by Jenn Burke
“Anything else?”
She hesitated, drumming her perfect manicure on her desk. “Three nights ago, two of our members reported vampires loitering in our parking lot.”
I straightened in my seat. “How many vampires?”
“One would have been more than enough—begging your pardon,” she said to Hudson, graciously. “But I believe they said they saw three hiding in the shadows at the edge of the lot. They were not...experienced. The two members chased them off, and we increased security around the perimeter. We haven’t seen any intruders since.”
I’d hoped for a second we’d get some useful information on the newbie vampires in town, but I supposed that was asking for too much. Sightings were all well and good, but they didn’t help us figure out who was responsible for their creation.
“I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything about an influx of new vampires?” I ventured.
“I’m afraid that’s not my purview, Mr. Westerson.”
“Did Walter keep a locker here?” Hudson asked.
“No, I’m afraid he didn’t. He rented one as needed. If you’re looking for anything of significance, you’ll need to check his residence.”
I nodded but didn’t share the news that Walter’s house was our next stop. “Thank you for your time, Ms. Riley.”
“The club, on behalf of the clan, acts as executor for any of our platinum members who pass away without blood relatives,” she said. “Would you like the key to his house?”
* * *
Walter’s neighborhood didn’t look any different than the last time we’d visited two weeks ago. The tiny lawns and gardens were less green, but that was typical for this time of year. A few homes had baskets of colorful chrysanthemums on their front porches. Others still sported jack-o’-lanterns, skeletons and fake spider webs, despite Halloween having passed.
We pulled into Walter’s driveway and got out. It felt weird to be here—not because we were breaking the law, but because we weren’t. Of course, if we looked suspicious, we’d trigger suspicions, if there were any neighbors around to see us, so I played it cool. Nothing to see. Totally legitimate business going on. Look, we even have a key!
Hudson popped open the door—and froze.
“What?” I asked.
“I smell death.”
I gave him a flat look. “That’s a little overdramatic, don’t you think?”
“Would you prefer I said I could smell the odor of rotting flesh?”
“It would be a lot less horror-movie-ish, yeah.”
He stepped into the foyer and swallowed hard. “Definitely rotting flesh.”
Yeah, even I could smell it now that I was inside. God, it was awful. “Go in or call Kat?”
He struggled with that decision, but finally said, “Go in. But don’t touch anything.”
“Got it.”
Walter had not only blown a wad of cash on the house but on the furnishings too. Not that I was an expert in high-end furniture or anything, but the place looked nice. Put-together, masculine—with some softer touches, like pictures of flowers, and little knickknacks, stuff I didn’t normally associate with straight men. Did Walter have a girlfriend? We hadn’t seen evidence of one, but our surveillance had obviously been cut short.
The kitchen was empty, except for a couple of unwashed dishes gathering mold in the sink. Some flies were buzzing around too. A lot more than the two plates in the sink would attract.
“Question,” I murmured.
“Yeah?”
“If Walter’s already dead and at the morgue, who’s dead in here?”
“That’s an excellent question. Because he’s supposed to live alone.”
We headed back to the foyer and the stairs that led to the second floor. I eyed the dark hall at the summit. “Maybe it’s an animal.”
“Oh, shit, don’t say that. Now I’m wondering if he had a dog or a cat no one knew about and no one was looking after...”
I shuddered. “Right. Bad thought. But the alternative...”
“Just as bad. I know.” With that, Hudson started up the stairs, careful not to touch the banister, and I trailed in his wake.
We made a cursory glance at the spare bedrooms as we walked by—none of them had any furnishings yet, nor any bodies. Which meant there was a surprise waiting for us behind the closed master bedroom door.
Wonderful.
Hudson covered his hand with the sleeve of his jacket and turned the knob. The door opened slowly, releasing a stench of putrefaction so rancid I almost puked.
“Not in the crime scene!” he barked. “If you’re going to lose it, do it outside!”
I swallowed my gorge, barely keeping my stomach contents where they belonged.
He didn’t step into the room at first, but craned his neck around the door to see what he could from the hall. “Shit. I think it’s a woman.”
“Do you recognize her?”
“I can barely recognize that it’s a woman at all. She’s been dead for a while. But she has long brown hair. I think.” He drew back from the room and closed his eyes for a second. “I haven’t seen one this bad in years.”
Okay, yeah, if Hud was shaken up, I definitely didn’t want to witness what was in that room.
“Call Kat now?” I asked.
Hudson pulled out his phone. “Definitely.”
* * *
When Kat rolled up in her department-issue unmarked sedan, she stared at me through the windshield for a moment before exiting the car. A pair of uniformed cops were right on her heels, so now was not the time for long explanations about how the hell I was standing next to Hudson.
I held out my hand to her as she approached, her eyes narrowed and wary. “Taggart Westerson, ma’am,” I said. “Nice to meet you.”
She hesitated for the briefest of seconds before shaking my hand. “Likewise.” Her eyes flicked to Hudson. “A relative of Wes’s?”
