"I'll fetch her." He walked off like a gallant knight.
"Oh, gods," Audrey moaned and would have put her face in her hands if she could have. What had the goddess done? Could things get any more awkward?
Aphrodite strutted into the room, but instead of pissed off at having been dismissed, she wore a smug smile that seemed almost cat-like. Damien trotted along behind her.
"Doesn't she look beautiful?" he asked. "I just can't get enough of looking at her."
"Oh, indeed," Aphrodite said. "Lovely enough to be a goddess."
"Damien, would you excuse us for a moment?" Audrey braced herself for him to argue, but he only smiled.
"I'll be right outside the door, my princess."
"Look, dammit," Audrey said once he was safely in the hallway, door closed. "I told you not to do anything to him."
"And since when does a goddess listen to a mortal? I'm just helping you out, honey, and I didn't do anything."
Now it made sense. The gods liked their loopholes. "That was Cupid, wasn't it?"
"Aren't you clever? Cupid, Eros, that Damn Chubby Archer… My son has many names. Since you're such a smart little girl, you tell me why I had him shoot your handsome policeman."
Audrey clenched her one fist like she could punch Aphrodite's condescension out of the air. "I'm guessing it's not to help me heal from Kyle's betrayal faster. You think that having Damien fall in love with me will punish him for ignoring you."
"Maybe."
Audrey wanted to ask about the dream, but she didn't want to reveal too much in case Aphrodite hadn't been behind it. And she still held out hope it had only been a dream. One problem at a time. "And you want to drive me crazy."
"Definitely."
Audrey put her hand to her face and pressed the heel of her palms into her eyeball until she saw stars on one side. How was she going to figure this out?
"Look," she said. "You're going to have to go back once you find your nymphs or whatever. I can't take much more of this."
"But you're such a brave, strong woman, Audrey. You can handle anything. Except for love, that is."
"I'm not amused."
"You're not supposed to be, dear. Now how about you bring your policeman back into the room so I can watch the fun?"
After Damien fluffed Audrey's pillows, bought her another water, and insisted on helping her eat lunch, he finally left her alone to sleep, but he remained seated in a chair at the other side of the room, his eyes fixed on her.
"Stop that," she told him.
"Stop what?"
"Stop watching me. I can't sleep with someone watching me."
He got a magazine and flipped through the pages, and she closed her eyes. But soon the rustle of paper stopped. She opened one eye. Yep, he gazed at her again.
"If you keep that up, I'm sending you out of the room." She spoke slowly, hoping he'd hear the threat in her voice.
"I won't go."
"Look." She sighed. "I need a nap. You need to stop bugging me. Go take a walk or something. Or go home and change. You're still wearing last night's clothes, for gods' sake."
He looked down at his rumpled attire, then up again with a big grin. "I can't change out of these, my princess. They're the clothes I rescued you in."
"Argh!" Audrey screamed into her pillow, which brought him immediately to her side. "I'm fine. Just go home and do something, then, and leave me alone for a while."
He finally left the room looking like a puppy that had been kicked. Audrey tried to ignore the guilt that blossomed in her gut—he'd thank her later once he recovered from Cupid's dart. Just as Audrey drifted off to sleep, she heard Aphrodite's voice.
"Is the absolute devotion getting on your nerves yet, Miss Independent?"
Audrey startled awake, and her eyes flew open. She wondered what Aphrodite would do to her if she threw a pillow at her. Probably not give it back.
"It's a little annoying, yes. Actually, it's very annoying because I don't know what his real feelings are and what can be attributed to that stupid arrow your brat shot him with."
And I can't stand the thought of hurting him.
"I find it all quite entertaining."
"Well, good for you. Don't you have somewhere else to be? Where's your water nymph?"
"I sense her coming to me." Aphrodite cocked her head. "Ah, there she is now."
With a knock, the door opened, and Nimue walked in, her jeans stained to the knees with red Georgia clay.
Where in the world has she been?
