Bite Back 05 - Angel Stakes

by Mark Henwick

  I got up.

  A curved staircase with metal bannisters rose up to the bedrooms, and matching steps went down into the basement. A door to one side of the hall revealed a show-kitchen with glossy, granite slab surfaces, walk-in pantry and every cooking utensil and ingredient hidden away in alder wood cabinets. Only the breakfast bar looked as if it had ever been used. The fridge and freezer were empty; switched off and doors propped ajar. The pantry stocked only a few canned items and sealed plastic boxes of cereals and dried pastas. The washing machine was empty and the work surfaces polished.

  I started to think this was a waste of time.

  The yard lights went on.

  Shit.

  Beams flooded through the sidelight windows on either side of the front door.

  We pressed ourselves into a shadow pool just inside the kitchen.

  “Are you sure about that alarm?” I said.

  She nodded.

  If this wasn’t the police responding to an alarm, what was it?

  I’d shielded the flashlight; no way someone could see that. But had we been seen breaking in at the back?

  A dog barked.

  “Busted,” Yelena said.

  “Maybe.”

  I slithered back into the hall. No one was peering through the windows yet. I ran to the front door and listened.

  “What’s up, fella? What’s that?”

  More excited barking. Not the police. A dog walker. And a dog who smelled something he wasn’t expecting to smell here.

  We didn’t need this. We wanted to be in and out of this place.

  Well…what had worked in Albuquerque might work here.

  I imagined Cameron on the other side of the door. Her prickly, powerful dominance swelling up, pushing at me through the door. My own reaction to it.

  The barking stopped, cut off abruptly.

  I could imagine the dog saying oh, shit.

  “What’s up, fella?” The guy’s voice was puzzled now.

  A whine. A scratching sound. And the feeling of the poor dog slinking away.

  I felt rotten.

  “That was fun.” Yelena took a quick peek through the windows. “They’re gone.”

  “Let’s do the study,” I said.

  It was decorated in old Colonial style. A heavy wooden desk with an inlaid green leather top stood facing a library of expensively bound reference books.

  I started on the books, checking if there was anything hidden behind them.

  It was all clean and dust free. That didn’t tell me Forsythe was an avid reader. More likely he fired any cleaner who didn’t have the house spotless for his visits.

  His visits. No way this house was used a couple of times a month.

  Yelena worked through the desk.

  “It doesn’t feel used at all,” I said. “This is all for show.”

  She nodded. “Nothing in the drawers but stationery supplies,” she said. “Not even locked. No secret compartments.”

  I let her get on with it, running my latex-covered fingers over the ornaments placed on one of the library’s unused shelves. There was an antique spinning globe of the earth, a bronze Tibetan prayer bowl, some African soapstone carvings, a smooth jade Buddha.

  “Ah. There’s a laptop,” Yelena said.

  My fingers slipped inside the Tibetan bowl. Something moved at the bottom and I lifted it out. I let the thin beam of the flashlight play on it. A casino chip. Bellagio was printed on the outside arc, and $25,000 in the middle.

  Yelena came to my shoulder and peered at it. “Big chip to leave lying around.”

  I shrugged. He was rich enough, it might mean nothing to him.

  “What can you do with the laptop?”

  “Nothing here, but give me fifteen minutes,” Yelena said. “I could take the drive out and clone it. We can look at what’s on it later.”

  “Do it,” I said. “I’ll finish the rest of the house.”

  I went upstairs. It was a simple layout, with three bedrooms and a main bathroom. I might as well have stepped into a hotel suite. Closets were empty except for hangers and air fresheners. The beds were made, and even had hotel-style bed covers. There were disconnected clock radios on bedside tables. The bathroom was well stocked with unused toiletries in high-end branded boxes.

  The master bedroom was similar. Made bed, bathroom with toiletries and generic medicine—painkillers and cough syrups. The closets had a man’s expensive clothes and shoes, socks, shirts and underwear still in the packaging, a white bathrobe, puffy towels.

