Under Pressure (Moonlight Detective Agency Book 4)

by Isobella Crowley

  “Afternoon,” Alex announced in his Australian accent. “I’m a little late for breakfast, aren’t I? Not that it’s ever too late for donuts. Taylor had me out chasing my fellow members of the Oz ex-pat community. I have no idea why, unless she thought it would be funny to remind me of how arse-backward your seasons are up here.”

  He set the baked goods on the reception desk and looked at everyone. His brow creased into a frown when he realized that something was off.

  “So,” he asked in a quieter tone and his gaze grew a tad shifty. “What did I miss?”

  Remy raised a hand, palm outward. “Hold on a minute,” he instructed, “while I try to think of where to begin.”

  Chapter Seven

  Ben Gurion Airport, Israel

  Shortly before her plane landed, Taylor excused herself to the bathroom, where she’d applied sunscreen lotion to her exposed face and neck. The flight had eaten up the remainder of the night and the sun was recently risen, although she had managed to mostly shield herself from it with her hat and scarf.

  But there was still a certain amount of pain. She’d also had to apply subtle command powers to the people near her to keep them from noticing the rather severe sunburn she’d begun to develop.

  Now, finally, her feet were back on the earth, although the deadly fireball was already rising in the sky and threatened to make her efforts that much more difficult.

  Emerging from her flight and navigating the airport had not been difficult. There were a few routine security procedures, but the fact that El Al had permitted her to board in the States, to begin with, carried enough weight to expedite the process. It was little more than a passport check, customs, and an official reading her the basics.

  Now, she stood near the curb and waited for a suitable taxi to drive past as she gazed at the landscape through her dark-tinted glasses.

  There was grass there, but she perceived the dry, rocky soil beneath. It wasn’t full desert—the land was not totally barren until one pressed farther inland and more to the south—but still, it was so different from the moist, temperate, and sometimes chilly landscapes around New York.

  Or England, for that matter.

  A cab approached and something about its driver gave off the right vibration. Relieved, she flagged it down and it slowed to a stop directly in front of her.

  She’d been about to simply climb into the back seat and pull her suitcase in with her, but her phone buzzed in her pocket at that precise moment. During the brief distraction, the driver exited, took her luggage, and loaded it into the rear compartment while she slipped the cell from her coat.

  She glanced at the screen, frowned, and returned the device to its abode almost immediately. Then, she seated herself and allowed the driver to close the door for her.

  He returned to his position behind the wheel and looked at her with an inquisitive arch to his thick eyebrows. A portly, olive-skinned man in late middle age, he struck her as a reliable, professional sort, although something about her exotic appearance had intrigued him all the same.

  “Hello, and thank you for taking my bag,” she said. “Do you speak English?”

  She had a rudimentary grasp of Hebrew and was moderately fluent in Arabic, but sticking to English would fit better with her assumed travel persona.

  “Yes,” the man confirmed. “Where are you going?”

  She gave him the address of a hotel west of Jerusalem where she’d booked a room during the flight.

  “That is long drive,” he remarked, “but I can take you.” He pointed to a sign which displayed a detailed breakdown of the cab company’s rates.

  “Yes,” she responded. “That is fine.”

  As expected, he ventured a few friendly questions during the trip but only enough to satisfy his basic curiosity. He did not pry beyond that. Taylor gave him the same story she’d told the security officer at JFK. It wasn’t too far from the truth, anyway.

  When they arrived at her destination, she asked a question of her own before she stepped out.

  “There is another place I must go,” she began. “Can you wait ten or fifteen minutes for me to check in at this hotel? I can pay you for it.”

  She calibrated her voice with the right mixture of undertones. A small touch of imperious confidence, a dash of feminine vulnerability, and the suggestion of an appeal to his professional duties. She was unsurprised when he agreed.

  “Thank you. I will get my own suitcase if you open the boot. Trunk. Rear, whatever.”

  He chuckled and nodded.

