Blood Night

by Heather Graham

  “Banker guy, Mark Bower, unlikeable,” Andre said. “Really unlikeable.”

  “Bored with life, perhaps, and therefore looking for wilder pleasures.”

  He smiled. “Strip clubs aren’t that wild.”

  “The club had some beautiful women. And, for your information, I have been to see the Chippendales!”

  Andre laughed softly. “Okay, so, it has little to do with the fact that these suspects have been to a strip club. It’s that they might have come across one another there. Or come into contact with a few of the victims.”

  “Random strangers. Mark Bower, Benjamin Turner, William Smith, and Clark Brighton.”

  “Yep.”

  “So, we’re nowhere.”

  “No, we’re somewhere. We have a great host of people out looking for a woman who just might still be alive.”

  “I haven’t seen anything as we walked. Have you?”

  “The night,” he said softly. “Moon in the sky, some of the houses adopting decorations for Halloween—unnecessary here, really. With the brick walls, the rustle of the trees, the cemeteries on either side of us…and rumors of a vampire, along with the truths of dead bodies, they have all they need.”

  The path became very steep. Cheyenne leaned forward slightly to put more energy into her walking. So very much of the area was Highgate, East and West, and Waterlow Park was expansive, while Oakeshott Avenue offered homes off the path for the living. The moon afforded a whisper of light against the darkness and created shadows, as well.

  To complete the tableau, Cheyenne became aware of a stereotypical London fog rolling in.

  “I’m not sure how anyone can find anything here,” she said bleakly.

  Andre glanced her way. “You’ve got to be very careful, you know.”

  “Of course, but—”

  “You’re tough. You’re a great agent. And I know that while I love you, I have to give you that respect, just as I give it to Angela and all our other female agents. But, Cheyenne, we’re in England. Unofficially. You have amazing aim and assurance with your Glock, but we don’t have our guns here.”

  “Birmingham has the police who are allowed to carry weapons on this,” she reminded him quietly.

  He nodded. “Birmingham is always with us. And I do think he believes in us—simple as that was, once we met the second time,” Andre said dryly. “We’ll just keep going until we find Edith Greenbriar,” he added with assurance.

  Cheyenne started as she saw someone step into their view, emerging out of the fog as if he were a specter himself.

  It was Inspector Claude Birmingham.

  Cheyenne nudged Andre. “See! Birmingham is with us,” she whispered.

  Andre groaned slightly.

  “You two doing okay?” Birmingham asked them. “Anything?”

  “A sore calf muscle,” Andre said. “You?”

  “Something, yes. An old tunnel. One of my men tripped and fell just outside the wall by one of those massive, old trees. He crashed down by the wall and found a covered-up hole beneath. We’re combing the old records now to find out more. Once he uncovered the entry point, he was able to get into an old space that was empty but showed signs that someone had been there.”

  “Gum wrappers? Bottles? Something with DNA?” Andre asked hopefully.

  Birmingham shook his head. “Scuff marks and old boxes. I’m not sure if the hole was part of the original plan. Maybe it was intended as a small catacomb. Or when the place was abandoned years ago, a would-be vampire-hunter managed to dig it out. Anyway, if it’s there, I’m sure we’ll find more. And we have a forensics team down there. Hope, as you know, springs eternal in the human heart.”

  “You found something,” Andre said. “That absolutely means there might well be more.”

  Birmingham fell into step with them. “And therein lies our trouble. The area is old. London is old. Conquerors have come and gone, along with the crazed and obsessed.”

  Cheyenne felt her phone buzzing in her pocket.

  She hung back a minute to dig it out and look at the caller I.D.

  It was late, nearing two in the morning.

  But it seemed that Internet sensation, Benjamin Turner, was awake.

  “Hello, Donegal here,” she said quickly.

  “Hey, I didn’t wake you, right? I heard there was a search going on. Thought you might be part of it.”

  “Yes, I’m awake. And, yes, we’re on a search. Can I help you, or did you call because you can help me?”

  He laughed softly. “I think I can help you.”

  “Then do so—please.”

  “You know I cater to the weird, right?” he said.

  Cheyenne couldn’t stop her grin. “Yes, we noticed.”

  “People love it. But that’s all beside the point. I have done bits on Highgate Cemetery. Some just for fun, some about the exploding coffins, or about famous people—”

  “Yes, yes, of course.”

  “Well, I went through all my old videos and found an interview I did with a fellow who was an architect.”

  “And?”

  “He was involved with some of the construction on the high end of the lane. Anyway, he said something went on at some point in history, soon after Highgate officially opened. When he went to work, they had to change something about the foundations. We’ll never know if the caverns—or catacombs—the architect claimed to have seen really existed. Depending on what you wanted at the time, burial wasn’t all that expensive. But, like today, it could cost a year’s wages. He believed a group of people dug out their own caverns or vaults or whatever one wants to call them. Holes in the ground. And then, for whatever reason—maybe they were outside religion or some such thing, or just so broke they couldn’t pay costs at all—they created their own catacombs. The land would have been empty or forested at the time. The area I’m talking about would be somewhere up by the new high-rise. I’m not sure how you’d go about finding them, but…I could have called the police, but they seem to think of me as the sensationalist who dated Sheila. A suspect, not someone who wants to help. And I didn’t really give you anything, I suppose, but with those search parties out there, maybe you have some sway.”

