Blood Ties: A Grace Harper Novel

by J. T. Hardy

  Not the man who'd saved me. I'd never seen a Pretty Boy with that description. Hard to imagine one bleaching his hair, but everything about the Pretty Boys was crazy. "White guy?"

  "Nah, man, brown dude, but he's not from around here, ya know what I mean."

  At least that fit the Pretty Boys. "What if I wanted to meet Zack?"

  "Not gonna happen, chica."

  "Why not? He talks to you."

  "I'm special." He looked at me, something in his eyes that felt a lot older than sixteen. My guess was his life hadn't been any easier than mine, though I didn't think it was for the same reasons. But maybe they were similar. Maybe he had his own dusky hottie watching over him.

  I nodded slowly. "So am I, and I need some answers or both me and the bald dude are dead."

  Eddie's gaze darted everywhere but at me, then finally stopped. "Give me your number and I'll ask him, but don't get your hopes up, aiight?"

  "You have Zack's number? I'll call him myself."

  "I don't have a phone."

  Libby huffed. "Everybody has a phone."

  "Not me. Those things give off radiation that rot your brain, you know?"

  She gestured the gun at him. "Stand up." Then to me, "Search him."

  I did, patting him down and trying not to feel weird about practically feeling up a teen-aged boy. If he stashed his phone in or near his undies, I'd never find it.

  "Nothing."

  "Told you." He huffed. "You guys cops?"

  "Do we look like cops?"

  He shrugged. "You gonna call the cops?"

  "Not if you give me the names and addresses of the other people Zack has you checking up on," I said. One of them might know more about this Zack.

  "He won't like that," Eddie grumbled.

  "I don't care."

  Eddie grudgingly recited the names and addresses. "What are you gonna do with me?"

  Unless we tied him up in the closet, we couldn't exactly hold him. Even I recognized kidnapping a minor was a no-no, though the thought had lingered longer than it should have. Eddie could lead us to the Pretty Boys. He knew one, worked for him even. If we kept him here, Zack might get worried and come looking for him. Are you honestly considering using this kid as bait?

  "Still not a good idea," Libby said softly.

  "Ask Zack to call me," I said, tearing off a corner of a takeout menu. I wrote down my number and handed it to Eddie.

  "Can I go now?"

  "Go."

  Libby stepped back, but the gun never wavered. Eddie rose slowly, hands still out, and backed toward the door. He gave me one last glance, his mouth open as if he was about to speak, then shook his head and darted into the hall.

  "He could have led us right to them," I said.

  "He still might. He'll tell this Zack guy you want to talk."

  "And if he doesn't call?"

  "We'll find another way."

  I blew out a frustrated breath. It didn't matter whose side Zack might be on--Dad's apartment was no longer safe.

  We found a nearby hotel that took cash and asked no questions, and must have been decorated by the same people who'd designed my apartment in Lauderdale. I'd recognize those ugly drapes anywhere.

  "Could Zack be the one who saved you when you were a kid?" Libby asked. She tossed her duffel on the foot of the bed closest to the door.

  "Description didn't fit."

  "How many Pretty Boys are there? Are we talking a few evil SOBs or a whole murder of them?"

  "Murder?"

  "Like crows." She shrugged. "Flock? Herd? What do you call a group of vampires?"

  "Terrifying."

  She snapped a finger and pointed at me. "That's it. A terror of vampires."

  "Delightful." I rubbed my eyes, dry as grit from lack of sleep. "Okay, so we need a timeline. Dad called me last night--" I checked the log on my phone "--at six-forty-three. Eddie said it was dark when he saw him being kidnapped. It gets dark here around what? Seven? Eight?"

  "Full dark, by eight probably."

  "Unless Eddie was out there all night, odds are Dad was grabbed between eight and midnight."

  "By two Pretty Boys in a white van." She made a face. "That sounds mundane. Any weird freak could use a van. I'd expect something more exotic from a terror of vampires."

  "You sound crazier than me."

