by Michele Hauf
She looked up at the mechanical beast with trepidation.
“We won’t be going up,” D.I. Crane said.
“You think you might have found something of my brother’s here, on this thing?”
Crane gestured for her to step toward the open door of one of the Eye’s baskets. “The supervisor stumbled upon this when he got to work this morning.”
Madison was starting to feel really panicky.
D.I. Crane seemed to understand. “Right here,” he said. “Can you take a look? Are you up to it?”
“There’s no body or anything?”
“Nothing like that. Just this.” He carefully lifted up something dark that had been stuck behind a pole.
Madison recognized what it was immediately. Though her whole body tightened, she kept the reactions in check with a stern warning that this was just a coat. A black leather jacket, to be exact, with worn patches on the sleeves.
The coat was very similar to the one Stewart often wore in his off time, though reasoning suggested that there wasn’t only one leather jacket in the world, and that this one could belong to anybody. There was just one way to find out if this one belonged to her brother.
“Can I touch it?” she asked D.I. Crane.
He shook his head. “We’ll take it to the lab for processing.”
“Can I smell it?”
That question earned her a raised eyebrow from the Detective inspector.
Madison leaned close to the jacket, and inhaled. Stewart, is that you?
What came to her was a shocking nightmare of images. Stewart, running. Being chased. Hurt. Limping to this spot. Removing his coat to see whatever damage he’d been dealt. Leaving in a hurry.
Oh, no. Stewart...
She kept her eyes shut for what seemed like forever as her heart pounded with a fury suggesting it would never slow down again. She feared that if she opened her eyes, she’d scream, and that if the scream came out, she’d lose consciousness.
“Miss Chase,” D.I. Crane said.
Just a minute more, she wanted to say. Please.
Stewart had been hurt. She had seen that, or so she thought. Their connection ran deep, but she had never felt as though she was inside his skin. She felt like that now.
But Stewart had been alive here, and alive when he left that morning. She didn’t want to believe that any lingering aura of death stuck to his jacket, discovered only that day. There was no trace of blood on it that she could see. If there had been blood, the investigators wouldn’t have allowed her to get so near to it.
So there was hope. God, yes, a chink of light had opened up after a long dark spell. She felt her brother’s presence here.
“Miss Chase?” D.I. Crane repeated, resting a hand on her arm.
“It’s his,” she said. “The jacket belongs to my brother, Stewart Chase.”
To the detective’s credit, he didn’t ask how she knew this by smelling the coat. Maybe he was saving the hard questions for later.
“It’s his scent,” she said to gain some credence with the trained detective. “The only scent he wears. Have you looked in the pockets? What made you believe it might belong to my brother?”
D.I. Crane said, “We found your brother’s business card in the pocket. Since he has been reported as missing by both you and his law firm, your ability to identify the jacket could help our investigation.”
He held up a plastic evidence bag. “What about this? Do you know what this is?”
Madison gaped at the item in that bag with a disbelief that bordered on horror. The bag contained a pointed wooden stake.
“That’s an odd item to be carrying around,” D.I. Crane remarked. “Don’t you think so, Miss Chase?”
She couldn’t possibly answer. Having just gotten the word vampire out of her mind, she found that the word again began to blink with the vibrancy of a Vegas neon sign.
* * *
St. John felt the chill that riddled Madison’s body and knew she was thinking of him. How easily he read her. This was the way the connection he’d set into place between them worked, and the result of helping her out of last night’s mess.
Glad of the tip about this meeting at the Eye, he stared down at Madison from his penthouse above the Thames. He saw her sway in reaction to the sight of a weapon made for piercing the chest of a vampire.
He didn’t like this.
Hell, he didn’t like anything about this.
With his enhanced senses and superior vision, he watched Madison’s features go from shock to relief, eventually settling into an expression of defiance. Already, she was putting two and two together, rerunning their interesting vampire foreplay of the night before.
Stewart Chase had been a fool to leave such a thing behind. Finding that stake in her brother’s jacket had just upped the ante of not only his strained relationship to Madison, but also endangered her safety.
Each minute she remained in London, now that she and the detectives had viewed an example of her brother’s strange obsession, the degree of risk to Madison’s security would escalate. Cameras were everywhere. Eyes other than those belonging to law enforcement were watching. If she set her agenda to causing more trouble over this, she’d become a liability.
Two Chases in a row.
That ungainly adjective, tenacious, blinked in St. John’s mind. Madison was in a state of wary suspension right now, but when the initial surprise wore off, she’d be bolstered by what the detectives had found and driven forward by it.
She’d assume she had discovered a clue to her brother being alive, and tonight she would double her efforts to find him, whether her twin was dead, alive or occupying the space in between.
She would start by going back to the club where Christopher St. John hadn’t laughed at her vampire game, and had, in fact, played along. She might demand answers about her brother’s research. She might wield a similar weapon to gauge his response.
