by Faith Hunter
The hairs lifted on the back of my neck. Molly had been in New Orleans for two days and hadn’t called me. I crushed my fear and pain deep inside and helmeted up, letting the Harley roar for me as I pulled out and headed for St. Charles Avenue.
I valet-parked my bike, entered through the center of three huge arched openings, and headed for the elevator as if I had the right to be there. I rode up with a bellman and got off on the second floor, took the stairs up to the third floor, and made my way down the hallways to Molly’s door, checking the security camera locations. Molly’s room was in a little alcove at the end of the hall and out of the coverage area of the stationary camera, with a DO NOT DISTURB sign hanging on the knob.
I was sweating and my palms were damp. My breath came a little too fast. I was nervous. Terrified. And I was angry. Molly came to New Orleans and she didn’t call me or warn me or tell her husband. She abandoned her children. Whatever had happened that forced her here, it could not be good. Some panicked part of the back of my mind was cursing and shouting and weeping. Beast was close under my skin, her pelt abrading my flesh, making me feel itchy and tight. A trickle of cold sweat slid along my spine.
No one was in the hall but me as I knocked on the door. When no one answered, I gripped the lever handle and drew on Beast’s strength. Twisted the knob down and shoved. I heard the sharp snap of broken wood, the faint squeal of bending metal, and the door opened. I stepped inside and shut the door, leaning my back against it to survey the room.
Molly’s scent filled my nostrils, warm as a hug and a mug of herbal tea. But Molly wasn’t here. I knew that by the fragile, old feel of her scent. But there was no trace of blood. The fear that had been my constant companion on the way over eased slightly. No blood. No smell of her death.
I had more than halfway expected to find evidence of a fight, or the scent of Molly’s blood—or even Molly’s dead body—and the relief that rolled over me was as intense and pounding as an ocean storm. But it was arrested instantly. Molly wasn’t here. I didn’t have to deal with the horror of a murder scene, but I did have to deal with the stink of vamp and fear.
I closed my eyes to take in the scents, breathing in through my open mouth, letting Beast help with the identification. Three vamps, I thought. My skin crawled, as if small snakes crept up my limbs, at the smells—vamp scent. Dry and arid, a faint hint of old roses, blooms wilted and hanging on browned stems, and the underscent of turmeric, slightly spicy and almost medicinal. Not vamps I knew. Nothing in the signatures that identified a particular vamp. Not yet. I opened my eyes.
Three vamps against Molly. Not last night. The night before. Over thirty-six hours ago, just after Molly got here, three vamps had come to her room. The door hadn’t been broken until I broke it, so that meant either she had left the door open and vamps had somehow found her and kidnapped her, or followed her in at vamp speed or . . . Molly had let them in.
The room was neat, the floral spreads on the double beds folded at the feet, one with an indentation on a blinding white pillow and rumpled white sheets, as if someone had lain down for a moment, but not spent the night. Or been tossed there and then pulled upright. The drapes were open, no luggage in sight from the doorway; the TV armoire in the corner was closed, hiding the TV, which was on, the sound muted, the picture flickering through the crack.
I moved silently through the room, touching nothing. Molly’s suitcase was on a foldable stand to the side of the closet, the case open. A black cocktail dress and two pairs of dark slacks were hanging in the closet beside two jackets, one a knit sweater, but short-waisted—like a bolero, one a traditional business suit jacket that matched a pair of slacks. Two T-shirts and a pair of jeans. One pair of pumps and a pair of running shoes were on the floor of the closet. I had seen Molly pack for trips before. This was her standard weekend-off attire. Still in the suitcase were two nightgowns, Molly’s underclothes, slippers, and a robe. On the counter beside the bed was a bouquet of very wilted daisies, in a clear glass vase.
In the bathroom, her toiletry bag was on the cabinet, zipped open, toothbrush and paste, comb, bar soap, and dried-out face cloth beside it. On the top I saw something strange—well, strange for Molly. With one finger I pushed the small bag open and discovered a long, thin plastic case. Knowing what I was seeing, but not believing it, I flipped the lid open. To see birth control pills.
