Dark Wine at Midnight (A Hill Vampire Novel Book 1)

by Jenna Barwin

  She let her lenses zoom in and adjust on the person’s face. Shock slid through her. No, it couldn’t be. What was that vampire doing up here?

  Chapter 56

  Tig looked incredulously at the screen of her cell phone. She wanted to throw the device across the office. “Winston, I don’t have time to check on Henry again. We’re on the honor system here, since no one wants to pay to house him in our jail.”

  They always hired a jailer, someone to feed the prisoner and oversee visiting hours. She and Jayden didn’t have time for that nonsense.

  “Rolf keeps bugging me.” The mayor sounded irritated too. “He believes Henry is going to sneak out and visit Cerissa. He’s turned into a complete idiot lately.”

  “I checked on Henry last night. He understands the deal. Look, I’ve got evidence to process from the stadium shooting and a dead guard in San Diego. Jayden just got back—I need to debrief him. I don’t have time to play nursemaid to a founder.”

  “Just see what you can do.”

  She slammed down the phone on her desk and looked up when Jayden tapped at her door. She nodded for him to enter, and slid her phone into her shirt pocket so she wouldn’t forget it.

  “I looked up Petar Petrov in V-Trak,” she told him. “Henry’s bookie isn’t part of the treaty communities, so no fingerprints on file. Yacov confirmed Petar is still taking their bets. That makes it unlikely he would try to kill or kidnap them.”

  He stretched and relaxed back on the couch. “Are you going to interview him?”

  “Yacov agreed to give me Petar’s phone number, but he said it was a waste of time. According to Yacov, the way Henry bets on baseball, Petar will make triple the amount he wrote off before the season is over.”

  “Yeah, the home team hasn’t had a winning streak lately,” Jayden said, scratching at the back of his shaved head. “Got anything else?”

  When did she start reporting to him? She clenched her jaw—first the mayor, now Jayden. “Zeke’s alibi checked out. He didn’t kill the guard.”

  “But we may find out who did,” he said, looking smug.

  She was in no mood to play guessing games. “Spit it out.”

  “The crime lab called while you were on the phone. They cracked the shooter’s phone and emailed us a transcript. I waited to open it—figured you’d want to see it first.”

  About time he recognized I’m in charge. She opened the email program and clicked on the lab’s email. “Hope this helps,” the email read. A PDF was attached.

  Jayden got up and walked behind her; she felt him reading over her shoulder. She opened the attachment to reveal a series of text messages from the night Henry and Cerissa were attacked at the stadium. She didn’t recognize the phone numbers, and quickly typed a search into V-Trak. Nothing.

  Her mind worked furiously to put the pieces together—as she’d suspected, someone on the Hill was the pivot point, someone in a position to know when Yacov and Henry might be vulnerable. Yet the fingerprints in the guard’s apartment didn’t match anyone on the Hill. She stared at the three messages again.

  The first read: “Watch the Hill gate. He may be leaving without an escort. Follow and kill him.”

  Forty minutes later, the reply: “He’s with the envoy.”

  And within minutes: “He’s the priority. Kill them both if necessary.”

  The time stamp on the first message read 7:32 p.m.—a few minutes after her arrival at Gaea’s to escort Cerissa off the Hill, and a good two hours before Rolf called Tig for assistance. It couldn’t be Rolf—it had to be someone at Gaea’s house, someone who knew Henry was leaving the Hill.

  Then it dawned on her. She’d left Henry and Blanche alone on the porch when she went inside to get Cerissa’s luggage.

  “I was right—there are no coincidences.” She darted out of her office to her clerk’s desk. She heard Jayden follow her. “When did we get the portable fingerprint scanner?” she asked him.

  “Ah, shortly before Yacov was shot.” From the look on his face, the light bulb had gone off for him, too. “I fingerprinted Blanche and Seaton the old-fashioned way.”

  “Did Maggie compare their fingerprint cards to what was on file already?”

