by J N Duncan
“Hello?” she said quietly. “I can hear you. What do you want?”
It shimmered, a malevolent grin spreading across its face before it began to glow and stretch into smoky tendrils. Through this dim haze, darkness yawned open in the corner, and to Laurel’s amazement, an impeccably dressed man stepped through, wearing a dark blue suit with a crimson tie. His hair was short, graying, and combed straight back with a bit of a wave. It was thin enough on top that you could see his scalp peeking through in places. Your average fiftysomething executive. He smiled, but it was one of those humorless things that corporate types learned to plaster on their faces when meeting with clients or the competition.
And his gray, irisless eyes glowed like bright, hot coals.
“Good day to you, Ms. Carpenter. So good of you to come.”
Panic tried to claw its way out of her brain, but the signal to run had been short-circuited. Those eyes knew why. They knew everything. Deep, soulless eyes that gazed with the power of the Goddess herself, peeling away every last vestige of defense, exposing and revealing every horrible and hidden secret. There was no judgment in there, just the ambivalent acceptance that came from all things dead.
She absently fumbled in her purse for the cell phone, finding only the thin, painted empress card, and managed to squeak out three words. “And you are?”
“Drake, my dear, lovely woman. Cornelius Drake.” His smile stretched wider, revealing all his yellowing smoker’s teeth, and he stretched out a hand toward her. “Come. My car is out front. Let’s take a drive, shall we?”
Laurel extended her hand, watching it as if it were someone else’s, getting wrapped in the cold fingers of the grim reaper himself. His grip was comforting, reassuring, and-much like Shelby-Laurel knew she would do anything for him.
In their wake, the old empress card tumbled to the ground from Laurel’s other hand, its warning unheeded.
Chapter 28
Once again Jackie stood in the entry of Nick Anderson’s house. He had given her the keys without even asking. She wanted to say a jail cell had made him cooperative, but he had given them to her as they’d walked into the FBI building.
“Go look,” he had said. “Save you the effort of getting a warrant.”
She had snatched the keys from his hand without reply and left him cooling his stubborn ass in a holding cell. Gamble and a handful of others were searching Shelby’s house. She didn’t expect them to find anything. If there was something to find, Jackie figured Nick’s place would be where they would find it.
Nick had said something about Shelby wanting blood to help find Drake, but the rest of the conversation was a blurred-out wash of noise. Anger and fear had been churning through Jackie so furiously that nothing Nick had to say mattered. The fact that Shelby had attacked someone for blood, and Laurel had gone off with her, was enough. Now, in the quiet of Nick’s house, reason had crept back into Jackie’s senses. Laurel had likely just turned off her phone and forgot, but it was still unlike her, and the fact that Shelby did not answer either was worrisome. What if they had gone off on her motorcycle and crashed? They could both be dead in a ravine somewhere.
Jackie tried calling Laurel again for the twentieth time and clicked off when the voice mail began. “Damnit, Laur. You’re pissing me off.”
“What was that, Jack?” Agent Pederson stood in front of her, looking into the living room.
“Nothing. Just annoyed at Laurel.”
“Probably just got her phone off. I’m sure she’s okay.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you’re right.” Jackie didn’t sound very convincing. “Take Warren and Smith down to the bedroom wing there. Summit, we’ll start upstairs in the loft.”
“Sounds good,” he said and marched up the steps two at a time.
The curving staircase opened onto a loft space that looked down on the entry on one side and the living room on the other. The roof peaked overhead, letting in light through a series of skylights. A wide hallway extended out in one direction over the bedroom wing, lined floor to ceiling with bookshelves. He had a small bookstore’s worth of books. At the opposite end she could see a pair of overstuffed leather chairs, a table and lamp between them. The loft area itself had a large desk with a computer monitor perched on one corner. The rest of the room drew most of Jackie’s attention, however. There, in all its gleaming black glory, was a baby grand. A Steinway. It looked far more impressive up close than it had from the living room floor.