Molly was on birth control.
I stared at the pack, stunned. Last I heard, Molly and Big Evan were trying for more kids. Lots more kids. Either something had changed or they were waiting or they were having marital problems and Molly was protecting herself or . . . Molly was having an affair and trying to keep from getting pregnant? Or I was out of the loop. Yeah. That. And none of my business, unless I discovered something about her disappearance that might be tied to the pills.
But Molly had been out of the room overnight. If Mol was on birth control pills and she was planning to be gone several days, she’d have taken them with her. So she planned on coming back when she went out. Or was carried out. Which meant that however she had left home, she was now gone unexpectedly. This was not good. I slid the pills back into place and closed the lid. I moved back into the room proper.
It looked as though Molly had arrived in New Orleans, taken a short rest, and started to unpack, which sorta eliminated the idea of vamps following her to her room and then using vamp speed to get in. But what say Molly had been going for ice or something and the vamps had followed her in? It was possible. So Molly had come to New Orleans and checked into a hotel. And then been abducted? I closed my eyes again and breathed through my open mouth, searching for even the slightest scent signature. The fear I had detected when I entered the room was still strong on the air. Panic pheromones. Though without any trace of blood. Nothing to suggest she had been injured. But she was gone and her things were still here, which was suggestive of her leaving under duress. Eyes still closed, I tried to envision Molly walking in to the hotel, her suitcase handle extended, the bag rolling on two wheels. Walking down the hall from the elevator, wearing a coat against the weather. The coat was brown, and looked good with Mol’s reddish hair. In my imagination, her pocketbook was hung on one shoulder, a pocketbook that was as big as a shopping bag, to carry all her kids’ stuff and her paperback novel and her phone and her electronic tablet. I opened my eyes, searching for the coat and bag.
Neither was in sight. I walked around the room, looking. Gone. Could Molly have grabbed up her coat and left willingly? Not been kidnapped? Not . . . Frustration zinged through me like a bell ringing, leaving my nerve endings tingling with worry. No. That wasn’t right. There was nothing willing about the smells here, but they were so old, and buried under the air-conditioning and air fresheners and carpet cleaners and detergent.
Human stinks, Beast murmured. I sucked air in through my mouth, across the roof and tongue with a scree of sound. Letting Beast smell. Fear. Purpose. Anger. Annoyance. But I/we do not smell panic, she thought. Smells on air say she was afraid but not lose-bowels-in-death afraid.
She went with them willingly, but also against her will. As if she stomped out, slinging her coat. But as if she had no choice, I thought back, understanding what Beast was trying to say.
Molly went with the vamps. That meant I needed to call Leo. Either he knew what had happened here, or he sanctioned what had happened, or he could find out about it. Unless someone was in revolt against him. It had happened before.
I left the room, and stood outside the door as I punched in Leo’s number, trying to decide what I wanted to say. The call went to voice mail, and I spoke softly into the cell, my words as formal as I knew how to make them. “Leo, Primo. My friend Molly came to New Orleans. Three unknown Mithrans took her from her hotel room about thirty-six hours ago. She went unwillingly. She hasn’t been back. Please contact me and tell me what, if anything, you know about her situation.” I ended the call.
Feeling a chill that had nothing to do with the hotel’s air-conditio
ning system, I forced myself back to work and studied the security cameras on the way out. There was one stationary camera pointed at the elevators and fire stairs, which I avoided by keeping my head down and walking near the wall. Provided there were no problems with the system, hotel security should have footage of the vamps who came to take Molly, and the four of them as they left.
If I had known all this stuff when I went to see Leo earlier, I might have gotten some info from him. And certainly more help. Now I’d be asking the Kid to commit another crime by hacking into the security system. I was going to hell. Yeah.
• • •
Standing in front of the hotel, I texted a note to the Kid. Can u safely access hotel security cameras on 3 flr frm time Molly checked in to 12 hrs after? I hit SEND and got a text back while I was waiting on the return of Bitsa.