  “I don’t know. Maggie slipped and fell the night I fingerprinted them. I found their fingerprint cards on her desk and locked them away with the other sensitive papers.” He pointed toward the file cabinet behind Maggie’s desk, and then pulled a keychain out of his pocket, dangling it from his fingertips before tossing it to her.

  She caught the chain and inserted the key, popping open the file cabinet’s lock. She rummaged through the unfiled paperwork and pulled out two fingerprint cards. She slapped the first one onto the flatbed scanner behind Maggie’s desk. “Just what the council gets for being cheap,” she said. “They should have paid to have someone replace Maggie while she’s on medical leave.”

  The white light traveled the edge of the scanner cover—when it stopped, she opened the cover and repeated the process with the second card. After opening V-Trak on Maggie’s computer, she imported the fingerprints for Blanche and Seaton, typing in the date they were taken, and then started the program to compare the new card to Blanche’s existing set in V-Trak. Jayden waited quietly, perched on the desk next to her.

  “Bingo,” he said, when “NO MATCH” appeared on the screen, right next to Blanche’s fingerprints.

  Tig shook her head, and started the program to run a comparison of Blanche’s real fingerprints to the fingerprints found in the guard’s apartment. “Blanche probably had a fake set entered into V-Trak years ago.”

  “But wouldn’t one of the other communities have discovered that by now?” Jayden asked.

  “Few security heads will demand a new print card like I do. If the photo matches what they have in V-Trak, they don’t question it. I got burned a few years ago. Since then, I require a full print card for all new vampires on the Hill, including guests.”

  Jayden frowned. “I bet Blanche was the one who messed with Maggie’s desk, trying to steal the real fingerprint card. Zeke told me he hadn’t touched anything.”

  “The sidewalk Maggie tripped on was slick with oil,” she said. “Blanche may have poured oil on the sidewalk to make it slick so Maggie would slip. That would have delayed the comparison of Blanche’s fingerprints.”

  “No way to prove it, but you’re probably right.” He looked puzzled for a moment, and picked up the paperwork that had been attached to the fingerprint card, studying something on it. He ran back to her office, and then returned. “The phone number texting their orders—it’s not Blanche’s number.”

  “Maybe she had a burner phone too. If her prints match the guard’s apartment, we’ll have enough evidence to justify searching her belongings for it.”

  The computer program’s hourglass stopped spinning, replaced with the word “MATCH.”

  She exhaled sharply. “Blanche was in the guard’s apartment. She was probably Hoodie—she fits the body type. I need to warn Gaea.”

  “Blanche isn’t at Gaea’s anymore. She left the night after the dance.”

  “Where was she headed?”

  “Got it right here,” he said, searching through the clerk’s desk. He pulled out the departure guest form. “She wrote ‘San Diego community.’”

  Tig checked the time on her cell phone—a little after three in the morning. “Too late to fly there tonight.” If she left now, she’d be lucky to get to downtown San Diego by six in the morning. Not enough time to put Blanche under arrest and find a safe place to sleep during the day. “I’ll call the head of security for San Diego and get him to put Blanche in chains.”

  “What about Seaton?” Jayden asked.

  “Just to be safe, let me check.” She ran Seaton’s scanned prints against what was in V-Trak. They matched. “Gaea told me her idiot lodger plays video games all night. Call her anyway and give her a heads-up, just in case, while I call San Diego.”

  Her cell phone buzzed. Sh
e looked at the caller ID—the 911 switchboard was transferring a call. She clicked the phone’s accept button. “Yes?”

  “I’ve got Rolf Müller on the line, report of a mountain lion on the low ridge.”

  “Did he see it?”

  “Yes, ma’am. It ran off into the brush headed in the direction of Henry’s place. He’s asking whether he should get his rifle and follow it.”

  “Tell him to put his guns away. I’m on my way.” She couldn’t let him shoot a specially protected species. If the animal was GPS-tagged, state officials would descend on them, looking for it. She couldn’t afford the distraction now—not with everything else going on.

  She slapped the phone into her pocket and sprinted to the armory cabinet. She wished Rolf had seen a wolf instead—if it was one of the usual suspects, one of the vampires who liked to run the hills, she’d have an easier time resolving the matter. Instead, she was dealing with a real wild animal.

