She wrapped her hand around his arm and smiled. In an instant, relief settled over him like a snug, formfitting sweater. He was falling in love with her, and anyone be damned if they didn’t like it or weren’t comfortable with it. He wanted to celebrate it. Love was so difficult to find that he didn’t want to push it away because others couldn’t accept it, including himself. For the first time in a long time, he felt like he had something to live for.
Chapter 24
The suspect’s house turned out to be a quaint two-bedroom brownstone in a nice, quiet neighborhood. In Kellen’s opinion, it was a perfect place for a bomber to hide. No one would ever suspect that one of their neighbors liked to build explosive devices and blow them up to kill people.
The house was virtually empty when they arrived. What little evidence there was had already been packaged and shipped to the lab for inspection, and the rest of the house was empty. It appeared that Louis Martin had lived meagerly while in this place.
There was no sofa or television or any other furnishings, except a simple chair and coffee table in the living room. The kitchen had no table. He imagined Louis probably ate at the bar counter, as a single wooden stool sat there alone.
“He didn’t have much.”
Kellen eyed the place intently. “I don’t think he was planning on living long.”
She glanced at him. “He had Sangcerritus?”
Kellen nodded. “I bet it was pronounced. Making him just a wee bit crazy in the old noodle.” He tapped the side of his head with his knuckle.
Lowering her gaze, Sophie went back to searching through the kitchen. She reached for the cupboard, then paused as if remembering last time she went snooping in someone’s kitchen cupboards. She swung around toward Kellen.
“Do you sense anything? Should I be worried about opening drawers?”
Pausing for a moment to listen to anything out of the ordinary, he eyed her once then shook his head. “Nothing to worry about in here.”
“In here?”
“Yeah, I haven’t searched the rest of the house yet.” He gave her a twisted smile that he hoped eased her heart a little.
“Do you smell anything?” he asked, cruising around the empty dining-room area.
Lifting her nose in the air, she inhaled deeply, then looked at Kellen. He wondered what she smelled. What did he smell like?
Inhaling again, she seemed to sense something. She moved toward Kellen silently, and whispered in his ear, “Someone else is here.”
“Are you sure?” he said in her ear.
She nodded, and gestured toward the hallway that led to the back bedrooms.
Taking her hand, Kellen moved toward the hall, back against the wall. Together, they slid along the wall, taking slow, measured steps so as to not announce their intent. When Kellen reached a doorway, he stopped and quickly peered in. He shook his head and they continued toward the two closed doors.
Before they reached them, Sophie yanked on his hand to stop him. Turning to her, he raised an eyebrow in question.
She whispered, “Let me go first. I have a weapon.” She unholstered her gun and pushed off the safety latch.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Don’t be an idiot, okay? I know you’re a tough guy. You don’t have to prove it here.”
He glanced at her gun, then at her face. He hated to admit it, but she was right. “Fine, but if something happens to you I’m going to kick your butt.”
They switched positions so she could go in first, weapon poised and ready.
On the count of three, Sophie slowly turned the doorknob and pushed. Gun pointed, she peered into the room. It must have been empty, because she backed out, and then turned toward the next door.
Again she counted to three, but this time Kellen got anxious and he kicked open the door. It splintered into pieces as it crashed onto the floor. She rushed in, weapon up, but once more the room was empty.
Except for a small black box on the carpet.
She went to the open window and glanced out. “He must’ve just jumped out the window.” Turning, she walked back toward the box on the floor.
“Don’t touch it!” Kellen pushed her away from it.
She eyed him curiously as he circled the box and then crouched down next to it.
“Is it a bomb?”
He shook his head and picked up the small box, rubbing a hand over the top, remembering the feel of silk under his fingers. “It’s a stone box. I have one just like it at home, except mine’s blue.”
“Did he leave it here on purpose?”
Standing, Kellen kept his attention on the box in his hands. “I know this guy. I have to. We were in the same ordnance company in Vietnam. We both have these stone boxes.”
