Bite Back 05 - Angel Stakes

by Mark Henwick

  We ran the length of it, trusting in our wolf eyes. It was short, squeezed between blank cinderblock walls covered in graffiti. The only occupant of the alley was an old hobo, who sat hugging his legs to his chest, cowering beside his shopping cart.

  He had a hood pulled down over his face and his whole body was trembling.

  I took Billie in case there was a problem with language, but I waved the others away.

  I knelt down in front of him.

  In the tiny gap between his hood and his knees I could see his eyes staring fearfully out at me.

  “Hi. We’re not here to hurt anyone. Are you okay?”

  “I’m good.” His voice was like leaves in a wind, rustling out from behind his knees. “Thanks. People don’t ask me that much, no more.”

  “Did you see a young girl come down here? Gray pants, black shirt. Pretty girl.”

  “Oh, yeah. Angel. Yeah, I saw her in the city too.” He giggled and his shoulders relaxed a bit. His face emerged from the barrier he’d made. “I saw lots of her. Lots and lots. So many! In the windows in the city. I’m glad they let them out. There was only one came here though. Why would they want to come here? Nothing here. Except me.”

  He looked sad.

  “This is not a girl called Angel, right?”

  “I don’t know what she’s called. She’s pretty like an angel. But you mustn’t say that, ’cos the priest doesn’t like it.”

  Okay. Pretty girl. Maybe Tamanny. In windows? Did he mean he saw her face on TVs in store windows? I could hope.

  “Where did she go?”

  “Heaven.”

  Billie had had enough. She grunted and turned away.

  But the hobo might have seen something, and that was more than we had from anywhere else. I was still hoping.

  “Why do you say heaven?”

  “Big black car came. You see them, you know someone is going to heaven.”

  “A hearse?”

  He frowned.

  “No. Not like that. Big black car goes by. See yourself in the windows. Bang, bang, bang. Someone goes to heaven.” He raised one shaky hand and pointed across the alley. “She was there. By the dumpster. Sitting small like me. Big black car came. Then she wasn’t there. Gone to heaven.”

  I ran across the street to where he’d pointed.

  Someone had made a hideout from stinking trash bags, but it was empty.

  Billie came up behind me.

  “Yeah, maybe he saw her, and maybe he saw light reflecting on a puddle. I gotta say, he’s not all there, Amber.”

  “You’re right. He’s not,” I said, looking down at the ground and feeling the world slipping away beneath me. “But Tamanny was here.”

  I knelt down and Billie looked over my shoulder.

  In the gutter was a shoe. A red, high-heeled shoe: pretty, impractical, and expensive.

  No way she’d have left it, if she’d had a choice.

  “Somehow, they found her,” I said.

  Chapter 52

  It was hot in the police interview room. I’d asked for the temperature to be lowered, but their promises to do it were empty. All part of the procedure.

  I’d failed. I’d told Tamanny she could trust me with her life, and now…

  Forsythe had her. Whatever had happened or been about to happen in the club, he couldn’t let Tamanny tell her story. However difficult it might have been to prove, his TV show and reputation wouldn’t survive Tamanny making claims against him. On the other hand, if she just disappeared, that’d probably boost his ratings.

  Would he sell her as a sex slave to his contacts outside of the country?

  Or would he kill her?

  How long did we have to save her?

  Billie and the Belles were out searching, for whatever good that did. The surprise was, Billie had gotten the rest of the LA packs to join her. Even Pasadena.

  And the Heights alpha had smooth-talked his way into the hotel and stolen some of Tamanny’s clothes, so now every werewolf in LA knew her scent.

  Yelena and Elizabetta were trying to narrow the search by listing properties that had anything to do with Forsythe and his show. But there was just too much data and no information.

  Which was why I was here, in the early hours of the morning. The police might have a lead we didn’t know about.

  I was beginning to doubt my decision to come in.