  I checked the drawers, half-expecting to find Gideon’s Bible.

  Nothing. Not even dust underneath the bed.

  Assuming the information about Forsythe leaving LA every couple of weeks was right, where was he going to? Not Denver—or at least, not this place.

  Everything about it felt slightly wrong. It didn’t fit in with his image. It wasn’t a house, so much as a permanent private hotel room that he needed from time to time. Maybe a place he’d used before, until something better came along.

  I went back to the ground floor.

  Yelena was still working. She’d gone into the pantry so that the light from the screen couldn’t be seen outside.

  One place left for me to search. The basement.

  I stood in the hall and listened. Nothing, even to my wolf ears, except the near-soundless hum of my laptop.

  Why the apprehension?

  There was a short curve of stairs down to a mini-landing and a plain door. I took the steps and stopped again.

  The little stairwell was the sort of place that a family’s clutter would accumulate in a house that was lived in. Coats, scarves, ski hats, kid’s sled, outdoor shoes. Even a bachelor staying here infrequently would use it. Maybe keep a bicycle here. Sports gear. Something.

  It was empty and it smelled of air freshener.

  The door was locked. An internal door down to a basement with no other access. Locked.

  Why? What’s inside?

  I checked the edges of the door for any obvious wires that might show other security alarms, but if there were any, I couldn’t see them. The lock wasn’t anything advanced—a standard lever lock.

  Easy.

  Five clicks and a twist. The bolt slid back with a quiet snick.

  I pocketed my picks and gripped the handle.

  Basement. Forsythe.

  Not that basement. Not that girl. I’m in control.

  The uneasiness just seemed to swell as I pushed the door open, my wolf senses reaching.

  Silent. Air stale. Dust. Old scents. Hints of beer and takeout food. Sweat. Excitement?

  There were no external windows to the basement, so even with wolf sight, I was faced with a depthless dark.

  I let a sliver leak from my flashlight.

  Gasped.

  Figures in cloaks stood around the room.

  “Amber?” Hissed from the kitchen.

  “Spooked myself, sorry. It’s nothing,” I lied. “Nothing.”

  I sat down heavily on the last step.

  Not a secret meeting of the Klan.

  The humor felt flat.

  I didn’t need the light, didn’t need to explore, and I was still sitting there, hugging my legs, when Yelena came down.

  “Got it copied. There’s something you should…” She stopped. “What’s wrong?”

  “Close the door and turn the light on,” I said.

  It was a big basement, nearly as broad and long as the house above it. That much I’d sensed sitting in the dark, listening to my heartbeat.

  The light came on and Yelena gave a wordless grunt of surprise.

  I got up and lifted one of the dust sheets that’d given me a shock.

  “Gimballed disco lights on tripods,” I said. “Double up as photo studio lights.”

  I turned and pointed toward the back, where there was a broad table shape hidden under more dust sheets. “DJ station. Probably a computer system these days instead of turntables. Speakers. Video camer
as.”

  A worktable ran the length of the back wall. “For the beer and pizzas.”

  Yelena walked to the side wall and parted the drapes there.

  “Wall of plasma screens.”

  And at the front, the only difference from the basement at his parents’ house all those years ago—a huge sofa. The kind that folded out into a bed.

  “This is sick,” she said. “Completely sick.” She’d been there at my sessions. She’d seen, through my eyes, seen this basement.

  “He doesn’t use this house often,” I said.

  My voice was level, but my whole body felt cold.

  “He’s fixated.” I waved at the layout. “This isn’t an accident. This is what he does, how he does it. A party with his friends. Then he drugs a woman and rapes her. He does this over and over. Maybe after all this time, he can’t do it any other way.”

  I was guessing, but it felt like picking a lock in my mind. You twisted and probed, unable to see what was happening, and then suddenly there was a point where you could feel the tumblers lining up and you knew the lock was open.