Can do. Erase text.
“Yeah,” I said softly to myself, following orders and erasing the texts. “So your brother doesn’t flay me alive for leading you to the dark side and putting your parole in jeopardy. Which, to him, would be just as bad as blowing up the planet Alderaan with the Death Star. And I’ve been living with the Kid too long if I know that geeky bit of trivia.”
“Sweet bike,” the valet said, pushing Bitsa back to me. “One of a kind?” he asked, his smile wide in a dark-skinned face. Approachable. Nice. Helpful maybe.
I patted the leather seat affectionately and used his intro. “Yeah. You know bikes?”
“I ride with a group, all black guys and sometimes a couple a’ chicks. We volunteer with the community and the local po-po. Dress up like Santas on wheels for Christmas, and take gifts to families in financial trouble. I ride a Hog, the 2013 Street Bob, but I always wanted an older model.”
I nearly gulped. A Street Bob started at thirteen thousand bucks. Being a valet made more money than I would have thought. All those cash tips, maybe. But I didn’t say any of that. “A Harley Zen master put Bitsa together from parts of two old bikes I found.”
“You ever want to sell her, you let me know.” He handed me a card, and I replaced it with a five.
“Not gonna happen,” I said. “Bitsa’s like family.”
“I can see why.”
“Hey,” I said, figuring it was now or never, “were you on night before last when three vamps left with a redheaded human woman?”
Some of the light left his eyes, to be replaced with a cagey uncertainty. “Yeah, I was. I didn’t have the keys, but I saw them leave.”
I handed him another bill, this one a ten. “Was the human upright and acting normal?”
“Standing on her own two feet. Looked pissed. Said ‘Thank you’ when the fanghead opened the door for her, but it sounded like she coulda been saying for him to, uh”—his voice dropped—“get friendly with himself, if you know what I mean.” He glanced to the side where a man in hotel livery stood, watching, listening to whatever he could hear over the distance. “She was sounding all like, you know, like she was lying and not really thanking him.” He fingered the ten. “For another one of these, I could get the plate number for you.”
“For the plate number,” I said, “I’ll give you two more.”
“We keep a log. I’ll be right back. And if my boss walks over, this is between us and off the record.”
I stepped to the side so his body was between us, pulled riding gloves out of my pocket, and gave them to him. “I’ll tell him I left the gloves on top of the saddlebags and you’re looking for them.”
He flashed me a smile, pocketed the gloves as if he did sleight of hand at kids’ parties, and disappeared. I straddled Bitsa and unzipped my jacket, turning my face to the sky. The promised warm weather was arriving with piles of gray clouds and gusty, humid wind, and I was starting to sweat under all the leather. Beast wanted to find a hot rock and lie in the sun for hours, and I felt my face try to relax as she sent me a mental picture of her muscular body stretched out and snoozing. But underneath her lazy image I knew she was pacing, as worried as I was about Molly.
“Here, ma’am.” The valet was holding out my gloves, a bit of white paper sticking out between them. I took them, handed him the promised bills, and got a brisk “Thank you, ma’am! You have a good day” in return. I texted the limo plate number to the Kid and kick-started my bike, making my way home, my heart feeling as if it weighed fifty pounds at the thought of telling Evan what I had found.
• • •
When I walked in the side door, Big Evan looked up and scowled. He must have been reading my body language because he puffed up and turned red and looked pretty much ticked off. I sighed and pointed to the kitchen table. Evan sent his kids to the TV room and I poured myself a cup of hot tea from a pot that someone had left on the electric tea warmer. Eli meandered in and hit START on the fancy-schmancy coffee and espresso maker I had paid for, brewing himself and Evan coffee, black and strong. Alex wandered in too, a tablet in each hand, his head bowed over them, eyes darting back and forth between them. Still silent, we all sat, which was all surreal, since no one had said anything.
Taking a fortifying gulp of slightly scorched bitter tea, I filled the small group in on Molly’s actions and her unknown whereabouts. It didn’t take long because there wasn’t much, and I wasn’t about to tell her husband how bad it might actually be.
