by T. G. Ayer
“And?” urged Vee. She wasn’t sure if Monroe was playing her, holding the knowledge over her. All Vee had to do to clear it up was to message Brent, and she’d have her answer in seconds, but she forced herself to remain calm and patient.
Monroe sipped her drink again and coughed before wiping her mouth off on her sleeve. “And the hair samples? You won’t believe it—” Monroe broke off, laughing again, the sound loud enough that Vee noticed a few patrons glancing their way. Monroe hiccupped. “They came back dead. No DNA? You telling me that two full, intact, uncontaminated hair samples that did not belong to the victim just happened to not have sufficient DNA on them to identify at least something about the killer?”
Vee was amazed that the detective had managed to speak such a long sentence in her state of inebriation, but she schooled her features to one of understanding and sympathy.
Monroe shook her head, eyed Vee out of the corner of her eye. Then she pointed at Vee.
“And you? You’re suspicious.”
Oh shit.
Chapter 73
Vee’s heart thudded as she waited to hear what else Monroe had to say, waited for the detective to admit that she was onto Vee, that she knew what Vee was, and what she’d been hiding.
Vee took another sip to buy herself some time.
Monroe laughed, the sound gurgling in her throat. “You think one day you’ll ever tell me how you do it?” Monroe asked, eyeing Vee out of the corner of her eye.
Swallowing a sigh of relief, Vee responded, “Maybe. I don’t know.” She shrugged.
Monroe snorted then started to giggle. Vee reached over and patted her shoulder. “You need to get home. Get some rest. I don’t think the next few days are going to be easy on any of us. Not until we find that missing woman. Two lives are at stake.”
“Did you get the report?”
“That the house gave us nothing?” Vee nodded. “Yeah. If that was a dead end, then we look elsewhere. They went to the hotel for some mother-daughter time. Means they weren’t into anything criminal.”
“Not that we know of.”
Vee nodded. “Anything else we need to know, I’m sure it can wait until tomorrow.”
“And if he kills her tonight?”
Vee paused and took a breath. “If that does happen, if we do lose her or the baby or both of them, then we have to accept that there wasn’t anything we could have done at the time. We have no clue as to motive. We have no idea where he went or where he is keeping her. At the moment, it’s out of our hands. Go home. Rest. Look at it fresh in the morning. You’re of no use to anyone, including Lucy and her baby, if you don’t take care of yourself. Drunk detectives don’t often have a high success rate, you know.”
Monroe shrugged Vee’s hand off her shoulder. “Think I don’t know all this bullshit?”
“Then what’s wrong? Why the self-pity?”
“It’s not self-pity.” Monroe turned to stare at Vee. “Have you ever seen something that you didn’t think was possible, but you knew in your gut it was real?”
Vee’s own gut tightened in response to the woman’s words. Was Monroe suspicious about what Vee was? What she could do? Had she somehow realized that Vee’s ability was not necessarily based on plain old human deduction?
Vee felt a poke in her ribs and glanced back in the direction of Akil who’d likely prodded her just to pull Vee out of her worried introspection. The sirin gave her a pointed look and Vee shifted in her seat, then glanced back at Monroe.
The detective was frowning at Vee. Then she turned to look beyond Vee, and stared directly at Akil for a few, painfully long moments. After what seemed like an eternity, Monroe turned back to Vee. “What were you staring at?”
“Nothing. It’s just the bar is on the empty side.”
Monroe shrugged. “You familiar with this place?”
“Came here once, a while back. Was way busier then.”
“Yeah. I think they had some kind of corporate buyout or something. The bar changed hands recently.”
That explained the fixed letter C.
Vee pursed her lips and nodded, interested but aware of the late hour—or early depending on the way you look at it—and she was tired, Monroe was drunk, and the ratio of demons to humans in the bar leaned dangerously toward non-human. Vee had no clue as to the allegiance of the new owner, which meant the best thing to do now was to get the hell out of there.
Syama seemed to think so too. She shifted closer to Vee. “Let’s get her out of here. Some of these guys are not the kind you want to meet in a dark alley.”
“Not to mention that we seem to be drawing a bit too much attention,” Akil murmured softly. Vee noticed his hand shift toward his hip, fingers closing around the hilt of his narrow-bladed sword.
Vee frowned and then got to her feet. At some point, she’d drained her glass, but she couldn’t recall when. She tossed a few bills onto the bar and stared at Monroe. “Coming? Either I help you out of here, or you can get one of these creeps here to take you home. I’m not sure you’ll be happy if that happens.”
Monroe let out a soft bark of laughter. “Funny. I’m not the type these guys are looking for. That’s more your area.”
Vee lifted her eyebrow.
“What I meant to say was—”
“Save it for when I get you home.” Vee began to walk off, leaving Monroe to trail behind her looking a little too much like a lost puppy. They left the bar and hurried across the road and back into the darkness of the alley.
A light fixed to a wall above them cast a fluorescent glow on the front end of the alley, and the women headed deeper into the shadows. Syama was already throwing her glamor over them when a shout erupted from the street. A small group of men had left the bar, and one glance over her shoulder confirmed they were after her and Monroe.