  Libby shrugged. "It's the sleep deprivation. We've been awake almost thirty hours. I say we grab two hours of rack time and see if Zack calls. If not, we track down that van, or the people on Eddie's list."

  "Rack time?"

  "Sleep."

  I hated losing the time, but I was so tired I could barely think. I'd be no good to Dad if I missed the very clue that would lead me to him. "I'll set a wake-up call."

  Zack didn't call, but I felt worlds better after a nap and a shower. We had no way to chase down the white van, so we turned to the only lead we had--Eddie's list. Maybe someone on it could point us in the right direction.

  Maybe this was how my name got on Cavanaugh's list. One of the Pretty Boys gave it to a human minion to keep track of people they wanted to eat, kidnap, or protect. Or one gave it to another Pretty Boy so he'd know who to go after. I had clearly been on the kill or kidnap list, not the watch and wait list.

  "We should reconsider calling the police," Libby said. "They can't do anything about the Pretty Boys, but they could put out an alert for a missing person."

  I sighed. "We can't. They'll do a background check and discover Grace and Anthony Harper didn't exist prior to five years ago. We've been running, Libby. We had to break a few laws to stay alive, and the cops won't care why we did it."

  She didn't say anything for a minute, just stared at the floor. "I didn't realize it was that bad. I'm sorry, Grace."

  If Eddie's names didn't pan out, I might never know what happened to my father. What they wanted us for was a mystery. How either of us was connected to the people on Cavanaugh's list was also a mystery.

  "Cavanaugh," I said, jerking straight.

  "Who?"

  "The guy from the hospital. He had a list of names, too." I grabbed my phone--the Harper one, not the burner--and told her about Cavanaugh's list of dead and missing people.

  She frowned at me. "You have to stop keeping things from me."

  "Sorry, I didn't think about it til just now. Eddie had a list with Dad's name on it. Cavanaugh had one with mine, my mother's and a recently missing woman's. It's too much of a coincidence not to be connected, and Cavanaugh might have better leads. He found me, so he's got skills." I hit Cavanaugh's number.

  "Hello?" he answered after the second ring.

  "I'm sorry to bother you, but it's Grace Harper. I have questions about that list of yours."

  "Ms. Harper? Are you all right?" he asked, rushing the words out. "You weren't at the hospital or your apartment. I was worried."

  He went to my apartment? The hairs on the back of my neck twitched, but he was probably only doing his job. "I'm fine. Your missing woman. Do you think she's been kidnapped and is being held somewhere, or was she killed?"

  "What? Why are you--no, wait, tell me where you are first. You're in a lot of danger."

  "Kidnapped or killed? I need to know."

  Something rustled on the other end of the line. "Looks like a kidnapping. There were no signs of struggle or violence. She simply vanished."

  "But not the old cases?"

  "The old--? The names on the list? No, the older ones are all dead as far as I could tell."

  "How far back?"

  "Six years is the oldest I think. Ms. Harper, what aren't you telling me?"

  Six years. For some reason, the Pretty Boys had changed tactics within the last five or six years. "So you believe she's still alive?"

  "That's my hope. You need to tell me where you are."

  "Do you have any idea where she's being held?"

  He said nothing for a few seconds. "None. The only clue I've found so far is a list with your name on it. There's compellin
g evidence that someone is stalking you. Let me help you."

  He sounded so sincere, but clueless. He was unprepared for what took Anita Rosenberg.

  "Where did you find the list?"

  Silence for several heartbeats, then a heavy sigh. "A student at Florida State was mugged outside her apartment. She's been in a coma the last two months. The list was found at the scene. Her name was on it, along with yours and Anita Rosenberg's. A contact of mine at the police department slipped me the list when he heard I was looking for her."

  "Where did Rosenberg disappear?"

  "She was on vacation in New Mexico."

  Close enough to Vegas to possibly connect with Dad. "Did she live in Florida as well?"

  "Yes, Jacksonville." Another connection, though a loose one.

  "Did everyone on that list live in Florida at the time of their disappearance?"

  Cavanaugh groaned. "I'm not saying anything until you tell me what you've found."

