“There was an afterhours party at Bubbles. The Company’s already verified that I showed up on the surveillance footage.”
“So you’re gay?” I already knew the answer. Always good to get verification from the source. Watch their reactions when they told the truth. Or see them lie.
Anton squirmed again but finally nodded. “It’s not popular among my kind.”
“Most people are stupid. Why should werewolves be any different?” I smiled softly, mostly with my eyes. The sunglasses made it harder for him to see. Not impossible. I’d opted for my nightwear lenses.
He blinked, confused. “Are you making fun?”
“Of people who are homophobic. Yes. Any kind of bigotry offends me, Mr. Thrace. I’m the poster girl for bigotry.”
His expression grew sympathetic. “Spawn of the Devil you mean?”
I nodded. “Only, my daddy was human. Not Lucifer.” I crossed my legs at the ankles. “So, you have an alibi. Great. What about ideas on the abduction. Even if Vincent helped, how’d it go down?”
“Why ask me?”
“You handle Mr. Gibraltar’s personal daytime security. You have to know the ins and the outs of the villa better than almost anyone.”
“Oh.” He pulled his knees up against his chest. It made him look younger. Uncertain. “From all accounts, Vincent managed to bring a small EMP device into the house. Activated it and went out the window.”
“Where would he have gotten his hands on such a device? Secretly I mean. Money being no object. Or doesn’t he have access to a fair amount of cash?”
“He does. Did. But I don’t have a clue. I mean, his bodyguards watched his every move. And I mean every, single one.” He eyed me meaningfully.
It took me a second to process what he was hinting at. I’d already guessed that the boy couldn’t masturbate without being watched. Not in his bedroom. Then I realized a more likely place. “Isn’t it unusual for a security company to monitor bathroom use?”
He shrugged. “Mr. Gibraltar wasn’t taking any chances. The trusts set up by his old man are pretty strict.”
“I thought he set up the trusts? Are we talking for the grandkids? Or rather, the great-grandkids in this case?”
Anton nodded. “I ain’t seen the docs, mind you. But yeah, I heard that much.”
“Thrace, Joseph wants you.” A new voice came through a speaker hidden in the room.
The werewolf’s eyes widened with fear. He stood, hugging himself as he glanced at me. “They said to answer all your questions.”
“Gibraltar assured me that I’d have complete cooperation. I’ll join you.”
The unknown voice spoke again. “No, Miss Savage. Joseph instructs that you remain.”
“The hell I will.” Did I mention I hated being told what to do. “Unless I’m being fired from this case? Shall I inform Mr. Gibraltar that Joseph terminated me?”
There was silence. Anton waited, watching me. Hope in his eyes. Finally the voice replied. “Never mind. There’s only minutes before the day-shift begins. There won’t be any extensions for the interview.”
Not much time to ask all the questions I had percolating in my mind. “Chilton and the other vampires spend time at Bubbles. Do you know them socially?”
“I’ve met them. We don’t hang out if that’s what you’re asking. None of his vampires are gay.”
That certainly tracked with the degree of homophobic discomfort I’d seen in Dusty and Rhoda. “If the vampires took Vincent, you have any idea where they’d be keeping him?”
“No. The Company scanned their apartments. No warm bodies anywhere.”
“What about dayminders?”
“Their human followers? Not allowed inside. They watch from outside the complex.”
“Has Amperdyne run a financial check on the properties owned by them?”
“You’ll have to ask the Company.”
“That’s next on my list.” I tapped my pen against the paper. Something was nagging me. I couldn’t figure out just yet. “Did Vincent have any crushes? In school? Among the vampires? A staff member?”
“He’s home-schooled. All the staff is male and our contact with Vincent was limited, not just recorded. I don’t know about the vampires. He seemed infatuated with them all.”
“What did you smell after the abduction?”
“Pardon?” Anton hadn’t been expecting that question. He seemed surprised by the very idea. It would’ve been one of the first things I’d have asked a werewolf on my payroll. Check for scents. Familiar or otherwise.
