Dominic blinked. “Excuse me?”
“You’re here for something specific, but protecting me isn’t the reason. You could protect me without directly interjecting yourself into the investigation.” I pinched my lower lip between my fingers. “It must have something to do with the role of being an environmental science expert.”
Dominic’s expression turned to stone, and I knew by his lack of reaction that I’d struck a nerve.
“Walker would freak if he knew you’d scooped his case,” I muttered to myself, and like a spiritual revelation, the truth slammed home. “You’re here because you don’t want Walker here.”
Dominic didn’t say anything for a long moment. When he finally spoke, his voice was terse. “You’re certainly competent at uncovering the truth.”
I snorted. “You don’t think Walker is going to catch wind of this investigation and wonder why he wasn’t invited to consult?”
“I don’t care what he wonders. Detective Wahl did not invite him here, so if he comes, it won’t be with any legal authority.”
“Since when do you care about legal authority?”
Dominic’s jaw tightened. The muscles in his cheek flexed and twitched, and I knew I’d hit another nerve.
“Detective Wahl didn’t invite him, so if Walker comes, she’ll kick him off the case without you needing to intervene,” I said, working through the logic aloud. “Why does that matter? You could just entrance everyone to forget he was here and kick him off the case yourself—” I sucked in a sharp breath and met his gaze. “Except Greta is too stubborn and strong-willed to completely forget.”
“Ian Walker can’t be trusted, not near my coven and especially not near you,” Dominic snapped. “I don’t want him here, so either I pose as an environmental science expert in his place, or I kill him. Which do you prefer?”
I opened my mouth and closed it, shocked by his outburst. Even after everything Walker had done, I didn’t want him dead. Granted, I didn’t want him here investigating this case, but I certainly didn’t want to work with Dominic either.
Dominic’s expression softened as he gazed into my eyes, and I hated that my anger softened along with it. “I know my presence here chafes you on many levels. You resent that you must keep my secrets from people you deeply respect, but I assure you that I’m not posing in a capacity in which I can’t be of service. I want to find the monsters responsible for this atrocity, and if these crimes are vampire-caused, you can be sure I’ll bring those responsible to justice.”
I frowned, annoyed that his logic made a strange sort of sense. “If you hinder this investigation in any way—”
“I’ll be helping you, not hindering you,” Dominic interrupted.
“—whatever this is,” I said, pointing between the two of us, “is over before it ever really began.”
He nodded, his expression grave. “I agree to those terms.”
Whether he agreed or not wasn’t the point. He was bound to hinder this investigation—I could feel the inevitability of his hindrance like the ache in my hip before a storm—and when he did, I’d have a legitimate concrete wall to erect between us.
I turned my back on Dominic and quickened my pace to catch up with Greta. She stopped at the far side of the playground, away from the chaos and the media, and I realized that this section of the crime scene had been secluded with properly established barriers. The stretch of playground adjacent to Avenue D was basically a decoy to keep the sharks busy on the blood Greta wanted them to see, so she could keep them off the scent of this.
The victims here on the far side of the playground were just as mangled and dismembered as the victims scattered across the wood chips, slides, and teeter-totters, but what made my skin crawl in horrible, vivid remembrance was the fact that each victim had a gaping, hole beneath the sternum.
Each of these victims was missing their heart, the same telltale wound that Nathan had left on his victims when he was Damned.
A Damned vampire was here in New York City, and only one non-Master vampire was powerful enough to transform a night blood into the Damned.
Jillian.
I swallowed my nerves and glanced at Dominic. The look in his eyes when he met my gaze made the skin on the back of my neck prickle. Jillian was here in New York City during the week of his Leveling, and she wasn’t here alone.
I turned from Dominic to face Greta. “Your team certainly did a better job cordoning off this section of the crime scene,” I commented. “Not a camera in sight.”
Greta nodded. “And why would I do that?”