When Nimue saw Aphrodite, she slumped to the floor, her face down and her hands out in front of her.
"Your Radiance," she said.
"There you are." The goddess knelt and stroked the girl's hair. Nimue shook, and Audrey couldn't tell if she trembled or cried.
"Don't worry," Aphrodite murmured to her nymph, "it wasn't your fault. Someone convinced Cupid that he was getting rusty and that you girls would make good practice targets. You were hit by one of his arrows."
Audrey's mouth fell open. Is this the same spoiled goddess I've been enduring all day? Where is the compassion for me? For Damien?
"She needs her nymphs." Maggie said, and Audrey jumped, which sent an electric bolt of pain down her left arm. She hadn't seen Maggie come in. The Truth Seeker looked stylish as ever, but tired.
"She had Cupid shoot Damien. Now he's like an annoying puppy dog." The words tumbled from Audrey's mouth, and she felt like a four-year-old tattling on the playground.
Maggie frowned, but the corner of her mouth twitched. "I'll see what I can do. Usually Cupid's arrows wear off in a few days in this world, but him being totally focused on you could impact our investigation. What did he do to piss her off?"
"I know he's having a hard time with all the supernatural stuff, but how does a straight man ignore Aphrodite?"
"I'm hearing all this, you know." The goddess looked over her shoulder from her customary position by the window, where she sat with Nimue standing at her side. The nymph's tears had dried, and with a touch, Aphrodite caused the mud to disappear and her clothes to un-wrinkle and become more stylish. Now Nimue stood perfect, pristine, and ready to serve her mistress.
"Audrey was just catching me up on things." The glance Maggie shot Audrey told her not to say anything else.
The goddess pouted prettily. "I was only trying to help. He was being so sweet to her, I wanted to make it last."
At that moment, a doctor knocked at the door. A middle-aged man whose gray hair seemed determined to escape from the top of his head and gather around his ears, his eyes went immediately to Aphrodite before he turned to look at his patient.
"Miss Sonoma?"
"Yes, that's me."
"I'm Doctor Shaffer. I think we can let you go this afternoon, but I wanted to ask you some questions to make sure our files are complete. I also need to give you a quick exam to see how that collarbone is doing. It's likely a bruise, but there could be a small fracture. Do you mind if your friends stay in the room?"
The last thing Audrey wanted was for Aphrodite to see her weak and in pain. Maggie seemed to sense this, so she motioned for the goddess and nymph to wait in the hallway.
"Do you mind if I stay?" Maggie asked.
Audrey thought back to her earlier suspicions about the Truth Seeker, but they seemed to have evaporated.
"No, I may need your help with some of his questions. My brain doesn't feel like it's working quite right. And maybe then you can figure out how to fix things with me and Damien."
Damien hummed to himself while he drove to the station after having gone home to change. He almost went back to the hospital, but he had enough sense to know Audrey needed sleep to heal. And then they'd go out somewhere fun, just the two of them. And maybe he'd kiss her again.
He was glad that Charlie had told him to wear street clothes today because it had forced him to look in the back of his closet and come up with a good outfit. He wore a plum-colored, long-sleeved shirt that his mother had given hi
m. Normally he hated whatever she picked out, but it accentuated his dark features and gave his eyes a hint of purple. He paired it with black pants and a long, black raincoat because the forecast predicted more nasty weather.
"Why do I care how my eyes look?" he asked out loud. "It's not like I'm going to allow myself to get married and have kids to pass them on." His brain had been doing that to him all morning—interrupting his internal chatter with these annoying but logical interjections.
Audrey's dismissal had hurt, but no one was nice when they weren't feeling well, and he'd heard collarbone breaks hurt. Even bruised collarbones could be uncomfortable. He had been feeling more alive than ever from the successful rescue even before that mysterious pain had shot through his neck. Then she had been surrounded by a golden glow, and just gazing upon her made him blissfully happy. He vowed to be there for her when she called, and in the meanwhile, he would get to the bottom of her abduction and its surrounding mystery.