  I’d forgotten the name of the detective. He was fleshy. He enjoyed his donuts, by the look of him. Exercise—not so much. His face was going cherry with the heat. Sweat glistened on his forehead and stained his shirt.

  I’d gone through the day’s events with him. Meeting Tamanny. The phone call. The race to South Central. Finding the shoe.

  I’d gone through it four times.

  “So, let me get this straight,” he said. “You allege you asked her to throw her cell away so she couldn’t be tracked.”

  “That’s what I’ve told you four times already.”

  He grunted and made a big show of flicking back methodically through his notebook. He’d written everything down. Four times.

  I ignored him.

  I’d asked to see Jefferson Reed and been told my request would be passed along.

  Reed was already suspicious of Forsythe, and as a lieutenant in Major Crimes, he had the authority to act on our information. Elizabetta had tried calling him directly, but she hadn’t been able to reach him. She might still be trying for all I knew, but there was no sign of the man himself.

  I hated being here.

  I needed to find Tamanny. For her, but also for myself. Since Bian had forced me to realize what else had happened the night of my rape, the stuff I’d repressed, Fay Daniels had become a sort of symbol for me, for all the girls who must have suffered at Forsythe’s hands. If I could find her and help her, maybe that would be a step toward redemption for my failure to say anything twelve years ago. But Fay was in the wind. Tamanny was right here. Somewhere.

  Maybe saving Tamanny would be my redemption.

  “Yeah. You did say that,” the detective said eventually. “But here’s the thing: we can’t track it. The number exists, but we’ve got no idea who owns it, or where it is. There’s no proof it belongs to Miss Harper.”

  “The battery’s probably dead. You can find the calls made from the cell. There’ll be a couple to my number and one to her mother. What does her mother say about that call?”

  He ignored that. “You don’t even know if she threw it away. Anyway, what made you think someone else might be able to track it? It’s hard enough for us to get it tracked.”

  I just stared at him.

  He threw up his hands. “You come in here with this list of wild assertions and allegations against Mr. Forsythe and Judge Veringen, without any proof or reasoning, and you’re sitting there refusing to answer questions—”

  “I’ve answered every question four times at least. How many do you need?”

  Veringen, not Veringham as Tamanny heard it. Now I had something useful, at last.

  “Ms. Farrell, you don’t seem to be taking this seriously.”

  “I’m not taking it seriously? When a child is kidnapped, the first twenty-four hours are crucial. You know that. You’ve wasted four of them talking to me. I’d say you’re the one not taking it seriously, detective.”

  Enough trying the legal path. Time to split. Maybe Judge Veringen would provide the key to this.

  I got up.

  “We haven’t been idle,” he was saying. “We’re conducting inquiries—”

  Reed came in carrying a pale green folder.

  “Thanks, Bob,” he said. “I’ll take it from here.”

  Bob left without a word. Reed tossed the folder onto the desk, pushed the chair back and sat. He hitched the fabric of his pants and crossed his legs, leaning back in the seat.

  I sat back down and he looked silently at me.

  The temperature of the air started to fall. Air conditioning rather than the lieutenant’s express
ion.

  One step forward and two back?

  I waited him out. I was a graduate of hard stares training from people he couldn’t imagine.

  “What are you doing in LA?” he said finally.

  “I’m Head of Security for the Kingslund Group and we’re currently—”

  He held up his hand.

  “I know all that shit.” He flicked open the folder. “Army. Police. PI. Head of Security at Kingslund. Shit. Who are you really, Farrell? Homeland Security? Defense Intelligence Agency? CIA? FBI?”

  “Head of Security at Kingslund.”

  He slammed a hand on the table.

  “Army records sealed. Police records sealed. Crazy shit goes down in Denver this year and guess what I find? The FBI has tried slapping a cover on that as well. I go hunting federal databases and ten minutes later I have a very polite call from Washington asking me the fucking nature of my interest.” He uncrossed his legs and leaned on the table. “What the hell does a business like Kingslund need with a Special Forces Head of Security? Oh. Wait. Don’t tell me. That’s sealed as well.”