I looked out over the victims and their missing hearts and played dumb. “You need to spell it out for me, G. This just looks like more of the same carnage to me.”
Greta eyed Dominic and me with her cutting gaze, the way Dominic sometimes looked into me rather than at me, and I felt as if she could peel apart the layers of my mind, too, in search of the truth. Bex had fixed the reports from our case upstate to support a rabid-bear attack and hide the involvement of vampires, including the evidence of missing hearts. No one except Agent Harold Rowens remembered the truth, but as usual, Greta always seemed to know more than she should. She wasn’t a night blood, but she was too strong-minded, clever, and stubborn to blindly accept the lies that everyone else so easily believed.
“I’m going to tell you something about these victims that we aren’t releasing to the public,” Greta said. “You need to sit on this until I give you the go-ahead, got it?”
I nodded. “You know I’m a steel trap.”
“The majority of these victims, almost all the victims who died on scene, are missing their hearts.”
I frowned, trying—and by the skepticism on Greta’s face, probably failing—to fake disbelief. “Missing their hearts?” I asked. “That’s not something easily misplaced.”
Greta shook her head. “Nope. We’ll know more when we get the bodies back to the lab, but preliminary findings suggest that something sharp punctured beneath the sternum and ripped the hearts from their chests whole. Granted, there are a lot of blood and body parts to sift through, but from what we’ve gathered so far, not one shred of cardiac muscle has been found on scene.”
“I don’t know much about wild animals, but I can’t think of one that specifically hunts humans for their hearts. Maybe we should ask the expert,” I said pointedly, raising my eyebrows at Dominic.
He nodded, looking very sage. It made me want to smack him, again. “You’re right, Ms. DiRocco,” he said, and I felt appeased slightly by the affirmation, which was probably why he’d said it. “There are no wild animals that I know of that deliberately hunt humans for their hearts.”
“The evidence we have here suggests otherwise,” Greta said grimly.
“Are other organs missing?” Dominic asked.
I felt a pang of guilt. Dominic knew that a Damned vampire was responsible for this massacre. He knew that Jillian was back with one look at those bloody, punctured chests, but despite the anger and fear and festering betrayal that realization probably wrought, he would still play the role of an inquisitive expert witness.
Maybe he wouldn’t hinder this investigation as much as I feared after all.
Greta shook her head at Dominic, but when she answered, she was looking pointedly at me. “No, just the hearts are missing. Everything else, although shredded and dismembered, is accounted for.”
“My God,” I said. I remembered saying that last time. I remembered thinking it over and over again like a mantra, and despite the fact that this scene was nothing but a bad rerun, I was thinking it again.
“The scene’s been processed, so do what you need to do, Dr. Leander, before we bring it all back to the lab. We’ll have a report from the medical examiner tomorrow, but the faster we close this case, the better.”
“I’m assuming photography and measurements are allowed?” Dominic asked. He pulled out a DSLR digital camera from a side satchel I hadn’t noticed hanging at his hip. He whipped out a ruler
and notepad as well.
As much as I tried to hold in my reaction, I gaped. The Dominic I knew had fangs and pointed ears and transformed into a gargoyle when he got angry. He’d needed directions to operate a cell phone and could barely text. He certainly didn’t know how to work a digital camera. He normally didn’t wear a side satchel.
I narrowed my eyes, wondering what else he was hiding in his bag of tricks.
Greta extended her hand. “Please. Whatever you need to do. The scene is yours.”
Dominic nodded graciously and approached the nearest victim.
I shook my head, not knowing which disaster I was more disgusted with: the crime scene or Dominic’s charade.
“DiRocco,” Greta said sharply. “A moment?”
I nodded. “Sure, G.”
Greta led me away from the carnage. She turned to me, and her voice was low when she said, “Tell me this scene doesn’t look familiar to you.”
I sighed and looked away, unable to meet her eyes. What the hell could I say?
