He needed to find Serenity and he needed to do it fast.
With only rumors and the violence of the killings he’d witnessed to go on, Sebastian had no idea what he was up against.
The rumor of the monster appearing in the light worried him most. Strength and brutality, Sebastian could beat, but when it came to the light there was no contest. Sunlight would kill him in minutes.
A vampire’s one weakness filled him with frustration. He was helpless in the hours of daylight. If the thing that used to be Jackson walked among humans in the daytime, Sebastian was at a huge disadvantage. The thought of the monster killing Serenity while he lay helpless in the dark made him furious.
He needed to warn Serenity.
Already the early hours of the morning, the huge city of Los Angeles stretched out around him. She lived somewhere in the city, but where? He wished he’d followed her before, but his anger had been too great. When she climbed into the other man’s car, Sebastian forced himself to walk in the other direction, not trusting himself.
He would have to scour the city, keeping his senses alert for her. The memory of Serenity was ingrained upon him—her taste, her scent. He could pick up on her trail if he crossed it, but he couldn’t follow from anywhere. He’d automatically gone back to her local area but finding her the first time had been no more than chance. To assume she would be living in the same place—just as Jackson assumed the same—was naïve.
One person knew Serenity’s location; the police officer he’d seen her with. The man had been wearing plain clothes when Sebastian saw him with Serenity, but he remembered him from the last time with Serenity on the pier. That night the man had been in uniform. Sebastian flicked through his memory, going back to that fateful night. Had he learned the police officer’s name?
Yes, Serenity had told him: Bently.
Sebastian didn’t know where the man lived but he knew where he worked.
Los Angeles Police Department.
Harnessing his speed, Sebastian flew across the city to the downtown station. He had expected the place to be empty so late at night, but the building seethed with people. A couple of prostitutes stood chatting at the front desk while a uniformed officer booked them, every bit at ease as if they were hanging out at a favorite bar. A skinny Caucasian man sat on one of the plastic chairs in front of the desk, the rows of chairs bolted to the floor to stop anyone picking them up and using them as weapons. Tattoos ran down both of his arms in sleeves and he hooked them over his knees, his head hung.
None of these people interested Sebastian. He needed to find the police officer, or, if not the man himself, something that would tell Sebastian the location of his house.
Moving quickly, he whisked past the people. A couple of the more perceptive ones glanced up, sensing movement nearby. Most ignored the change in the air pressure around them, too high or jaded to care.
He passed the front desk and down the hallways, past the interrogation rooms, leaving the hubbub of the people behind.
Most of the offices were closed and locked. It was the middle of the night and the majority of normal office staff had gone home. Sebastian kept all his senses alert for any sign of the police officer. A name on a door caught his attention; Sergeant James Bently. Sebastian stopped short. This must be the man, he doubted numerous ‘Bentlys’ were running around the place.
Like the rest of the offices, the room was locked and in darkness. Sebastian grasped the door handle and, with a swift twist of his wrist, yanked open the door. He hoped no one would notice the broken lock, at least until morning.
Sebastian crossed the small, orderly office to the desk. He pulled open the drawers and rifled through the paperwork, searching for something with not only Bently’s name, but also his address. His fingers closed around a credit card statement.
Jackpot!
He didn’t want to be in the presence of the two of them together again, the experience was too painful, but he needed to make Serenity and the cop aware of the danger threatening her. How something terrible sought its revenge. They could get away, far from Los Angeles, and Sebastian would spend the rest of his days tracking down the creature that had once been Jackson and killing him. Again.
Sebastian left the police station and once again set off across the city.
Daybreak approached, although the sky was still dark and no houses were lit, their inhabitants sound asleep. In this part of the city, the vehicles in the driveways were all expensive, top range. Bently’s house stood out because of this. A modest car—a Ford—was parked out front, not a top of the line SUV like the rest of the houses.
Sebastian stood in the street, looking up at the property. Two stories, the house would be at least three bedrooms. The white wooden cladding gave the home the appearance of a Los Angeles beach house.
This was exactly the sort of property he’d hoped Serenity would make her home. Sebastian pushed away the stab of jealously threatening to rot his heart.
Slipping around the side of the building, he entered the backyard. A white balustrade porch ran along the length of the building. A wicker couch and table sat beneath the awning, a cozy area for alfresco eating.
Sebastian leapt silently up to the roof of the porch. Two windows looked out on the backyard. Stilling his nerves at seeing her once more, he peered into the bedrooms. The first was empty, a double room neatly made up for guests. The second held two sleeping figures, lumped under the covers.
Sebastian frowned. Something wasn’t right. The sense of Serenity should be washing over him right now, but he felt nothing.
He had no problem seeing in the dark and as he looked closer he recognized the sleeping face of the policeman. Serenity must be the figure asleep on the other side.
The frown deepened. He didn’t want to go into the house, invading her privacy. His presence would frighten and upset her, something he hated; though what he needed to tell her would do both.