“A distant cousin. I heard about his death, and about Hudson here being short-staffed as a result, so I thought I could offer some support. I usually go by Wes too, so this is going to be weird for a little while, I think.”
“Huh. Right. Rojas, a word?”
She led Hudson a few steps away, far enough that I couldn’t hear their low conversation. Instead, I watched the cops start their investigation. I’d seen cops crawling over a crime scene before, but not from the living plane. It was a surreal experience.
I leaned my butt against Hudson’s car and waited for Kat to be finished with him. After a few minutes, she went inside the house and Hudson joined me.
“What’d she say?”
“Basically how fucked up you are to be alive, and how fucked up I am to be with you.”
“She loves me.”
Hudson snorted.
We watched the cops go in and out of the house for a while. About half an hour later, Kat came back out to talk to her colleagues, then walked over to us. She had some bagged items in her hands, but I couldn’t make out what they were.
“Do they know who she is yet?” I asked softly.
“No,” she said. “She’s too badly decomped for ID. Not even fingerprints.”
“Christ.”
“So you were trailing Walter Gordon as part of a case?”
“That’s right,” Hudson answered. “For the better part of two days before he died.”
“Did you see anyone he associated with?”
“Once.”
“Here?”
“No. Wes—the other Wes—saw them at a restaurant called Danny Fortune’s. I have his notes.”
Kat’s eyes flicked to me and I gave her an innocent look. She curled her lip. “Shitty place.”
“Yeah.”
“Can you describe the people Wes saw him with?”
Hudson brought out his phon
e and accessed the notes I’d stored in our shared drive. “One guy—the boss—was white. Big, with long brown hair, kind of scraggly. The other person was a woman, tall, with darker skin and light brown hair.”
“Anything else?”
“She was wearing a distinctive necklace that looked like a gold collar with a black stone.”
With a sigh, Kat held up one of the bags. “Like this?”
The necklace was as I remembered it—collar-like, muted gold, with a black stone set in the middle. I tried to ignore the, uh, stuff crusted on the metal.
Hudson looked at me and I gave the slightest nod. He turned back to Kat. “Yeah.”
Kat placed the necklace on the hood of Hudson’s car, then removed the item from the second bag with her gloved hands. It was a cell phone that smelled like death—and yeah, I’d bugged Hudson about that description, but it was accurate. I tried not to gag. She held it up to Hudson, making sure I could see the screen. “Know any of these people?”
The picture featured Walter and a familiar woman—the Amazon bodyguard from the restaurant. It was clearly a selfie taken by the woman. I nudged Hudson’s arm and he took the signal for what it was. “Yeah, that’s Walter Gordon and the woman from the restaurant,” he said.
“How about this guy?”
The man wasn’t looking at the camera. I wasn’t even sure he knew his picture was being taken. His long brown hair was pulled back into a low ponytail, but it was as scraggly-looking as the man who’d handed Walter the drugs in the restaurant. And one of his eyes was covered by a patch.
I didn’t have a chance to say anything before Hudson grabbed the phone out of Kat’s hands. He ignored Kat’s shouts of protest and held it out of her reach as he stared at the image captured on the screen.
“Rojas, I swear to god—”
But Hudson only had eyes for the phone.
I placed a hand on his elbow. “What?”
He turned his gaze to me and I’d never seen him look so utterly lost. His golden-brown eyes were wide with fear, an emotion that all but consumed the bond between us. “It’s him.”
“Who?”
He swallowed hard. “Pike.”
Chapter Seventeen
“Pike? The Pike you assured me was—” Kat cast a glance over her shoulder and leaned in closer “—dead?”
“You didn’t say that the guy you saw handing drugs to Walter had an eyepatch,” Hudson accused me.
“I didn’t see it. I’m sorry.” I shared a look with Kat before turning my attention back to Hudson. “You okay?”
Stupid question. I could feel that he wasn’t. His emotions were all over the place as he looked at the photo of Pike. “Maybe it’s old,” I ventured.
Kat took the phone back from Hudson and did something to the screen. “No. It’s date stamped less than a month ago.”
“I need to go.” He caught Kat’s gaze. “Can I go?”
She nodded. “I’ll come talk to you later.” As Hud moved to the driver’s-side door, she said, “Hey, Hudson? Take it easy.”
He didn’t acknowledge her statement.
We got into Hudson’s car and he drove off, his foot light on the gas pedal. I cast nervous glances his way, because his emotions were like lava looking for a crack in the stubbornly stoic crust of his psyche. Finally, when we were a few kilometers away from the scene, Hudson pulled into the parking lot of a strip mall, parked, opened his door, and threw up.
“Jesus,” I said, my voice low and wrecked. I reached for him, but as soon as my hands made contact with the fabric of his jacket, he jerked away from me. “Hud?”
He pulled back into the car, closed the door, and wiped his mouth. His skin had a decidedly gray tinge to it and as he sat there, panting, I could see sweat beading on his forehead.
“Tell me what I can do to help.” I didn’t like the pleading tone in my voice, but I couldn’t help it. I wasn’t used to seeing Hudson like this.
“You need to leave,” he whispered.