“Don’t you be foolish, too,” he whispered to her, his throat tightening due to the knowledge of how dangerous her next appearance at Space could prove to be.
“Take your time and think this through. If you don’t believe in vampires, there must be another explanation for that wooden stake.”
The way she was staring at that stake made him frown. The way her hand opened and closed, as if she wanted to wrap her fingers around it, left him uneasy.
An icy chill crept up his spine.
He narrowed his gaze.
Madison looked different.
He thought...
But couldn’t be sure...
Had some kind of alternate reasoning been awakened in her just by seeing a damn sliver of wood? Was this a reason for the darkness trailing her?
It was possible, and terrible. St. John leaned against the window frame as if those few inches could get him closer to her.
“Are you like your brother, then?”
Anxiously, he tossed the cell phone she had dropped in the alley from one of his hands to the other. Madison would be missing her phone, but for the time being, it was the only piece of her accessible to him. It was another link, if he chose to use it.
Restless, St. John shifted on his feet, forced to think ahead. It didn’t take a master to predict how the Hundred’s thoughts would go. Getting rid of Madison would be necessary if she showed her face again at Space waving sharpened sticks and muttering the word monster.
If she, as a media insider, came sniffing around, an edict would be issued that she had to be dealt with, from the same beings trying so hard to blend in with society.
Hell, it was not only dangerous for him to see her again, but crazy to do so. This was an untimely distraction that threatened his agenda, when he had spent several years shoring up his own well-cultivated place in the vampire com
munity in order to flesh out the identity of the one traitor that had infiltrated the Hundred.
If Madison were to come nosing around, he’d be faced with a choice. Find that traitor, and let fate have Madison, or forget all the time and effort spent on finding that traitor and his degenerate vampire cult, in order to protect innocent mortals, and ultimately the secrets of his kind.
The situation was grim. Even so, he had to choose one of those options. He knew Madison well enough to guess she wouldn’t back down on the issue of her brother.
St. John stiffened suddenly. His skin grew colder as his gaze moved to the detective who had placed a hand on Madison’s arm. The man had stepped closer to her, offering comfort of sorts in a way that he, himself, could not do.
His fangs flashed. He gritted them in distaste.
And he knew why.
Christopher St. John, one of the seven Blood Knights fashioned for the task of protecting the sacred blood of the immortals, was experiencing a pang of jealousy that nearly choked him.
The little cell phone case snapped in his grip. An old curse left his lips.
A woman like Madison could no doubt have any man she wanted. But she was so much more than a mere woman. So much more than a beautiful face. Madison Chase was intrigue in a delicate package. She was light tinged with dark, a challenge and an enigma. She was the keeper of her own secrets, and the temptation of the damned.
And that hellish weapon taken from her brother’s coat had made her awareness prickle, as it had his. It had opened her up to taking a second look at her brother’s obsession.
Oh, yes. It was necessary for him to meet her again, if only to discover why his bond with her, his snare, so carefully set into place on that dance floor, had worked the other way around...ensnaring him.
His purpose for being in London had hit a fork in the road, a five-foot-six, redheaded fork in the road.
“Tonight,” he said, his attention riveted to Madison. “Tonight, if you are going to be foolish about this, I will be waiting for you. Be glad it’s me, Madison.”
Chapter 8
“I will be waiting for you.”
Had she heard that? Couldn’t have.
“Do you know what this is?” D.I. Crane asked, but she tuned out his voice in favor of the distraction that had come in the form of a disturbing mental touch; a whispered voice that struck like quick, exploring fingers, leaving her feeling violated, and vulnerable.
Trying to locate the origin of the voice that no one else seemed to have heard, Madison looked around, then up at the Eye. When the detective beside her removed his hand from her sleeve, she reluctantly returned her attention to him.
D.I. Crane gestured for Teddy to join them.
“We won’t need you for anything else at the moment,” he told her as Teddy approached. “Why don’t you get some breakfast.” To Teddy he said, “Where are you staying?”
“The Doncaster,” Teddy replied.
“Can you see that Miss Chase gets back there, and remain in the area in case we need something further?” the detective asked.
“No can do,” Teddy said. “We’re off to work right now.”
“Ah, yes.” The detective glanced to the van and the crew standing beside it. “I forgot about the press call.”
When Madison glanced down, there was no awful pointed stake or leather jacket in the detective’s hands. Another detective had taken them away, saving her from the unwanted scrutiny of her crew, if not the rest of the cops present.
“I’ll be around,” Madison said. “There’s more than one case to be solved here.”
“There usually is,” the detective concurred. “But we’ll have questions, such as what your brother might have been doing here at the Eye, and when he left the jacket. I suppose you’d have no idea about that?”
Madison shook her head.