  She grabbed an air rifle from the cabinet, took a tray of darts loaded with a heavy animal tranquilizer from a nearby refrigerator, and headed for the door. Jayden followed her outside.

  “Mountain lion spotted over by Henry’s place,” she told him.

  Damn. Why did everything have to happen at once? Given the bad blood between Zeke and Henry, she didn’t want to send Zeke to Henry’s house. She couldn’t call Liza either—the councilwoman was out of town, and Rolf couldn’t be trusted not to go all big-game hunter and kill it. If I don’t take care of this now, everyone will have their rifle out, it’ll be a free-for-all out there, and some poor mortal will get hurt.

  “You want company?” Jayden asked.

  “No, I can handle this.” She climbed into the police van. “You call Gaea, warn her. I’ll take care of Blanche and the lion.”

  She drove in the direction of Henry’s house and phoned her counterpart in San Diego. He told her Blanche hadn’t shown up yet, but if she arrived, he promised to take her into custody.

  She called Jayden and warned him—Blanche was still on the loose. “Put out an APB to the treaty communities, and send a reverse-911 message to all Hill residents, warning them, then double the guard at the gate. I want the wall patrolled, too; call Rolf and Zeke, and have them organize it. No way is Blanche getting back in.”

  Once Jayden hung up, she told the van’s voice-controlled phone, “Dial Henry.”

  “Good evening, Tig,” Henry answered.

  At least his tone was cordial this time. “I’m on my way over to your house. Rolf spotted a mountain lion on the ridge. It may be making its way in your direction.”

  “I have no intention of going outdoors, since I’m still under house arrest.”

  “I didn’t want to surprise you. I’m going to park in your driveway and hike up the dirt road on your property, try to dart it before it hurts someone.”

  “Very well. Then I wish you a good hunt.”

  She heard the click—he didn’t wait for her to respond. Her skin was thick enough that it didn’t bother her, but she had meant to brief him on Blanche. It probably didn’t matter. In a few minutes, he’d see the reverse-911 alert as a text message, telling him Blanche was behind the attacks.

  But too much about it didn’t make sense. Why was the guard killed? To silence him, or had someone else killed him as revenge for being Blanche’s tool? She thought again of Yacov. How long had he stayed at the dance? She couldn’t recall when he left.

  She shook her head. It was unthinkable. Yacov was an honorable man—he wouldn’t have killed the guard. No, the guard must have been killed to silence him, to hide Blanche’s involvement. Even if Blanche altered his memory, the gaps would be evident to anyone who knew the truth and questioned him.

  Still, it bothered Tig. She couldn’t believe the young vampire was working alone, Blanche wasn’t experienced enough to pull this off. Sure, Blanche was desperate to get into a community, and she needed money, but how did killing Yacov and Henry accomplish that? The founders voted five-zip to reject her application for residency—eliminating two votes did nothing for her.

  Phat’s demand for perfection had taught her to dig deeper, to not accept surface answers. One missed detail could wreck a plan or cost a life. So what was she missing?

  “Probably a lot,” she mumbled to herself. Hill residents worked too hard to keep their secrets from her. If she had all the facts they hid, she just might be able to piece it together.

  She slowed the police van when she turned up Henry’s driveway. She’d done everything she could to keep her community safe. A good run chasing the mountain lion would give her a chance to clear her head and try to make sense of Blanche’s senseless act.

  * * *

  Henry angrily tossed his cell phone onto the kitchen table. He strode into the drawing room, threw open the drapes, and turned on the outside floodlights. The pool area was now brightly lit. The light should discourage the wayward cat from coming near his home. He didn’t object to the pumas who populated his mountainside; they’d lived in the area long before he was born. But he resented this one.

  With tonight’s mail, another unstamped delivery arrived. This time, it was a single-page letter, and it looked like Cerissa had used a standard laser printer:

  Dear Henry,

  Meet me at the plateau on the mountain behind Gaea’s house, where the trail behind her vineyard ends, at 4 a.m. tonight. Gaea usually watches television around that time, so I should be able to slip out without her seeing me. We have something we must do.