  Yes, thankfully, they did have some sway.

  And while the fog closed in, and she hung back to make the call private, she could hear Birmingham and Andre talking quietly up ahead.

  Ghostly shapes moved through the fog around them.

  “Definitely, Benjamin. I believe they’re listening to us now. I’m just behind Inspector Birmingham and Andre currently. We’ve felt certain the killer has a hiding place where he…drains his victims. We’ve been thinking underground, but you’ve given us some direction. You’ve been a tremendous help.”

  “I should have been on this bloody damned case sooner. I’ve spent so much time in Highgate Cemetery doing bits, and every time with the best tour guides.”

  “Well, thank you. We’ll get on it.”

  Cheyenne hung up, ready to hurry forward to tell Andre and Birmingham what Benjamin had told her.

  Words suddenly swam in her head.

  Tour guide.

  Birmingham had pretended to be a tour guide.

  And this evening…

  Someone had mentioned that. Someone who shouldn’t have known about it.

  She opened her mouth, ready to hurry ahead.

  And then she felt it. Hard, searing pain on the top of her skull.

  The moon’s light faded. The fog swam all around her.

  And then, darkness was complete.

  Chapter 11

  “We’re grateful that you’re doing this. I honestly believe we have a chance of finding Edith Greenbriar alive,” Andre told Birmingham.

  “You’re grateful? It’s my job,” Birmingham said and looked up at the sky. “The fog has come in heavy tonight. But if we’re underground, it may not matter. I’ve had men everywhere, but you’re right, we found a big hole we knew nothing about. We can bloody well find another.” He h
esitated. “I guess I should have listened more to Clark Brighton. But you understand, we deal with what’s real. I’ll ask you to understand that with all the hauntings and vampire talk—‘the earth is moaning’ indeed!—he just sounded like another fanatic. It didn’t occur to me that people might be held captive beneath the ground. And, yes, they’d be moaning and screaming. How did you come to that? Isn’t it flatland where you come from? We hear about flooding over there.”

  “Ah, yes, we have our share of stories in New Orleans. I think this one was made up, but as the story goes, a woman and her husband in the first half of the nineteenth century practiced horrible medical experiments on their patients. A maid committed suicide, and then a cook set fire to the house—all to escape. They succeeded, and then the ghost stories started up. Only one tale had it where people heard the living who had been imprisoned in a tomb in the courtyard, not the sound of ghosts crying. True or not, I don’t know, but with this terrain…anyway, Cheyenne might be more up on the story than me.” Looking back, he added, “Cheyenne, do you know more about that NOLA story?”

  She didn’t answer.

  He strained to see through the fog.

  “Cheyenne?”

  Birmingham looked concerned, as well. “She was right there, just behind us, seconds ago.” He drew out his flashlight, a powerful one, and played it over the lane behind them.

  There was no sign of Cheyenne.

  Andre shouted her name and ran back in the direction from which they had come.

  Nothing. No one.

  Just fog.

  He pulled out his phone, calling hers.

  It rang and rang and rang.

  “Andre—sorry, Special Agent Rousseau, don’t panic, the lady likely just saw something and stepped off,” Birmingham said.

  But Andre didn’t believe that. “We were right damned in front of her!”

  As in the days of old, the policeman carried a whistle. He blew on it, drawing out his phone as he did.

  “Cheyenne!” Andre cried again, now running. When he realized he was running in circles, he stopped to think more logically. He was certain she hadn’t hopped a wall. They would have heard that.

  In seconds, a score of men came running toward them.

  Birmingham announced that they were changing up the search. Cheyenne Donegal had just disappeared—from right behind them. She had to be close. She had to be.

  And they weren’t to stop looking until they found her.

  Andre fought hard to keep himself from growing frantic. He needed to stay calm and focused.

  But he despised himself for being an idiot, for not keeping her immediately at his side while they walked, while they worked…

  “I need to get ahold of our phone company, quickly. I need to know who called her last,” Andre said. “They can do it faster in the States, I’m…”

  He shook his head and pulled out his cell, calling Angela, telling her briefly and tersely what was going on, and leaving her to find the last call on Cheyenne’s phone.

  Then he started running again.

  “Where are you going?” Birmingham demanded, following behind him.

  “Eric and Emily’s,” he said. “The camera…it might show this far down the lane, and they might have seen what happened. Something, anything.”

  Birmingham kept in step with him. They passed Michael Adair, still sitting vigil, and Birmingham shouted orders to him, making sure every man and woman on the job knew that Cheyenne had just disappeared.

  They were all out here tonight.

  And so was a killer.

  Andre pounded on the door at the house and immediately pushed past Emily when she opened it, Birmingham following behind him.

  “Andre! What—?"

  “Cheyenne,” he said, making his way to the dining room.

  Eric had fallen asleep in the parlor just beyond, but he heard Andre, and—though a little dazed—rose with a smile that quickly faded.

