Turned (Zander Vargar Vampire Detective, Book #1)

by Kennedy, J. Robert

  I frowned. Jansen was right. This could all be innocent. But one thing didn’t sit right with me. “Why a train station?”

  “Huh?” Jansen, several paces away, stopped. “What was that?”

  “Why a train station?” I repeated. “If he’s running from the law, wouldn’t he get a lot farther away on a plane, rather than a train?”

  Jansen didn’t say anything for a moment. “You might have something there. Perhaps—” He stopped himself. “Look, I’m sorry, this case is out of my hands now. But”—he pointed a finger at me—“if I were an enterprising young private eye, I’d be finding out what train he got on.”

  I nodded. It had already occurred to me, but I decided to take the tip like the rookie I was portraying. “I’ll call you if I need any help.”

  Jansen grunted again, and walked away.

  I turned to Mrs. McKinly. “Can I give you a lift home?”

  She shook her head. “No, I brought my car.” She pointed to a BMW Z4 a few hundred feet away.

  I held out my arm and she took it, and we slowly walked toward her car. The young officer held up the tape for both of us, and I gave him a wink. He pursed his lips, but other than that, didn’t react.

  “Have you made any progress?”

  “Not yet, but this is a major break. And with the police out of the way, it actually helps. It means we’re not interfering with an ongoing police investigation, which they hate, so we are free to poke and prod all we like.”

  She nodded. “I just don’t understand why he’d leave like that.”

  “It’s probably like the detective said. He’s running from the SEC investigation, and when things settle down, he’ll make contact.”

  I felt her grip on my arm tighten. “I’m going to kill him when I finally find him.”

  I held open the door for her and she climbed inside, starting the car with the push of a button on the dash. She lowered the window as I shut the door. “Do let me know what you find.”

  I nodded and tipped my hat.

  “Will do, ma’am.”

  She smiled and, putting the car in gear, roared away, leaving me wondering why a guy, who didn’t want to be found, would leave his car in short-term parking, where it was sure to be found, rather than long-term parking, where it might sit for months without anyone noticing.

  EIGHTEEN

  There was a knock on the outer door.

  “Delivery!”

  I smiled. It was Jason, my blood guy. I rose from behind my desk, flipping the lid of my laptop closed, and quickly stepped into the outer office, opening the locked door.

  “Yo, Zee my man, what’s good, dawg?”

  “English, Jason, English.”

  “It’s the new English,” he said, placing a large cooler on Sydney’s desk.

  “That’s why I fear for our future.”

  He shrugged. “It’s monkey, all good.”

  “You’re right. It’s only civilization. Who needs it?”

  He popped the top off, revealing a dozen bags of the life giving fluid. “Syd said she needed extra this time.”

  “And it’s all O-negative?”

  “True dat.”

  I shook my head. “Sometimes I wonder if Latin was corrupted before the fall of Rome like English has been.”

  “Rome? Like on HBO?”

  “I give up.”

  I pulled an envelope from Sydney’s top drawer she had set aside and handed it to Jason. He put it in his pocket without counting it, I a client of his for almost a decade.

  He grabbed the cooler from last week that was sitting in the corner behind the door, slapped the pocket with the money, and smacked his chest twice with his fist, then gave me some sort of two finger salute.

  “Have a good night, Jason.”

  He grinned, and headed out the door. I locked it behind him, then transferred the new supply to the large fridge hidden in the closet. I grabbed one bag, cut the corner off with my knife, and poured some into a small cup the rest in a larger one with a lid that was just the right size to fit the entire bag. I stuck a straw in it, something Sydney always got a kick out of, she suggesting I get some celery salt and rim the glass just in case anybody questioned what I was drinking. I held up the glass. It did kind of look like a Bloody Caesar, but turning what I was doing into a joke was out of the question. I knew full well that every week I was taking at least two, often more, bags of blood, seven donors, out of the system, and that someone might die because of it.

  Which was one of the reasons Sydney, her parents, Emily and her husband, all of them, donated as frequently as they could, to try and do their part.

  And I never wasted any of it, nor did I ever trivialize the sacrifice the donors had made.

  I took a sip.

  To say it tasted good would be wrong. To say I didn’t notice the taste anymore would be more accurate. Besides, the mix of preservatives that were added to blood bags changed the taste, it made it more “chemically”. I just finished it as fast as I could, washed out the glass and straw, tossed that, and moved on with my night, completing a ritual I did almost every night, rather than once a week. Doing it once a week risked missing night number seven, which meant number eight might be dangerous for those around me.

  I sat back down at my laptop, making notes on things I needed Sydney to do for me when she got in tomorrow. She was the computer expert, I was a user.

  Someone tried the outer door.

  I jumped to my feet, grabbing my sword from the corner it stood in, and flicked out the lights. My vision rapidly adjusted, one of the blessings of my condition, and I watched as someone played with the lock. The knob turned, and the door pushed open. A hand reached inside, flicking the lights on, momentarily blinding me.

  “Zee, it’s me!” yelled Sydney.

  I whipped the sword behind my back, hoping she hadn’t seen it.

