by Nalini Singh
"Were you able to find out anything about her? We know she was a club girl who disappeared after hooking up with a rich sugar daddy."
Ransom took a doughnut from the box of four she'd managed to sneak past the other hunters who were here early--to prep for sessions they were teaching. Biting into it, he chewed and swallowed before answering. "That part is right," he said. "A few of the working girls I know said Felicity used to be one of them for a couple of months, starting about a year back."
That fit with when she'd dropped off the grid in terms of more vanilla jobs. "Pimp?"
"No, but the girls said she was vulnerable to male attention, that something in her made her crave their approval." Taking another sip of his coffee, he continued. "She avoided the pimps because she wasn't going into the life long-term--she got out fast once she realized the johns might permanently hurt her if she wasn't careful. Word is she worked under the table cleaning, and was down to her final cents at times, but she didn't come back to the streets."
"She knew if she got into it too deep," Ashwini said, starting to see more of their victim, "she'd be stuck at the low end forever."
A nod from Ransom. "Working girls have a hard life and it shows. No way to glide into a new, better life if the old one is stamped onto your face and body. The thing is, none of the women I talked to had anything bad to say about Felicity--she got out, but she never forgot her friends.
"She helped out with free babysitting for one of the women two or three times, and when she hooked up with her rich lover, she lent another woman a little money so she could pay for a plane ticket out of town for a family emergency."
A good person, a loyal one, too. "When's the last time any of them had contact with her?"
28
"Seven months ago. Visit before that, she'd told them she was going to go with her lover to Europe, so they didn't worry about it. The other women were happy for her, thought she'd made it, had the life she'd always wanted." He finished off the doughnut and his coffee at the same time. "They were surprised she dropped them cold, but knowing her as they did, they figured maybe her rich guy had her on a short leash and she'd get back in touch once things had eased."
But Felicity, Ashwini thought, was likely already in a desperate situation by that time. "Will the women talk to me?" she asked Ransom, conscious how protective he was of his friends on the street.
"Yeah. They want to find out who hurt her--I hope you nail the fucker." Pulling out his phone, he sent her names and contact numbers, told her the women were waiting for her call. "I know I don't have to ask, but be careful of them."
"I will." She stared out at the training ground, the rucked-up snow glittering under the sun. "Janvier's working this with me. Can I take him along?"
"No problem. I cleared it with the women--Tower's not going to have any interest in them aside from this case and, like I said, they really liked Felicity."
Enough, Ashwini thought, to stick their necks out. That told her a lot about her victim. "So," she said after a couple of minutes of comfortable silence, "how come you're in so early? I thought you and Nyree would be celebrating. Hope my request didn't mess anything up."
"Nah, I saw your message after our celebration. Easy enough to make the calls while Nyree was catching her breath." A glow in the green of his eyes, his handsome face happily smug. "Two of the librarians at her work came down with a bad case of the flu, so she went in to cover. I was meant to teach a class this afternoon, but I swapped with Demarco for a morning session so I can take off when Nyree's shift is over."
"You better invite me to your wedding."
"Are you kidding?" Ransom grinned. "I plan to have one hell of a party. Shit, I'm getting married." He shook his head, like a dog shaking off wet. "And I want to do it."
Well aware of his dating history, Ashwini squeezed his shoulder. "I'm happy for you, Ransom."
*
She met Janvier an hour later, at the little warehouse that housed the blood cafe in which Ellie had an interest. Blood-for-Less was closed for the day, but there was an employee out back handling donors coming in to sell blood. The stocky male vampire--who looked more like a schoolteacher than someone who should be in the Quarter--let them into the main sitting area and promised to send in the three women when they arrived.
Ashwini had picked the location because it wouldn't put the women in an awkward position if they were seen. There was nothing strange about a working girl getting a bit of extra cash by selling blood. Right now, however, Ashwini's attention was on Janvier. Deep grooves marked the sides of his mouth, his eyes dull.