Damien's heart twisted when he remembered Rizzo and the danger he was in, but it was time to celebrate life, and maybe doing that would send some positive energy to his friend and mentor.
Positive energy? Oh, great, I'm starting to sound like a New Age hippie.
Arthur's book still rode in the back seat. He hadn't cracked it but had every intention of reading it as soon as possible. When he did, he promised to raise a beer to Arthur, who had worked so selflessly to extend this glorious life for others.
He still hummed when he walked to Charlie's office and ignored the catcalls of his fellow officers, who hadn't seen him so nicely dressed in civilian clothes, well, ever. Charlie sat slumped at his computer, his eyes bleary, and Damien remembered that he hadn't slept in a day. Not that Damien's sleep deprivation was doing anything to him—energy coursed through his body from the crown of his head to his toes.
"Are you okay, Charlie?"
Charlie startled and rubbed his eyes. "You look sharp. I'm as okay as one can be when running on coffee and adrenaline. What's your secret? You look fantastic."
Damien shrugged and couldn't help but grin.
"And what were you humming?"
Damien hummed a few more bars. "I'm not sure. I just remember hearing it somewhere."
"Dude, that's 'I Could Have Danced All Night' from My Fair Lady."
"Oh." Damien's cheeks grew hot. Where had that come from? "So, uh, what are you working on?"
"I've pulled up the tax records for that warehouse where you found Audrey and Nimue. Man, what is with you?"
Damien's cheeks hurt from grinning so widely. He dialed his smile back. "Nothing. Go on."
"Right. So this is interesting. The building was bought a couple of months ago from its original owners, who built it in the sixties."
"By whom?"
"Avondale Industrial Corporation, who, in turn, had just been bought a couple of months before that."
"Okay. What are you getting at?"
"That in the past year, a number of companies somehow connected to this property have changed hands, all of them construction or construction supply."
"Who's buying them?" Damien peered over Charlie's shoulder at the tax records and sales contracts he'd pulled up on the screen.
"Jupiter, Inc." Charlie looked up at Damien, who saw the dark circles under his friend's eyes were even more pronounced than he'd originally noticed.
"Are you kidding me?" He recognized Jupiter as the name Zeus used in the pantheon of ancient Rome, which had stolen the gods from Greece and renamed them.
"Nope. It looks like this literally goes all the way to the top."
"How do we investigate that?" Damien raked his fingers through his hair and sat down on the couch, which still held a faint imprint from his nap the previous night. Then he said something he never would have imagined saying in a million years. "The king of the gods has to be even more scary and powerful than vampires and were—uh, what were those?"
"Bats. Were-bats. It seems that we'll have to find the human contact Zeus is using and go from there. Unfortunately, the secretary of state's website crashes when I try to look up the corporation's officers, and all my other electronic avenues are similarly blocked."
"Do we have another way to know who it is?" Damien clenched his fists. "We have to find them."
Charlie shuffled through his notes. "We have a description of his voice from Nimue—male, not too old, not too young. She overheard him on the phone with her captors, presumably in their human forms."
"That could describe any of a number of Atlanta businessmen."
"In that case, we'll have to go with good, old-fashioned foot work. Let's talk to the former owners of Avondale Industrial. They're almost at the end of the grace period for vacating their office space."
The offices of Avondale Industrial Corporation were located in a squat office building in Avondale Estates, a strange little town just east of Decatur. High hedges lined one side of the main thoroughfare and protected the upper middle-class neighborhood from prying eyes and through traffic. On the other side, stores varying from upper-end interior design to bakeries to consignment shops nestled on the bottom floors of faux German buildings. Damien and Charlie parked the squad car in one of the lots behind the main façade.
Bells tinkled when they opened the glass door to reveal a dusty reception desk. In spite of the front of the office being all glass, the light faded into gloom a few feet from the windows. Damien reached for his weapon, but Charlie placed a hand on his arm. The unnatural shadows made him nervous.
"Hello?" Charlie rang the bell on the counter. "We're here to talk to someone about a job?"