  She stopped and looked at me in the doorway to my office. “What’s behind your back?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Riiight. You’ve got your sword out, don’t you?”

  “No.”

  “Show me your hands.”

  “Okay, I’m busted.” I sheathed the sword, returning it to the nondescript umbrella stand I kept it in. “What are you doing here?”

  “Couldn’t sleep. Figured you’d be up, so, you know, decided to see what I could do to help on this new case.”

  “Come on in, there’s been a few big developments.” She dropped her purse on her desk, or as they used to call it, luggage, and she fished her iPad out. I looked at the bag. “You know, in ten years you’re gonna have back problems.”

  She waved her hand, dismissing my statement. “If I’m alive.”

  I stopped and put my hand on her shoulder. “Hey, don’t talk like that.”

  She looked up at me, tears in her eyes, then suddenly grabbed me, burying her head in my chest, and sobbed. I put my arms around her and just held her, knowing anything I’d say would probably make it worse. After a few moments she started to calm down, and I ventured a simple question.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I saw Mom.”

  And she didn’t need to say anything else. I knew when she looked at her mom she saw herself. She had it in her mind that her mom’s present was her future. “Hey, three things. One, Rose and Emily lived to ripe old ages, hell, Emily is still alive. Two, your mom was in a car accident. It had nothing to do with what she did for me. And three, do you think your mom would want you crying over her?”

  Sydney shook her head, pushing away. “No, you’re right. I guess I’m just a little down right now. Seeing Mom like that, seeing those people in my house. It just has me creeped out.”

  “Perfectly understandable.” I figured the mood needed changing. “Say, I’ve got a question for you that’s been eating at me all night.”

  “What’s that?” Her interest seemed piqued.

  “What’s ‘it’s monkey’ mean?”

  “Jason was here, wasn’t he?” />
  “Yup. Any idea?”

  “No, I speak English, not Idiot.”

  I laughed, and so did she after a few seconds. We both stopped and looked at each other, then burst out laughing again, the tension of the past day finally letting itself go. I gave her a one armed hug and a kiss on the top of her head, then sat behind my desk. She curled up on the couch, with her iPad on her lap.

  “So, where’re we at?”

  “Here’s the new stuff. Clayton McKinly’s Mercedes SL 550 was found at Penn Station in Jersey, in short term parking. It was about to be towed when they ran the plates. His wallet and keys were on the driver’s seat, along with a note that said, ‘I’m sorry, but I am starting my new life, and you can’t come with me.’”

  “That’s odd. What do you think it means?”

  I shrugged. “Let’s finish laying out the facts, then we’ll speculate.”

  She nodded, typing rapidly.

  “The NYPD is going to drop the case once they’ve confirmed the handwriting is his.”

  “That’s good.”

  I nodded. “What else do we know? We know he’s under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission, for what, we don’t know, but it’s serious enough for his accounts to have been frozen. We know that he stopped his regular Tuesday and Thursday night bowling outings almost a year ago. We know that his wife had a one-night stand around the same time, at a bar that sounds an awful lot like the private club I was at, with two girlfriends she had only recently met, and who appeared to initiate the encounter. Two friends she hasn’t spoken to since. We know he put tinting on his windows six months ago for an iffy reason. We know they have no kids, but he has two that he hasn’t seen or spoken to in years, in Detroit.”

  “Is that everything?”

  “Yes. Now, what don’t we know, that we need to know?”

  “Where is he?”

  I smiled. “Exactly. Very basic. We’ve got a missing person. We need to find him. So how do we do that?”

  “We retrace his steps.”

  “Right. And at this point, they end at the train station. So now what?”

  “Well, we find out what train he got on.”

  “We’ll make a detective out of you yet!”

  She blushed.

  “So how do we find out what train he was on?”

  “I hack their system.”

  “Can you do that from here?”

  “I could, but I’d rather do it from somewhere else, just in case they trace it back.”

  “Okay, put that on the To Do list. What else do we need to know?”

  She shrugged. “Find out what he’s being investigated for?”

  “Two for two. And how do we do that?”

  She shook her head. “Hack the Feds?”

  I smiled. “How about we just ask?”

  “I guess we could do that.”

  “She said her husband’s partner Ian Graves would be cooperative. I suggest we drop in on him tomorrow morning—”

  “Tomorrow’s Sunday.”

  “If you were under investigation by the SEC, would you be taking a day off?”

  “Don’t know. Don’t plan to be.”

  “Good girl. You don’t want to get on the wrong side of the Feds these days. With our constitution scrapped, there’s not much they can’t do now.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, I’ve heard Mom and Dad talking about it. It’s scary.”

  I agreed. It was sad to see what had happened in the name of ‘National Security’ since 9/11. Bin Laden won by changing us. We should have stayed who we were, and fought back, but instead we became scared. Bomb the hell out of whoever attacks us, kill whoever is involved in an attack, put out our feelers to prevent attacks. That’s okay. But don’t spy on your own citizens, ignore the Constitution, and become the paranoid state we were always proud not to be. This was McCarthyism with all the high-tech gadgets at our disposal. It was far more dangerous, and has almost bankrupted us, financially, and morally.