  Taylor climbed out, retrieved her luggage, and approached the hotel, an off-white building of understated elegance hemmed in by lovely palm fronds. As she climbed the broad steps and entered the reception area through the front doors, she could feel the driver’s continued fascination. He wanted to know where she was going next.

  It was almost a shame that, after he’d taken her there, she would have to ensure that he forgot. He might dream vaguely of a small, dark, woman who had stirred his curiosity, but none of the details of her visit to his country would remain in his memory.

  Most definitely, it would be safer for everyone that way.

  The hotel’s lobby matched its exterior. It was bright, clean, modern, subtly beautiful, and somewhat minimalistic. In a surprisingly wistful mood, she could not help contrasting the place to the older, European style of ornate luxury she was once accustomed to.

  At the reception desk, she showed her reservation credentials to an energetic young woman who spoke excellent English and seemed rather distracted. She must have had plans for the evening. As such, the girl did not bother to ask unnecessary questions about sunburn and the check-in process took only a few minutes.

  Taylor accepted her keycard with a nod and a smile and went to find her room, which was on the second floor. Sleeping away from the earth might prove difficult, but it also gave her a small amount of extra security since the hotel’s only side exits were fire escapes, complete with alarms.

  The vampire wasted no time. She examined the room quickly—nice, unspecial, and serviceable—and retrieved a couple of things she might need from her suitcase. Briskly, she closed and locked the case, slid it into the back of the closet, and returned to her cab.

  The driver gave no sign of being irritated by waiting for her. She’d taken only ten and a half minutes, well within the range of time she’d suggested.

  “Thank you,” she said again. “Now, the place I need to go to is in Jerusalem itself. Again, I am sorry for the long drive, but I am willing to pay and you’re helping me so much by doing this.”

  The man half-smiled. “Yes. Where in Jerusalem? I may not be able to go all the way to far eastern part…”

  She gave him the address.

  “Ah,” he acknowledged, “that is in the west. Good. Only a few more kilometers.”

  They passed close to the Jerusalem Forest on the slopes of the Judean Mountains, en route to the small, relatively out of the way commercial district that was her ultimate destination. It wasn’t too far from the Old City, either.

  For a moment, she wished she had more time to simply explore the area and take in its rich if turbulent history. It was rare for religious iconography to have any adverse effect on her unless it was specifically enchanted to do so. Otherwise, she liked feeling a connection to things from the past and Jerusalem had no shortage of those.

  The cab driver glanced up. “We are almost there.”

  “Ah, good.” Taylor smiled. “I think it would be nicer in the evening. The sun does not agree with me, I’m afraid.”

  The man squinted, and she realized that he’d probably taken the phrase “agree with” literally and needed a moment to process what she’d said. Then, he nodded.

  “There is more danger after dark, any place you go,” he pointed out. “So day is best. Still, you should be careful.”

  “Oh, I will.” She adjusted her sunglasses.

  The driver glanced at her again and she spared a moment to thank
fate that the myth about vampires casting no reflection in mirrors was indeed a myth. It would have made certain types of interactions far more hazardous if it were true.

  “I must say,” the man began and his voice thickened, “you are very beautiful. Please, do not take this the wrong way. I do not mean to…how you say, flirt. I only speak the way you would…praise a painting or a sunset.”

  For once, she decided to allow herself to be flattered.

  “Why, thank you. That is a nice thing to say.” Her understated but pleasant smile, in this case, was entirely genuine.

  The last few minutes of the drive passed in comfortable silence. The old, closely-crowded white and tan buildings, rose around them and the streets narrowed. Not many people were about, and only a few cars drove past.

  The driver slowed, and she could tell that he wasn’t really sure of the exact address, although they were on the correct street.

  “Do not worry,” she said to him. “We’re close. You may just drop me off here and I can find the place myself on foot.”

  He raised his thick eyebrows. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” She added a touch of finality to her tone.