A rustling sound came from the back room, and the hairs on the back of Damien's neck stood so straight they pricked him. This time, Charlie didn't stop him when he removed the gun from its holster. They crouched low and walked around the desk.
The back room of the small office sprang into garish relief when Charlie flicked the light switch. White papers in various states of destruction littered every surface and a couple of suspicious lumps on the floor. The back door slammed open, and Damien chased the dark figure that disappeared through it, but it seemed to vanish in the shadows of the scraggly trees that lined the back of the parking lot of broken asphalt. He didn't dare shoot at it for fear he might accidentally hit a human on the other side of the fence.
"Did you get it?" asked Charlie.
"No, it was too fast."
"I'm thinking it wasn't human."
"I'm thinking you're probably right." Damien's heart pounded in his ears. He didn't want to look under the piles of paper, but he had to, just in case they were still alive.
Charlie called for medical assistance, his forensic team, and then for Maggie. Damien went to the first lump, which was curled behind a drafting desk and bench, and found a woman, alive but unconscious. He left her in the fetal position and went to the second one. This gentleman wasn't so lucky. His throat had been torn out, and his eyes stared blankly at the ceiling, his final horror etched on his face. The pieces of paper under his head were stained bright red.
"Poor devil," Damien said. He wanted to close the man's eyes out of respect but would probably catch hell from the forensics guys if he touched the corpse. The man's name tag had been torn off his brown shirt, and Damien didn't see anything else to identify him—at least nothing in plain sight that wouldn't require disturbing the scene. They'd have to wait for the woman to wake up.
She stirred with a groan, and Damien went to her side.
"John?" she asked before opening her eyes. She caught her breath when she saw Damien. "Who are you? Where's John?"
He remembered he wasn't wearing his uniform and showed her his badge.
"Oh, thank God." She closed her eyes, and tears leaked out of them. "I was so scared. John said they'd be back, but I didn't want to believe him."
"Who?" asked Charlie.
"I can't tell. They said if I did, horrible things would happen."
She looked around, and Damien move
d back, ostensibly to give her more breathing room but also to block her view of the corpse.
Charlie put his hand on her shoulder, and she seemed to calm down. "And your name is?"
"Miriam. Miriam Spinks. I'm the office manager and receptionist here."
"And who is John?"
"He's the accountant. He was organizing all this stuff for storage since we got bought out." Her lip trembled.
The crunch of gravel alerted them to the arrival of the paramedics and the forensics team. Maggie came in with them and sniffed the air, then coughed.
"Not human," she said so only Damien and Charlie could hear, and Charlie looked pointedly at Damien.
"Told you."
"Right." They straightened and moved out of the way so the paramedics could attend to the woman. Miriam rolled to her other side and closed her eyes. "It's too much. Where's John?"
Damien couldn't disagree with her. He looked around at the mess. The paper drifts seemed to grow every time he looked at them.
"Remind you of anything, Officer Lewis?" Maggie asked.
"Yeah, Rizzo's office after he was attacked."
"So do you think there's anything in here worth looking at?" asked Charlie.
"Why were you here?" Maggie nudged one of the piles with the toe of her boot. Damien cringed.
"Let's discuss this in the other room," he suggested.
Once there and out of earshot of the other humans, Charlie filled Maggie in. "We want to know who bought this place out. They own the warehouse where we found Audrey and Nimue. The parent company is Jupiter, Inc."
Maggie arched an eyebrow. "So you're looking for the human partner in that enterprise, assuming there is one?"
"Bingo," said Damien.
"C'mon, Maggie, there's got to be someone. It takes time to establish a corporation, and if you haven't heard of anything suspicious 'til now, then he's got to be getting help from somewhere to keep things legit."
"Good point." Maggie glanced through the door into the inner office, where the paramedics lifted the woman to a stretcher. "I'll go back to the hospital with that one and see what I can find out. You boys look through the papers and see if you can find any connection with other companies."
Tangled Dreams Page 15