“You didn’t personally investigate the crime scene?”
He stammered. “I—I wasn’t allowed in.”
“Was that the Company’s call? Or Gibraltar’s?”
“That I can’t answer. I don’t know.”
A voice came through the speakers again. “Time’s up. Anton report to Mr. Gibraltar. Miss Savage?”
I watched the werewolf scurry away like a nervous rabbit. “Yes?”
“Yuri Kamaguchi, head of household security, will see you in his office.”
I smiled. Now we were getting somewhere.
Chapter Thirteen
Yuri Kamaguchi looked like his name. Mixed race. Japanese and Russian. His hair and eyes were the darkest brown I’d ever seen. The bridge of his nose more pronounced than a pure Asian. The shape of his face masculine. Somehow pretty at the same time. Full lips. Epicanthic folds. The best of both peoples.
He had an athletic build. Hard muscles on a delicate frame. His shoulders weren’t quite wide enough. Made his body look slightly overdone in that department.
“I felt we should sweep the past behind us.” He smiled as he spoke, his eyes cautious. Watching me like I was a dangerous animal. I felt weapons aimed at me from somewhere. Even though I couldn’t see them. Call it P.I.’s intuition.
“Then perhaps your men would be willing to put their weapons away.”
Kamaguchi stared at my breasts, using peripheral vision to scan my expression. He avoided my eyes despite the sunglasses. Smart and cautious. A respectable combination.
He made a gesture and the sense of foreboding was gone. “Thank you.”
I bobbed my head at the neck. Taking the seat opposite him without being asked.
Once I was comfortable, I studied him. “Shall we catch up on what we do and don’t know about Vincent’s abduction?”
“It seems unfair that we will be providing the bulk of the information.”
“You did try to kill me.” I smiled as I said it.
“Fair enough. A bit overzealous on my part. As long as there are no hard feelings?”
“You heard me. I just want to find Vincent one way or another.”
“What happened at the faggot bar?”
“Excuse me?” I frowned. My skin warmed and my stomach grew cold as my power surged unexpectedly. I hated that word. It was an indication of ignorance and laziness.
He stiffened. My power licked at him. He used anger to hide his fear. “You attack me after I show good faith?”
“You’re the one who used derogatory language in my presence. I tend to lose control when I’m pissed off.”
He thought about what he’d said. I saw him mouth the word again as if he was surprised I’d reacted so strongly. “I’d heard you frequent such clubs. But since the word doesn’t apply to women, I didn’t think you’d care.”
“I’m not black either, but I get even more pissed at the n-word.”
He started to say that word and I intentionally let my power spill outward. His wasn’t the only muffled cry. I reined my energy back in just as quickly. It was enough to taste them. Six men of varying ages hid just outside the room. Different locations. There must be secret access points in and out of this area.
“Am I not making myself clear?” I asked without any smile at all.
He didn’t hide his smoldering anger. “Yes, Miss Savage. You are making yourself clear.”
I studied him. Confused by his open use of
such inappropriate language. Then I nodded. “I see. I was mistaken.”
“How so?”
“I assumed you were American because of the mixed-race thing. You were raised in Russia.”
He cocked his head to one side. Puzzled. “How can you know this? I don’t have an accent.”
“You do. Not much of one.”
I didn’t know if he had an accent. But the fact that he’d cursed softly in Russian when I’d scared him with my power suggested the truth. I wasn’t exactly lying. Call it a bluff.
I leaned toward him, as somber as I could be. “But it explains your casual and comfortable use of such outdated and unwelcome language. Words are less biting in another language than your own.”
“I see. Then you have a very good ear.” He signaled again. Reassuring his men. I looked for an earpiece. It was small. Well-crafted. It even matched his skin tone. Good workmanship.
I changed the subject. Otherwise I suspected we’d get into a real argument. It wouldn’t end well for one of us. “Nothing about the Atlantic Revenants was in the FBI files. Nothing on Thrace for that matter.”
