Goddess With a Blade

by Lauren Dane

  He snapped his head up, outrage on his face and she sat back, shrugging.

  “Exactly. So you didn’t want your crazy, ragey on-and-off-again girlfriend with sticky fingers and a pill habit living in your house. Makes you smart and also, human. You didn’t hurt her, you tried to help her and so you know what? You and I are going to find her and that’s that.”

  “It’s meth, Rowan. What if she’s caught up in whatever is happening to those other women? What if we find her like that?”

  She put her things aside and took his hands. His turmoil rose and battered at her. All she could do was hope that wasn’t the case.

  Right then though, Rowan could help a little bit. She opened herself up to him, taking his angst and turmoil into herself and replacing it with calm. Soothing and hoping it helped.

  His agitation seemed to lessen, his gaze glossed just a small amount. “They questioned me. I felt like a fucking criminal, Rowan. I know it’s their job, I get it, but it sucked anyway.”

  “Just hold on to that. You have to know they’re watching you. Don’t take it personally and if it’s necessary, get an attorney and don’t hesitate. You got me? I’m going to get right on this. Carey’s working on his end. Can I see her place? Oh and who is working her case here?”

  “They’re not even classifying her as a missing person yet!” He stood and began to pace. “They didn’t search her place. They just did a cursory check to see if she was there and if it looked on the surface like foul play.”

  “Is this Fred’s decision?” Fred was in charge of their unit and had the ear of the chief, but he was a smart cop and Rowan had an idea that there was more than just a few missed days of work.

  “Yes.”

  Junkies disappeared all the time. No one cared about the other two women disappearing until they were found dead.

  “Are you telling me everything? Have you been in her place?”

  “She’d been put on probation here four months ago. She had been under suspicion then for some thefts of the evidence room before this last time. They removed her access, which is why she got caught. She used someone else’s code, but it had been flagged. They found her loading it into a car outside. Eight firearms, meth with a street value of roughly fifteen grand, about thirty thousand in cash.”

  “Your code.” It wasn’t a question, she knew the answer. Lisa, the stupid bitch, had stolen his money and his meds and his work codes too. Now was the time to harden his heart a little bit because dead or not, Lisa was not someone he needed in his life. Not with the way she’d treated him.

  Worse, those cases whose evidence had been stolen would most likely be tossed out now. Tampered evidence was the kiss of death. The chief would have been extremely pissed off, not to mention the prosecutors working the cases.

  He didn’t answer about the code. “I haven’t been in her apartment. Fred warned me off. My union rep too. Fred promised me he’d keep an eye out. It’s all I have to hang on to just now.”

  “I’m going to look the place over. I’ve got it. Fred is right. The last thing you need is to be involved in this any more than you are. Back to Lisa, what else aren’t you telling me?”

  “She got picked up two weekends ago. Prostitution.”

  Rowan just stood and went to him, hugging him tight. “I’m sorry. I really am. Did you know about the meth? You knew about the pills.”

  “I knew there was something. No one told me about the solicitation stuff.” He shrugged, looking caught between lost and angry. “How could I have imagined she was tricking for drugs? That’s not the woman I’d been with for so long, you know?”

  “So what’s the status of the solicitation charge?”

  “Insufficient evidence. They didn’t have enough so they kicked her. It was part of why she had been fast tracked for suspension. She told me she’d taken some vacation. Turns out she’d been using the process to buy some time. Then the stuff with stealing from me and then the evidence-locker theft. She’s a lot further gone than I’d imagined. How could she have been so bad off and I just didn’t see?”

  When they found her, if she was alive, she’d still be facing a metric shitton of trouble and most likely the loss of her job to go with some jail time.

  “Who would see that? I mean, now you have to face it, Jack. You can’t fool yourself anymore. But who is going to jump from money problems to stealing from the evidence room for drugs? That’s a pretty big jump there. Give yourself permission to have missed it.”

  She grabbed the file and her bag. “I’m going to look at her place. I’m on the case so consider me on retainer. I’ll be contacting you with what I find out.”

  He began to interrupt with what she knew would be an insistence to go with her.

  “No. Jack, you and I both know you’re going to have to stay out of the investigation. This is hard enough as it is and damned if I’m going to push you any harder into the suspect box. So stay out of this and I’ll be in touch.”

  He growled, but didn’t argue. He did hand her some keys. “Her place is 4D, top right-hand corner. Her car isn’t there, or it wasn’t earlier today.”

  She tucked the keys away and headed to the door. “I’m going out now. Stay out of it or I’ll kick your ass.”

  “Hey, Rowan?”

  She paused in the doorway. “Yeah?”

  “I’m so glad you’re back. Thank you.”

  “That’s what friends are for.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Standing in Lisa’s apartment, Rowan decided that love had made Jack blind. Unless this place had rapidly deteriorated in a day or three, no one could have stood there and believed anything but that a person in big trouble lived there.

  Lisa’s mental angst painted the walls as if it was physical.

