“Yes,” I said, but I listened for once, my stomach roiling from tugging on the IV. I sank into the mattress, intending to simply rest like he’d directed, but my body had other plans. The moment my head hit the pillow, I could feel myself drift.
The shuffle and clatter of Walker adjusting my pots and pans roused me slightly. “Where’s your mop and bucket?” he asked.
“Tall kitchen cabinet, left of the oven,” I murmured, not bothering to open my eyes.
“That’s where I’m looking. I’m not seeing any—oh,” he said, cutting off his own sentence.
“Mmm? Is something wrong?” I asked. I forced my eyes open, but the only person in the room was Walker, and he was standing right in front of me.
“Nope, not a thing. I found it, thank you,” he said.
I glanced at the cabinet ajar behind him and frowned. “You’re in the wrong cabinet. I’ll show you where—”
“I’ve got it, DiRocco,” Walker insisted, catching my shoulder as I struggled to sit up. He pressed me back down into the mattress. “I’m a smart guy. I’ll figure it out. Rest.” He reached out to touch my face, hesitated, and let his hand fall back to his side uncertainly.
I wondered what it would feel like to trust someone implicitly, for him to not only clean my apartment but join me in bed without hesitation and hold me afterward, to have his arms wrapped securely around me when I woke up for work in the morning. I almost asked him to stay, remembering the loss I’d felt when he left my apartment last night, but even as I opened my mouth, Jolene’s fear-filled, hopeful expression haunted me and choked the words.
Before I could decide, Walker turned around and walked back to the cabinets. He didn’t offer to stay this time, and I was too proud to ask. Feeling discontented, I closed my eyes and slipped into sleep with the sounds of running water, scrubbing, and softly muffled oaths as my lullaby.
Chapter 9
My alarm buzzed through the morning silence. I woke, disoriented for a moment because although I was sleeping on my bed with my usual quilt over me, the mattress under me was bare; the sheets were stacked on the bench of my bay window. They looked crisp and fresh and stain-free, and with that thought, the memories from last night came rushing back. I burrowed beneath the quilt with a groan, trying to find at least some reprieve from reality, but the pull and snag of the IV in the bend of my elbow sank the memories vividly and inescapably home.
The quilt was warm and smelled lightly of mint. I used their soft comfort to keep the images from last night at bay. I took a deep breath and imagined Walker tucking me in after rummaging through my cabinets for bleach and Pine-Sol. I couldn’t imagine Walker mopping, but the clean shine of my hardwood floors spoke on behalf of his domestic skills.
I squinted at my apartment floor, window, and walls from under my burrowed nest in the quilt, and everything, from the crisp sheets piled on the bay window to the holes in my now Swiss cheese–like walls were clean if not whole. Walker had been very thorough, which I appreciated, although my landlord would undoubtedly reconsider renewing my lease.
I allowed myself a minute of selfish comfort before emerging from the bed. If I didn’t remove myself from under the quilt now, I’d never get up. I’d already been late to work and called out once this week; Carter would have a coronary if I was late again. That thought alone gave me pause, so I concentrated on dreams of Pulitzers, carefully removed the IV without gagging, and walked shakily to the bathroom before I gave in to the compulsion to sleep in.
I cringed at my reflection in the mirror. I looked like death warmed over. Some form of masking was definitely needed before subjecting my coworkers to my appearance, but it would take more than makeup to look like myself again.
An hour later, I was washed, made up, and ready to report. I’d woken on time today, so my voice mail was blessedly empty. Nathan, however, had never returned my calls. I tried him again. His cell phone rang five times before voice mail kicked in, and I left another message, feeling dread like a knot twist through my gut.
“Yo, bro, what do you know? Nothing about me, obviously, because you never called me back. We need to talk, pronto.” I massaged the frown between my brows. “Seriously, I need to see you. Call me back when you get this.”
