Blood Ties: A Grace Harper Novel

by J. T. Hardy

  I took a bite of my burger. Swiss cheese oozed out, and I swiped it with a finger. "Eddie didn't strike me as a Child of the Night looking for immortality."

  "Could just be a job. They don't come easy these days. A guy's gotta take what he can get."

  "Even if it's with a blood-sucking fiend?"

  "Hey, they'll have a dental plan."

  I chuckled, though none of this was funny. Two Pretty Boys with their own minion were following us now, and doing a damn fine job of it.

  "What now?" Libby asked.

  "If Zack's not talking, Ivy Helgarson's blood donation is our only lead," I said, wishing it wasn't. "After we get the rental car back, let's figure out a way to ask her where she gave blood that won't have her calling the cops."

  Libby scoffed. "Good luck with that."

  "No kidding. Backup plan, we watch her and see who else shows up to watch her, then follow them--hopefully back to where they're keeping my dad."

  "I've seen you follow someone. If you want to tail this guy, we'll need something a little more reliable."

  We made one stop on the way to Ivy Helgarson's--the local Smart Buy to pick up a nifty little GPS spy tracker. Libby set it up without even looking at the directions.

  "Cheating boyfriend?" I asked.

  She laughed. "Brothers and I played a gag on our little brother last summer. We tracked him for two weeks and one of us showed up wherever he was like it was a huge coincidence. Sometimes we even figured out where he was going and got there ahead of him."

  "Glad I'm an only child."

  "It's linked, so walk away and let's test it." She tossed the little black rectangle to me and I caught it. Small, an inch-and-a-half long and about a half-inch wide.

  I walked down the block until she waved her arm and gave me a thumbs up.

  "It works," she said when I returned. "Five-day battery life, sends messages with locations to an app on my phone. If the target leaves the neighborhood, we'll know."

  We parked a few doors down and watched Ivy's house. It was the same as we'd left it earlier. Ivy's car sat in the driveway, no sign of kids playing or people putzing around in the yard. Everyone had gone inside, probably to get ready for dinner. We still hadn't come up with a plausible reason to ask her about the blood. Our best plan so far was to hope she set out trash we could search.

  I pulled out the binoculars.

  "See anyone suspicious?" Libby asked.

  "Just us. No shadowy figures lurking in the bushes." I swept the area, the binoculars bringing everything close enough to touch. "FYI, I'm keeping these. Think Roberto will give me a discount?"

  "He can be sweet talked."

  I refocused on the house. "The mailbox is open. She was getting mail when I spoke to her. I'm sure she closed it."

  "Mailboxes fall open sometimes."

  "I suppose." I turned around and scanned the other side of the street. A man exited a house a few doors down, his face tight in a classic worried frown. He left one house and marched right up the drive of the next one and knocked on the door.

  "That's odd."

  "More open mailboxes?"

  "No." The man spoke with whoever answered the door, then turned around and headed for the next house. "That man's going door to door questioning the neighbors."

  "Pretty Boy?"

  "No. Fortyish, looks like a banker." After each house, his frown deepened.

  "It is Sunday. Maybe he's a door-to-door preacher."

  "Still doesn't feel right."

  Libby sighed and leaned toward me, peering over my shoulder. "Lost dog?"

  "He did have a 'searching for something' vibe."

  After three more houses, the man reached Ivy's drive. He shuffled up the walk, head low, unlocked the door and entered the house.

  "It's Ivy's husband."

  "Oh no."

  I slid out of the car and Libby followed. "We need to talk to him."

  "And say what?"

  "Just play along."

  We walked up the front walk and knocked on the door. The man answered immediately.

  "Ivy?" he said breathlessly.

  My heart broke for him. "Excuse me, Mr. Helgarson?"

  He stepped back half a pace and looked at us as if unsure who or what we were. "Yes?"

  "I'm sorry to bother you, but we were speaking with your wife earlier--"

  "When? Was she acting strange to you?"

  I paused. He was near panic, and my "we're looking to buy the house down the street" lie wasn't going to fly again. "Is your wife missing, Mr. Helgarson?"

  He sagged against the doorframe. "She went to get Jared's backpack from the car and never came back."