“C’mon hellhound, do your thing,” Vee muttered giving Syama a glare.
“Don’t call me that,” Syama replied through gritted teeth. Monroe teetered between the hellhound, and Akil who was rolling his eyes, and began to shimmer away.
Vee hadn’t yet had time to coax Monroe’s address out of her, but the sound of rushing boots on the sidewalk told her they were out of time.
But, before Vee could tell Syama to hurry, the hellhound had already transported them to the garage at Vee’s house. They materialized only to have Monroe pass out in a heap on the floor.
“Crap. Good thinking getting us here. I have no idea where she lives.”
“Wallet?” suggested Syama.
Vee was barely paying attention to her as she rifled through the detective’s pockets. She found the woman’s wallet and flicked through the cards before waving one at Syama. Then she read out an address that straddled Harlem and Morningside Heights. Vee found herself extremely grateful that she didn’t need to bother with ordering a ride every time she needed to go places. She’d missed the ease of travel that she’d experienced since Syama had arrived and vowed never to take the hellhound—or the sirin—for granted.
As Syama and Akil lifted Monroe off the floor in preparation for the jump, a piece of paper fluttered to the ground. Vee was about to tell the two to wait, but again the hellhound was too fast. They materialized inside Monroe’s front room, and almost collapsed under the dead weight of the woman.
Syama and Akil staggered a few steps and dropped Monroe onto the nearest sofa where the detective sank against the cushions and let out a loud snore.
Vee grinned. “Right. Let’s get outta here.”
“She’s going to be super confused when she wakes up.” Syama was smiling as she reached for Vee’s hand.
“Let’s hope we can get away with telling her we drove her home after she passed out,” Vee said.
Syama shimmered, and Vee watched in fascination as her own arm took on the strange, almost liquid, luminescent quality that Syama possessed when she jumped. They left Akil to jump on his own, and Syama transported her and Vee back home, landing in Vee’s bedroom.
“Door to bed delivery, any hour of the day.”
Vee chuckled as Syama turned on her heel and sauntered out into the hall. Outside the window, morning was beginning to brighten the skies, gray light peeking in at the sides of the drapes.
Vee yawned and kicked off her shoes. She was shrugging out of her jacket when she remembered the piece of paper that had fallen from Monroe’s pocket. Curious, Vee left her room and hurried downstairs, locating the paper on the garage floor within seconds. It turned out to be a business card.
On one side was a black and red drawing of a lotus, and on the back were contact details for a person named Howard. Vee frowned. What the heck was the card for? No company name, no address, just a name and a phone numbers.
Interesting.
Vee tucked the business card into her back pocket and headed upstairs. Undressing, she padded to her dresser to grab a pen and a post-it note. She wrote a message on one and stuck it on her room door.
Then she dived under the covers and prayed that anyone who dared to come to her room would heed her warning.
5.05am: I’m going to bed. Disturb me at your peril. Much love, V
Chapter 74
Two days had passed since they’d discovered the abduction of Lucy and her unborn baby, and as yet no law enforcement agency in the entire state had managed to uncover a thread of evidence that could even suggest where she’d been taken.
Vee had woken up late, checked her phone to discover no messages from Karan about new demon killers on the loose. She did find an update from Brent confirming that he’d fixed all the tests and autopsy reports and that things were fine.
They weren’t.
Vee had rung him back almost instantly and had alerted Brent as well as Rossi that Monroe was suspicious. She warned them again that tampering with the reports was going to tip someone off. She repeated her suggestion that going forward they procure their own portions of samples for independent testing—and strongly suggested they be sent to Shankar Industries so Vee herself could spearhead the forensic investigation of that evidence.
Vee didn’t enlighten her boss that she was currently redirecting some evidence to her own lab for testing. That was one of those I’ll-deal-with-it-when-the-shit-hits-the-fan things.
She’d previously encouraged Rossi to destroy the evidence the forensic techs picked up and even though Monroe’s rant about it last night highlighted the danger, destruction of the evidence prior to testing made better sense than tampering with reports after the fact.
Rossi assured Vee that he’d set something up as soon as possible.
Vee’s other message was more along the lines of something she preferred to see. Nivaan’s voicemail had advised her to be prepared for a night out on the town, that he’d booked a table at Eduardo’s in Manhattan, and that jeans was acceptable but that a little fancy won’t hurt.
She smiled as she messaged him back, confirming his request for a date.
Request indeed.
Vee headed over to her lab at Shankar Industries and had immersed herself in studying the samples of pey brain she’d prepared the previous day. She’d paused only when she’d identified the existence of a parasitic virus that seemed to live inside the brain of the pey demon.
After considering various options, she began to suspect that she’d be able to create a bio-weapon based on that virus. Perhaps it would be considered unethical, but Vee believed she’d only ever use such a weapon in defense of the innocent.
