He took off his jacket, unloaded his weapons, and dropped to the bed. God, he was tired. Eyes closed, he prayed for rest, except sleep wouldn’t come. Instead, he pondered what he’d seen and it still didn’t make sense.
Darkness had fallen well before he’d done the smack-down on the security guard. With darkness would come the man’s transformation into the preternatural realm of monsters. Short of a stake through the heart, he would have become a vampire—not a body laid out for autopsy.
Unless…
Colin jumped up off the bed and headed to the shower, peeling off clothes as he went. He was naked and alert by the time he stepped beneath the spray. The water was cool and refreshing. His mind cleared instantly. Weariness vanished as if the water washed it down the drain.
“I’ll be a son of a bitch.” He slapped the wall, making water spray into his eyes. The sting made him blink.
He pictured the three women in the autopsy room: the tiny ME with the intense eyes; the beautiful Hispanic coroner he’d followed from Moses Lake; and the third, a petite and attractive black woman, who stood nervously in the background with a specimen case held tight in her hands. To the casual observer, they were simply three professional women performing the business of death, just doing their jobs.
He shook his head and propped both hands against the tile. Fresh water flowed down his back, cooling his skin and clearing his mind more fully as he whispered, “They knew.”
Chapter Three
Riah had an uneasy feeling about their intruder. She became even more uneasy when she found Brett, the evening security guard, in a crumpled heap just inside the rear door to the facility. The good news was Brett was still alive. The bad news…he was a big guy, and to take him down without a sound was an impressive feat. Nope, not good at all.
She couldn’t have been more than a few seconds behind the stranger and yet he’d slipped out of the building so fast, she’d lost sight of him. Riah still held an advantage. He was human and she wasn’t. No matter how fast he was, she was faster. If she had time, she could track him and find out exactly who he was.
Except she didn’t have time. Not right now anyway. She shut the door and waited to hear the click of the lock. One uninvited intruder a night was plenty. No one else was going to get through the door unless she let them in, although she wasn’t totally convinced the locked door would have stopped the last visitor even if Brett hadn’t opened it for him.
Why? Why would the man be so intent on coming into her facility he would risk not just the security guard but the cameras as well? She intended to find out. Riah checked Brett’s pulse, found it strong and steady. Before she headed back to the autopsy room, she placed a call to the Spokane police. As much as she’d like to keep this incident quiet, that wasn’t possible. The minute Brett became involved, it slipped out of her control. Because the morgue was located in the same complex as the police department, it took only a few minutes for an officer to arrive. As soon as she could make a graceful exit, she returned to Ivy.
“Who was that guy?” Ivy had her head down, her hands busy over the body on the table.
“I don’t know.”
Ivy looked up at Riah then, her dark eyes hazy behind the shield of her headgear. Dressed in green scrubs, her hair covered by a cap and her gloved hands slightly bloody, she looked a bit like she’d just stepped out of a horror movie. Though, in reality, it was horror. Certainly the path she and Ivy chose was macabre to some. It was the dirty business of death most people preferred not to think about.
It was more about life than death for Riah. She’d been undead a very long time and needed to understand why. What took her youth and turned her into something she hated to think about? She knew who it was, or perhaps more accurately what it was, that took her life on a dark winter night. She’d never forget him or how he’d looked when she destroyed him. There was a lot to be said about the teachings in the Old Testament––an eye for an eye.
Now she searched for something more concrete though elusive. She wanted to know what set her apart from Ivy and from Adriana. If she could discover that secret, perhaps she could find the key to her own salvation. No more blood, no more immortality, no more secrets.
Beneath the light green cap, Ivy’s brow wrinkled. “Odd,” she said as she stared down at the body.
Riah let out a breath and pulled a cap over her hair and a shield over her face. None of the blood or fluids encountered would harm her; she had just formed the habit during her many years of pretending to be human.