Touching her fingers to his jaw in the muted light inside the blood cafe, she said, "What is it? What's wrong?" That was when she noticed he'd showered, changed. His blades sat openly on his back, over a plain black T-shirt, his jacket and scarf discarded on the back of a wine red sofa.
"Sit with me."
Once they were down, he took one of her hands in his and told her of the horror that had occurred in Masque that morning. "Lacey?" Shock held her frozen; she couldn't believe that the sweet, friendly woman who'd been so adorably besotted with her lover was gone, murdered at the hands of that lover. "You're sure?"
"I'm sorry, cher. I wish I could tell you she felt no pain, but it would be a lie."
Still having trouble processing the horror of it, she focused on him, pressing a kiss to his temple and running her hand down his back. "I'm sorry you had to see that."
Leaning forward, his shoulders taut, he blew out a breath. "This drug is appearing more and more like a poison intended to cause this effect."
Ashwini heard more than Janvier said. She knew how protective he was of women, knew part of him would be going over and over every interaction from the previous night, trying to figure out if he could've prevented this. "Rupert was a good person until he took the drug," she reminded him, thinking of how she'd found herself liking the vampire from Lacey's description of their relationship. "He made the choice to use the drug, no one else. Not even Raphael could've stopped him unless he was in the room at the instant Rupert decided to eat Umber."
Janvier put his hand on her thigh. "Thank you," he said after over a minute. "I needed to hear that--you expect the ones who go to vampires like Khalil to die, but this . . ."
She curled her hand around his arm, her head against his shoulder. Lacey had died in horrible agony, but as a woman who loved, Ashwini knew the worst pain would've been of Rupert's betrayal. Lacey's heart would've broken long before her body. "She was so harmless, Janvier."
He shifted to wrap an arm around her, pressing his lips to her hair. "At times, I forget I'm not human. Not today."
Ashwini wasn't about to let that go. Lifting her head to pin him with her gaze, she held the raw honesty of the eye contact. "Humanity is what we make it." She'd seen too much horror done by mortals to believe them free of the taint of evil. "You're sad about Lacey. You're sad about Rupert, too. And you're angry at the loss of life that didn't have to happen." Two happy flames snuffed out because someone had decided to create a seductive poison. "That's humanity and it lives in you."
His throat worked, his eyes red rimmed. "Be in my arms," he said at last. "I need to hold you."
She slipped into his embrace in silence and that was how they sat until they heard voices from the back of the cafe. Breaking reluctantly apart, the two of them were on their feet by the time Aaliyah, Carys, and Sina came in as a group.
It was obvious that Carys, a brassy blonde with cool blue eyes and a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose, was the leader. Aaliyah, dark skinned and model tall with delicate bones, spoke in a soft tone heavy with grief. Sina, in contrast, her emerald green hair cut in a blunt fringe above slanted eyes set in a broad, pale-skinned face, smiled easily but it didn't reach her eyes.
"Please," Janvier said after the cafe employee showed them in, "take a seat."
The women hesitated, but then sat side by side on the sofa that faced the one Ashwini and Janvier sat b
ack down on. When the cafe employee came in with a tray of orange juice and cookies, the three women exchanged raised eyebrows. Ashwini rose and thanked the young vampire, made a quiet request in his ear. The small bottle of blood appeared moments later.
This time, Sina's smile was assessing. "Most people don't realize I'm a vampire."
"I'm a hunter." Even then, it had taken her a minute--Sina's fangs were the smallest she'd ever seen, small enough to be mistaken for human canines.
"Fangs work fine, in case you were wondering," the lushly curved vampire said, opening the bottle to take a sip while the others picked up the unopened bottles of juice and twisted off the lids. "Just a weird genetic thing."
Ashwini didn't ask the other question she wanted to know the answer to, but she caught the understanding of it in Janvier's eyes, knew they'd discuss it later. For now, she showed the women the facial image created by Janvier's contact. "Is this your friend?"
"She never looked that flat, was always moving her hands when she talked. Used to drive me nuts." Her voice hard in an effort to hide the tremor beneath, Carys pushed away the photo. "Her hair was dark gold, not white-blonde, but yeah, that's Felicity. Big bluey-green eyes and all."