I hung up and checked a sunrise/sunset calendar online before leaving for work. The sun dipped below the horizon at 7:56 p.m. EST. I didn’t know how to prepare, if any preparations could truly give me an advantage over Dominic or Kaden, but I had twelve hours, forty-two minutes, and thirty-seven seconds to plan a defense. In the meantime, I had stories to write, witnesses to squeeze, and lies to expose throughout the city that would hopefully—I crossed my fingers—not involve vampires.
I burst through the Sun Accord doors in my usual stride. Sometimes I could fool people into thinking I was taller and more substantial by my sheer presence, but when Carter strode out of his office with equal gusto and loomed nearly a foot and a half over me, this morning wasn’t one of those times.
“DiRocco, you’ve got some ner—” Carter stopped dead in his tracks in front of me on his way to the watercooler. “You look like roadkill. Raccoon roadkill.”
“Turning up the charm early this morning, Carter,” I said snidely, although he was right. I might have been heavy-handed with the eyeliner.
I ducked around him to beeline it to my desk. I could hear his steps behind me.
“Your neighborhood’s been hit rough this week, you missed the budget meeting yesterday, and frankly, you look like hell. You need a vacation.”
“I’m not sure that this is the time—”
Carter followed me to my desk. “Sit. We need to talk.”
Eleven hours and twenty-seven minutes until sunset, I thought, glancing at my computer as it booted. I didn’t have time for a lecture from Carter. I felt like life was a ticking time bomb set on the earth’s rotation. I grudgingly sat.
Carter straddled the chair across from me, turning it so that he could lean both his forearms over the backrest. The movements were too familiar. It didn’t matter that he was straddling the chair instead of crossing his legs nor that he was human and not vampire; he was still a very intimidating man forcing me to sit at my own desk while he cornered me for questioning. My heart tripped a beat and then raced to catch up.
Carter is not Dominic, I thought, trying not to panic, but Carter had never talked to me at my desk before. Honestly, in the five years and six months I’d slaved for him and the Sun Accord, I couldn’t remember a single time when he’d spoken to me about anything except work.
I cleared my throat. “I’m not sure a talk is necessary. Don’t you have someone else in this office to fry?”
Carter grunted. “Normally, I’d agree with you, but normally, you don’t give me this many issues.”
I blinked. “I’m giving you issues?”
“Unlike everyone else working at this circus, you and Meredith have your shit together. You’re a team. Your writing is engaging and accurate, her photos are enthralling, and you both make it to print on time, every time. You might make it last-minute—which I suspect is part of your master plan to kill me—but you make it, and your stories sell,” Carter said, and if I wasn’t mistaken, and I must be for this to come from Carter, he sounded proud.
I stared, a little taken aback by his complimentary honesty. “Oh. Thanks.”
“But I don’t care how many newspapers your stories sell, you’re not above attending my budget meetings. I don’t care what troubles you’re having. You leave them at home where they belong, and you come here ready to impress me with prizewinning pieces.”
“Right,” I said flatly.
“That being said, I received a call from Detective Wahl last night.”
“Oh?” I raised my eyebrows nonchalantly even as my heart knotted and quivered. “What did she have to say?”
“She wanted to know when we were going to print the retraction to the retraction about the Paerdegat Park case,” Carter said, staring hard at me.
<
br /> “We don’t do retractions to our retractions,” I said cautiously. “She knows that.”
“Yes, I handled Detective Wahl,” Carter dismissed.
Only by the herculean effort of my iron will did I resist rolling my eyes. No one “handled” Greta.
“What I want to know is, how you out of everyone, including the police who investigated the murder, Meredith who took the shots, and the paramedics who treated the victims, were the only person who saw the bite marks?”
Those damn bite marks were going to haunt me for the rest of my career. I took a moment to breathe before answering and decided to act on a time-tested motto: when in doubt, ask more questions. “Did you look at Tuesday’s print again? Did you see the photo we used, the one that Meredith took and you approved?”
“I would remember if I approved that photo,” Carter snapped.
“Then I must be exceptionally observant,” I said simply, trying to keep the exasperation out of my voice. It wasn’t Carter’s fault that he’d been entranced by Dominic, but life was always a little sweeter when I could blame Carter.