  Carefully, she looked the place over. Disorganized mess covered every surface and the floor. Paper, trash, all that jazz. The space on the stand in the living room was empty where a television once sat. Which most likely meant she’d pawned it for drug money, probably like everything else she’d once owned that held any value. In the bedroom Rowan paused at the scent of almonds.

  Shit.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  Outside the apartment, Rowan ran into one of Lisa’s neighbors.

  “Excuse me, ma’am? My name is Rowan Summerwaite, I’m a private investigator.” She showed her identification to the older woman, who looked Rowan up and down before she nodded and allowed herself a small smile.

  “Do you know Ms. Walker?”

  “Hmpf.”

  Okay then. “I take it you do? She’s gone missing and I’m trying to find her. Any help at all you could give would be much appreciated. Can you tell me the last time you saw her? If there’d been trouble over there? Anything like that?”

  “Her nice young man used to keep her calm. But he’s been around less and less and her new friends more and more. I don’t like getting involved you see, but a body can’t hardly miss all the people in and out over there. They, her friends take the parking spots and won’t move. Saw her, last Tuesday I think it was. She’s not looking well. I think it’s the drugs. Sad to say. I know she’s a police officer and I was raised to respect the authorities, but that girl had fallen off the path, if you know what I mean.”

  Yeah, Rowan did.

  “Anyone in particular you saw more often than others? Jack, her nice young man, is the person who hired me to look for her. He’s very worried.”

  She described a few people, none of which sounded very familiar, but for one. One sounded a lot like Karen Fisk. The way the neighbor kept halting as she spoke told Rowan the Vampire had been there, as well. Something had been done to her memory.

  Rowan thanked her and gave her a card, urging the woman to call if she remembered anything else.

  And then she headed toward home.

  “Has Ms. Summerwaite returned?” Clive managed not to sound like he wished to throttle Rowan’s assistant. Or he hoped he did. He felt like a complete and utter git standing
there on her doorstep, her assistant blocking his way.

  “As I’ve said, your messages have been passed along. When or if Ms. Summerwaite returns your calls will be up to her entirely.”

  They’d parted on terrible terms and he’d done nothing but think about her ever since. Had watched the video surveillance from the parking garage when he returned only to find everything she said was true.

  Like an idiot, he’d let himself be inflamed by the hotel security people, low-level security people, and he’d set off over to her place without even viewing the footage.

  So when he’d returned to Die Mitte, chastened and aware he had made a huge error in not bothering to look first, he’d done so with several of his upper-level people, including Alice. Even his own people couldn’t deny the kill was righteous.

  Moreover, watching Rowan move the way she did, with the same preternatural strength they had, with the speed and agility none of them had ever seen in a human and only rarely in a Vampire, had increased their fear of her. And with Vampires, respect and fear were inherently tied together.

  “What are you doing here? I’m sure we discussed this before I left.” Rowan breezed past and into her apartment. “No. I did not invite you in. Say what you need to, Vampire, and be gone.”

  Her scent teased his senses. She was delicious with that otherworldly magick she threw out. Even thicker now that she’d returned. She was…different somehow.

  “I trust Imbolc went well?”

  “Is that why you’re here? I’m sure you can read about it on the internet somewhere. Your Vampire has chosen another victim, I have to find him because his mistake was that the woman happens to be Jack’s girlfriend and a cop.”

  Her eyes held no warmth at all, not even the spark of humor she usually had. He felt guilty, which he resented, even as he knew he should feel that way.

  “I have some new information. About the case.”

  “Great.” She turned and walked away. “Give it to David and I’ll look it over.”

  He sighed. “Rowan, do you really mean to continue on like this?”

  “Like what? I have to figure out a way to talk to Jack without telling him anything when, to be totally honest, this is your fucking mess to clean up. As usual, you people think you’re far too good to deal with the inevitable outcomes of your behavior.”

  “You people?”

  “Yes, that’s right. Vampires. The Vampire Nation has created this problem because you withheld information about the meth blood-barrier thing. And now you have some fucked up, tweaker Vampire serial killer and I’m the one having to tell my friend lies to protect you. I don’t even like you. Him, I like. You? Not so much.”

  “We need to talk.”

  “Tell David the times you’re available and I’ll have him contact Alice to set up a meeting.”

  He made a move to come inside and didn’t even see the assistant’s move until it was too late. A sword, not as scary as Rowan’s but plenty frightening when pressed to his neck, gleamed, holding him in place.

  “No. Vampire, you have been given your answers and you have no bid to enter this abode.”

  “You cannot think to hold a sword to the neck of the Scion without repercussions!”

  Rowan stopped, spun and headed back toward them. Glorious, beautiful rage marked her features. Far better than the flat expression she’d worn only moments before.

  “David, please excuse us,” she said as she got between them, nose to nose with Clive.

  “If you’re sure, Déesse.”

  “I am. Thank you. Please send the notes in that file on the table to Carey. Tell him I’ll be expecting his update within the hour. I called in some help to look for her.”

  “Help?” Clive wondered what that meant.

  “None of your business,” she snapped, standing in the doorway to halt his ingress. “I warned you, Vampire.”

  “He pulled a weapon on me, Rowan.”

  “You attempted to enter my abode uninvited. That is all the excuse he needs. Now. Get. Out.”