Identity confirmed as far as possible, Ashwini asked the women to go over the details the three had shared with Ransom. Afterward, she said, "Do you remember exactly when she began talking about her new boyfriend?"
Sina frowned. "Eight months ago."
"You sound very sure," Ashwini said.
"She told me on my birthday, that's why. We'd gone out for a drink, the four of us, and she was bursting with news. Do you guys remember?"
The other two women backed up her recollection.
It was Aaliyah who spoke next. "Few weeks after that, Felicity was so happy because her guy had said he'd take her to Europe, buy her things in Paris, Milan, Rome. She was always into the fashion magazines."
Carys rubbed at the faux-fur collar of her thigh-length coat like it was a worry stone. "Girl used to blow too much money on the rags, but she said it made her happy to look at that stuff."
"Any idea when she was meant to go to Europe?" Ashwini leaned forward, forearms braced on her thighs.
All three women shook their heads. "She just said it'd be soon." Sina rolled her lips inside, bit down with her teeth. "That was the last time I saw her--about seven months ago. Does that help?"
"We'll check airline records." Ashwini would bet her entire year's income that Felicity had never left the country, the promise of Europe a lure designed to lay a false trail.
"Do you know where your friend lived before she found her lover?" Janvier nudged the cookies toward Aaliyah, received a small smile in return.
"Yeah." Carys told them an address in a not particularly nice part of Queens.
"And Felicity never mentioned her lover's name, where he lived, anything?" Ashwini asked, wanting to be certain. "Even the color of his hair."
Carys and Sina shook their heads, but Aaliyah suddenly sat up straight. "One time she said she'd be moving into a nice Quarter house like the rich bitches, and that she was going to invite us for coffee and cakes, and we'd have to wear fancy hats and say 'oh, yes, my dear' and 'toodles.'" Blinking rapidly, Aaliyah whispered, "We laughed so hard."
It was a tenuous link, but it was a link directly to the Quarter. "Do you remember anything else?"
"No . . . but I did ask her why she didn't point out her rich john to us, you know, on the sly."
"Aaliyah!" Sina's mouth fell open. "You never told us that."
"I didn't want to make Felicity look bad, 'cause her man sounded like a first-class dickhead." Rubbing off her tears using the sleeve of her black coat, she said, "Jerkoff told her that if she even hinted they were involved before he took her to Europe for a makeover so she'd 'fit his lifestyle,' the whole deal was off. Felicity wanted it so much, she didn't want to jinx it by telling even us."
A pause before Aaliyah added, "It was weird . . . Felicity never had a pimp, but, looking back, this guy, he got into her head like a pimp does, made her believe the whole 'daddy' shtick."
That he was omnipotent, Ashwini thought, gut boiling, that if he had to be cruel, it was because Felicity had let him down. Bastard.
"We didn't give you enough, did we?" Carys asked, blunt and up-front.
"You gave us another point on the timeline." Ashwini didn't disrespect the women by sugarcoating reality. "Each step gets us closer to finding out what happened to her."
"Will you . . ." Sina took a deep breath, her breasts threatening to overflow the low-cut top she wore beneath her deep pink puffer jacket. "Will you tell us what you discover?"
"I promise."
"We don't have a lot"--Carys stuck her jaw out, shoulders held tight--"but we want to make sure she has a gravestone, a proper burial. Girl ain't got no family, grew up in foster care after her grandparents got swept away in a flood when she was a kid."
Ashwini felt no surprise that Felicity's murderer had zeroed in on wounded prey, on a woman so hungry for love and a stable life that she'd been willing to erase herself to achieve it. "The man whose son discovered the body also wants to help," she told the women as she took out her phone. "He's a good guy. Maybe you can work with him to organize Felicity's funeral once her ashes are released."
Five minutes later, the women left with Tony Rocco's contact number, and Ashwini was back in Janvier's car, having caught the subway to meet him at Blood-for-Less. As they pulled out, she asked what she hadn't inside. "How can a vampire be forced to work the streets? Is it part of her Contract?" Never before had she realized that might be a possibility.