Big Evan listened in silence and when I was done, he turned piercing eyes on me and said, “And do you want to tell me why I wasn’t informed?”
“Because you’d have run off and gotten in the way and made a stink and caused trouble and scattered your scent all over the hotel room and brought in the cops, who have little to do with, and no control over, vamps. Molly went off with vamps, Evan. And I have contacts with vamps. The cops don’t. You don’t.” I let that sink in for a while and said, “I have a question for you. If Molly told you she was coming to New Orleans to see me, and then didn’t come see me, can you make a guess why?”
“She was kidnapped,” he growled.
I didn’t let myself react, because it seemed a likely possibility. Even if Molly had left the hotel under her own power, it hadn’t been by free will, and it didn’t mean that she had been making her own decisions, and didn’t mean she was still missing by her own choice. With only a slight hesitation to mark my thoughts, I said, “Molly came here for a reason. She expected you to come to me, just like you did, so that, if she got in trouble, I could keep her family safe until I found her. She also wanted you here for whatever reason—and no, I don’t know what it might be,” I said as he started to interrupt. “Molly had to want my help, Evan. And she had to be in trouble or she would have told us all the truth and called me and told you and none of this would be happening.”
And Molly hadn’t trusted anyone with her reasons for coming to New Orleans. Not her husband. Not me. Molly was in deep trouble. I didn’t say that aloud, but Evan must have realized it because he swore, “Son of a witch on a switch.”
“Pretty much.” With Molly gone from her hotel room, and not checking in with any of us, things had gone bad. Maybe real bad.
• • •
There was little for me to do on any of my cases, and so when our confab was over, I did what all good vamp hunters do when nothing is happening. I lay down. I didn’t expect to sleep, but figured things might come to me if I put my feet up and closed my eyes and let my mind wander, let things percolate and steep and find unconscious connections. Fortunately, it was also nap time for the Trueblood children and I got in three long hours of uninterrupted, blissful rest, some of it probably snoring, despite my worry.
• • •
I woke when Angelina opened my door and stood there, one hand holding the knob, her body dangling from it, her feet pivoting as she swung back and forth and around. She had a doll under her other arm, and I recognized Ka Navista, the Cherokee Indian doll I had given her. Ka had black hair in a braid and yellow eyes like mine, and a wardrobe sewn for her of traditional Cherokee clothes. Ka originally had black eyes, but Molly a
dmitted later that Angie had complained that the doll wasn’t “right,” so Molly had painted them to match mine. “Hey, Angie Baby,” I said.
“Hey, Aunt Jane. Uncle Alex Kid says he has something for you and to wake you up, biscause it’s important. Be-cause it is important,” she corrected herself. Angie was growing up and had been trying to break herself of baby talk the last time I had seen her; still was, it seemed.
“Okay.” I rolled off the mattress and checked the time as I tucked my phone into my jeans pocket. It was two hours before dusk. Plenty of time. “Let’s see what Uncle Kid has to say.”
Angie lifted her arms to me and I picked her up, adjusting her on a hip so that Ka wasn’t squished. I slid my feet into slippers, but the floor wasn’t as chilled as it had been. The promised warm front was fully in, and rain pattered outside. I went to the kitchen, where I could smell tea steeping. I poured a mugful, getting a whiff of a spice-flavored tea left over from the holiday season. I added sugar and a dollop of Cool Whip and carried the mug to the living room. I set Angie on the couch and bent over Alex. “Got something?”
The Kid tapped a tablet, bringing up a still shot from the video feed of Bliss and Rachael getting into the black cab limo. He pointed to the driver. “His name is Alonzo Nubbins. He owns a car service that caters to vamps and their dinners. The night of the party, he was driving himself because a driver called in sick. He wasn’t willing to give me any more info on the phone, so you might want to pay him a visit.” He pointed to one of the unknowns in the car. “I’m pretty sure she’s a chick and that she has long, straight red hair because it matches the shade of Rachael’s hair in this light.”