“Maybe he bought his recently. Maybe he ordered it online.”
“No, not this box. I can see the detail that went into it.” He opened the lid. “The inside is inlaid with bones. Water buffalo bones. This is authentic. The initials of the man who made it are carved in the corner. The same as mine.” He spun around toward the bedroom window—and moved toward it, testing its lock and peering outside. “He was here. He left this for me. He wants me to know we have a connection.”
She approached him and put a hand on his shoulder. “What’s the connection?”
“I don’t know. There are some bits and pieces of my tour in Vietnam that I don’t remember. I always assumed it was because I didn’t want to remember, like post-traumatic stress. But now I’m not so sure that’s the reason.”
“Did something happen to you there?”
He nodded. “I have Sangcerritus, so does Louis. We’re connected, and it all relates to Dr. Bueller. He was there in Vietnam at the same time we were. He’s a leading doctor on the disease. Maybe that’s for a reason.”
“You think you got the disease from the war? Like the conditions from Agent Orange?”
“Yeah, but I don’t think mine was an accident from chemical warfare.”
“Genetic experiments?”
Sweat dribbled down his forehead and neck. The temperature in the room seemed to be increasing exponentially. He rubbed at his head. His temples were starting to throb. “I found a book about genetics in Dr. Bueller’s second residence. It was called Super Soldiers. There were some handwritten notes in it about vaccinations.”
“Mon Dieu,” she gasped. “This is major.”
“And motive. If Louis Martin realized what the doctor had done to him and others, maybe he took his own revenge.”
Pain tore through his temple. Stumbling, he dropped the box and grabbed his head with both hands.
“Kellen!”
He could hear her voice, but it echoed in his head like ping-pong. Bouncing back and forth, making him dizzy.
Another jolt stabbed him and he went to a knee, unable to stay on his feet. Blinking back tears, his vision swam in and out. He was going to faint. He was floating in air. He couldn’t keep his body from lifting. It was okay though, because he’d always wanted to fly.
Something cool touched his neck and forehead. The sensation brought him around, set his feet back on the ground. Panting, sweat dripping down his body, Kellen opened his eyes and focused.
Sophie crouched beside him, her hands on his head. She was speaking to him, but he couldn’t hear her words. He tried to read her lips but found it too confusing. He just wanted to sleep. He was so tired.
He watched her face. She was so damn beautiful. Too stunning to even look at, most times. He could drown in the vivid pools of her eyes. He’d die a happy man.
Moving her hands over his head, she kept talking to him. He really wished he could hear her words. She had a sexy voice, one that made his gut clench and his knees weaken. He squeezed his eyes shut then opened them, his ears finally popping.
“You’re going to be okay. I’m here, baby. I’ll always be here.”
Swallowing the lump in his throat, Kellen wiped at his mouth and the sweat soaking his face. He nodded. “I’m ok
ay.” He pushed to his feet. Wobbling a bit, he reached out for Sophie. She held on to his arm.
He hated being weak, especially in front of Sophie. “I’m fine now. You can let go. I won’t fall.”
Sophie rubbed her hand over his shoulder and down his arm to link her fingers with his. “I’m so sorry, Kellen. I can’t imagine what it’s been like for you to go through all of this.”
He kept her gaze, wanting to wrap himself around her, to bury into her heat and find solace. She did that for him. Gave him a sense of peace. Being around her calmed him, soothed the maddening disease rushing to his head.
But would she be able to handle it when it got worse? When finally the disease took his mind completely and forced him to do and say things that he didn’t mean. Was it fair for him to even expect her to?
Dropping his gaze, he looked at the box. “We need to find Louis before he hurts someone else.”
“Do you think he will?”
He nodded. “I don’t think he has any plans to stay alive for long. And he’ll want to go out with a bang. Literally. I know I would.”