  It didn't matter. I could find that out on my own. Safe bet said they were, though. Not that it helped any. So we were all from Florida, so what? Dad had lived there at that time, too, and he wasn't on the damn list, he was on Eddie's.

  "Ms. Harper?"

  To get more, I'd have to share, and I'd broken too many of Dad's rules already. Besides, it didn't sound like Cavanaugh knew that much anyway. The Florida list was twenty years old, but the New Mexico angle was newer, and at least put it in Dad's neck of the woods. Had the Pretty Boys traded lists? Did they have hunting grounds or territories?

  "Thank you for the info, Mr. Cavanaugh. I appreciate your help, but for your own safety, you might want to drop this case." I hung up the phone and updated Libby.

  "Not enough yet to go on," she said, "but anyone on Eddie's list who has been running like you and your father might know something."

  I nodded. "If we can figure out why they want us, maybe we can figure out where they took him."

  Chapter Nine

  Three names besides Dad's graced Eddie's list--one man and two women, all in the Vegas area. If Eddie was covering all four of them, he'd done a lot of commuting between Boulder City and the Strip.

  Address number one was a run-down house near Winchester, south of Vegas and not far from the community college. Caleb Marlowe held no job I could find online, but there had been several articles about his arrests. B&Es, a few assaults, a person of interest in a shooting--just about what you'd expect to find for a garden-variety criminal. His mug shot looked like a side of beef with bushy blond hair and very nasty eyes.

  I parked in the strip mall lot across the street.

  "You might want to keep the weapons handy," said Libby, scanning the neighborhood and the bar behind us. "I'd say keep the engine running, but that might bring more attention than we want."

  Still might be worth the risk. The area had "we rent to criminals" written all over it.

  I watched the house through a pair of exceptional binoculars. Roberto had the best toys. Some of the houses had yards, but Marlowe's was just dirt, some reedy weeds, and an assortment of cars in progressive stages of repair.

  I tensed every time a car rolled past or someone exited a house. If I didn't know better, I'd think the street was a set for some gritty cable channel crime drama.

  "Have you ever been attacked in the daylight?" Libby asked. Took me a second to figure out she was back on her Pretty Boy research. I could hardly blame her.

  "Not in full sun." Despite all the stories I'd read and seen growing up, I had encountered them in the daylight--but only on cloudy days, at twilight, or in the early morning. "They seem to do okay as long as it isn't shining on them."

  "Can we assume the sun hurts them?"

  "Maybe."

  She nodded slowly.

  At first, it had been a little annoying. She'd dredged up every vampire cliché, movie trait, and TV trope she could think of to compare against my experiences. There was a lot of vampire lore in the world, and some of it had gotten it right, or close enough.

  Sunlight, for example. They didn't like it, but they didn't burst into flames. Silver also put the hurt on them. The turning to dust thing when they got staked was pretty close to reality, though wooden stakes didn't appear to be required. Not appearing in mirrors was also close enough to fit the myths. They were blood drinkers, no question. They had super speed and strength. They absolutely had that whole "sexy beyond compare" thing going for them.

  I'd never seen them turn into bats or rats, and I doubted they slept in coffins--if they even slept at all. No fangs. Garlic was an unknown, as was holy water.

  "I wonder how long they've been around?" Libby said. "Dracula was written in the late 1800s. And Vlad the Impaler was what, fifteenth century?"

  "Sounds about right."

  She pulled off her jacket and tossed it into the back seat. "They must be older than that, though."

  "Depends on which legend you prefer. The stories go back about four thousand years. Ancient Greek tablets, Sumerian poems, memos from the Inquisition."

  Libby whistled. "You've done your homework."

  "I was motivated." I shrugged. "None of it helped."

  Once upon a time, I'd hoped to find something in the books and legends that would save us. A special trick or long-lost secret that would render us invisible to the Pretty Boys, or a weapon to make us invulnerable. Later, I'd just wanted to find some way to defend ourselves when they got too close.

  I knew a lot, but little of it was useful.

  And now I knew they used innocent kids to help them hunt.

