by Tina Folsom
“Yeah, well, I made an executive decision.”
“Who the fuck made you boss? Last time I checked, your father told you to follow my commands and not the other way around.”
Grayson huffed. “Yeah, and last time I checked, you were a full-blooded vampire who burns in the sun. So, would you rather we wait till this evening so you can grab the hacker yourself and waste valuable time, or would you prefer to trust that we can do the job?”
Grudgingly, John had to admit that Grayson had a point. He just wished they would at least take a fully trained vampire with them, even if that person had to stay in the blackout van and monitor the operation from there.
“I want you to take every precaution. We have no idea who this guy is and whether he’s got backup, is armed, or—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know the drill. See you at HQ in a couple of hours.”
“Grayson—”
But the headstrong hybrid had already hung up.
John cursed.
“Something wrong?”
He spun around. His anger toward Grayson vaporized instantly.
Savannah stood at the entrance to the kitchen, wearing one of his shirts and nothing else. Her hair rumpled, an expression of concern flashed over her face. Despite that, she looked way too tasty for a vampire with an empty stomach.
“We found the hacker. My guys are on their way to pick him up.”
“That’s great news.” She hesitated, scrutinizing him. “But you don’t seem to be happy about it.”
“I’m not thrilled that they’re going in without me.”
“But they’re trained like you, right?”
If he allowed her to doubt this, her hope would be crushed, and he couldn’t risk that. “Of course they are. They’re the best.” He forced a smile. “I’m just a bit of a control freak.” Then he walked to her and drew her into his arms. “How about you shower and get dressed, and we’ll drive to Scanguards to meet them when they bring the guy back for interrogation?”
“Sounds good.” She glanced around the kitchen. “I wouldn’t mind a cup of coffee if you’re making some.”
“Sorry, I just noticed that I ran out of coffee. Haven’t had time to go grocery shopping,” he lied. “But I’ll get you a full breakfast once we’re at HQ. Their coffee is better than mine anyway. Can you wait that long?”
“Sure.” She smiled at him and eased out of his arms, then sashayed down the short hallway in a manner so sexy that he wanted to follow her and press her against the nearest flat surface to bury his cock in her.
But there was no time for that now.
While Savannah showered and got dressed, John consumed two bottles of blood, double his normal ration. And he needed it, because the more time he spent in close contact with Savannah, the more his hunger for her blood grew.
After washing out the bottles and disposing of them in the recycle bin, he made sure the kitchen counter was clean and he hadn’t left any traces of his feeding behind.
Again Savannah was ready to go faster than he’d expected. “I’m ready,” she announced from the entrance to the kitchen.
He turned to her and smiled. “Let’s go.”
Her forehead furrowed and she approached. “Did you hurt yourself?” She reached for his chin. “You’re bleeding.”
Fuck! He quickly turned before she could touch him and reached for a kitchen towel, wiping his chin and pressing it to the spot where apparently a drop of human blood had dripped when he’d been drinking greedily. “Must have cut myself shaving.” He pretended to press the towel against the spot a little longer as if he was trying to close the cut, when he knew there was none.
“No wonder.” She motioned behind her. “You don’t have a mirror in your bathroom.”
Crap! He’d forgotten about that. Since vampires didn’t have reflections, there was no need for mirrors. And since he never had human visitors, he’d never felt the need to install fake mirrors. They were in fact large computer monitors with a mirror-like surface and lenses behind it to record in real time anything in front of the monitor, making it look like a mirror. Many of his colleagues used them and found them practical.
“Oh yeah,” he said slowly, trying to buy himself some time, “it broke a couple of weeks ago and I haven’t had a chance to get the contractor in to get it replaced.” He grimaced. “Crazy work hours, you know.”
She seemed to buy it. “Let me see your chin.”
Reluctantly, he removed the kitchen towel.
She stared at the spot. “Looks like it’s fine.”
“Great. Let’s go. You must be starving.”
Eager to get Savannah out of his house before she found something else strange, John led her back to the garage and helped her into the car. Moments later they were on their way to Scanguards. Once there, he ushered Savannah back to the human lounge, which was much busier this time of day. But he knew he couldn’t stay, or Savannah would find it strange that he wasn’t eating.
“Can I leave you here for a half hour while I take care of a couple of things in my office?”
“Aren’t you hungry?”
“I’ll grab something later.” He kissed her on the cheek before she could protest. “Stay here. I’ll come pick you up when the team gets back with the hacker.”
“Promise?” She looked straight at him and he knew what she was asking.
“Don’t worry. I’ll let you watch while I interrogate him. From a safe distance.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’ll be in a room looking into the interrogation room. Same as in a police station. But I can’t let you into the interrogation room itself, in case the guy goes berserk and attacks you.”
“Okay.”
“Now eat something.” He brought his mouth to her ear. “’Cause I love your curves. Wouldn’t want you to lose any weight.”
Then he pivoted and left the lounge, and her enticing scent, behind him.
27
Savannah had finished her breakfast and a second cup of cappuccino, when the young man who’d come to her flat to collect the ransom note, approached her.