Dropping his hand, Sophie took a distancing step back. She picked up the box from the floor and handed it to him. Did she sense him pulling away? If the dejected look in her eyes was any indication, she sensed everything about him. She knew he was putting up a wall. It was actually scary to have someone know him that well.
“We should get back to the lab and inform Gabriel about everything that’s going on.” She exited the bedroom and Kellen followed her out, all the way to the car, jumping into the passenger seat.
Sophie started the vehicle, then looked at him. There was an intense gleam in her eyes. “We’ll get a citywide APB out on Louis Martin. If he goes to ground, we’ll just dig him up.”
Kellen smiled at that. She was fierce, his Sophie. He loved that about her, the fact that she could be hard when needed, one minute, and soft the next, made his heart clench.
His Sophie.
The significance of the thought wasn’t lost on him. It was how he felt. He didn’t know when it happened, but it had. He would always think of her that way, no matter what happened between them.
Chapter 25
The next three days were a comfortable haze for Kellen. After he informed Gabriel about all his suspicions and the information he gathered, the inspector put as much manpower as he could into locating Louis Martin. But with the city on the edge from the terrorist’s attacks, he had other matters to attend to, as well.
So every day Kellen and Sophie put in hours at the lab, he with doing more research on Dr. Bueller aka Dr. Brenner, and genetics, and Sophie with a new caseload. Gabriel had become accustomed to him as had Olena, and as a group they had developed an odd symbiotic relationship.
At night, without voicing it, he and Sophie had ended up back at Sophie’s to eat and make love. Kellen only returned to his hotel room to get his bag and pay the bill, which he found out was already paid for by the Nouveau Monde crime lab.
The time they spent together was wonderful and not bogged down by talk of the case, or his disease or his eventual return to Necropolis. He suspected Sophie had made up her mind to enjoy their relationship for what it was. Even though he couldn’t quite name it himself.
All he knew was that he was happy, truly content, without a desire for anything else. It was a strange sensation to have what he wanted—Sophie being at the top of his list. He tried not to think about tomorrow or next week, whether they caught Louis Martin, or not. He just wanted to enjoy every day as if it was his last.
By the incessant ticking in his head, that day was soon approaching.
Rubbing at his eyes, Kellen closed the computer application he was working in and leaned back in the chair. All his research wasn’t getting him any closer to the truth about Dr. Bueller and what he had been up to in Vietnam. Maybe it didn’t matter any longer. Even if he knew, what could that knowledge do for him? Maybe it was a fool’s hope to discover the truth. But hope was there, regardless. Sophie did that for him.
The overhead speaker crackled to life. “Kellen Falcon to the reception area. You have a visitor.”
Surprised, Kellen stood and wandered out of the room. A visitor? He didn’t know anyone in Nouveau Monde, except those in the crime scene team.
As he walked down the hall, Sophie popped out of one of the rooms, smiling.
“Hey.” He returned her smile.
“I heard you have a visitor.”
He shrugged. “Beats me who it could be. Maybe Caine flew over, thinking I needed some help or something. He’s an utter control freak.”
They walked side by side down the hall to the reception area. Kellen opened the door for Sophie and followed her through. He approached the main desk and smiled at the receptionist.
She nodded toward a short, dark-haired man standing in the middle of the foyer, his back turned toward them.
Alarm bells went off in Kellen’s head. Something was wrong. He could feel it crawling over his skin. He turned toward Sophie to warn her, of what he wasn’t sure, but it was too late.
The man turned around to face them. In an instant Kellen knew who it was.
“Louis.”
Sophie tensed beside him and grabbed his arm.
The man nodded. “Hallo, Kellen.” His accent was a thick brogue. Scottish most likely. He must have spent all these years after the war in Europe to develop the accent.
He unzipped his thin nylon jacket. Underneath, a dozen red and blue wires stuck out. It was what Kellen feared. Louis was wired with explosives—by the looks of it, enough to blow up half of the building.
Sophie gasped. Kellen pushed on her arm. “Get out of here.”