He stared me down hard. “I’m not doubting your powers of observation.”
I raised my eyebrows, knowing that Carter hated my flippancy even more than he hated my temper. “Than what are you doubting?”
He pointed a finger at my chest. “Something strange happened at Paerdegat Park because somehow, God only knows how, everyone missed crucial evidence except for you.”
I shrugged. “Detective Wahl knows the bodies have bite marks.”
“She does now, but two days ago she demanded a retraction. Now it turns out that you had it right all along.”
“Just doing my job, shining light on Brooklyn’s—”
“—on Brooklyn’s darkest secrets. Like I haven’t heard that one before.”
I pursed my lips.
Carter leaned in closer. “Have you looked further into this case since then?”
I bit my lip, wondering for the second time in as many days if a lie or the truth would damn me, and everyone who knew me, more. Of course I’d researched into Paerdegat Park, especially after my article received a retraction. What reporter in their right mind wouldn’t defend their article? But how could I ever confess what I’d found?
Vampires, I thought glumly. No one would believe me, and if they did, Dominic would mind-rape the belief out of them. Not even Carter deserved to be on Dominic or Kaden’s radar. The only real truth in this mess was that I couldn’t win, not during the day against Carter and Greta and Meredith, and certainly not at night against Dominic and Kaden.
“Well? Have you?” he demanded, leaning forward on the chair’s back.
“No.”
Carter glared at me. “Yes, you did. You insisted on the autopsy.”
Crap. “I, er—”
“Besides that, there’s no way on God’s green fucking earth that you didn’t look into the one case that you were forced to print a false retraction on. And my gut tells me that you found something you’re either not willing to print or scared to print.”
“You’re crazy,” I whispered, but my voice trembled slightly.
“Are you being threatened by one of these gangs?”
“What?” I asked, shocked.
“Greta mentioned that you dodged her last night after she offered you a ride home, the same night of the last batch of murders, which occurred down the block from your apartment, and then you come to work looking like roadkill. You’re not the only one who can fit the puzzle pieces together, DiRocco.”
I shook my head. “That’s not what—”
“Are you being threatened or blackmailed? Is that why you won’t print what you found?” Carter leaned closer. “I can get you protection. Tell me what you need, and let’s expose the bastards.”
I blinked slowly, unexpectedly touched that Carter would help, albeit for his journalistic benefit. But no amount of police protection would prevent Dominic and Kaden and their entire coven of vampires from coming for me.
I shook my head, resolute in my decision. “I didn’t find anything. My leads ran dry.” I shrugged. “I’ve got nothing, Carter.”
Carter stared into my eyes, waiting for me to break.
I knew the trick well, having implemented it myself during many an interview. I stared back with a glare of my own, undaunted.
Eventually, Carter stood. “This isn’t over. Greta’s not going to let this go, and frankly, neither am I.”
“You’re the boss,” I quipped.
Carter rolled his eyes. “Get out of here and go cover the murder on your street. Greta will undoubtedly be gunning for you, so you’d better think of a better excuse for knowing what you know than the crap you just gave me. I want you with Meredith in fifteen.”
“Your budget meeting’s in ten,” I reminded him.
“You’d let my budget meeting get in the way of your scoop? You’re not the reporter I thought you were, DiRocco.”
“But you just said—”
“Get Meredith and get your ass out there. You want the Times getting our story?”
Carter left, and I rolled my eyes as high and long as I could with repressed frustration.
The chair in front of my desk creaked.
I snapped my eyes down, mortified for a moment at being caught mid-eye roll before I realized that the person sitting in front of my desk was only Meredith.
“Jesus.” I sighed. I let my head fall forward to rest on my crossed forearms on the desk. “You just gave me a stroke.”
“Good, then at least one of us can take some medical leave. We’re due.”
I half-laughed, half-moaned, and lifted my head to meet Meredith’s gaze. “You hear about the murder we’re investigating in fifteen?”