  The Pretty Boys rarely attacked in public, so clearly, they didn't want anyone to know about them. They'd kept chasing Dad and me, so they didn't hunt randomly and chose their victims for a reason. Me being on Cavanaugh's list twice confirmed that. No matter what I'd called myself, I still matched whatever their hunting criteria was.

  They kept lists, so they had to have records somewhere. If they kept records, they had something that needed recording, and everyone on the lists most likely had whatever that something was in common.

  What did my family have in common with Caleb Marlowe? Or Anita Rosenberg? Or any of the other people on either list? The only thing we shared was a stalker.

  Libby nudged me and pointed at the trash can by the street. "That's a lot of beer cans. Caleb would be a terrible food source. He's practically pickled."

  "Could we not talk about that aspect of the Pretty Boys, please?"

  "Sorry, it's hard not to think about it." She hesitated, shooting me a sidelong glance.

  "What?" I asked.

  "I'm not sure how to discuss this without sounding insensitive."

  "Dad and I found that the more ridiculous it sounded, the easier it was to talk about it."

  "Fair enough. They might be stocking the pantry."

  She couldn't mean..."The names are a shopping list?"

  "A Pretty Boy's gotta eat. Can't be easy finding food nowadays, not with security cameras all over and people with cell phones recording everything. Could be why they're stalking thugs and...people with no family."

  I blanched. "That's a horrifying thought."

  "If it's true, then your dad's probably alive, being held somewhere to um..."

  "Tap like a keg when they get thirsty?"

  "Not the image I was going for, but yes. It takes six to twelve weeks for hemoglobin levels to replenish. Depending on what they need in the blood to survive, that's up to three months before they can tap that person again."

  Morbid, but true, and a best-case scenario. "If it's plasma, that's only forty-eight hours."

  "Then they'd need fewer people for the pantry."

  I groaned, really not wanting to do the math on how many people a single Pretty Boy would need to feed himself. "Still doesn't explain why they've switched to kidnapping specific people."

  "Blood and vampires go together, so it's a reasonable guess it's about the blood. Think it's a taste preference? They all have the same blood type or something
?"

  "Millions of people have the same blood type. What the Pretty Boys are doing is deliberate and well-researched. They found Dad and me even though we'd changed our names several times, and I have no idea how."

  She reached into the cooler behind her seat and opened a bottle of water, passed it to me, then dug out one for herself. "Then it's your blood specifically."

  "Us and the people on those lists."

  Remembered words clicked in my mind. "When Cavanaugh questioned me at the hospital, he asked if I'd donated blood recently."

  "Had you?"

  I shook my head. "But Dad did all the time. They took it from him for testing." My heart raced. "If Cavanaugh was asking about it, he must have seen a pattern. I bet more than one person on that list had given blood before they disappeared."

  "Vampires and blood banks also go together."

  "There must be dozens in Vegas alone." Not as bad as a needle in a haystack, more like a needle in a ball pit, but it would take time we didn't have.

  Libby wiggled her fingers. "Hold that thought--we've got movement."

  I lifted the binoculars. Marlowe had left the house and was walking to a red pickup truck. His plaid shirt strained at the buttons and fit close around his sizable biceps. The guy moved like a boulder rolling downhill.

  "Even if I were a Pretty Boy, I wouldn't want to mess with him."

  Libby frowned and moved a hand to her stun gun. "Talk to him or try the next name?"

  "I seriously doubt he's going to talk to us, though he might murder us and bury our bodies in the back yard. After he's gone, we'll search the place. If he donated blood, he might have a receipt or a sticker in the trash that says where."

  "Did he look like the kind of person who would donate blood?"

  "No. I won't think less of you if you wait in the car."

  "Now that's just insulting." But she didn't look any happier about the idea. "People will notice us kicking in the door."

  I rolled up my pants leg and pulled a thin, nylon case out of my sock. "Do you always go right to violence?" I waved the case. "I have lock picks."

  "You have lock picks?"

  "A gift from Dad when I was twelve. I had a bag of locks to practice on in the car during long trips."