“This scene is identical to the scenes we had two weeks ago, but back then, we had one victim, not eleven. These were the murders that followed you upstate when you visited Walker. These were the cases that were attributed to a rabid-bear attack, but I’ll be damned if a rabid bear was here two weeks ago and double damned if there’s a rabid bear here now,” Greta pushed, and when Greta pushed, she pushed hard.
I crossed my arms. “What are you getting at, G?”
“You were there in the thick of it. You helped solve that case. Whatever it was, bear or not, you faced it,” Greta insisted. “What the hell is going on, DiRocco?”
“You read the report. You know what it says,” I said. “Who am I to say differently?”
“Yeah, I read the report,” Greta scoffed. “I read your face too, when you saw the victims. You recognized those wounds. Why were the missing hearts omitted from the final police reports?”
I shrugged. “You’d have to ask the officer who wrote the report.”
“I’m asking you.”
“I didn’t write the report, so how should I know what facts, if any, were omitted and why? You never mentioned anything about missing hearts to me before. Why should I know why they’re pertinent now?”
“You knew a lot more about that case than was written in that report, and you know more about this case now.”
I crossed my arms. “What are you accusing me of? Am I under investigation?”
“Do you honestly think that I’d invite you into this investigation, introduce you to my expert witness, and have you very publicly escorted on scene if I thought you were a suspect?”
I narrowed my eyes. “You had Harroway find me and escort me on scene in front of every city reporter on purpose?”
“You’ve been in the hot seat before, and I don’t want to put you there again. What I want is your help. You have inside information on this case, DiRocco, and it’s time that you shared it. I’m not accusing you. I’m encouraging you.”
I shook my head, not knowing how to respond. This might be my chance. Greta was obviously prepped and ready for the facts, but could any amount of readiness really prepare someone to accept the existence of vampires?
Dominic had made his way across the scene—I could see the flash of his camera from a distance—but whether he was two inches away or two miles, he’d still hear our conversation.
“I just need a direction, DiRocco. I had squat two weeks ago; now we’ve got five times the victims, and I’ve still got squat. If you need immunity, you’ve got it. If you want witness protection, it’s yours. However you’re tied to this case, however you know what you know, it doesn’t matter. No one has to know, not even me, but you’ve got to throw me a bone. Work with me, DiRocco.”
“I don’t need your protection.” I laughed humorlessly, as if Greta or the police department or anyone could protect me against Dominic’s wrath and the subsequent wrath of the Day Reapers. “We all need protection,” I muttered.
“DiRocco, please. Give me something. I’m asking you, as your friend, off the record, off my investigation, what the hell is happening?” She leaned in close, and I could see the desperate uncertainty in her eyes. She was scared, and I didn’t blame her. I was petrified. “What eats human hearts, and who has the power and resources to cover it up?”
She wanted the truth, and I could tell by her tone and that look in her eyes that she wouldn’t give up until she found it—if not from me, from someone else. She might be desperate enough to believe almost anything, but I couldn’t expect her to believe something as impossible as the existence of vampires on my word alone. I needed what I always needed when I covered a case. I needed hard evidence to prove my point.
And I needed to prove it without breaking my promise to Dominic.
You’re right. I have a lead, I mouthed to her. I couldn’t whisper because Dominic would hear. Hell, he could probably hear the movement of my lips. “I’m sorry, Greta,” I said aloud. “But you’re wrong. I don’t know anything about this case. It’s as new to me as it is to you.”
Greta hesitated. She didn’t move a muscle, but her eyes were everywhere, searching the scene, scanning her officers, glaring at someone over my shoulder.
When she met my eyes again, I mouthed to her again. We need privacy.
Greta nodded. “I understand. Thank you for being honest.” Tomorrow morning at the morgue. I’m meeting with Dr. Chunn.
“Anytime.”
Greta reached out and squeezed my shoulder. 8:00 a.m.
I nodded.