  His heart quickened when he read it the first time. Unsigned, but it had to be from Cerissa. He’d sniffed the stationery and caught her scent.

  She was right. He had to take her blood before the next council meeting. The mayor had forwarded an email to him with the message: “Thought you should know.” Below the mayor’s comment was an email from Rolf, blaming Cerissa for what happened and demanding they throw her off the Hill.

  They couldn’t ban her once Henry had her blood. It was a risk worth taking. Besides, the council wouldn’t have to know right away. This was just a precaution, in case things went sideways at the next hearing.

  He shook his head. Now he had to wait for Tig to leave. He stood there staring at the pool house. He had opened his heart to Cerissa—both in bed and out—and then screwed it up by taking her to the ballgame without an escort.

  A movement caught his eye. The cat was running across the lawn, its long, loping stride taking it in the direction of the pool house. Should he get his rifle? No, with Tig out there somewhere, he didn’t want to risk even a temporary injury to the chief.

  He watched the large blonde puma slink through the shadows, along the bushes by the pool house, then through the gazebo. It hesitated. To come closer to the house, the cat had to pass across the brightly lit patio. His eyebrows shot up when he saw the cat’s next move. It ran around the pool and up onto his back steps. Swishing its black-tipped tail this way, then that, it came close to the windowpanes of his French doors. He could see the black outline of its coral-colored nose pressed up against the glass, its golden luminescent eyes peering in at him.

  Who knew what the cat was thinking? At the sound of Tig’s van pulling into his driveway, the puma took off at a run. He considered returning to the kitchen to retrieve his phone and call Tig. He should tell her the direction it went, but something stopped him. For some inexplicable reason, he found himself rooting for the cat.

  Chapter 57

  The drawing room’s mantel clock chimed the hour, telling Henry what his body already sensed: another impending dawn. He closed the book he was reading, opened the small drawer in the end table, and placed the book in it. His phone still sat in the kitchen, his email unread. He should really check it before going to sleep. Reluctantly, he stood up from his comfortable chair.

  The doorbell rang; his email would have to wait. The last time he had looked, Tig’s van sat parked in his driveway, effectively trapping him at home. At least she’d had fun tonight. He would have, too
, if it hadn’t been for that damn cat. He hoped Cerissa wasn’t angry with him. She had to know it wouldn’t be easy to meet.

  The doorbell rang again. Tig must be impatient. Then again, it was close to dawn, so her impatience was understandable.

  Moving soundlessly, his slippers gliding across the entryway’s burnt-orange tile, he cinched up his bathrobe belt. Certainly Tig would forgive his informality. There was no crime in being comfortable in his own home.

  As he swung open the door, he said, “How went the hunt—”

  A loud bang cut off the rest of his words.

  Fire shot through his belly. Pain. Agony. Silver.

  Four more shots, each shot causing fire to shoot through a different part of his gut. He dropped to his knees in front of a masked shooter, the barrel of the gun moving in the direction of his heart.

  He lunged at the knees in front of him. The shooter fell backward, sprawled on his porch. Henry crawled toward the gun and grabbed for it, but blackness closed around him.

  * * *

  Tig tracked the mountain lion to the ridge above Henry’s vineyard before following it to the foothills behind Gaea’s place, and then she lost it. With any luck it would keep going to a higher elevation and back into the wilderness. She sat down cross-legged on one of the large rocks and focused on the remaining question: what motive did Blanche have for killing Yacov or Henry?

  The young vampire had nothing personal to gain by their deaths. And Yacov and Henry’s list—none of Blanche’s relatives were on it; no one on the list was connected to her. Then again, she could be working for someone else.

  Hmm. Were the attacks politically motivated? An act of terror? An act of war?

  A faint first glow of morning appeared in the east, easier to see at this elevation. Time to get going. She stood up, dusting off her pants. If she jogged down the trail past Gaea’s house, she would make it home in time, but there was one problem—she’d left her police van at Henry’s house. Should she return to get it?