  The man brought the cab to a stop at the edge of the street. She paid him and tipped him generously, and he accepted it almost with sheepish embarrassment.

  There was one more thing, though.

  The vampire stood beside the driver’s door and the man rolled down the window to drink in the sight of her. She made eye contact and held it.

  “Most of this,” she said in a voice that was barely a whisper, “you will forget. The shadow of a pleasant dream shall remain. But none who mean harm to me or you will discover the slightest detail of our encounter.”

  The dark brown of his eyes almost vanished as the pupils grew, seemingly swallowed by her own black irises. This was followed by a curious sensation of soft light, deep-red, and she snapped her eyelids shut. That ended it.

  By the time the driver returned to normal perception and blinked in half-dazed confusion, Taylor had already turned away. He could not see her face.

  “Thanks again,” she said and altered her voice slightly from its usual pitch, “and enjoy your drive back to Ben Gurion to pick up your next fare.”

  Then, she was gone.

  She heard the car drive away slowly as though the man within it tried to determine where he was and how to get back to the airport. By then, she’d already slipped into the shadows between the buildings, the shadows cast by lampposts, and even the shadows cast by strolling people who barely noticed she was there.

  Soon, she found the place she sought—an antique shop, whose sign bore the image of a Coptic Cross. A single light burned within. The proprietor was open for business.

  The vampire smiled and stepped through the door.

  Flushing, Queens, New York

  Remington straightened his tie, adjusted his cufflinks, and wiped the sweat from his palms with a rag before he ran a hand through his hair. It had, to the best of his memory, been a while since the last time he ran through that many nervous reactions in so short a time.

  In fact, it was probably because he wasn’t nervous. He was merely “in the zone.”

  “Okay,” he told his minuscule companion, “this appears to be the place.”

  Specifically, it was the abode of the man whom Bobby had referred to as Mr Weird Interview Guy.

  Before they’d left the agency’s offices, Remy had called Detullio, the private detective to whom they’d outsourced a little of their workload.

  “Heyyyyy there, buddy,” he had greeted the man. “You’re not on your way over here already, are you? No? Good, because we need to head out anyway, so I thought we’d save you a trip by meeting to discuss things…uh, somewhere. Your place? Or maybe a café? Or if all else fails, we can simply drive around the block in Taylor’s—I mean, my car.”

  The man had been a little irritable and flustered since he wasn’t overly confident in the security and privacy of the circumstances, but given that he seemed busy enough himself, the advantage of not having to drive to Bushwick had finally convinced him.

  Remy had picked him up at a corner shop near his house down in Gravesend—he refused to reveal his home address—and they’d driven to a deli about half a mile away. Having filled up on donuts, he didn’t order anything. But Detullio looked like a man who had a great fondness for large sandwiches, so the trip would have looked profoundly un-suspicious to anyone who might have taken an interest.

  “Okay, so,” the rotund PI had said between mouthfuls of cold cuts and mayonnaise, “this guy I spoke to, his name is Singh—you know, a Sikh, a nice enough fella. I lied by omission, though, when I said all he’d seen was guys in dark suits standing around.”

  He had raised an eyebrow at that. “Oh really? Go on, then. And don’t be shy. Some of the shit we’ve dealt with is weird enough that nothing—and I mean nothing—will shock me.”

  Detullio hadn’t exactly made him a liar, but he’d tested his honesty when he described the man as having also seen something else. Judging by the description, it was clearly a person mutated into monstrousness by Snow White.

  “Ugh,” he had quipped when his contact finished his story, “I can see why you didn’t want to say that over the phone.” His skin crawled at the memory of having been attacked by junkies who’d shot up with that crap.

  “Yeah, no shit.” The PI had grunted and finished his sandwich in one final huge bite. A little of the mayo and meat-juice fell onto Taylor’s car seat, but neither of them had paid it any heed. “Word on the street is that Snow White is everywhere now and that she makes bath salts look like pot. Remember bath salts? It practically turned people into zombies.”