  "When was this?"

  "Around three o'clock."

  Not long after we'd been there. Damn. I should have warned her. We should have waited.

  "Have you notified the police?" Libby said.

  "They said sometimes people just leave and there's no law against it." He wiped his eyes. "She wouldn't do that. I asked the neighbors if they'd seen her, but no one has."

  If a Pretty Boy took her, they wouldn't have.

  "I'm sorry," he said, wary at last. "Who are you?"

  Cavanaugh flashed through my mind. "We're private investigators on another missing persons case, and it looks like it's related to your wife's disappearance. May we speak inside?"

  "Missing persons? Uh, of course, please come in."

  He led us to a lovingly decorated living room of creams and teals. Most of the tchotchkes and pictures were bird related, with marshland landscapes in needlepoint on the throw pillows. No sign of little Jared.

  "Is your son at home?"

  "In his room." He sat down and ran a hand through his hair. "I don't want to worry him. You said someone else is missing?"

  Libby and I sat as well, and she pulled out her phone and sat poised to take notes.

  "Yes," I said, "a man named Anthony Harper. Does the name sound familiar?"

  "No."

  "How about Anita Rosenberg?"

  He shook his head.

  "Do you know a boy named Eddie? Sixteenish, brown hair, Latino, sometimes hangs out with a man named Zack. Spiky white hair, olive skin?"

  Ivy's husband shook his head harder. "I don't know any of them. Are they missing, too?"

  "Your wife gave blood recently, is that correct?"

  He nodded.

  "Do you remember where?"

  "Um, a bloodmobile came to her office I think. They were there Monday."

  A bloodmobile sounded like a safe way for Pretty Boys to get blood samples. "Where does she work?"

  "She's an accountant at Meier and Randall."

  Libby broke in. "Do you have the address?"

  He gave it to us and she jotted it down.

  "What does this have to do with Ivy's disappearance?" he asked.

  "Our client's father also gave blood the week he disappeared. We believe there's a connection. Was your wife acting unusual in any way? Afraid or concerned about anyone?"

  "No, she was normal. All she did was go to the mailbox." His voice cracked.

  I glanced around the room, but everything seemed in place. "Did you notice any signs of a struggle inside the house?"

  "No."

  "May we look around?"

  He nodded, but made no move off the couch. I tipped my head at Libby and we rose as one, then headed for the front door.

  "We know they have a van," I said. "Easy enough to drive up and yank her inside when she took out the mail."

  Even if someone had been watching, to them, Ivy would have just vanished into thin air between blinks.

  I started my investigation at the door. No scuff marks or scrapes on the walk, no broken plants along the drive. The open mailbox.

  My foot slipped on some gravel by the mailbox. Just a few red stones and bits of red sand that didn't match the rest of the dirt or gravel in the yard. I kneeled and picked up a pebble. Not just red, but striped like the cliffs of the Grand Canyon and perfe
ctly round.

  "I've seen these rocks," I said, mind racing.

  Libby kneeled as well. "Your dad's apartment."

  "What are the odds of finding red pebbles at two Pretty Boy kidnapping sites?"

  "Pretty high if they came from the Pretty Boys."

  "Get me something to put these in, would you? If it matches the rocks at Dad's, we might have found our first tangible clue."

  After we'd finished at the Helgarsons', we went back to Dad's place. The sand and pebbles in the hall were still there, though they'd been knocked around and spread out along the floorboards. I picked up the pebbles while Libby brushed up the sand into her palm, and then we poured both into a baggie and sealed it. We did the same with the rocks inside the house.

  I held up the three baggies side by side.

  "They look identical." Same stripes, same deep red color that almost looked dyed, same perfect round shape. The sand around Vegas had an orange tint, but not like this. This was more canyon-colored, less desert dirt. Arizona or Utah maybe. Someplace with big, red rocks.

  "We need a geologist," Libby said.

  "UNLV probably has a geology department."

  "Not one that's open on a Saturday. We might be able to persuade one to meet us, though. We'll say it's a geological emergency."

  I sighed.

  "Cheer up, Grace, we're getting closer. We have real evidence now."