“Well, I’ll be in touch, Miss Chase,” D.I. Crane said before walking off in the direction of the other officers.
“That was your brother’s jacket in the detective’s hand?” Teddy asked.
“Yes.”
“If they found it this morning, then your brother must have left it here.”
“Him, or someone else.”
“Are you okay with that, Madison?”
Stewart running. Being chased. Hurt. Limping here. Removing his coat to see whatever damage he’d been dealt. Leaving in a hurry...
Those flashes replayed in her mind, over and over in a continual loop. There was no way to be okay with that if the images were real. But were they real?
“I’m fine,” she said. “If it means my brother is alive, I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am.”
But as she headed toward the van, Madison had to shake off a spooky chill of acknowledgment that the voice in her mind had just issued a warning for her to be careful.
“Are you like your brother, then? Don’t be foolish....”
She could have sworn she heard those words, and tried to shake off the notion that there was one too many sets of eyes on her back.
* * *
“There are press teams here from all over the world,” Madison said on camera, holding a microphone in both hands and trying to keep herself together after the shock she’d had.
“It’s a good start on the Yale Four case. With all this coverage, surely someone will come forward with a tip, a break.”
She held up a piece of paper and moved it closer to the lens.
“We’ve just learned that the reward for the missing girls has been bumped up to a million dollars, and that the prime minister will formally announce this in a live interview this morning. That interview will take place in less than one hour. We will be covering his speech, keeping you informed and updated on all the efforts to find those girls. Our girls. For now, this is Madison Chase for CRTS Television.”
Teddy gave her a nod as the camera lowered. “Good sentimental call at the end there with the our girls. It’s possible the prime minister might mention your brother eventually.”
Now that the camera had been turned off, Madison’s insides were churning. Stewart might have been alive that very morning. He might be hurt. She needed to find him, do something, and was stuck here for a few more hours.
“We have time for breakfast if we can find a restaurant close by,” Teddy said. “I’ve been more or less ordered by that detective to make sure you eat. I think he liked you.”
Madison shook her head. “You go. Take the guys. I feel like walking.”
Both of them turned as noise broke out above the din of several other crews talking things over. In the span of seconds, the area around them fell silent, and a whole bunch of interested faces focused on the ruckus going on in front of the Parliament building.
Teddy grabbed and hoisted the camera, already focusing as he strode that way.
Madison took a step, stalled, whirled back, drawn by the strangest sensation of being called.
She saw him. Her mysterious stranger from the club stood in the shadow of an open doorway, looking as tall and chic and intimidating as he had the night before. Maybe more so, because of her nocturnal fantasies about him.
The arch over the doorway kept his features hidden. If he saw her, he made no move to indicate recognition. But she knew him without the necessity of a close-up. Her nerves had begun to vibrate with a low-pitched hum. Her heartbeat ramped up to a tempo she didn’t like and sure as hell didn’t appreciate when the guy’s scent still clung to strands of her hair.
“Teddy.”
Her cameraman pivoted back with a nimble camera-balancing act.
“Can you get the front of that pub on tape?” she asked.
Teddy did so, then took off with the others.
“Got you for posterity,” she said, swinging around to find that th
e man of her secret nighttime desires had already gone.
Running after him as fast as her wounded feet would carry her, Madison stumbled into the crowded pub, where at eight in the morning news crews from all over the world were killing time until the prime minister’s speech.
New and familiar faces were swapping anecdotes, information and jokes. In spite of the seriousness of the press call, these seasoned veterans of the information highway knew how to relax when time allowed—a necessity to their health and well-being in a job that detailed loss and sadness on a daily basis.
Lots of faces glanced her way, none of them the one she sought. The mystery man had given her the slip. Yet if he wanted to avoid her after the alley escapade, why had he been here?
Leaning against a portion of the long, gleaming, mahogany bar, Madison looked around for a back exit. He liked those.
Conversations ceased abruptly as someone else entered the pub. Her attention strayed to the front door, where a man had stopped. His gaze found hers. He headed toward her.
“Miss Chase,” D.I. Crane said in a lowered tone.
“Detective,” Madison acknowledged with another unwelcome jump of nerves.
“Would you please come with me?” he said.
Everyone on the room listened with the uncanny instinct all newscasters and journalists possessed for a potential story in the making.
Madison frowned. “Have you found something else?”
“Please,” he said. “Step outside for a minute.”
She preceded him to the door, then to the sidewalk, where two other officers waited.
“What is it?” she asked, really antsy now.
D.I. Crane pulled an item from another ziplocked plastic evidence bag he was handed.
Good Lord, had they found something else?
When the item in the detective’s hand appeared, Madison was so taken aback with relief, she almost laughed. He was holding up one of the silver shoes she had lost.
“Yours?” he asked, addressing, she assumed, the surprise written all over her face.
“Yes. Where did you find it?”