Britt eyed her seriously when she returned. “You aren’t exactly dressed to visit your brother,” he said. He probably wanted to ask her what she was up to, but didn’t want to anger her. And, if he’d asked, she would have been ticked.
“No firm plans. I might go to the promotions office at the stadium to see if they have regular bookings for Serenity. I might also stop by Sampson’s lab and see if he’s found anything on the group.”
Britt obviously didn’t like that. “The streets aren’t safe these days, not even for a tough vampire like you.”
“I know. And don’t worry, I’m going to avoid Parisian vampires wherever possible. I’ll stick to the main streets, and even if I hear someone screaming, I’ll avoid side streets and alleys.”
He breathed a visible sigh of relief. “Thanks, doll.”
“In the meantime, here’s hoping you find a clue as to who’s killing those women,” she said. “Show the French police your talents, my love.”
He kissed her hard. “I’ll try to.”
They walked a couple of blocks together before she left him at an intersection not far from the entrance to LaCave.
His worried expression gave her the impetus to find some answers for herself tonight. She had a relationship with a man who adored her and had made it his goal in life to keep her safe, but she was capable of solving some problems on her own.
There’d been no text from Sampson yet. Usually he found things quickly on the internet, Dark Net or not. But he must be finding it a challenge to find anything on Serenity, so it was up to her to find something, herself.
When she drew near the stadium, the lights were on and people were going inside. According to the banner outside, there was a late soccer game tonight. She approached a teller and asked for a list of upcoming shows, then scanned the names quickly. Not a thing for Serenity.
“I’m wondering if Serenity is playing anytime soon?” she asked.
The person at the kiosk frowned at her. “They never announce their events in advance,” she said.
Jess returned the frown. “But someone must schedule them ahead.”
The woman shrugged and looked confused, as if she’d just used up the only bit of English she knew.
Jess sighed. “May I speak to your boss?”
The woman shook her head. She didn’t understand.
Jess searched her brain for the right words. “Votre patron?”
“Ah, oui, un moment.” She dialed her phone and spoke very quickly. Jess could barely pick out a word. Then she motioned for Jess to move to one side of the kiosk, to wait.
A burley man with an unshaven face and an unlit cigar in his mouth approached her shortly after that. “Are you the English woman asking about Serenity?”
“Yes, I am,” she said.
“‘Ow may I ‘elp you?”
“I wanted to know how they schedule stadium time if they don’t have set dates for their upcoming shows?”
He seemed to consider her question for longer than necessary. How hard could it be to answer that?
“They call me if there is a vacant slot for the stadium in a given week, and we book it then. There’s no advance notice, and we only rarely have a vacancy. We are a very busy location,” he said.
A roar went up inside the stadium to highlight that point.
That meant she could judge their next appearance by checking out any vacant time slots in the future.
“Were you at the concert last night?” he asked with a knowing smile, almost as if he saw the haunted look in her eyes. She’d been bitten by the Serenity bug, but she couldn’t accept that fact. She wanted to know how they’d managed to affect her.
“Do the band members have names?”
“Pardon?”
“What are their names?”
He looked taken aback by her question. “I have no idea. They are simply called Serenity.”
“Do they have a manager?”
He laughed. “They don’t need a manager.”
“Who collects their earnings?”
The man fidgeted. Obviously, he was starting to get uncomfortable with her questions. “They send someone to collect their earnings the day after the show.” He glanced at his watch. His body language told Jess whoever it was would be arriving soon.
“Merci,” she said. “Thank you for the information.”
He looked instantly relieved, nodded to her and left.
Little did he guess that she fully intended on following him.
Chapter Eight
BRITT WAITED FOR the forensic team to do their work. He didn’t interrupt while Veronique questioned certain aspects of the killing, verifying that this wasn’t a copycat.
It didn’t appear to be a copycat to him, either.
The momentum and the questions were the same as always. They were making no headway, so he decided to search further into the tunnel, hoping to find another gum wrapper.
They’d only found gum wrappers at two crime scenes—two out of far too many—so it was unlikely they’d find another one. Her team had probably already checked, but he wanted to do his own search, just in case.
Skulls stared at him while he moved along the tunnel. Bones in the walls creaked when a heavy vehicle passed overhead, and weird echoing noises broke the numbing silence every now and then, just to remind him what a creepy place this was. As if he needed reminding.
He walked deeper into the tunnel, shining his flashlight on every square inch of tunnel floor and checking the walls for new raven symbols. Nothing. This time, he went deeper into the tunnel than he had before, spurred on by something he didn’t quite understand. Finally, he came to another tunnel on his right.
He looked back. He’d gone so far now that he couldn’t even hear the cops working back there. He needed to check this new tunnel, anyway. But, just to be safe, he carved an arrow into the dirt on the ground, pointing his way back.