  “And if he’s not doing it here, he’s doing it somewhere else,” I said. “A place that has a basement just like this one.”

  Wherever it was he went on all those trips when people thought he was coming here.

  “You should see this.” Yelena sat down on the floor and opened the laptop. “I haven’t had time to look through all of it, though I’m guessing he wouldn’t leave anything really incriminating in this house. But there’s this…the drafts of publicity announcements for that new show Tove told us about.”

  Tomorrow’s Faces. Just as Tove had said.

  It was an expensive-looking press pack on the screen. The kind of images and text that the TV industry would blitz newspapers and magazines with to promote a show before its premiere.

  It was a talent show, specifically targeted at teenage girls from low-income backgrounds or depressed economic areas. Young girls, thirteen to fifteen. Promising fame and fortune for a special few—a Cinderella-type rags-to-riches story.

  Girls in poverty. Desperate to get out. Girls maybe without strong family support. Or access to lawyers if things went bad. Maybe even girls no one would miss if they disappeared.

  There was a sick certainty in the pit of my stomach.

  We’d gotten nothing from this house about his other criminal activities, but I was sure now that Forsythe was not an opportunistic rapist. He was a sadistic, organized rapist.

  And he had been since he’d raped me. Maybe even before.

  Now he had a show which was going to feed him with young girls desperate to make it in LA.

  He’d had twelve years of this kind of behavior because I’d let him. Because I’d run away.

  “Not your fault,” whispered Yelena, sensing what was going on in my mind.

  I couldn’t agree.

  “We have to go,” I said. “Or I’m going to vomit.”

  Chapter 44

  Yelena flew us into Van Nuys in the early morning.

  I envied her having something to focus on. I dozed restlessly, unable to fully relax, coming back time and again to blaming myself for what Forsythe had been able to do over the years. For what he might still do, if I didn’t stop him.

  It was still dark and Elizabetta was waiting for us with one of the Altau patrol vans and a security team. A stark reminder to me that there was more going on in LA than my intention to do something about Forsythe. I had responsibilities to the Athanate and the Were, but I intended to spend every minute I could spare getting something on Forsythe that could nail him to the wall. Or, failing that, finding a way to make him disappear without it coming back on me and the Athanate. Now that Ingram was involved in Emergence, I was beginning to realize we needed to watch our step as far as working outside the law. The last thing we needed was him telling the government that we were a bunch of lawless renegades.

  It was Yelena who broke the silence as we settled into the back of the van. “What do we need to know this time?”

  Elizabetta combed fingers through her long, blonde hair and closed her eyes for a moment.

  “Easy things first. Ibarre’s strategy of trying to undermine Skylur by discrediting you has gone nowhere for him. But what he has managed to do is to focus the meeting’s attention on the detail of possible plans for Emergence.”

  “Cart before horse,” I said, and she nodded.

  “Specifically, the meeting’s been looking at legal systems, because of Ibarre,” she went on. “Correia has jumped on this, pointing out that Skylur is calling for backing on Emergence without any detailed plan on how Athanate legal systems might interface with human legal systems.”

  “That’s crazy,” I said. “It depends on the governments of countries at the time. What’s Skylur supposed to do? Plan every single detail and caveat and alternative plan before they’ll agree that he can actually start the project?”

  Of course, Emergence had started back in Denver with Agent Ingram, but it was up to Naryn to decide who else would be allowed to know.

  “And it’s not just the government, it’s also dependent on the creed of the Athanate in any one country,” Yelena said.

  Elizabetta held up her hands. “There you have the last day and a half of debate. But everything may change now.”

  “Why?”

  We eased out onto 405. Traffic was still light, but getting heavier every minute.

  “Panethus and the Hidden Path are neck and neck,” Elizabetta said. “They argue points, they lose some, they gain some. However, Diakon Huang has indicated that today he will grace us with his official presence and join the debate. However they calculate the weight of his vote, he represents a large block, so whichever side of the argument Huang backs, wins.”

