next to the door moved aside as someone looked out, then let them fall back. A woman asked who was at the door.

A male’s deep voice grumbled. “I don’t know, some guy and a gal that looks like one of Lyssie’s little friends.”

“One of her friends,” the woman asked, “this late?”

“I don’t know.” I was guessing it was Dennis Cunningham, the father.

Eris propped herself against the white wooden post on the porch, standing in the shadows. I sighed. Why do people assume a short woman is underage? As if I’d asked the question out loud, Eris slowly lifted her shoulders.

The door cracked open and a man with steel gray hair and clear gray eyes looked at us. Before anyone could say anything he asked in a gruff voice, “Who are you?”

“Mr. Cunningham?” Arthur asked politely.

The man looked him up and down. “Yeah? What do you want? Lyssie’s not here.” He glanced at me.

I folded my arms over my chest.

“Mr. Cunningham.” Arthur drew the father’s attention back to himself. “I’m Detective Kingfisher and this is—”

I stepped forward. “Preternatural Investigator and Paranormal Huntress Kassandra Lyall. You said your daughter isn’t home?”

The man kept the door cracked a few inches and gave me a disbelieving look. “That’s a mouthful, girly. If you’re looking for ghosts you won’t find them here.”

“It’s Ms. Lyall and I’m not looking for ghosts. I’m looking for Alyssa Cunningham.”

His eyelids flickered so quickly that I didn’t know if Arthur had caught it.

“We need to talk to you about your daughter,” I said. “Do you know where she is?”

“No. She left around five thirty and hasn’t gotten home yet.”

“Denny?” a woman called from the other side of the door. “Denny, who is it?”

Dennis looked over his shoulder and raised his voice. “No one important.”

“Have they heard from Lyssie?” There was worry in her tone.

“No,” he said sternly, then ignored her. “What d’you want?”

“Mr. Cunningham.” Arthur kept his voice nice and even. “Do you know where your daughter is?”

He opened the door a little wider, speaking in a defensive tone. “No, I don’t. What do you want with her anyway?”