“What’s odd?” she asked Ivy when she once again stood at the table’s edge.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Ivy muttered. “We should see some sign of a struggle, but there’s nothing.” She picked up one of his hands and showed his smooth palm to Riah. “It’s like this guy let the vamp kill him. At least the last victim tried to fight. Why wouldn’t he put up a fight?”
The unmarred skin didn’t surprise her. It was so easy to lure a willing victim, though not one of the secrets of her past she’d shared with Ivy. She wasn’t about to now either. Instead she said, “Let’s see what this guy can tell us.” She moved to the other side of the table.
“Hey.” Adriana spoke from behind Ivy. “I’m going to my lab. I’ll call you later.” Adriana touched Riah lightly on the shoulder as she passed. Her fingers were warm even through the protective garment.
Riah nodded and forced her focus to the body. Adriana had plenty to do with her samples, and she needed to do her work here.
On the table, his chest was opened, the heart exposed. The damage that the small wooden spike had inflicted was clearly evident under the harsh fluorescent lights. “We’ll need to camouflage that.” Riah pointed to the ragged edges of the hole caused by the stake.
“You got it,” Ivy said, and picked up a scalpel to begin the work of making this body appear to be a run-of-the-mill homicide victim.
The autopsy was completed, notes made, and the victim once more secured in the back of Ivy’s van and on his way back to Moses Lake by a little past ten. Riah shrugged out of her bloody scrubs, washed up, then slipped on a soft leather jacket. She turned out the lights in the autopsy suite and walked down the hall.
Brett was busy in the main control room making his report to the uniformed police officer, and while she’d also been questioned about the intruder, she’d successfully pled ignorance. She should have told everyone about the tall stranger who barged into the autopsy room. She could have given a very accurate description. That she didn’t wasn’t only out of character, it was potentially dangerous. She didn’t choose to explore her reasons too deeply.
In her car, Riah reached into a cooler and pulled out a small, thick plastic bag. She sighed and accepted the inevitable. She needed the blood, and if she didn’t take it this way, her cravings would rule her. If she allowed that to happen…well, she didn’t want to think about how it would end.
She started the car and turned the heat on high. For a few minutes, she let the container rest on top of the heater vent. Taking it from a bag was bad enough. Ice-cold from the cooler was unbearable. Even a vampire had her limits.
Once the blood was gone and she felt refreshed and sated, she turned the heat down, put the car in Drive, and pulled through the security gate onto the city street. She intended to go directly home. Instead, she found herself heading north. Ten minutes later, she pulled off Northwest Boulevard and into the driveway of a tidy one-story house along the ridge of the hill overlooking the river. Adriana’s house. So much for good intentions.
For a long time, she sat in the car. Really, she should go home. Adriana would let her know tomorrow what, if anything, she’d learned. Except she didn’t want to go home. Not tonight. It might have been the visit by the strange man that had her so disquieted now. Maybe. Maybe not.
In all honesty, she’d been unsettled lately, as if something in her life was amiss. Perhaps it was anxiety over not making ground on her search for a cure. Again—maybe. Maybe not.
It still didn’t explain why she was sitting in Adriana’s driveway like some kind of stalker. Or perhaps it did. It’d be stupid to pretend she didn’t know Adriana was attracted to her. Christ almighty, she was over five hundred years old. She knew what attraction was when she saw it. She was also exceptionally good at deflecting it. Practice did make perfect after all.
Right now, she tried to tell herself she came to check on Adriana’s progress with the samples collected earlier. If it meant she’d have to spend a little quality time in close proximity to Adriana, well, then…okay, but it was all business. It was about the cure.
What a crock. Even to her it sounded stupid. She wasn’t fooling herself and it was a stretch to believe she could fool Adriana either.
For the first time in a very long time, Riah had the hots for a woman. And she had it bad. If she believed in love, she could almost convince herself she was falling in love with Adriana. Except her chance at love had died many, many centuries ago. This was simply lust.