“Son of a bitch.” Did it have to be a nicer, better-kept version of her own?
“Find something, Jack?”
“No, keep looking. Check the desk. I’ll look in the library.”
Jackie walked the length of the hall, looking for anything out of the ordinary, but for all intents and purposes it appeared to be just what it was. There were books on all manner of subjects, even an entire section devoted to the supernatural. Somebody else was going to get to catalog everything if it came to that.
“Storage area over the garage here, Jack!” Summit called down to her. “You want me to get the picks and open it?”
Jackie wandered back toward the loft. “Just break the fucking thing open.”
“It’s dead bolted.”
“Interesting. Get the picks then.”
Five minutes later, Summit had the storage door open. The men downstairs had turned up nothing of interest to that point. Jackie flicked on the light switch next to the door, and the interior flooded with light, revealing what Jackie could think of as only a museum.
Summit whistled. “Wow. What the hell is this?”
She stepped in, careful not to disturb anything. A life-size painting of a woman was mounted to the wall at the far end, some twenty-five feet away. A display case had rows of quilts neatly stacked inside. Next to it was an old rocking chair, draped with one of the quilts and stacked up with dolls-the old, handstuffed Raggedy Ann kind. There was an old flip-top desk, and Jackie saw when she walked up that the top had been changed to glass, turned into a display case, which covered a neatly arranged assortment of coins inside plastic sleeves.
“The little fucker,” Jackie muttered under her breath and opened the case. She grabbed the penny sitting in the last spot in the last row of the collection.
“Hey,” Summit exclaimed. “Is that the penny stolen from the evidence room?”
“I think so.” It would be interesting to hear Nick explain that one away.
“What is all this shit, you think?”
Jackie put the penny in her pocket and kept looking around. Though a museum had been the first thought that had come to mind, she realized now, as she approached the painting at the far end, what it really was. “Memories,” she said.
Nick Anderson had built a shrine to his dead family.
A framed piece of newsprint on the wall caught Jackie’s eye. The title, written on a small placard beneath the old news clipping, read, GWEN AND THE KIDS, FIRST DAY ON THE JOB, APRIL 1862. It was the photo Hauser had pulled up on his screen. There were a couple more old photos of the family. On top of a small curio stand by the painting was a small wooden box with tarot cards inside. Carefully, Jackie fanned through them. They were all in the same style as the one they had found, and-sure enough-the one they had was not in there.
The nervous pang of fear returned in full force. Jackie could not shake the feeling that Laurel was in serious danger. What if the freak-out about Jackie needing to be careful had really been intended for Laurel? What if her little visitor had been trying to tell her that she specifically was in danger? She gathered up the box, knocking over one of the photos, which she noticed had the names and ages of the family on the back. The realization hit her, a sucker punch to the gut, leaving her momentarily breathless. Gwen and Laurel were both thirty-one. How had she missed that?
“Summit,” she said, motioning to everything in the room. “Pictures. I want pictures of everything in here. I’ve got to head back now.”
He gave her a perplexed look. “
We just got here.”
“Just do it, Summit. I’m going.” She pushed passed him and leaped down the stairs three at a time.
Chapter 29
Five minutes from downtown, her cell rang, and Jackie snatched up the phone. She recognized the number, but it had not been the one she was expecting. Clenching it so tightly her hand shook, Jackie flipped it open, her voice barely above a growl. “Where is she, Shelby? Where is Laurel?”
“Jackie, listen,” Shelby’s voice came back, sounding winded. “I don’t have her.”
“So help me, you bitch, if you’ve hurt one hair on her head…” She blindly ran a red light, swerving around oncoming traffic and narrowly avoiding causing an accident. Her fear and frustration boiled over. “Get out of the fucking way!”
“Listen to me, Jackie. It wasn’t me. Drake has her.”