“Ms. Rice?”
“Oh, Benjamin, like I said, it’s okay if you call me Savannah.”
He grinned. “I’m not Benjamin. I’m Damian.”
Confused, she stared at him. She remembered the name clearly, or was she going crazy? “I’m sorry, I guess I’m bad with names.”
Damian chuckled. “Benjamin and I are twins. Happens all the time.” He pointed to his hair. “If you wanna keep us apart, just look at the hair. Mine is longer than his.”
“Oh, I didn’t know there are two of you.”
“John asked me to get you. He’s starting the interrogation.”
“They came back with the hacker?”
Damian’s chest puffed up proudly. “Oh yeah, piece of cake. We snatched him. He had no idea we were coming.” Then he motioned to the door. “I’ll take you to the observation room.”
“Thank you.”
She followed him as he led her to the elevator, which they took back down to the basement. When they arrived at one of the sub-levels, he ushered her down a long corridor, then used his access card to open a door. He held it open for her.
“Go ahead. Take a seat.”
She walked inside and saw Ryder sitting at a computer in front of a big window that looked down into another room.
“Hi,” she said.
Damian entered behind her and closed the door.
“They just started,” Ryder said and pointed to the chair next to him. Then he pressed a button on a microphone. “We’re all here.”
Savannah sat down and looked into the room below. Several people were assembled: John, Grayson, and Benjamin. At Ryder’s announcement, they’d turned their heads briefly. There was one man she didn’t know: the hacker. He sat on a chair while the three Scanguards employees stood several feet in front of him, their backs now turned to the window from which she was observing.
“
Let’s try this again, Otto,” John said, his voice coming through loudspeakers in the small observation room as clearly as if she was sitting in the interrogation room with him.
“I know my rights. You can’t keep me here. And you’re not the police,” the suspect said with a defiant upward jerk of his chin.
“You’re right about that,” John acknowledged. “If we were police, you’d get a phone call and a lawyer. Guess what? We’re not that generous.”
A flash of fear passed over the hacker’s face, but then he reined himself in again. “I’m gonna sue you!”
John exchanged looks with his two young colleagues, who were flanking him. “You hear this joker, boys? I don’t think he knows who he’s dealing with.”
Unexpectedly John took several steps toward the suspect, almost jumping at him. Otto’s eyes widened, and he tried to get out of his chair, but John gripped the armrests, and got right in his face.
“Let’s talk, Otto. Let me explain how this is gonna work: I ask questions, and you answer them. Simple. Do you understand?”
The suspect nodded, his eyes still filled with fear. She knew that John could look intimidating, but clearly sitting in a chair in a bare room with three tall and muscular guys bent on getting answers scared the living daylights out of the man. Savannah clasped her hands in eager anticipation. Her heartbeat accelerated.
“You hacked into Kerry Young’s database and photo files to get access to photos and addresses of young girls aged nine to twelve. What did you do with the data?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Otto said. “I didn’t hack into anything.”
“We have proof you did, so let’s not quibble about that. Thirteen girls were kidnapped in the last few weeks, all after photoshoots at Miss Young’s studio. If you don’t answer my questions, I’m going to have to assume that you’re the kidnapper. And I’m not very kind to people who hurt little girls.”
Savannah thought she could hear a growl coming through the speakers, but it was probably static in the line.
“I didn’t kidnap anybody. I didn’t. I swear.”
“Then who did?”
“I don’t know. I swear.”
“You swear a lot. You’d better search your memory, because if I think you’re no use to me anymore, I might just discard you.” He turned his head slightly. “Boys, why don’t you tell our guest what I mean by discard, since he clearly isn’t familiar with my vocabulary.”
Grayson stepped closer. “I believe the correct translation for discard is being beaten to a pulp.”
The hacker gasped in fear.
“Thanks, Grayson,” John said politely. “Now, Otto, how about I repeat my question and you search your memory really hard and tell me what I want to know?”
“Please don’t hurt me. I didn’t know.” Suddenly tears shot to the hacker’s eyes.
“You didn’t know what?”
“I didn’t know what would happen to the girls. All I did was provide access to the website, and then, when my client liked a girl, I sent over her details, you know, from the database. I swear. That’s all I did.”
“Who’s your client?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll ask you again: who’s your client?”
“I don’t know.” The hacker started crying. “I really don’t. He emailed me a few months ago. I never met him. He pays me via a dead drop. Cash.”
“Liar!”
“No, it’s the truth.”
“So some mystery man just contacted you out of the blue to hack into some random photographer’s website and database, and you expect me to believe that? How stupid do you think I am?”
“She’s not some random photographer. Kerry and I dated a while back.”
John drew back, giving the hacker some space now.
Savannah couldn’t believe what she was hearing. The hacker and the photographer knew each other. Did this mean that the photographer was involved after all?
“Go on,” John said, his voice now more controlled.