  He glared at me, breathing heavily.

  “You are fucking me around, Farrell. You and your friends. I’ve had enough. You come in here and tell me you’re not with some federal agency. You come in like the fucking cavalry and destroy a covert operation that I have been running for two years. Two years,” he yelled. “Let me tell you something.” He started hammering his finger on the table for emphasis. “You better have a safety line all the way back into Washington, because if you don’t, whatever’s left when I finish with you is going to get reamed in the courts by Forsythe.”

  I leaned over the table as well, so our faces were inches apart.

  “But you know I’m right, don’t you, Lieutenant?” I said, quietly. “You know that sick bastard has kidnapped the girl. You know what’s likely to happen to her.”

  “Yeah. That’s a real problem, and it’s one you caused.”

  “If you think giving Tamanny my number at lunchtime is what caused Forsythe to set up whatever disgusting abuse he planned that evening—”

  “No—”

  “So, which would you prefer? Tamanny realizes it’s hopeless and goes along with it, or she gets out of the building because she thinks there might be one person who—”

  “One person who manages to achieve precisely nothing, except blow my entire operation.”

  “He’s guilty! We both know it.”

  “So? I don’t know how they let you operate in Denver, but here we have something called the rule of law. And by that, you’re the one with the problems.”

  We stopped.

  We were both right, and it got us nowhere.

  I slumped back. It was clear the police weren’t going to help. Just the opposite, in fact.

  “You want to know how it looks to every other person in this building?” he said. “You want to know what Forsythe’s bitch of a fucking lawyer is saying right this minute out there?”

  I didn’t want to know, but I had to. He was going to tell me anyway.

  “You’re part of some kind of cult that kidnaps kids. You con your way into her hotel by posing as a journalist. You manage to persuade her to run away. You lure her down into South Central, which you conveniently make a police-free zone by instigating a potential riot and under cover of that, you abduct her. Then you have the balls to come out and blame her mother and her employer.”

  His voice calmed down. He’d gotten it off his chest. Most of it.

  “But you don’t believe that,” I said.

  His lips narrowed, but there was something else in his look now.

  “No. Shit, I believe everything you’ve said about the girl, but I’m compromised.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I had to do what I could. I went to bat for you. Now we’re liable to be screwed for conducting an unsanctioned, unauthorized operation against prominent citizens. One of them, just for your information, plays golf with the mayor, and the other, for Christ’s sake, is a judge.”

  As Elizabetta had said, Reed was a good man.

  “But surely, it doesn’t matter if it was a personal investigation you started? It’s a legitimate case.”

  “Not unless we have proof, which we don’t. And as for personal, Farrell, the stuff that the FBI hasn’t covered up is where you were at school, and who was there with you.”

  He didn’t say any more. Didn’t ask questions that were fair for him to ask, in his position.

  A good man.

  We’d said as much as we could to each other.

  “Am I under arrest?” I asked.

  “No. Not yet.”

  I got up.

  “You’re going to have to leave it to us now, Farrell, or show your federal credentials.”

  I nodded.

  “I mean it,” he said. “That bitch of a lawyer, Spiegler, she will skin you alive and suspend all police activity on this inquiry if you give her so much as a suspicion of acting outside official sanction.”

  “I hear you.”

  But there were methods of operation that were outside the understanding of the courts.

  If it was that or leave Tamanny in Forsythe’s hands, there was no contest.

  Skylur—well, I’d have to handle that.

  With Reed behind me, I walked down the corridor and emerged in the bull pen.

  “Shit,” muttered Reed at the sight of a group arguing in the middle of the floor. There was no way around them.

  From the conversation, I gathered the stone-faced man facing me was the Major Crimes captain. He was being berated by a woman with her back to me. She had short black hair, lawyer’s files and a slim gray business suit that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a fashion show. I gathered this was Forsythe’s lawyer, Spiegler, and she was trying to rip the Captain a new one.