Kamaguchi reached into a drawer and handed me two files. One very thick. The other not so much. “This is what we have so far. The FBI doesn’t need to know about Mr. Gibraltar’s involvement with preternaturals. Even you.” He seemed to make a decision and reached into the drawer for a third file. This one was thinner still. Maybe empty it was that flat. He tossed it to me.
The thickest one was on the vampire coven. The thinner one on Anton Thrace. I paused at the skinny one. My name was on the tab. I stared at him. “Not a lot of material.”
“Didn’t think including police documents on your work as a detective would help anyone. This case isn’t related to any of your earlier ones.”
“So if this isn’t a professional file, what is it?”
I was afraid to look inside. To get my hopes up. Over the years, I’d hired some pretty talented people try to find out about my past. None of them very successfully.
“Take a look for yourself. But my time is limited. What do you have to share with me?”
“How’d you know about the bar? You have people following the vampires?”
“Something like that. What happened there? The Rake apologized for something. It was never clear about what.”
“You’ve got them bugged somehow. Let me guess. Tracking devices? On their clothing? Something they wear all the time?”
“You aren’t going to spoil things by telling them are you?”
“No. As long as you aren’t tracking me.”
He smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes. “Perhaps check your shoes when you get home.”
I wasn’t happy. At least he’d told me the bugs existed. Not that I was taking his word for it. Chances were, my shoes weren’t the only place they’d placed transmitters.
“Fine. In the spirit of cooperation, the Rake tried to mess with my mind. Eye to eye stuff.”
“And it worked?”
“No. But it made me angry.” I’d let him draw his own conclusions. I’d already shown him what happened when I got angry. No need to tell him that I’d actually lost control at the bar.
“You asked one of them to kiss you. Succubi cannot feed on the undead. Why the kiss then? I know you don’t date.”
“I wasn’t sure they knew that about me. Thought maybe I’d scare them in return for trying to screw with me.”
Yuri nodded. I wasn’t sure he believed me. I could lie easily enough. But I didn’t do it often enough to come up with really good ones. Bluffing was easier.
“What else?” he asked.
“What else do I want? I want to watch the footage from the day of Vincent’s disappearance. The day before as well.”
Kamaguchi frowned. “We’ve been over it multiple times with a fine toothed comb.”
“I haven’t.”
He grunted. “Fine. But you’ll have to watch it on your own. My people don’t have time to babysit.” He called to someone out of sight. “Hoshi, set Miss Savage up at the safe screen.”
A panel in the wall opened where there hadn’t been a door. A Japanese man without a trace of Caucasian motioned for me to follow him.
“What’s a safe screen?”
“It’s where we allow law enforcement and visitors to view confidential material. No one can transmit or record or duplicate anything. Show her how it works and then get back to work.”
I went to the panel. “Thank you for cooperating.”
“You didn’t really give me a choice.”
Hoshi moved into the dark hallway behind the panel. I joined him and the panel closed. Soft floor lighting came on. Like in airplanes. It directed us toward a door. The sign said ‘media room.’ Clearly not the only one. Maybe the police would’ve questioned the phrasing of a ‘safe screen.’ As if all the incriminating material was hidden somewhere else. It probably was.
I opened the door. Walked into the tiny room. One chair. A single oversized wide-screen monitor. Hoshi waited until I sat down and then showed me the controls. Basic time selection. Fast forward. Rewind. How to switch between cameras. And a button to summon help when I was done.
“Thank you.”
He bowed silently and left. I stared at the screen. Left frozen on Vincent’s bedroom three minutes after his abduction. I glanced at the paper files. Unable to keep my focus on the monitor. Wondering what they’d found out about me. If anything new could possibly be in such a skinny file.
Finally, I gave in to temptation. Growling, I tossed aside the thicker two. Breathing deeply before I opened the one they’d composed on me.