“Liar!” she yelled into the phone. “We’ve talked to your last vic in the hospital. We found the penny, the tarot deck. You’ve been covering for each-”
“Penny? What the hell are you talking about?” She sounded truly dumbfounded.
“Don’t be stupid. You know exactly what I’m talking about. This whole Drake thing is a front for your own twisted little vampire games. I want to know where she is, Shelby. It’ll be much worse for you if I have to track you down.”
There was a bark of sarcastic laughter in her ear. “Would you just listen to me for two fucking seconds? Drake is-”
“No!” she screamed into the phone, fed up with the stalling and angry she was not getting the reply she wanted. Why couldn’t Shelby have just said Laurel was fine and on her way back? Why did the worst case have to be what came out of her mouth? Jackie did not want to believe. “You listen. You’ll bring her back right now before I hunt you down and blow your bloodsucking head clean off.” Her voice cracked at the end as Jackie fought back the tears of fear and terror.
“Silence!” Shelby snapped back, and Jackie could almost feel her mouth being held shut. The feeling startled her back to some sense of reality. “We don’t have time to waste. He’s somewhere within a mile or two of West Central and Pine, likely in a blue Rolls. I dropped her off at the Jade Dragon two hours ago, and some chick at a mini mart saw her walk out with a man in a blue suit, Jackie, so pull your damn head out and call out your cavalry. And get Nick. I need him out here before it’s too late.”
Too late. Jackie stared blankly at the phone until horns began blaring at her to notice the green light. “Shelby?” The cell answered her with silence. “Fuck. Laurel. Be wrong. Please be wrong.” She called downtown and got Belgerman to scramble the men into action. Local enforcement would be notified. She didn’t trust Shelby, but the risk of disbelief far outweighed throwing money away on a manhunt that wasn’t there.
“What about Nick Anderson?” John asked her. “Should he help?”
Shelby’s words echoed again in her head. She could not ignore the request if there was any chance at all he could or would help. “Yeah, get him ready to go. I’ll take him over to where Ms. Fontaine said Drake’s likely location is.”
“Jack?”
“What, sir? I’m nearly there now.”
“You good for this?”
“Good for what?” She hit the parking-garage drive too hard and bumped her head against the roof of the car. “Ow! Fuckin’ A!”
“You in the right frame of mind to be leading this now?”
She slid into an empty parking space too fast to avoid crumpling the bumper against the concrete barricade. “Shit. Sir, with all due respect, unless I’m dead, don’t take me off this.” How could he dare think it?
“Not off the case, just off this. You are too close on this one, Jack. Laurel is more than just a fellow agent.”
“You worried I’ll go ballistic on whoever grabbed her?”
“I’m concerned your judgment may not be optimal, Jackie. Give me a fucking break. You know as well as I what the deal is here.”
Jackie took a deep breath and let it out. She knew, but if something happened, it was her responsibility. It had to be. “I have to take this, sir. You want me off, you can take my badge.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say,” he said, not bothering to hide his annoyance. “Fine, just don’t make me regret the decision.”
Up at Nick’s cell, Jackie had security release the bolt. She opened the door and found him lying peacefully on the small bed that occupied one wall. He actually looked pale. “Come with me. Shelby insists we need you to get Laurel back.”
“Ms. Rutledge,” he said, his voice sounding strained. “I won’t be much use to you unless you get me some of the synthetic I’m sure you have down in a lab being analyzed as we speak. I’m about two hours past due.”
“What? Why?” She tossed his things at him and turned around. “Never mind, I don’t want to know. I’ll find it. Get ready.”
On occasion, being known as a ballbuster had distinct advantages. Jackie marched into the lab room and demanded to know where the synthetic blood was. She took a bottle and marched right back out. One raised finger of warning was all it took.
Nick downed the contents in a few seconds, wincing as he finished it off. “Okay. One minute and I’ll be ready. How do you know he has her?”
“Shelby called-said some girl in a mini mart saw her walking out with an older man in a blue suit. They got into a Rolls-Royce and drove away.”