The second tunnel narrowed until he felt claustrophobic. Still, he needed to continue. It was almost an imperative that he kept going.
He had to physically squeeze through one section, but there was light ahead. He continued until he heard music. It wasn’t long before he stepped into the club through a natural opening that was almost invisible to the naked eye.
Another entrance to LaCave.
It was a tunnel from LaCave straight to the killing grounds!
And it was a way for the killer to get his victims out without being seen. He merely had to slip through this hidden cave opening with his victim in order to get them to the place in the tunnel where he’d kill them.
Morana watched him from the bar. He approached her with the intention of finding out whether she knew about the virtually invisible opening.
“How’d you get in here without me spotting you coming in the door?” she said.
His shoulders relaxed just a little. She didn’t know about the opening.
“I just walked in,” he said, knowing she’d think he meant the main entrance.
He stayed a few minutes, then left the regular way. He didn’t want Morana to catch him slipping through the wall.
At least ten minutes had passed before he hurried back to the crime scene. “I have disturbing news, Veronique.”
“Where have you been? And, what is it? Have you found another gum wrapper?”
“No. I found a very easy route from LaCave to here,” he said. “It takes no more than four or five minutes to get here. Even if someone was being carried from the club, it wouldn’t be that difficult.”
Veronique sighed. “So, we know for sure, then. The murderer is coming from the club?”
“It was already pretty much a sure thing that the killer tagged his victims in the club, but I could never figure out how he could take the victim out
the front door without being noticed.” And without the CCTV cameras catching him. There were no cameras pointing at that obscure section of wall. After all, no one could tell the opening was there.
“Now we know how,” she said.
He wondered if anyone would notice him leaving the club if he exited through that hidden cleft in the rock wall. When Veronique turned to speak to an officer, he made his way back into the club, making sure Morana didn’t notice him this time. He stayed at the back and moved along the cave wall, keeping an eye on the crowd. Not one person looked his way, not even Morana, since she’d ducked down to get ingredients for an order.
He made his way back to the cops. There was no need to find the arrow he’d put in the dirt. It was a quick and easy route.
Veronique scowled at him. “Where’ve you been this time?”
“I wanted to check on a theory. I just came from the hidden tunnel via the main entrance. I wanted to see if I could get into the opening without being noticed. It seemed relatively easy.”
“We have men up and down these tunnels. Why didn’t they find the tunnel leading to LaCave?”
“I don’t know how they could’ve missed it,” Britt said.
“Show me this opening.”
He led her back toward the connecting tunnel and stopped just before he stepped into it.
“See what I mean,” he said.
Veronique shone a flashlight at his face, and he blinked and held his hands up to protect his eyes.
“Have you inhaled mold or something down here?” she asked.
“What are you talking about?”
She flashed her light in the direction he indicated. “There’s no tunnel there. Just solid rock.”
He didn’t understand her statement because he was looking straight at the plain-as-day tunnel. “It’s right there,” he said, this time stepping into it to prove his point.
She shone the light around the rock. “Why didn’t you tell me it was nearly impossible to see the opening? It’s hidden by a slab of rock. You just slipped into a crevice and disappeared.”
He did? He couldn’t tell her that he saw the opening as a hole in the wall. Apparently, his angelic DNA was at work again. Good, they needed all the help they could get.
“It’s the same at the other end.” He had noticed the way the flow of rock had hidden the opening inside the club. It had been almost impossible to see it with the naked eye. “Follow me.”
“Seriously?” she said, when they got to the tight bit where the walls had narrowed discernably. “Whatever made you continue at this point?” She flashed her light to the end. “There’s nothing but solid rock down there.”
“You don’t see the light?” he asked.
She chewed her lip. “If you hadn’t shown me a virtually invisible entrance to a tunnel, I’d think you were delusional right now.”
He didn’t press the matter of the light, but he could see it as clearly as the beam from her flashlight.
He led her into LaCave and again felt relieved when Morana didn’t notice them.
Veronique turned and looked back. “Where’d the tunnel go?”
“It’s some sort of optical illusion,” he said. “The opening is hidden by the way the rock is formed.”
Music played while club goers danced, oblivious to the fact that he and Veronique had just appeared from the solid wall. “Whoever is using this tunnel must know the underground system very well. I’m still not even sure how you found it,” she said. “I’m going to check the maps when I get back. Maybe it’s been recorded, though I’ve never noticed it before.”
More likely, it wasn’t charted at all. Making sure they weren’t being watched, Britt led her back into the opening again because Veronique couldn’t seem to locate it by herself. They returned to the crime scene.
“That was intense,” she said. “I can’t believe you found it. Were you walking along and feeling the walls for any hard to see crevices?”
He shuddered at the thought of running his hands across the bone-filled walls. Come to think of it, the walls in the hidden tunnel were free of bones. It must be a natural formation, otherwise the dead would have been added to those walls as well.