  He wasn’t backing down.

  “I repeat, we’ve done nothing that’s not standard procedure in these cases,” he said. His eyes flicked to register Reed and me. From his expression, he was looking forward to passing the grief on.

  And Forsythe. Standing there, hands in pockets, radiating aggrieved innocence.

  My steps faltered.

  I hadn’t seen him since that night. His hair was still carelessly floppy, the pose still elegant, the clothes so fashionable, but now I could see behind the façade. The hairspray, the posing practice in the mirror, the expensive tailor.

  And the eyes. How could my seventeen-year-old self not have seen behind the eyes?

  The shock of it all had me stumbling, coming to a halt.

  I hated that he could have that effect on me. My guts were churning. My vision narrowed down. Wolf focused. Wolf smells. Wolf sounds.

  Can’t lose it here. Can’t.

  I didn’t dare move. If I moved, I would change, and I’d tear his throat out.

  Close up! Close up! They’re yelling and the camera’s cold eye is staring right at me and Tanner’s grunting and shouting and thrusting.

  I felt the wolf starting to rise.

  No. No.

  Spiegler turned.

  Shock on shock.

  A smirk on her face, she slapped an envelope against my chest and I caught it instinctively.

  Injunction…legal suit…defamation…harassment… Words flowed past me.

  My wolf twisted in confusion. She wanted to come out. She wanted to kill. She didn’t understand. I didn’t understand.

  No. No.

  Movement. Forsythe’s group had gone. I was being guided through the doors. More people. My House.

  Outside.

  Alex was murmuring soothing encouragement in one ear as Julie spoke in the other.

  The Belles would be tailing Forsythe and Spiegler. At least two bikers per target, working in rotation, another team on standby. Julie had briefed the Were on how to run a tail using teams and handovers.

  The Heights would take the surveillance on the judge as soon as he was identified.
<
br />   “Veringen,” I said numbly. “His name is Veringen.” I spelled it out.

  Keith turned aside to make a call to the Heights.

  Every other Were not on surveillance was scouring the city for a clue to where Tamanny was.

  “Just a matter of time, Boss.”

  There was a silence. We’d reached the car.

  “Boss?”

  I nodded. “Yes. Good ops. We’ll do all that,” I said.

  “Are you okay?”

  “No.”

  “What’s up?” Alex slipped an arm around me.

  “That woman…” My whole life seemed upside down suddenly.

  “Which? The mother or that bitch lawyer?” Julie asked.

  “The lawyer, hey. So she got under your skin.” Alex gave me a squeeze. “You’re okay now.”

  They laughed, but it trailed away into silence.

  “That woman,” I said again. My mouth didn’t want to cooperate, as if by not saying it, it wouldn’t be true. It couldn’t be true.

  “Spiegler?”

  I nodded.

  “It’s not her real name. That’s Fay,” I said, blinking. “That’s Fay Daniels.”

  Chapter 53

  The conversation on the drive back to Hollywood Hills was heated, but I took little part.

  Elizabetta was arguing that Fay was a victim of Stockholm Syndrome. Yelena thought she’d been evil all along. Alex hadn’t come with us.

  I couldn’t focus. Diana had warned me that I would need lots of sleep during my recovery period—that fighting it and staying awake would have a bad effect. She was right; I felt like I had a concussion. I tried to get back into it, and failed. And despite every argument my tired mind could muster, my House sent me to bed when we arrived back at the house.

  “Alex is out there. I can help.” I said.

  “Yes, honey.” Jen didn’t bother to argue with me. She wrapped her arms around me and pulled my face against her neck.

  Her scent was soothing, like sunlit ivy tangling around a building until everything becomes still. I breathed slow, deep; the scent was a wonderful blend of her own fragrance, that made me think of jasmine and sea salt, and my marque.

  My fangs made a halfhearted attempt to appear, and she chuckled.