"No," Janvier said. "Certain things are expressly prohibited under the Contract, by order of Cadres ongoing, including the selling of the body for profit. The punishment isn't worth the risk. Of course, that doesn't mean there aren't myriad other ways the Contracted can be used and abused."
Ashwini thought of what she'd seen in Nazarach's court, of the two women on their knees, one on either side of the angel, their faces white and muscles quivering beneath couture evening gowns. "Do you wonder sometimes, about Simone and Monique?"
"Non. They both made their beds--as Sina may have." He stopped behind a gleaming black town car that was attempting to parallel park in a minuscule space. "She's around a hundred and fifty."
"That means she would've received a payment when she completed her Contract." Word was, even if a vamp were given only the minimum mandated amount, it was enough to support a person for a year.
Slipping around the town car, Janvier said, "Vampires aren't immune from bad decisions, or bad luck." His voice held dark memories of the carnage he'd witnessed that morning, of the bad decision that had ended two lives. "There's also the possibility that she chooses this existence--for some, even a hundred years is too much life and they become bored. It may be a rush for her to get into cars with strange men, to use the body to take control."
Every time Ashwini thought she understood people, she learned something that told her even her abilities couldn't predict everything. "The calculating bastard set Felicity up with the Europe trip."
"That's my take. He had to know she'd tell her friends, brag about it a little."
"She was excited to be so close to touching her dreams." In her mind's eye, Felicity was becoming fully formed, a vulnerable woman who was loyal to her friends, and who was driven by hope for a better future. "Then he took her and he hurt her."
"But she didn't die until recently." Janvier's words were ground out. "He kept her for months."
"When we find this son of a bitch, I will personally nail his nuts to the floor before slicing him to ribbons."
"I think you will have to get in line, cher." A grim smile. "But perhaps I will share."
*
Dmitri stood in the center of Masque and considered Janvier's earlier report. The Cajun had been in the Tower for a scarce fifteen minutes to shower and change before he'd left to meet his hunter, but it had been long enoug
h.
"The bloodlust situation wasn't at urgency last night," he'd said, his voice harder than Dmitri had ever heard it, "but this morning changes everything."
Dmitri agreed with the other male's assessment. He'd watched a recording of Adele's surveillance footage, seen crimson tinge the irises of two vampires trapped in the private rooms. He'd also sensed the ugly energy in the air when he'd deliberately walked along the block to reach the club: a vicious mix of scrabbling fear and stimulated excitement.
The swift actions Trace, Janvier, and Naasir had taken in dealing with Rupert that morning had added depth to that fear, but the violent thrill of bloodlust was thick in the air and becoming thicker by the second. The fight against Lijuan had unleashed aggression in a large number of the Made, and now they wanted to surrender to those urges rather than deal with the aftermath of war.
"Dmitri." Adele's long red hair brushed her butt as she walked toward him, her sophisticated features and dress not reflecting the pragmatic earthiness at the heart of her nature. "What do you plan to do about this?"
He half smiled; he'd always liked Adele, even more so now that she'd fought with grim fury to defeat Lijuan's vermin. "I saw you move like a warrior, Adele." Hair braided around her skull, her weapon of choice a war hammer, she'd annihilated the reborn in her sector. "Why do you run this den of iniquity rather than becoming part of the Tower?"
Adele snorted. "You forget, Dmitri. I've known you for five hundred years--sin and sex and pain, you've enjoyed them all."
Enjoyed, Dmitri thought, wasn't the right word. He'd drowned himself in sensation in a futile effort to forget a loss that had beaten his heart to a pulp and left him dead on the inside. But Adele didn't know his past, had no right to it.
"I want you to contact every vampire leader in the Quarter." The ones outside it had been doing their jobs, the vampires who looked up to them in no danger of slipping the leash into carnage. "Tell them they are to be at the Tower on the stroke of six." It was a risk to push the meet to later in the day, but he was making a judgment call that news of the summons would have an immediate and permanent chilling effect on the rising bloodlust. "Lateness is strongly discouraged."