“Yes, but I—” Meredith stopped short, frowning. “You look like absolute shit.”
“Yeah, I look how I feel.”
Meredith shook her head. “Is this about the Paerdegat Park case, because Greta said that—”
“If I have to talk about the Paerdegat Park case one more time, I will murder someone,” I growled.
“Fine.” Meredith sighed. “Then what do you want to talk about?”
“Nothing. I don’t want to talk about one blessed thing. Let’s just get the scoop on this murder and get it over with.”
When we reached the crime scene, I realized that I should have better prepared myself. I’d known that this murder, like all the rest, would be a faked gang war to cover the vampire attack, but I hadn’t thought about how that would affect Jolene. When I saw her sprawled out on the pavement, the subject of our usual camera flashes and impartial attention, I felt sick; not necessarily nauseous, although that was there, too, but deeply sick to my core.
The side of her neck that had been pierced by Kaden’s fangs was now clean and unblemished. Her body was healed, too, so that most of her skin was smooth and beautiful and perfect, not the raw, pellet-embedded, ground meat she’d been last night. Dominic had only allowed one shot to the head and three to her chest to remain.
No one would ever believe me if I told them that vampires caused this murder, despite it being true, because gangs were more believable than vampires. I’d never published anything but the truth as I’d seen it, but it wouldn’t matter if I wrote about the power struggle between Dominic and Kaden. It wouldn’t matter if I detailed how our city was at the mercy of an entire civilization beneath our own who hunted and fed from us and whose natural instinct to slaughter was only leashed by one vampire, a vampire whose tenacious grip was slipping.
Walker had killed Jolene to protect humans from vampires. Dominic had healed her corpse to protect vampires from humans, and I’d write a false version of her death to protect my credibility, career, and all three of our secrets because the truth wouldn’t protect anything except for my pride.
I took out my pen and notepad, feeling disillusioned. Who had been there to protect Jolene from all of us?
“And you’re certain that y
ou only saw two people in the alley?” I asked. I was interviewing my fourteenth witness of the night, a Mr. Thomas Sitter. Thomas was in his late fifties and had the doughy bulk of an ex-high school lineman turned accountant. He had extremely thick glasses that pressed uncomfortable-looking dents into the sides of his face, but the eyes behind the glasses were kind and scared. I tried to be kind in return, but my patience was frayed. Everyone’s account of last night’s crime scene was different, which was common with eyewitness testimony, but I knew that not one testimony was accurate.
“No, I’m not sure,” Thomas said, wincing as if admitting uncertainty was painful. “It was dark, so I couldn’t distinguish their faces. A woman was crying and pleading for help. There was gunfire, and one of them ran back into the alley.”
“Was there anyone else nearby?”
“No, not that I could see, but like I said, it was dark. I’m really not sure if someone else was there.”
“But no one else came out of the alley?” I pushed.
Thomas shook his head. “There were only two people. One was shot, and the other ran. But it was so dark, Ms. DiRocco, I’m not even sure if the woman was shot or if she ran. I just couldn’t tell for certain.”
I sighed and crossed out Thomas’s name on my list of witnesses to potentially quote. It seemed impossible, but Dominic and his coven had indeed found every witness. Granted, I had only interviewed fourteen out of the hundred or so—give or take a dozen—who may have seen the attack, but I suspected that when I did, the pattern would continue. The vampires were able to alter everyone’s memory, not with the same memory, but with an enhanced account of their already existing inaccurate memory.
Eyewitness testimony was always questionable at best. Dominic was simply enhancing the inaccuracies in each person’s memory, so between darkness, shadows, fear, time frame, and a million other details and distractions, everyone was unsure of when and what they had really witnessed. I still couldn’t comprehend how the vampires knew whom to attack, how they were able get to everyone so quickly, or how no one found the bodies until sunrise, but having already interviewed thirteen other witnesses besides Thomas, I couldn’t deny what the vampires had done. However they had accomplished it, no one remembered the truth.
The City Beneath Page 18