  “The footage. Go back, Eric. Go back and bring up the cameras that are recording video on the lane!”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” Eric started typing.

  “Cheyenne? Cheyenne—what?” Emily demanded. And then, “Oh, my God,” she whispered.

  Because Eric had brought up the screens of the lane.

  And, through the fog, they could see two dark figures.

  Andre and Birmingham, walking together.

  And behind them…

  A tall figure wearing a cloak—one that almost blended in with the night—coming up quickly and silently, right behind Cheyenne.

  The figure struck her. Swept her up.

  Ran back with her in his arms…

  Out of the camera’s view.

  “Oh, my God!” Emily wept.

  Andre’s phone rang. It was Angela.

  “She spoke with Benjamin Turner,” Angela said.

  “Thanks.”

  He said no more and hung up, looking at Birmingham as he rang through to Turner.

  “Did you find something?” Turner demanded. “I was telling Cheyenne about what I learned looking back and—”

  “What did you tell her? What did you tell her?” Andre demanded. He saw his fingers where he gripped the phone. They were white with tension.

  He couldn’t panic. He had to stay sane, think logically.

  “I interviewed an architect. He said they had to make changes to the plans. Didn’t know how or when, but someone dug out tombs that aren’t in the cemetery. They’re now on what I assume is private land by the new apartments. According to him, no one reported the remains to the proper authorities because it would have delayed the construction.”

  Birmingham waited.

  Andre tensed.

  What if Turner’s information was interesting but had nothing to do with Cheyenne’s abduction?

  Andre closed his eyes for a second and breathed deeply.

  Cheyenne was a trained agent.

  But she’d been slammed in the head, knocked out.

  This murderer didn’t kill quickly, though. He bled his victims out.

  There was time. And Andre had to use it.

  “Thanks,” he said briefly to Turner, hanging up even as Turner kept speaking, asking if they had managed to find anything.

  “Up a slope, by the new apartments,” he said. “Turner found an interview with a guy who suggested that, at some point in time, someone dug out their own catacombs.”

  Birmingham nodded. He had his phone out and was calling his teams, telling them where to concentrate their searches.

  Birmingham started for the door with Andre behind him but stopped abruptly. “What if…what if Benjamin Turner is the killer? What if he called Cheyenne to distract her, to get her to hang back?”

  “Can you get a man there quickly?”

  “Within minutes.”

  “Let’s head on toward the new apartments. Get someone to see if Turner is at his place. If he took her, he’d have to have superpowers to stash her and be back sipping tea at home already.”

  “I’ll get someone to his flat immediately. Of course, he could have her at his place, just holding on until we get out of the way. We have laws here, and we can’t just go bursting in without—”

  “You can’t. But I can. I’m an unofficial agent here. An American,” Andre said.

  “Let’s go see what else he has.”

  “Get your men up by the new apartments. Every girder, every patch of dirt, in the basement, in the gardens…everywhere.” Andre said.

  “I have a car ahead—with a siren.”

  Andre was grateful that Birmingham had his car—and his siren.

  They moved through Highgate like lightning.

  He thought about the evening. He tried to replay every word, remembered that something had been said during the night that had bothered Cheyenne. She’d said as much. It wasn’t something she could put her finger on, though. He’d told her not to worry, that it would come to her.

  They reached Benjamin Turner’s place. H
e opened the door wearing a silk smoking jacket, seemingly surprised to see them.

  “Where is she?” Andre demanded.

  “What? Who?”

  “Cheyenne!”

  Birmingham stepped in behind him. “Mr. Turner, we need to ask you a few questions, and we need your help—”

  Andre didn’t hear any more. He walked past the foyer with its reception area and desk and into the room where he had so recently sat with Turner and Cheyenne. He burst into the studio, returned to the parlor, and looked down the hallway at the closed doors of other rooms.

  Behind him, he heard Turner telling Birmingham that he was free to search—everywhere.

  And they did. Quickly. From the basement to the attic.

  Everywhere.

  And it was while Andre stood in the parlor, frustrated, that something struck him.

  A memory. Recollection of a conversation.

  He turned to Benjamin Turner.

  “Do you have that footage you mentioned?”

  “Of course, I was just watching it.”

  “Did the architect have the original plans? Are they on the video at all?”

  “I—I’ll bring it up and see,” Turner said.

  He walked into his studio to do so. They followed.

  On screen, the architect was a lean man in his thirties, eager to be interviewed on-air for one of Benjamin’s popular bits of history and culture.

  He talked about his feelings regarding the construction of such a blatantly modern building in the middle of so much history.

  And yet, the world moved on. Land was for the living. Still, while he shouldn’t be sharing what he was sharing…

  The construction was done. And everyone knew Highgate was spooky as all hell already.

  He did have the plans. They were right there on the screen.

  Andre took a step forward and pointed. “Stop! Freeze frame and print. Can you?”

  “Oh, aye, easy enough!” Turner told him.

  In seconds, Andre had several pages of original plans.

  And blueprints of the buildings as they stood now.

  His “thank you” was brief.

  In a minute, he was back out the door, impatiently remembering that Birmingham had driven, and he had to wait for him.

  Thankfully, the inspector was right behind him.