She took a deep breath and swung the car door open. Riah would just go on in, ask Adriana what she’d found, and then go home. Yes, that’s what she’d do. This thing she was feeling would pass once she took a few minutes to chat with Adriana about business.
At the front door, Riah pushed the doorbell. It would take Adriana a minute to get to the door if she was downstairs in the lab, and that was fine since it would give her another minute to compose herself. When the door swung open immediately, Riah wasn’t sure what surprised her most: that Adriana was already at the door––or that she was naked.
*
By the time Ivy got the body tucked back into the cooler, the door locked, and the report notes uploaded, it was past midnight. Everything was in place for a properly signed death certificate listing the official cause of death as homicide by knife attack. Sure, the entire team at the lake this morning noticed the puncture wounds on the man’s neck. They’d even taken a dozen or so pictures to document the marks. That didn’t mean she had to write it up as a vampire attack. Like folks would accept it as the truth anyway. People didn’t believe preternatural creatures roamed somewhere between shadow and light. Even if they did, deep in their hearts they didn’t want to. Ignorance was bliss.
The majority of cultures throughout the world had some version of a vampire. They were, for the most part, relegated to fiction and folklore. Ivy would be more than happy to leave them all there, except she couldn’t. She wasn’t particularly fond of the lessons she’d had to learn the last decade or so. It wasn’t fair. She was going through her life ignorant and happy until the night Riah came to her with an incredible story. Sometimes having friends really sucked. Especially if one of those friends turned out to be a bona-fide bloody-fanged vampire, albeit a very pretty one with an IQ guaranteed to ensure an invitation to Mensa.
Ivy sank into the chair at her desk and ran a hand through her hair. Talk about tired. If it was up to her, she’d lay her head on the stack of file folders and sleep for a day or two. Alas, too much work to do and too many details to cover. Sleep would have to wait.
When her phone rang, she jumped. Her hand to her heart, she picked up the handset.
“Ivy Hernandez.”
“Ivy, this is Phil from over at K-5 News.”
“Hey, Phil.” She kept her voice friendly even though, at this time of the night, chances were this wasn’t a social call.
“So what’s up with your floater? I’ve been trying to catch you all afternoon.”
“Sorry, I’ve been out most of the day. I called in a little help from Spokane.”
“Yeah, so I heard. Why?”
“Why what?” She was good at playing dumb when the situation called for it.
“Why did you call in help?”
“Look, Phil, there’ll be an official release in the morning and you can read it all for yourself.”
“Ah, come on, Ivy. It’s your pal here. We started first grade together, remember? I carried your lunch. I was the big strong friend who pushed Joey Stevens when he tried to kiss you. So, here’s the deal. I got the five a.m. news coming up with nothing to lead, and you could help me out.”
The minute she heard his voice, she knew he’d try to play the old-pal card. Phil was actually pretty good at his job, and Ivy had wondered more than once what kept him here in Moses Lake. Even when they were back in high school, she always thought he’d move on to bigger, better things. So far, he was the home boy who stayed home and used every connection he could to get his story.
“I could, but I’m not. You know the drill, old pal. Come by after nine and you can pick up a copy of the official release.”
“You’re sure? Not even for an old and dear friend?”
“Not even for an old and dear friend. I like my job, Phil, and I’d like to keep it, if you catch my drift.”
“Well, can’t blame a guy for trying.”
“Good night, Phil.”
“Night, beautiful.”
She hung up the phone, snapped off the light, and headed out the door. It was time to get out of the office before another reporter called. Didn’t anybody sleep anymore?
Traffic was light and the night clear. Beautiful stars hung golden against the inky black sky. People could pick on Moses Lake all they wanted, but it could be a really lovely place. Especially on nights like tonight. The air was clear, the sky was magical, and, for the moment, things were peaceful.