  "It might not lead anywhere."

  "Or it could be one-of-a-kind graveyard dirt."

  I doubted that, but red rocks narrowed it down to a few states at least. "We can hope."

  We left and headed back to our hotel--though I hoped Libby remembered where it was. I couldn't have found it if my life depended on it.

  "Red sand and bloodmobiles," I said as she pulled onto the 515 back to Boulder City. "Not much to go on."

  "I'll call the accounting office Ivy works at in the morning and see who they used for their blood drive."

  "Sounds good." But I had another, more mundane problem to deal with. "I'm supposed to be at work tomorrow."

  Libby made a face. "Ouch. What are you going to do?"

  "Mrs. Johnson knows Dad isn't well. I hate to use that as an excuse, but she'd buy it."

  "It's a little true. You had to leave town unexpectedly because of your father's health. His life being in danger does affect his health."

  "It does."

  My phone rang as I pulled it out to call work--an unknown number. "Yes?"

  "Nate Cavanaugh."

  "Mr. Cavanaugh," I said, giving Libby a look. She mouthed talk to him as she changed lanes, zipping around a beat-up convertible. "What can I do for you?"

  "Talking to me would be a terrific start." His voice had a teasing undertone, but it wasn't a joke. "I'm worried about you, Ms. Harper. You're in more danger than you realize and you seem determined to ignore it."

  "I'm better off than most."

  Libby rolled her eyes at me. "Let him help," she whispered.

  I hesitated. Cavanaugh was pushing awfully hard to warn me--harder than I'd pushed to warn Ivy Helgarson. Maybe this was more than just a PI doing his job, and his blood-drive clue had already helped us. "Another woman is missing."

  "Where?" he asked.

  "Summerlin, outside Vegas. Ivy Helgarson. I think she's connected to your missing woman, and the Tallahassee girl in the coma."

  "What are you doing in Nevada?"

  "My father is also missing. I'm trying to find him."

  Cavanaugh groaned and sputtered and made a lot of noises without swearing. I covered the phone again. "He sounds pissed."

  "Can't blame him."

  I returned to the call. "Since you're so concerned about my well being, maybe it's time you told me why."

  "Your name is on a list of people who have been killed or kidnapped. I'd think that would make anyone nervous."

  "Oh it does, but it doesn't explain why you, specifically, care."

  Silence.

  "Mr. Cavanaugh, if you know something that can help me find my father, tell me now. Otherwise, stop giving me cryptic warnings we both know I'm going to ignore."

  "You don't understand who's pursuing you."

  I paused again. Don't get involved, that's what Dad always said. Keep everyone at a distance. But trusting Libby had been the smartest move I'd made in years.

  Could I trust Cavanaugh?

  As the reckless said, go big or go home. Playing it safe had kept us safe, but it also kept us afraid, and that was no way to live. "I understand exactly what's after me. What I want to know is, do you?"

  Chapter Eleven

  Cavanaugh maintained his silence, but I swear I heard him squirming on the other end of the line. A good sign. A clueless man would have called me crazy by now. I watched the Nevada landscape swoosh by outside and waited.

  "We should talk," he said softly.

  "I'm listening."

  "Not over the phone."

  "Our swarthy buddies might be scary, but they're not the NSA."

  "I'll call you when I get to Vegas."

  "When you--" And then he was gone. "Sonuvabitch hung up on me!"

  Libby huffed. "You were rude. Sounds like you rattled him."

  "I did. He's flying to Vegas so we can talk face to face."

  She chuckled wryly. "Good, then. He wouldn't come out here just to bullshit you."

  "He would if he thinks I'm way too close and wants to mislead me."

  "You have trust issues."

  "I have vampires trying to eat me."

  "Point taken." She took the offramp and we coasted to a stoplight. The neon lights of the city were just starting to flicker on. "A face-to-face isn't a bad idea. He obviously knows something."

  "And he's being a dick about sharing." I dialed work without interruption this time.

  "Maybe if you show him yours he'll show you his."

  I scoffed. "What are the odds his is worth seeing?"