Only a few sheets of paper. A lot of the material was familiar. Granny Oglethorpe had been born ‘Matilda June Oglethorpe’ in a small mining town in central Canada. A frayed copy of an ancient birth certificate had been photocopied alongside her death certificate. The one I’d turned over to the county when they’d asked for identification of the body. It listed me as the informant on the death certificate. There had been no one else. I was the only person alive who’d been close to her.
No official birth certificate on me. Just the phony one Granny Oglethorpe had registered with the local Canadian jurisdiction. I hadn’t expected a legitimate one since succubi didn’t usually give birth in hospitals. Granny had guessed at my date of birth. A mostly arbitrary guess, based on her favorite month and a rough approximation of the year. The name of my mother was fake, too. Lana Savage.
I wasn’t exactly sure how old I was. Now or when my mother had died. Definitely not when Granny Oglethorpe had found me. They were details that didn’t really seem important until I realized I’d never know the answers.
I flipped past the death and birth certificates and stopped breathing. My heart pounded in my ears. There was a DNA test. Labeled ‘anonymous subject.’ My name was handwritten in ink at the very bottom. I’d seen my DNA enough times to recognize it. That’s not what made my heart race.
On the flip side, a paternal match. Perry Davidson. Dead of unknown causes. Another handwritten notation. ‘Lifeforce drained. DNA on file corresponds.’
A name for my father. Someone had found what I never could. I’d already known he was dead. That’s just how it worked for my kind. But his identity? That was more than I’d ever hoped to learn.
I did the math. I’d have been born just about nine months after my father was killed by my mother. At least, if succubi and humans shared that much in common. It seemed logical. That meant I was seventy-nine years old. Not an exact birthdate. But it was more than I’d known.
Granny had been off by two years. If my mother had gone the full nine-month term, my birthday was soon. Sometime in the next twenty days, probably. I was going to be eighty years old. Not that I looked a day over twenty-five. It’d be years before I could look in a mirror and track any new changes to my features.
That was one of the very few things I’d been able to learn about succubi biology. That anyone had documented anyway. The ol
der I got, the slower I’d age. My childhood had been almost human rapid. When puberty kicked in, Granny Oglethorpe had noted a change in my development. I wasn’t outgrowing my clothes like I’d been. I didn’t develop breasts as quickly as other girls my age. And my menstrual periods weren’t monthly. It was the only physical test of how slowly I aged. I’d bled once every three months. Then every six months. Then once a year. A methodical progression as time slowed down for me.
Like human women, I grew hungrier during the time I was fertile. Unfortunately, that made me very dangerous, too. This recent fluctuation in appetite worried me. That was something new. Not related to my menstruating at all.
I scanned the rest of the file but there was nothing as interesting as my father’s identity. Half of my DNA had come from him. Converted into a new lifeform by my mother’s metabolism. There wasn’t a picture of Perry Davidson. Just his date of birth and death. And a hand-scrawled line along the edge of the paper: American feral-game hunter.
It was an odd notation. Not ‘big game’ or ‘wild game’ hunter. ‘Feral game.’ I’d have to look into it later.
I frowned. Puzzled. American. Was that North American? Or did it mean then what it meant for most people now? A U.S. citizen? Granny Oglethorpe and I’d always assumed my father was Canadian since that’s where I’d been born. Maybe not.
I perused the only other page in the file. It listed a few other facts about succubi. Question marks next to them. Some I’d read before or learned through experience. We often kept cats as familiars. Not witches. Witches didn’t use familiars. Especially not cats. They weren’t entirely cooperative. Someone had mixed up the two bits of folklore way back when.
There was a notation that we could fly. That we turned into bats. I didn’t have wings. Horns and a tail, sure. But I couldn’t change shape any more than a vampire could. That really was a witch thing. It required ritual magic. And it wasn’t anything close to instantaneous.
The question marks were bigger next to the word ‘fly.’ Whoever had dug up this information wasn’t an idiot. The handwriting looked feminine. So far, all of Amperdyne’s employees I’d met were male. Maybe they’d acquired the file from a secondary source.
The Billionaire's Heir (Sucubus For Hire Book 1) Page 10