  Remington remembered. He’d come close to trying them himself once.

  Their discussion over, he’d taken Detullio to where they’d met up and after he’d settled his fee, he’d given Remy Singh’s address so he could conduct his own follow-up interview.

  He’d returned to the Tesla and informed Riley that they’d drive directly to Flushing.

  “Okay,” she’d agreed. She had lain low in the back seat during the trip to the deli. As he’d suspected, the PI was unable to see the preternatural. “Where’s that?”

  “North Queens.” He’d sighed. “Of course we hired a PI who lives basically on the complete opposite side of western Long Island.”

  Traffic wasn’t too bad, relatively speaking, on either Belt Parkway or 678, and they made it in about thirty-five minutes.

  Now, he stood before the housing block where Singh apparently lived. Riley floated behind his shoulder. As a precaution, they’d decided she should stay behind him and out of sight, at least at first. If the man had indeed seen a mutated druggie, it might have opened his eyes to the preternatural realm.

  Remington approached the door of number six and knocked. When no one answered after about forty seconds, he rang the doorbell for good measure. After a moment, he heard footsteps approaching from within.

  A muffled voice beyond the door asked, “Yes, hello?”

  “Hi,” he replied, “I’m Remington Davis, an associate of Mr Detullio. You spoke to him a day or two ago, right? I wanted to follow up on that and ask you a few questions.” The man was probably watching him through the peephole, so he kept his physical demeanor as businesslike as his tone of voice.

  The individual responded with a groan. “Oh, no.” This was followed by a stream of low muttering that he couldn’t make out. It may well have been in the man’s native language. Fortunately, at the end of the grumbled spiel, the locks clicked and the door itself swung open.

  Standing just beyond the threshold was a tall man, sleepy-eyed with a well-groomed black beard and mustache and a blue turban wound around his hair.

  “Hi,” said Remy and grimaced in an officious kind of way. “Are you Mr. Ranj Singh?”

  The man nodded. “Yes. And you said your name was Davis. May I please ask, on whose behalf are you here?”


  Clearly, it seemed to Remy, merely saying he was an associate of Detullio’s wasn’t quite good enough. Then again, for all Mr Singh knew, he might be a mob hitman come to silence him for what he’d witnessed. He was brave to have even opened the door.

  “Moonlight Detective Agency,” he said and produced a card from his jacket’s breast pocket. “A private investigation firm. We’re actually the ones carrying out the investigation and outsourced some of our work to Mr. Detullio due to being overburdened lately.”

  Singh blinked and took the card, read it, and checked both sides. “I see. Very well. Come in, please, although I must ask you to remain in the living room.”

  Nodding, Remy stepped forward as Singh moved aside. He motioned behind his back for Riley to follow him but to remain out of plain sight. It occurred to him that even if Singh could see her, she probably had some kind of spell to make herself invisible. He only prayed that she wasn’t too distracted by thoughts of the goddamn mall to think of that.

  The tall man’s apartment was dark but tidy and filled with the rather appetizing aromas of recent cooking. Singh shut the door behind him, circled, and motioned to a nearby couch.

  The investigator seated himself. “Thanks.” As he settled, the other man pulled a chair closer.

  The man took a long breath of air. Something about his demeanor was strangely resigned as though he had hoped to be done with this business but knew, now, that he’d have to answer more questions about it. “What is it you would like to know, Mr Davis? And would you like a cup of coffee?”

  He held a hand up. “No, thank you, I had coffee earlier. And I’d like to know exactly what it is you saw and where. As Detullio probably mentioned, we’re running a missing persons case and we suspect that this mysterious warehouse may be connected to it.”

  “Yes,” the man answered him, “of course. The warehouse is not far—perhaps one half of a mile or less. I often take walks in the evenings in that direction, and that is when I saw it.”

  His almost narcoleptic demeanor changed. He’d grown more alert in his sudden discomfort.