As she was crossing the bridge, lights flickered off the lake waters. So postcard- picturesque. The pleasant feeling lasted too, at least until she pulled into her driveway. First another vampire, then Phil, now this. God definitely wasn’t smiling on her today.
Ivy slammed the door of her car and then stomped toward the shiny black pickup parked at her curb. “I swear to God, Jorge, if I carried a gun I’d shoot your ass right here, right now.”
Jorge Santos stepped out of the truck and smiled. His wavy black hair was pulled back in a ponytail, the way he was well aware that Ivy liked it best. In black jeans and a white shirt, opened at the neck, he was hot and knew it. On any other woman, his Hollywood good looks would work. Jorge’s problem was, Ivy wasn’t any woman. He was just about the last person on earth she wanted to see.
“Bonita,” he drawled. “You would never hurt me.”
“Try me. I wasn’t kidding the first time I told you to stay away. Or the third. Or the fifth.” She put a hand on his chest and pushed him toward the curb.
Jorge put his hand over hers, his fingers softly stroking her skin. “Feel my heart beat for you, bonita?”
Ivy snatched her hand away and took a step back. At the same time, she pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and held it up for him to see. “I’m giving you exactly thirty seconds to put your ass back in that truck and get out of here. If you don’t, I’ll call the sheriff. Did I ever mention I have him on speed dial?”
Jorge’s face darkened and his eyes narrowed. “Are you seeing him? Are you sleeping around on me?”
Ivy struggled to hold back her fury. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Jorge. I’m not yours, and Sheriff Nevell is on my speed dial because he promised to throw your skinny brown butt in jail the next time you harassed me.”
“Harass you?” Jorge threw his hands wide. “How can your husband harass you?”
“Ex-husband,” she said, slow and loud.
Jorge crossed his arms over his chest and stared directly into her eyes. “I do not agree.”
Ivy pointed a finger in his direction. “You have no choice. The decree has been signed, sealed, and delivered. Now give it up and go back to one of your putas.”
She was surprised how little it hurt these days. Now instead of the stabbing pain in her heart at the mention of the women Jorge slept with, she felt weariness. Jorge was beautiful, and in bed, holy Moses, the man was incredible. Of course, if she’d given it some thought before she married him, she might have realized he was good because he’d had practice. Lots and lots of practice. Both before they were marr
ied and after. The after part, not necessarily all with Ivy either.
Ironically, he could never see the problem. To give Jorge credit, he truly believed in the concepts of love, honor, and cherish. Jorge also believed screwing every female on two legs in no way conflicted with his vow to love, honor, and cherish Ivy. The fact that Ivy did still seemed to astound him.
Truthfully, she’d moved on a while ago, and really, really wanted him to do the same. At least twice a week, or so it seemed, she’d find him on her doorstep. At first, seeing him was heart-wrenching. Then it became tiresome. Now, it was plain infuriating. Particularly considering that a vampire running around her county dropping bodies was taking up just about all her energy. She didn’t need Jorge or his steadfast denial.
He stared at her for a long moment, then shrugged. “Pity, bonita, we are so good together.”
“Were, Jorge. It’s past tense, and the sooner you get that through your thick head, the happier we’ll all be.”
In the pickup, he leaned out the window and shook his head. “No, Ivy, you’re wrong. I’ll never be happier without you. Te amo.”
Ivy met his eyes and her voice was rock steady as she said, “Yo no te quiero.” She spun around and strode to the house. She didn’t turn to look back when Jorge roared away, the big tires of the truck squealing on the asphalt.
*
The shower helped, but Colin was still curious about the scene inside the medical examiner’s office. It seemed like the thing to do now was relax and dig a little deeper to see what he could come up with. He started toward the desk and then changed his mind. One thing could help make a few hours of research easier. He zipped open his suitcase and pulled out a bottle of twelve-year-old scotch. Breaking the seal and unscrewing the top, he put his nose close to inhale the rich scent of the amber liquor. Nice.
Crimson Vengeance Page 3