“I might have bragged to some of my buddies that I had a really successful girlfriend and what she was doing. You know, taking kids’ portraits, and that the kids were really cute. Anyway, after we break up, I get this email, and I suppose I was a little pissed at Kerry for dumping me, so I wanted to screw with her and her business.” He sniffled. “I had no idea what the guy really wanted. I thought maybe he was a rival and just wanted to steal clients or business or whatever. What do I know?”
“Yeah, what do you know?” John shook his head. “Then what?”
“There were reports in the papers about a few girls disappearing, and I recognized three of them from the photos. So I got suspicious. So the next time he contacted me, I said I wanted out. He said there was no out. I was scared.” He tossed a glance at Grayson and Benjamin, then looked back at John. “You see, I couldn’t stop. He wouldn’t let me stop.”
“How do you contact him?”
“Only by email.”
“You’re a hacker. Have you tried to track him?”
“I did. After I realized he wouldn’t let me quit, I sent him an email with the usual link to the photos, but this time I embedded malware into it, so that once he clicked on it, it installed a small program on his computer that let me track his location.”
Savannah nodded to herself. That’s what she would have done. The hacker was smart.
“But he moves around a lot,” Otto continued. “Whenever he contacted me, he did it from a different location. He never used the same location twice.”
“So you’re telling me you have no idea who he is or where he is?” John leaned in again. “None at all?”
Savannah noticed how the hacker lowered his lids, an indication that he was hiding something. John must have noticed too, because he added, “Otto?”
“He’s gonna kill me.”
“Not if I kill him first,” John said.
Otto’s eyes widened. Then he swallowed. “A couple of weeks ago, I gave him the name and address of another girl he requested. But this time I followed the girl, and I saw when she was taken.”
Savannah gasped, her heart beating frantically into her throat now.
“I followed them. Two guys in a van.”
Just like the two guys who’d tried to grab her. Savannah shivered.
“Where to?” John asked.
“The port of Oakland. They brought her there.”
“Do you know where exactly?” John asked.
Otto nodded. “I know the dock number and which building. I can write it down for you. Show it to you on a map if you want.”
“Why didn’t you go to the police after you saw them take the girl?”
Otto shook his head. “He knows who I am, where I live. He would have killed me.”
John straightened. “Fine.” Then he turned to Grayson and Benjamin. “Get the exact location from him.” A moment later he left the room.
Savannah turned to Ryder and Damian. “What now?”
The two young bodyguards exchanged a look.
“What’ll happen to the hacker?”
“Oh,” Ryder said, shrugging, “he’ll be handed over to SFPD when we’re done with him. He’s an accessory. He’ll do time.”
Savannah nodded. “Good. I guess your work is done.”
Damian shook his head. “Time to suit up. We’re going in.”
“What do you mean?” Savannah asked. “Aren’t we gonna call the police?”
Ryder winked at her. “And let them screw this up? Trust us. This is what we do best.” Then he smiled. “Now let’s get your little girl back.”
And those were the best words she’d heard in five days.
28
It was still daylight when two blackout vans left Scanguards’ headquarters and headed for Oakland. Samson had authorized three more men in addition to the hybrids for this rescue mission: Zane, Quinn, and Oliver. Zane had volunteered, clearly itching for a bloody battle. The three vampires were riding wit
h Damian, while John was in the van with Benjamin, Grayson, and Ryder, who was driving.
Everybody was armed to the teeth. In addition, John had donned the spare Kevlar suit and visor that Luther kept in Scanguards’ basement in case of emergency. It was the uniform of the prison guards at the vampire prison in the Sierras, where Luther, Wesley’s brother-in-law, consulted on security issues. The suit would enable John to help the hybrids gain access to the building the kidnappers were keeping the girls in, and open the gates so the remainder of the rescue crew could drive in and get out of the rays of the late afternoon sun.
As they were approaching the location Otto Watson had given them, John said, “You know what to do?”
“Sure thing,” Grayson said confidently. He patted the thermal vision goggles in his lap. “We should be able to figure out pretty quickly where in the building they’re keeping the girls, and how many men we’re dealing with.”
“Shouldn’t be too many,” Benjamin guessed. “There’re only thirteen girls. I doubt they’ll have more than three or four guys watching them.”
John had to agree with that assumption, though he wasn’t relying on it. But what he was relying upon was that the men they were dealing with were human. And eight vampires and hybrids could easily defeat a small army of humans.
“We’re here,” Ryder announced, slowing the vehicle. “I’ll get us as close to the entrance as possible without them being able to see us.” Ryder pulled the van alongside a few dumpsters and a row of pallets.
John peered outside through the darkened windows of the van. The building was a warehouse like so many on the docks. In the large yard that opened to the water, shipping containers were stacked up, narrow walkways between them. The building itself looked dilapidated and unused, but then so did many of the buildings on the docks, even those that were regularly used by legitimate businesses. There were two oversized garage-door style gates which were closed, and a smaller door next to it. Above it John noticed something.
“Ryder, can you see, is that a camera over the door?”
Ryder hesitated, then said, “Yep. Looks like it.” He reached for his gun and screwed a silencer onto the nozzle. “I can take it out. Give me a few seconds.” He opened the car door and slid out of his seat.