  “Damn you, Rowan. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I accused you the way I did.”

  “Is that all?”

  “No! Are you planning to punish me forever? I said I was sorry. I mean it. I overreacted, flew over here without all the information. I’ve damaged our whatever it is and I’m sorry.”

  “Do you really think this is about you? About punishing you? My friend, a man I care about, is going to have to face seeing his woman torn to shreds. I smelled him at her place. Same Vampire. Smelled him at the second victim’s place too.”

  “Take me there. Let me see if I recognize the scent.”

  “Um. No. Run along, I have work to do.”

  “Are you really going to push us into a fight? I’m not leaving until you and I have dealt with this.”

  “What this are you talking about? There is no this.” She pushed the door at him and he pushed back. The tension between them ramped up.

  “Who did you ask for help?”

  “The Dust Devils.” She looked as happy to say it as he was to hear it. And then she shoved him into the hallway and slammed the door in his face.

  Again.

  He pounded on the door. Again.

  “What?” She opened, looking feral and everything in his body perked up.

  “The information I have. Don’t you want it?”

  “I told you to give it to David.”

  “It’s not a dossier. I need to tell it to you.”

  She looked him up and down. “Wait here.”

  Again with the door in his face.

  On the other side of the door he heard the assistant talk to her. “Déesse, you’ve been traveling for the better part of nearly two days. You need to take a break.”

  “David, I don’t have that luxury now. I slept on the trip from La Guardia. I’m all right. I don’t think Lisa is. I think I’m too late.”

  Her voice came near to breaking, but she held it together and though he should feel guilty for eavesdropping, he only felt admiration for her.

  He was damned. No doubt about it.

  “But the Devils?”

  “I paid the price. They’ll help.”

  A chill worked through Clive at hearing that. Such payment would have most likely been a magickal infusion, but it would have been painful. They’d have liked that too.

  “Then you most definitely need to rest!”

  “She paid it. The Goddess. I’m fine. I’m alive. I’ll wake up tomorrow and the day after. Lisa, well, David, I don’t think she can say the same.”

  “You can’t make yourself responsible for this. She made her choices.”

  “I need to do my job.”

  The door yanked open and she stood there, her hair tied at the base of her neck, exposing the unique lines of her face. “Come on then. We’re walking and talking.”

  “Where are you going?”

  She only looked at him sideways until the elevator arrived.

  “What is it you need to tell me?”

  “I have a few names. Four of them seem likely as our killer. My people are looking for them now.”

  “I’ll need their particulars. You can call my office.” She handed him a card. “Call Carey and give him this information.”

  The doors opened and she darted out into the crowd. Growling, he followed.

  “Ms. Summerwaite, I’m giving the information to you.”

  “I don’t have time for this.”

  He took her arm once they’d reached the sidewalk outside.

  “Make time. It’s not as if I’m free to just flit around Las Vegas waiting for you to return. I have a job too.”

  “So get on with it. And then let go of my arm before I punch you in the nose.”

  “Would that make you feel better?”

  She paused, surprised and then she laughed. “It totally would. But this isn’t about me, asshole. Maybe later.”

  It was then he caught it. Not only the subtle changes in Rowan, which had been
throwing him since he’d first seen her minutes before, but the scent in the air. Almonds.

  “It’s him.” She said it low, so quietly he barely heard it.

  Scanning the area, he saw several Vampires, but none who were nearly old enough to give off that scent.

  He walked through the crowd, the humans parting like the seas. For so long he’d simply used his skills to manipulate them, it was second nature to create a path, to send out that little bit of confusion so they’d never suspect a thing.

  Fragile and easily led. Humans never really came into his mind unless he was hungry.

  But Rowan, dealing with her and seeing them through her perspective was interesting. Not that he’d come to care that much more about them, but she did and they must be worthy on some level.

  In any case, the less they knew about Vampires the better off Vampires were.

  “He’s gone. But he was here.”

  She was at his side and he hadn’t even heard her approach. “My, you’re going to have to tell me about all your birthday…gifts.”

  “Not so much. Okay, then, I’m off. I have some information to track down.”

  “Don’t go see them alone.”

  “I’m never alone, Scion.”

  But instead of her shiny sports car, a cab belched to a stop. A cab filled with stuffed beasts.

  “Suzette! Come on then, I’ll take your fare.”

  The door opened and she smirked as she got inside.

  “Rowan, you can’t take this person out there,” Clive whispered.

  “Keep your teeth on.” The driver’s smile was affable enough, but it was then that Clive realized he sure as hell wasn’t human. “I been driving cab round these parts a long time. Miss Suzy here is gonna be just fine. Though.” He cocked his head as he looked Clive over. “You got to be looking into your freezer situation. Open doors mean things spoil.”

  “We’re not finished, Ms. Summerwaite.”

  “See you later, Scion.” She waved and the cab sped away, the traffic parting for it much like the humans had parted for Clive earlier.

  “He’s sweet on you. In his own way.”

  “Carl, it’s good to see you, but he’s not sweet on anything. He’s incapable of sweet.”