As the hours passed, Vee found herself filled with glee. She’d taken a chance creating a virus that would attack the pey’s immune system. And with the R&D divisions magic-supported equipment, the wait time until the average virus was ready for testing—anything from six to ten weeks—was vastly decreased. By the end of the day, Vee was particularly thrilled to see that the virus growth rate predicted it would be ready within the next day or so.
Perhaps tomorrow, she’d have something to take to the head of R&D for testing consideration.
When Vee finally grabbed her bag and looked at her watch, she found that the day had gone by faster than she’d thought.
And she had a date with a certain lion shifter.
In the midst of everything that was happening, everything that had happened to her in the course of the last twenty-four hours, Vee was questioning the wisdom of doing something as mundane as having dinner.
With her boyfriend.
When was there ever time for such a thing as romance at a time like this?
Syama had kept Vee company while she’d dressed, and though the hellhound had insisted that she and Akil go with Vee, she’d eventually relented after Vee reminded her that her boyfriend was a dangerous, powerful lion shifter, capable of ripping a human in half if provoked.
Vee was jogging down the stairs in her bare feet, patting the pockets of her jeans for her phone. “Back pocket,” came a low baritone from the lounge as she passed.
“Ugh, thanks, Dad. I swear my brain is like a sieve right now.”
Her dad snorted. “That’s what you call not having enough sleep.”
“Sleep is for the weak,” she said as she checked her phone in case Nivaan had bailed on her. Coward that she was, she’d been hoping he would, but she had no messages to that effect.
Dinner plans canceled but I’ll be picking you up. Have a surprise for you.
Vee’s eyebrows rose, her curiosity piqued.
Pocketing her phone, she hurried to the basement, her Dad’s footsteps echoing after her. He loitered on the threshold as she rifled through the shelves in search of a handful of small weapons she could hide on her person.
“Did Mac drop off my daggers?” Vee asked as she slipped a wide leather band around her wrist. The band was filled with needles which —depending on where she inserted them— she could use to either paralyze or kill an attacker. The needles were for close combat only, and she’d only ever used them as a last resort. She had her trishula, which hung over her shoulder, glamored to appear to onlookers as though it were a backpack, not to mention her daggers which she usually slid into her boots.
Only today, she wasn’t wearing boots.
Raj cleared his throat. “He dropped by around midday. The package is on that counter over there.” He pointed behind her.
Vee headed across the narrow room to the opposite counter, making a beeline for a small box. Mac had promised to have them ready two weeks ago but hadn’t communicated with her as to when he’d deliver them. She’d almost given up with patience and had been close to picking up the phone and telling Mac she’d pick them up if he wasn’t comfortable coming by. She did understand his reluctance though. She wasn’t that selfish.
She retrieved the set of six stiletto blades that Mac had been working on for her. He’d explained how, with their super thin handles, they would easily be mistaken for hair sticks. Alternatively, they could be inserted into narrow hemlines and jacket seams. Today, she slid them into hidden pockets on the inner seams of her jeans.
They were mainly throwing knives, cheaply made and untraceable so that she could leave them behind at a scene without fear of being tracked through the materials used in production. The wood of the handles had been coated with an oil resistant resin ensuring Vee would never leave a fingerprint on them.
All ready, Vee turned to face her dad. “How do I look?” She held out her hands, waiting.
“That pink top looks nice,” he said, hesitating on the color.
Vee rolled her eyes. “Cerise, Dad. The color is called cerise. Where have you been in the last decade?” She grinned and went to him to give him a hug.
The reference to where he’d been was one the both of them had begun to use as a means of breaking the tension. Because with him there was always tension.
Ever since he’d been returned to them, it had felt as though there was something holding him away from them, not so much physically but emotionally.
Vee understood that he would be suffering from a serious case of PTSD, but her offer of h
elping him find a counselor had been met with an emphatic ‘No’ each time.
“He’s been good to you?” Her dad’s voice broke into her thoughts, and she glanced over at him.
“Yeah,” Vee smiled, thinking of Nivaan and how their relationship had developed over the last few months.
“No. I meant Mac.” There was an indefinable note to her father’s voice, one that cut deep into Vee’s heart. She felt as though her answer would mean she’d betrayed her father but if she lied, if she denied her love for Mac then that would amount to almost the same thing.
“Yes,” she said, deciding honesty was the way to go. She gave her dad a wry smile. “I wasn’t a very nice teenager. Messed up, angry with the world, with Mom. Mac…calmed me down, gave me direction.”
Her dad nodded at that, then turned to leave as if that answer had been entirely satisfactory, only his face revealed something else that she couldn’t understand.
She followed him out into the hall. “Dad?” she called out. He paused in the hall and turned to her. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Saying that I loved Mac…it doesn’t mean I don’t love you.”
Her dad smiled and came toward her. “I know that. I wasn’t here, and he was. I’m grateful that he took such good care of you for all these years. Even when your mom….” He looked away, as though unsure how to complete the sentence.
Vee patted him on the back. “Mom has her own issues. She never got over you. When Mac came along, she was happy, but only for a time. It was as if her longing for you wouldn’t allow her to move on. I want to think it was instinct, that somehow she knew you were still alive, that she was waiting for you to come back home.”