  Libby managed to find a geologist willing to help us. We drove up to University of Nevada-Las Vegas first thing in the morning, right after Libby made her 8 a.m. check-in with Uncle Roberto. They kept the geologists in the Lily Fong Geoscience building, so we parked outside the boxy white structure and headed inside. Dr. Aidan Bloom was waiting for us when we arrived, focusing on what I assumed were students' papers.

  I'd been expecting a gray-haired man with a jacket, but Dr. Bloom was a dark-skinned man is his mid-forties, with the trim yet muscular build of someone who spent a lot of time climbing around on rocks. I imagined he had more than a few students with major crushes on him.

  "Thank for seeing us on such short notice," I said. I withdrew the baggies and handed them to him. "Any chance you could identify these?"

  "Looks like sandstone." He pulled one of the red pebbles out and rolled it around in his palm. "Ah yes, I know these little guys. Perfectly round. And see this red color? It's found exclusively in Sedona. I go hiking there a few times a year. Color like this means it's part of the Schnebly Hill Formation and a member of the Supai Group."

  "There's no way these could exist naturally in Boulder City or near Vegas?"

  Dr. Bloom paused and looked at the stones again. "No. You won't find stones like this in Nevada. Look." He rose and walked over to a case filled with rocks in all shapes and colors. "This is a beauty I picked up a few weeks ago." He held the rock up against our pebble. It matched perfectly. "Gorgeous, aren't they?"

  "Pretty. Where did you find yours?"

  "Bell Rock." He ducked his head a little and gave us a sheepish grin. "I'm dating a woman who wanted to visit the vortexes."

  "You lost me."

  He laughed. "Vortexes. You know, those spots in the earth that spiral spiritual energy? Some people believe Sedona is a spiritual power center. The Native Americans consider the area a sacred place."

  "I see." If this New Age-y stuff was for real, I could see the Pretty Boys being drawn to power centers. "Do a lot of people visit these vortexes?"

  "Thousands
a year I think. They're very popular."

  Which meant they'd be unpopular to a Pretty Boy. "We'll have to check them out. Thank you so much for helping us."

  "No problem. Sedona's only a five-hour drive from here. You should head out there one weekend. Fantastic hiking--" he grinned "--even without the hocus pocus."

  "Magic vortexes?" Libby asked on the way to the rental car. "He must really like that woman."

  "It's no stranger than what we're dealing with."

  She shrugged.

  "What is weird, though," I said, "are rocks from Sedona."

  "If watching CSI has taught me anything, it's that dirt gets tracked to places it shouldn't be."

  I guessed. Dirt got stuck to the bottom of the Pretty Boys' boots and was knocked loose in a super-fast blur move to grab Ivy and Dad. Especially if they tracked it into a van. They had to be using a big enough vehicle to grab a person off the street and keep them out of sight.

  Two victims, two sets of Sedona pebbles. The Pretty Boys who took Dad and Ivy likely came from there. Did they take them back though, or were they still in Vegas?

  "Road trip to Sedona?" I said.

  "Road trip. Bloodmobile first though. We need a place to start looking or we'll be just as lost in Sedona as we are here."

  Libby had charmed the receptionist at Meier and Randall and gotten the name of the company who'd sent the bloodmobile to the office. Just a half hour from UNLV, and the traffic was light this time of the morning.

  I walked into Universal Blood Centers half expecting a staff full of Pretty Boys, but they were the normal med folk types I'd worked with for years, dressed in the obligatory red scrubs. Past the waiting area--also decorated with lots of red and gray--rows of chairs lined either side of the room, and technicians were drawing blood from a number of donors. Happy, smiling cartoon blood drops informed everyone of the upcoming blood drive.

  I frowned. That was an image I didn't need.

  Three people sat in their chairs, quietly reading or playing on their phones, with two technicians tending them, and a receptionist with a tight afro cut up front, watching us with a cautious eye.

  "You're on," I told Libby softly, letting her take the lead.

  She walked up to the receptionist and smiled, and the woman's wariness disappeared. "Good morning! I'm a writer, and I'm researching a book where the main character works at a blood bank. Could I ask you a few questions, maybe get a tour so I can be accurate?" She laughed. "I don't want to get my facts wrong and have people send me angry e-mails."