He nodded. “That sounds like him.”
“It’s him,” Jackie said back and grabbed his arm. “Let’s go. She’s been gone nearly three hours now.”
“We have any leads?”
“Ms. Fontaine said West Central and Pine.”
“Ah. We’ve been driving around him the whole time.”
Encouraging words. She led him down to the garage, feeling his presence next to her the entire time. The irrational fear that he would grab her and bite into her neck would not go away, and for a four-floor ride, the elevator sure ran out of air fast. Apparently, she had not completely forgotten about the incident in the restaurant. So much for wishful thinking.
She stepped away from him quickly when the doors opened and walked to the car. He remained thankfully silent, but once on the road, Jackie felt his oppressive form taking up all the clean, breathable air in the car. She was forced to roll down a window on the graying evening. Rain was coming off the plains, the air thick with the smell of moisture. Finally, Jackie could no longer tolerate the silence.
“What’s the deal with the room over your garage?” She reached into her pocket and pulled out the penny. “This look familiar?”
He continued in silence, staring at the penny, his face unreadable as always. “Memories, Ms. Rutledge. So I don’t ever forget.”
“You believe you’d forget your own family?” Sometimes Jackie wished she could forget hers. “Given what happened, I find that hard to believe.”
“Never forgotten,” he replied, his voice quiet. “A hundred and forty years tends to dull everything.”
She glanced at him, avoiding his curious stare. Yeah, in a perverse sort of way, that made sense. He wanted to keep the pain fresh in his mind. He didn’t want to lose his edge for catching Drake. “And the penny? I’m really curious how you managed to get it out of our evidence room.”
“Reggie,” he said, the hint of a smile on his weary face.
“Who?” Why had this name not come up before?
“He’s a ghost, Ms. Rutledge. One of my former associates from long ago who stuck around to help me out. He’s good for… special projects.”
“You lead a very strange life, Nick.” Her cell rang again before he could reply. It was Shelby.
“Can you call off the damn cops? I’ll never get a solid bead on him if I have to keep sidestepping the law.”
“It’ll take a while to filter down to them, Shelby.”
“Just do it, please. How close are you?”
They were crossing over the river now. “Not far.”
“Okay, I’m sout
h of Central and Pine, and the feeling is getting weaker. So head north. Nick with you?”
“Yeah, you need to talk to him?”
“Nope, just call if he gets a hit on him.”
Shelby hung up, and Jackie called in to have the cops quit looking for her. North of Central and Pine did not narrow things down much.
“Anything?” Nick wondered.
“North of Central and Pine.”
“Okay, we aren’t far. Slow down a bit so I can concentrate. A bit of luck, and we’ll triangulate somewhere nearby.”
“You can feel Drake around here?”
He nodded. “Yes. When he’s ripe with blood, he’s difficult to miss, but he’s been harder to pinpoint this time. Keeps fading in and out. I haven’t figured out what he’s doing yet.”
Ripe with blood. “Can you tell if he’s fed on Laurel?
“He hasn’t yet.”
Oh, thank God. Laurel was a smart cookie though. If anyone could deal with something like Drake, it would be Laur. She knew all about that supernatural shit. “Did you know Laurel is thirty-one?”
“I’d have guessed as much now,” he replied, leaning back in the seat and closing his eyes. For all Jackie could tell, he was going to sleep. She checked in on her phone, but nobody had come across anything. Shelby had been spotted, though the story of her leaping over moving cars stretched the limits of believability.
“How much stronger are you when you drink real blood?” Morbid curiosity kept her brain churning and helped to keep it from preoccupying itself with Laurel.
His head turned, a softly glowing eye shielded by heavy lids. “Much. The strength of ten men probably. The mind-control thing is even more easily done, and control over the body is such that you can make your skin knit itself up from wounds, mend bones, and the like. The power of the dead, Ms. Rutledge, is not human. It’s an otherworldly thing.”