I jolted back as though he’d slapped me. “What?”
But I don’t think he even heard me. He was nodding, agreeing with himself, and more words poured out of him. “Yeah. Leave. That’s it. You can—can go. Somewhere he can’t find you. Back to Alberta, maybe.”
“Hud—”
“It’s the only way.”
“Hudson—”
He put the car into gear and was about to peel out of the parking spot when I grabbed his chin and forced him to look at me. “Hudson. Honey. Talk to me.”
His eyes were wide as he stared at me, the whites showing around their edges. And it struck me—he was in full-on panic mode.
Hudson didn’t panic. He got annoyed, or frustrated, maybe even scared, but he remained rational, objective, effective. He never panicked.
Except he was panicked now.
“Hud?”
“It was Pike. In the picture.”
“I know.”
“I killed him in 1998.” He thrust the gearshift back into Park. “That picture—that fucking picture—was new. And Pike was in it. How the fuck was he in it, Wes? He died. I killed him. I fucking killed him!” He slammed his palm against the steering wheel—and again, and again, then gripped it and pulled on it, making a primal, horrible sound the entire time.
I threw off my seatbelt and angled myself so I could grab his shoulders and stop him from destroying his car. “Hud, breathe. Please.”
“Don’t—don’t fucking tell me—” He blinked and gasped.
In an instant, I was out of the car and racing around the hood to pop open his door. Mindful of the puddle of stench—gag—I got him out of the car and around the front so he could lean against the bumper and put his head between his knees.
“Everything okay, man?”
I glanced up at the random passerby who’d asked. “We’re good, thanks.”
He gave me an uncertain look, but kept walking.
Looking around, I saw we’d gotten some attention from other people on the sidewalk in front of the businesses in the mall, and folks at a nearby bus stop seemed particularly interested in our little drama. “Of all the places you could’ve stopped,” I muttered.
Hud tried to push up from the bumper, but I wouldn’t let him move. “I’ve got to get you to the train station, or the airport, or—”
“The fuck?”
“You’ve got to get out of Toronto. Please don’t argue with me on this.”
“Yeah, no, I’m going to goddamn argue. I’m not abandoning you.”
“Pike is alive—”
“You think he is. Maybe it’s not him.”
“Oh, it’s him,” Hudson assured me with a humorless chuckle. “I’d never forget that ugly motherfucker’s face.”
“You don’t—”
“Will you shut up and listen to me for once?” He leaned in close and thankfully had enough presence of mind to keep his voice low. “I don’t know how he’s alive and I don’t know why he’s showing up now, but at some point, he’s going to target me. He’s my sire, Wes. Do you get what that means?”
It took me a second, but I remembered how Evan had reacted a few times to the power in Hudson’s voice. “He can control you?”
“Exactly.”
“But it’s been twenty years. You killed him—or your psyche believed you did. Wouldn’t that mean there’s no connection there anymore?”
“Do you think I’m going to take that chance, if there’s any possibility you could be hurt?”
I laid my palm against his cheek, my fingers threading into the silver hair at his temple, his five-o’clock shadow scrubbing against the base of my thumb. “I came back from a shot to the head,” I reminded him quietly.
“I know. But if he makes me try to hurt you...it’ll kill me, Wes.”
At that confession, I pulle
d him forward into a hug and he leaned on me heavily. “It’s not going to happen.”
“But it could. So please—get in the goddamned car, and let me protect you.”
“Only if we’re going home and not to the airport.”
“He can find us at home.”
“Hudson.” I cupped both cheeks. “Take us home. It’s not only you against him this time.”
“But—”
I pushed up on my tiptoes to brush a kiss to his lips. He leaned down, breathing hard, and pushed his forehead against mine.
After a few seconds, he said, “Okay.”
As we got into the car, I knew I’d managed only a temporary reprieve. Rational, levelheaded Hudson clearly couldn’t fight off his panicked counterpart, and I got it. But at the same time, there was no way in hell I was leaving him to battle Pike on his own.
I needed a plan.
* * *
Hudson started in on his Wes-must-leave campaign again as soon as we entered the house. He beelined for the stairs. “I’ll help you pack.”
“No. Stop. Sit.” Now I was sounding like he did when he commanded people like dogs. “Just take a breath.”
“You don’t get it!”
“No, you don’t. I’m not leaving you!”
“What the hell is going on?” Lexi demanded as she joined us in the foyer, Sam close on her heels.
“Ooh, are Wes and Hudson fighting?” Sam said. “Should I get popcorn?”
“Not funny,” I growled, then turned my attention back to Hudson. “I’m not leaving, so just stop.”
“Why would you want Wes to leave?” Lexi asked.
Hudson scrubbed his face with one hand. “Because Pike is alive.”
Everyone in the family knew that name by now. “Pike—what?”
“There was a picture on the victim’s phone.”
“What victim?”
“The victim at the murder scene.”
“What murder scene?”
“The one we just came from,” I said.
“God and goddess, you two.” She frowned at Hudson. “How the hell is your dead sire alive enough to have his picture taken?”