A baby’s cry came from somewhere inside the house, startling him. He’d never considered the possibility of her having a family, yet now it seemed so obvious—the perfect life with the perfect man, of course she would have a child to complete the bond. The bitterness overwhelmed him, coursing through his system like bitter salt in his blood stream. The knowledge of the child made everything so final. She would never be his.
She sat up and Sebastian jolted back in surprise.
The woman was small and blonde, everyway Serenity’s opposite. He could never mistake this woman for Serenity.
His head reeled in confusion. He’d watched this man and Serenity together; witnessed the affection between them. Serenity had gotten into his car and they drove off together. Yet here was the man with another woman and apparently a family. Were he and Serenity having an affair? That didn’t ring true. He didn’t believe Serenity capable of such a thing, especially not with someone with a young family.
Whatever the truth, Serenity wasn’t here.
Sebastian hoped wherever she was, she was safe.
He leapt from the porch roof and down to the yard. He could get Bently out of the house and demand to know where Serenity lived. A vampire had ways of making people talk, but he didn’t want the man to tell Serenity he was looking for her and scare her before he reached her.
Also, part of him simply didn’t want to frighten the young family. Now Sebastian knew the other man wasn’t married to Serenity, his hostility toward Bently melted away.
Sebastian walked back around to the front of the house.
A security light on the side of the house flicked to life the moment it sensed his presence, flooding the driveway. Cupping his hand to the side of the passenger window, Sebastian peered inside.
At first nothing caught his attention, but then he noticed a folder of paperwork lying in the foot well of the passenger seat. In his mind, he saw Serenity running down the steps of the tall white building, clutching the folder to her chest.
With his immense strength, he wrapped his fingers inside the edge o
f the passenger door and swiftly pulled, wrenching metal, bending steel.
He smiled at the irony of the cop not having an alarm system fitted in his car. Not that alarms bothered Sebastian. He would be long gone before anyone approached him; being questioned by a human was not of his concern.
Sebastian pulled the door open and reached down and picked up the folder.
Chapter Six
James Bently went into work that morning to discover the place in chaos.
The murderer—or murderers—had moved into the city.
A specialist team was already working the case, but the detective heading the team wanted to use a few of his men to cover more ground; asking questions in the surrounding area, trying to find witnesses. Glendale was a built up area; for two people to be murdered so viciously in their beds without anyone seeing anything bordered on impossible. A couple of the closest neighbors reported hearing screams and called the police, but no one reported actually seeing something suspicious.
Already in a bad mood, this new development did nothing to help his frame of mind. Someone had vandalized his car during the night, breaking in without bothering to even steal the CDs out of the glove box or rip out the radio. The only damage was some kind of wrench used to jimmy the passenger door open. He suspected kids to be the culprits, practicing their skills or messing around, knowing the vehicle belonged to the neighborhood cop.
James picked up the report requesting the extra men and started to read. The name of the neighborhood brought back memories. He’d spent time in the area himself, four years earlier, when he first met Serenity. She still owned the house and rented the property out to tenants since the whereabouts of her husband had yet to be determined.
He frowned. 23 North Louis Street. The address struck a chord of uneasy recognition. Surely the crime hadn’t occurred on the same street as Serenity’s house? If so, perhaps her tenants saw or heard something.
James tapped his pen against his desk, the curious part of his brain sparked.
He glanced at the pile of paperwork lined up to do that day.
It can wait, he decided. Maybe they could do with another person at the crime scene…
James drove down Serenity’s old street toward a marked police car parked further down the street.
Craning his neck as he drove, he peered up at the houses. Many years had gone by since he was last here, but he thought Serenity’s house must be close by. Being back churned up so many memories; a lifetime’s worth since first meeting Serenity.
Their relationship had come a long way since then, surprising even him. Serenity meant a lot to him, but he quickly discovered he couldn’t love someone so obviously in love with someone else. Of that person’s identity—her husband, or someone else—James had never been sure.
Serenity found out about the pregnancy during the early days of their friendship; he’d never questioned his desire to support her as a friend. Even though they weren’t involved as a couple, she’d been through a lot and had no one else. He couldn’t just abandon her to deal with her pregnancy alone.
Then he met Amy.
Meeting his wife put his feelings for Serenity into perspective. Serenity wasn’t the type of woman he could ever be in a relationship with. After the things he saw at work, he needed to come home to laughter and fun. He needed someone like Amy. Serenity contained too much of a dark side—no surprise after the life she’d led. Soon, James found his feelings towards her morphed into those of protective father more than anything else.
He pulled his own unmarked vehicle up behind a Crown Victoria. A police officer stood outside the door of the closest house. Yellow tape sealed the front door. The officer glanced up as James pulled in.
James’s heart tripped a beat as he recognized the front door. Serenity’s old house was taped up. He was certain. His stomach sank. Did this mean her tenants were the victims? No one had told Serenity yet; he’d have been the first person she’d call.