  “I’m supposed to stay away from him,” I said. “Did Skylur specifically say that I should attend the meeting today?”

  “Huang requested your attendance as liaison for the Were.” She grimaced. “Just don’t let him catch you without Skylur or Tarez around.”

  Crap.

  “Has Huang given any indication of which way he’s likely to go?” I asked.

  Elizabetta shook her head.

  That made me uneasy.

  Huang and the Empire might have an interest in the Assembly, but Kaothos was still what Huang was really after.

  Enough to make Huang come down on the side of Panethus, if there was a chance we could find her and Kaothos for him?

  What had Skylur said? Nothing is as important as Emergence. What if Huang persuaded him that the only way that Kaothos could work for Emergence was if she was embedded in an Empire Adept community?

  We came off Ventura and turned south on Hollywood. The van slowed in traffic.

  “There’s nothing more I can add to that at the moment,” Elizabetta said. Her heart rate ramped up and an evasive look came into her eyes. “But I have news on Forsythe.”

  I immediately felt a stab of guilt. I wasn’t responsible for making Elizabetta spy in the way she was—that was Skylur. But by using her to find out things about Forsythe, I had to share that responsibility.

  “I haven’t said how much I appreciate what you’re doing,” I said to Elizabetta. “Not just for me, for all of us.”

  Her smile was pale.

  “I’ve had a lot of support from you and your House.” She sighed and looked up at the roof of the van. “It’s…difficult. But you know, the worst is not what people think it is. For me, the worst thing is that Jefferson Reed’s actually a good man. A good man. He doesn’t deserve what’s happening. What I’m doing to him.”

  I wasn’t sure what to do, but I felt awkward not doing anything, so I took her hand and held it. This talk about Reed was a diversion; she was reluctant to say something. I’d wait; we had time.

  “I’m not sure how much longer it can go on with Jefferson,” she said. “Not because of any problem of mine. No, it was stupid of me to allow him to meet you two at the resta
urant.”

  “I understand,” I said. “No one can blame you.”

  She smiled again, a fleeting movement of her lips. She clearly thought someone would blame her.

  “Jefferson went from being a bit puzzled about what had happened to me since I left LA, to being downright suspicious after he met you. I found new data searches on his laptop for both of you, and of course that opens a whole new can of worms. Once he finds out how little he can find out about either of you, he’s going to start wondering what we’re all really up to. My position will be compromised, and you all will be on the LAPD’s radar.” She bowed her head. “Well, what happens, happens. I’ll need to tell Skylur today.”

  “We’ll tell him together.”

  “There’s another thing,” she said.

  “Hmm?” I could feel that this was another diversion. I was itching for her to get back to Forsythe.

  “Dante.”

  I felt a spurt of irritation at Dante. Was she going to get me into trouble with Skylur?

  “What?” I said. “She went AWOL. She’s back?”

  “No, but she did call Dominé.” Elizabetta ran a hand through her hair again. “She’s probably safe.”

  A chill in my belly: payback for my self-centered irritation at Dante.

  My House. Mine. ‘Probably’ wasn’t good enough. “Where?”

  “She’s got an unpaid job as a gofer on Forsythe’s new show. People do it all the time in the industry. You know, meet the stars, gain ‘experience’, catch a break.”

  Now it felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach. “What the hell does she think she’s doing?”

  Elizabetta managed a genuine smile at me.

  “She’s trying to impress you, Amber,” Elizabetta said. “Trying to prove she’s worthy. Worthy of your House. Not a liability, but your own intrepid spy. She’ll be safe enough if she keeps her head down. Anyway, even if he knew who she was, there’s nothing Forsythe could do on those sets. They’re full of witnesses.”

  “I…” I shut up. How could I say to her that my House shouldn’t risk themselves in any way to gain information on Forsythe, when I compared that to what Elizabetta herself was doing?