“She stays.” Louis opened his right hand to reveal a detonation switch.
Kellen did a quick survey of the reception area. So far it was fairly empty. Charlotte, the receptionist, was at her desk, he and Sophie and two officers that had joined them, their suspicions getting the better of them. They both had their weapons out and pointed at Louis.
Louis swiveled toward one officer. “Lock the main doors. Don’t let anyone else in here.”
The officer hesitated for a moment. It looked like he was deciding whether or not to shoot Louis in the head.
Louis must have assumed the same thing, because he said, “I wouldn’t recommend it, boy-o. It doesn’t matter where you shoot me, I’ll push the button. Because I’m a vampire, even a head shot will give me roughly two seconds to press my thumb down. Then everything will go boom. Including you, your mate and half this building.”
After glancing at the other officer, he ran to the doors and flipped the lock. The other officer moved toward the door separating the lobby from the main lab and turned the lock, then went to the other door that led to the main police headquarters and bolted that, as well.
That left the six of them in the lobby.
“Why don’t we let the two ladies go, Louis?” Kellen purposely used the word “we,” hoping Louis would make a personal connection with him. But he felt their connection went beyond personal—they were tied together from something that happened almost forty years ago.
Louis glanced at Charlotte, then at Sophie. “Yeah, why not? It’s not going to make a difference either way.”
Sophie squeezed Kellen’s arm and murmured, “I’m not leaving without you.”
Smiling, he pressed a kiss to her forehead. “It’s okay. I’ll be fine. He doesn’t want to kill me. Do you, Louis?”
Louis shrugged as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
“Charlotte,” Kellen called. The receptionist looked at him, her eyes wide with fear. “Come on out. Go with Sophie.”
Trembling, Charlotte stumbled out from behind the large counter and walked toward them. She grabbed onto Sophie, tears starting to roll down her cheeks.
Sophie patted her hand. “It’ll be fine.” With one last fleeting look at Kellen, she guided Charlotte to the lab doors, flipped the lock and went through. Kellen
locked the door behind them.
Before Sophie led Charlotte down the hall away from the potential danger, she turned and mouthed three words to him, “I love you.”
Pressing his lips together, he just nodded, unable to reciprocate in the way he wanted. He’d give anything right about now to hold Sophie in his arms and feel the press of her body heat and hear the rush of her heartbeat.
“That’s nice,” Louis commented from behind Kellen. “To have someone who loves you.”
Turning, Kellen walked towards Louis. “Yeah, it’s great. You don’t have anyone right now worrying about you?”
“Nah, not with this craziness swirling in my noggin’.” He knocked himself in the forehead with the knuckles on his left hand. “I’m not particularly pleasant to be around right now.”
“It’s bad?”
“You have no idea.” He cocked his head. “No, I guess you would know. The doc sure messed with us something awful, didn’t he?”
“I don’t know, Louis. I’m playing catch-up here.”
Louis glanced around the lobby. Noticing the sofa and chair in the corner away from the plateglass window, nodded toward it. “Do you mind if we sit down? I’m beat. I haven’t been getting much sleep lately.”
“Sure.” Together, they moved toward the sofa. Louis sat on the edge facing the lobby area. Kellen sat on the chair. “How about we let the two officers get out of here so we can talk?”
“Nah, I need some reassurance that they aren’t going to rush in here and take me out. For some reason, I don’t think they’d make those concessions for just you and me, two diseased vampires who are going to die anyway.” He motioned toward the other half of the sofa. “Why don’t you two chaps join us? This sofa is very cozy.”
After hesitant glances at each other, the two officers made their way over and sat down. Kellen noticed they were both sweating, their eyes nervously shifting back and forth between him and Louis. By the looks of them both, he didn’t think they’d been on the force long. They both had an air of inexperience and fear.
Kellen nodded to them. “Just relax, fellas. Louis just came to talk.”
Vivi Anna - [Valorian Chronicles 04] Page 15