Greta returned to the scene—toward blood, guts, carnage, and Dominic—and I felt sick with dread. This was my moment: I was going to prove the existence of vampires, and I felt like vomiting.
Harroway was walking toward the forensics van, carrying a long rectangular box, but when he passed Greta and noticed that our conversation was finished, he changed course and walked toward me instead.
I rolled my eyes. I did not need his crap right now. Before he even opened his mouth, I held my hand up. “I don’t want to hear it.”
Harroway raised his eyebrows innocently. “Hear what?”
“Whatever you’re about to say. Just swallow it.”
“I really hit a nerve with that bum hip joke, didn’t I?” Harroway said, looking less than repentant. If anything, he sounded proud of himself.
“That’s your problem: you think you’re joking, but no one’s laughing.” I leaned in and whispered, “You’re not funny.”
“Not possible,” he said, but then something miraculous occurred. Harroway’s face sobered. He jerked his head back toward Greta. “Is everything all right?”
I smiled. “You worried about little ol’ me, Harroway?”
“When Detective Wahl told me to bring you on scene, she had a tone, that same tone she saves for interrogation rooms.”
“Is there a question buried somewhere in that statement?” I lost the smile and crossed my arms.
Harroway shifted his weight from one foot to the other, looking more uncomfortable than I’d ever seen him look in my life. “If there’s something going on that you can’t tell Detective Wahl, you know you can tell me, right?”
I raised my eyebrows. “That’s flattering, really, but there’s nothing to tell.”
“You don’t understand. What I’m trying to say is—”
“Don’t.” I cut him off with a slice of my hand. “I know exactly what you’re saying, and I don’t appreciate it, Harroway.”
He frowned. “I’m saying that I have your back.”
“Greta’s your superior and the lead detective on this case. You should have her back. You should be protecting her and the integrity of this case, not me,” I said, angry knowing that the integrity of this case was already compromised, and it had nothing to do with Harroway. We’d wake up tomorrow, and the evidence would no longer support an animal attack. The animal bites would be smooth and clean from knives, and after Dominic finished entrancing our witn
esses, no one would remember this scene in its entirety, not even Harroway.
But that wasn’t Harroway’s fault, and I’d just bitten his head off.
I sighed. “I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that. I—”
“You’re right,” Harroway said, but his voice was clipped and cold. “I should get my priorities straight.”
“That’s not what I—” I began, but Harroway was already continuing on his way toward the forensics van. “Shit,” I muttered under my breath. I had enough real enemies. I didn’t need to make more, especially not out of former friends and definitely not out of officers on this case.
As I watched Harroway hand the box of evidence to the attendant in the forensics van, something clicked. This case would likely never go to trial—hell, after Dominic was finished entrancing everyone, I would be lucky if anyone remembered a crime had even been committed—but if they’d collected blood samples, Dr. Chunn might test those samples in time for her meeting with Greta tomorrow morning. And if no one tampered with the evidence, Dr. Chunn might discover something unexplainable in those blood samples.
I rubbed the little pendant of Dominic’s blood between my fingers, my brain working in overdrive.
Chapter 6
Meredith finished shooting the scene shortly following my confrontation with Harroway, and we shared a cab back to our office at the Sun Accord. Even after being back in the city nearly a week, I still settled into the cab with a feeling of overwhelming gratitude. Walker’s hometown of Erin, New York, was quaint and secluded, but I’d grown up in a city of lights, bustle, and conveniences that I wouldn’t trade for all the best scoops in the world. People feel a sense of security in their houses, with their furniture, pictures, and the familiarity of their belongings surrounding them, but houses can burn to the ground, reducing life’s treasures and memories, and the people I loved most, to ash. I hadn’t felt a sense of home since my parents died, but having returned from Erin, New York, with a newfound appreciation for public transportation, city lights, and crowded streets, I realized that home wasn’t necessarily four walls to fill with your belongings as much as a feeling of belonging, and I belonged here in New York City.
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