“You’ve made an important find,” Veronique said. “This may be the information that finally allows us to catch this beast.”
JESS FOLLOWED THE stadium manager back to his office without being spotted. Luckily, there were enough people in the hall to help her remain unseen. Positioning herself behind a massive column, she could strategically monitor the office door.
She didn’t have to wait long before a thin, gaunt-looking man walked up to the office and knocked. If he’d been one of the band members, she couldn’t tell. They were all thin, but they’d also worn stage makeup enhancing their vampiric features. This man wore no makeup. His ordinary features meant he didn’t stand out, but he was definitely a vampire.
At first Jess thought he might go inside, but the manager remained in his doorway, speaking to him in rapid French. The gaunt man responded, then a thick brown envelope was handed to him.
Eureka. This had to be the person she’d been waiting for.
Making sure the envelope had been safely housed in his inner pocket, the vampire looked left and right, then made his way out of the stadium.
She followed, but stayed far enough back that he couldn’t sense her. Even so, he took circuitous routes as if trying to keep anyone off his tail. She hung tight and followed him to the neighborhood Britt had warned her about last month—the place were vampires were being burned in steel drums.
They went deeper into this section of the city, until he stopped at a very large home, most likely original to the area. It was an aged, beautiful structure with amazing turrets, parapet gables, and dip moldings above the windows. He got out a key, opened the door, and went inside.
She approached the house. It had a wrought-iron fence around it. Whoever owned this house also owned a good-sized lot in the middle of Paris. The land alone would be worth a fortune.
The street was deserted. Not even a stray cat moved anywhere within her vision. She stepped up to the front door, and before she knocked, she looked at the number on the house and texted Britt she was here and going inside, just in case.
The buzzer sounded like a rusty crow. It cawed over and over until she heard footsteps approaching.
This was a house Count Dracula could live in, she thought. She might be a vampire, but entering this house alone might be a huge mistake.
Still, mistake or not, she was going to do it.
Chapter Nine
BRITT’S PHONE DINGED just as he bent down to take a close-up picture of the wall that hid the opening to the tunnel. He’d check the text later, but right now, he was leading three of Veronique’s team inside since it appeared to be impossible for them to find alone.
They tracked the location on their GPS. “I’ll go back and tell the captain we’ve marked the route,” one of the officers said, still sounding dubious that they’d be able to find it by themselves.
Britt decided to approach Morana inside the club again.
“Bonjour again, Britt,” she said, in an I’d-like-to-eat-you-up voice that Jess would hate. “Have you turned into a magician? You’re here one minute and gone the next.”
It was a relief to hear her say that, because that meant she didn’t know about the tunnel, and he wasn’t about to tell her. “I’m sure you’ve heard there’s been another murder,” he said in a very low voice.
“No. Really? I hadn’t heard about it this time.” She picked up a glass and started making a Longina Iced Tea.
He watched her. No wonder her drink was potent; it held more liquor than mix. “What kind of tea are you adding to that?”
“Kombucha tea,” she said. “It has properties for lon
g life.”
He sputtered. “It’s not like you’d need those properties. How’d you ever find the recipe?”
She sneered at him. “Why, aren’t you witty?” When he didn’t say anything right away, she added, “There’s no need to be rude.”
He shook his head. “Are your feelings hurt?” He couldn’t believe they were having an almost normal conversation.
“Are you intimating I don’t have feelings?” She narrowed her eyes.
The game had gone on too long, and she’d obviously had enough.
“Not at all. I’d better get back.”
He started toward the hidden tunnel but decided to go out the front way this time. She’d definitely be watching him this time.
He’d just reached the crime scene, when he remembered the text he hadn’t accessed. He read it quickly, then more fully. His blood ran cold. He checked all of his messages—Jess hadn’t texted him again, and the text had come in at least half an hour ago.
“I’ve got to go,” he said to Veronique. “Jess needs my help.” He didn’t wait or give Veronique more details because Jess was alone in a very dangerous part of town—dangerous for vampires, that was.
He sent a message to her as he made his way topside. Jess, you still there?
No answer. Sweat formed on his brow, and his heart began beating double-time. He’d let her down. She’d texted him because she’d known she’d need someone behind her. He should’ve had her back.
THE SAME MAN Jess had seen pick up the money at the stadium answered the door. He narrowed his gaze on her and showed her his teeth and black eyes. He’d proved he was a vampire, but he didn’t feel the least bit aggressive. His actions felt more like an introduction. Jess returned the look.
He almost seemed relieved at her facial changes. “What do you want?”
“I was at the concert the other night. I have questions.”
His thin face that had sunken cheeks and dark circles under his eyes didn’t diminish his good looks. His head bobbed in a declining way, and he pursed his mouth. “This isn’t a safe place for groupies. You should go.”
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