He opened the car door and climbed out. The young officer spotted him but no recognition lit his eyes. James held out his badge as he approached. The officer gave him a nod and removed the tape, like a bouncer at a club. James walked into the house and the officer sealed the door back up behind him.
Waves of déjà-vu swept over him. To his left was the small sitting room where he’d first interviewed Serenity. At the end of the hallway was the kitchen.
The place had been ransacked. The contents of the dresser drawers had been emptied all over the floor, paper lay scattered everywhere. Someone must have been searching for something, but it was impossible to tell if they found what they were looking for. The television and stereo-system were still in place and an expensive i-Phone sat on the hall table. Whatever this was, it wasn’t a burglary gone wrong.
James climbed the stairs.
Ahead, the doorway to the bedroom where the murders took place loomed. To the left was the bathroom and a small spare bedroom Serenity’s husband had used as an office.
Even from the end of the hall, James saw the blood splattered against the doorframe.
He took a deep breath and walked down the hallway toward the bedroom.
Blood coated every surface, soaked the bed and the carpet, and splattered up the walls.
“Jesus,” he muttered, his hand over his mouth.
The bodies had been removed early that morning, taken to the morgue for autopsy, though from the amount of blood, James wondered how much of the bodies would be left to analyze. Forensics had also been in and swept the place for fingerprints and samples.
James frowned. The neighbor called the police as soon as she heard the screams—just after eleven. From the records, only twelve minutes passed between the call and the first patrol car arriving at the scene. The victims, a Steve and Jocelyn Bainbridge, were alive when the screams had been heard—or at least one of them was. The murderer didn’t ransack the house first; the noise would have woken the victims. They would have either come down to investigate, or else called the police themselves. Both the victims had been murdered in the bedroom, the woman still in bed. The killings must have been fast—only minutes—yet the volume of blood implied the deaths had been anything but quick.
Also, whoever committed the murders would have been covered in blood. How could someone not notice them leaving the house? The area had properties on all sides and it hadn’t been the middle of the night.
The perpetrator must have been fast, really fast.
James pushed away memories threatening to resurface.
How the hell was he going to tell Serenity? He wished he could stop her from finding out. He wanted to protect her from this. She’d been through so much already and had just started to get her life back together. The last thing she needed was this sort of horror linked to her old home, on top of the bad memories of her abusive husband.
But she had to know what had happened and James had to be the one to tell her.
Serenity was at work when James called.
She answered on the first ring, “Mr. Berry’s office. This is Serenity.”
“Serenity? It’s me.”
She recognized his voice immediately and smiled. She’d been planning on calling him later. She still needed her notes back.
“James. How are you? I was going to call you.”
“Serenity, there’s something I need to talk to you about,” he said, his tone level and serious.
Bile rose to the back of her throat, sudden nerves churning her stomach. Part of her wanted to slam the phone back down, not wanting to hear what he had to say.
Sometimes in life things turned on a dial. One moment everything was fine, besides all the usual worries and stresses life, carrying on as normal; the next something happened that turned everything else on its head, all those worries became meaningless and trivial by comparison.
She feared this to be one of those moments.
“What’s wrong, James? What’s happened?”
“It’s the tenants at your house. They
’ve been murdered.”
“What?” Disbelief and shock knocked her breath from her. “When? By who?”
“Last night. As of yet, we don’t know the culprit. We think it’s the same person who committed the other killings. But, this is the first time he’s been in someone’s house.”
“Jesus Christ.” Her hand clamped against her mouth.
“Can you come down to the station for me? Even if you didn’t know them well, the murder still happened on your property. The detective in charge wants to ask you a few questions.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” she said. “Just let me talk to my boss and I’ll come down as fast as I can.”
“Okay, see you soon.”
About to hang up, she heard his voice filter down the line. “And don’t worry. I’m sure none of this has anything to do with you.”
She frowned. “No, of course not.” That possibility hadn’t occurred to her.
Her head was reeling. Why would someone want to hurt the Bainbridges? They had seemed like such a nice couple; it was impossible to imagine why anyone would want to do such a horrific thing to them.
She had no idea what the police thought she could tell them. She had hardly known the couple; they paid their rent on time and their references all checked out. Other than the occasional phone call, they pretty much kept to themselves.
Serenity put her head in her hands and took a deep breath. That more violence had occurred in that house shocked her. The situation brought back such horrific memories, rocking her to the core. She pictured the blood all too easily.
Nausea roiled in her belly and her hands trembled, but she needed to pull herself together. She had to get down to the station before she was due to pick Elizabeth up from preschool.
Pushing her chair back, she stood and made her way to her boss’s office.
Serenity faced the closed door and took another deep breath, steadying her nerves. She knocked gently before opening the door.
The Serenity Series: Box Set: Books 1-3 Page 27