  I sighed.

  “What?”

  I looked at her. “Oh, nothing, just thinking about what this country’s lost.”

  She frowned. “I wonder what it will be like when I’m your age.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  She giggled. “Sorry, Grandma’s might be a better comparison.”

  I clapped my hands together. “So, tomorrow we meet Graves, find out why Clayton McKinly is under investigation, and tomorrow you’ll find out what train he got on.”

  She frowned.

  “What?”

  “You said he left his wallet in his car.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you need ID to buy a ticket, and they can randomly check your ID onboard.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “I was carded when I followed you out to Detroit.”

  My turn to frown. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

  “If I had told you I was coming, you would have said ‘no’.”

  “And I would have been right to.”

  “Then you would have been fighting two of them.”

  I sighed. When she was right, she was right. I had to remember that she was nineteen now, going on thirty. She wasn’t a little girl any more. She was a woman, old enough to make her own decisions, even if they were stupid and dangerous.

  “Okay, well next time you tell me. We could have at least talked.” I returned to the case. “So, either he bought tickets with his old ID, and took a chance on the train, or he had fake ID, and used that.”

  “Which will make it more difficult. We might need to use security camera footage.”

  “Sounds much more difficult.”

  “It is. That stuff’s secure. We’ll have to break into their security setup, tap directly into their system.”

  “Sounds dangerous.”

  “No biggie. Mom and I did it last year. Different station, same security. But—”

  “What?”

  “I’m going to need a partner.”

  “Gee, I wonder who’s available.”

  “You don’t look busy.”

  I chuckled. “Wanna go now?”

  She nodded. “I’ll get changed. Be ready in five.” She pointed at my getup. “Can you run in that?”

  “I’ve had a few hundred years to practice, so, yes.”

  She nodded and disappeared.

  I did some stretching, just to limber up the clothes.

  NINETEEN

  This was what I loved about the job. The illegal stuff. No, we didn’t rob banks, we left that to Wall Street. We didn’t steal anything that hadn’t been stolen in the first place. But breaking in to get information, whether it was over the Internet, or logging into some system not connected to the web, it was exciting. If we got caught, then we’d have some explaining to do, but we had never been caught. The rule was, Zander would disappear, then use his contacts, skills, or a combination thereof, to get us out. We were never to kill, unless it was a vampire or a thrall, and never permanently injure some innocent civilian or peace officer just doing their job.

  Knocking them out cold was another thing.

  I hadn’t had a chance yet to use any of my ass kicking skills on one of these types of missions, but Mom had booted a security guard through a door last time, which had my heart pounding enough for both of us.

  She was awesome.

  I felt a tightness in my chest as I realized if she weren’t in a coma, we’d be doing this mission together. I shook my head and looked at myself in the mirror. Oh yeah, you got it. Head to toe black, form fitting, superhero hot. No weapons, not for this mission, just the tools of my trade in a utility belt.

  I stepped out into the office from the bathroom and saw Zander standing there in his getup. For a guy who wanted to keep under the radar, he certainly knew how to stand out. But that was the beauty of his outfit. He would stand out, but when he needed to, and I’d seen him do it, he could turn a corner, lose the hat and jacket in an instant, and be a different
person. A twenty-five year old kid, just walking, not some guy wearing clothes from the Old West older than most clothing companies, with a walk that looked cool and confident, not one of those stupid bouncy types the boys did, thinking it made them look like something out of a rap video. Actually, come to think of it, it did. They did look stupid.

  But Zander was the epitome of cool. My heart skipped a beat.

  “Ready?” he asked, his eyes doing the elevator on my outfit.

  “Set.” I gave him a spin. “Like?”

  “You’re a heartbreaker.”

  Yeah, but just not yours.

  We took his car, mine too conspicuous with a torn off license plate and a gash that looked like it had been made by Wolverine on the back. I ran down the plan in detail on the way, arriving at the station about half an hour later. I handed an earpiece to Zander and put one in my own ear, then leaned over and clipped a mike inside his jacket, on his shirt.

  And I smelled him.

  My God, the pheromones he gives off must be like crack.

  I took a little longer than I should.

  “Problem.”

  Busted.

  “Nope.” I returned to my side of the car, and clipped my own on. Turning away, I whispered, “Testing one, two, three, testing.”

  He said nothing.

  I turned back. “Did you hear me?”

  “Of course I did, you’re three feet away from me and I have vampire hearing. How about we test it when I get out of the car?”

  “Argh! This is easier with Mom.”

  “Yeah, but not nearly as much fun.”

  “Pshaw! With your antiquated humor?”

  “Ouch, that hurt.”

  The way he said it I actually believed him, and turned back to look at him. “Zee, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—” He waved me off.

  “My jokes are so old, they’re apparently new to you,” he said with a grin.

  I rolled my eyes. “You probably think the Stooges are funny.”

  “Sorry, dear, it’s a guy thing. You’re just not capable of understanding.”

  And he was right. I’d tried to watch it, but just couldn’t take more than five minutes. It was sooo stupid. But the Real Housewives of Salem or whatever damned city they were in now wasn’t?