by Lynde Lakes
“And I’ll bet you finish with him. Did you see his eyes? The man is evil.”
Chapter Ten
When Damon and Rick arrived at the apartment Lazar had listed as his home address, they found a little old lady living there. Threadbare white baggy sweats hung pitifully on her boney frame. Her leathery-wrinkled skin, uncombed, long gray hair and dissipated, hard-living look gave her the appearance of a homeless person.
“Ma’am. This is my security advisor, Rick Tanner, and I’m Damon Lamont.” Rick flashed a temporary badge. Damon reminded himself to get his private secretary to order a permanent one for him. “We had some problems at my place of business and we’re doing an investigation on one of my employees. How long have you been living here, ma’am?”
“Two months, but I was away for six weeks at rehab. Just got back this morning.” Damon took in the well-maintained luxury apartments. “I’ll bet the rent here is high.”
She snorted. “You mean too high for the likes of me?”
“No, ma’am, I—”
“That’s okay, mister, it is too high. No shame in calling it like it is. This place was a gift from heaven.” She wiped her nose on her sleeve and, in her whisky voice, said, “One of the regulars at a bar I used to go to. Dudley was his name. Well, he was some kinda cocky rich dude who always wore cowboy boots. I was a li’l afraid of him and his squinty blue eyes, but he turned out to be my guardian angel. He tol’ me I could have this place rent free for a year, furniture and all.”
Dudley, generous? Damon doubted it. “What was the catch?”
She shrugged. “He tol’ me he’d signed a lease and paid a year in advance then found a two-bedroom he liked better. I didn’t buy his story, but this place was too good to pass up. I asked the manager and he said it was okay for me to live here.”
Damon heard the TV blaring inside. “Do you have someone staying with you?”
“Nah, but the manager says my nephew camped out here while I was gone. But I ain’t got no nephew. Can you imagine the guts? Just taking over my place while I was gone? I told Mr. Jenks to run off anyone from now on. Don’t want any intruders digging around in my basket, so to speak.”
Damon wanted to ask her name, but he had a feeling the less questions asked, the better. Instead, he decided to stick to queries that were crucial to him and financially beneficial to her. He handed her a hundred dollar bill. “May we come in and look around?” He wanted to give the place a once over—and a luminol scan.
She frowned. He handed her another hundred.
“Okay. But don’t touch anything.” She quickly tucked the money into her pocket and led the way.
The place was neat except for the stack of clothes dumped on the couch. He scanned the entry rooms quickly while explaining the luminol process. He omitted exactly what he was looking for. He worked slower in the bedroom and wasn’t surprised when he found blood.
Buoyed by his findings, he moved on to the next step. He talked to the manager to get a description of the phony nephew. He described someone who resembled Lazar. The prickles at the back of Damon’s neck strongly suggested that Angela might be right about the guy. If she was, what the hell was he dealing with?
* * * *
The sun hung low in the sky when Lazar pulled from the paved employee parking area behind Damon’s three-car garage and headed down the winding lane for the highway.
For this important occasion, he’d worn his grey pinstripe suit and his super glossy black dress boots. Dress for success, his granny had told him. He pressed harder on the accelerator, not wanting to arrive late for his appointment with Dr. Fritz Hummel—two million for the cure for lycanthropy was nothing to trifle with. Closing the deal was the first step to regaining what was rightfully his when he had been Reeves—then came revenge. He laughed. Damon had fronted all the costs but he, Lazar alias Reeves, got to reap all the profits and settle old scores.
Up ahead, he spied Damon’s sexy twins. He slowed. The timing was all wrong, but he couldn’t pass this up this opportunity. He stopped the car and leaned across the seat and rolled down the window. “Need a ride girls?”
“No, we’re good,” Victoria said, tossing her long, onyx hair.
Her flippant toss reminded him of the gesture his sister used to make before he chewed her throat out. Unfortunately, when he planted evidence against Damon, his dear half-brother slipped the noose. But all that happened in a past lifetime when he was Reeves. Now, he was cleverer. Lazar slid his tongue across his teeth to assure himself they were even. Then he flashed a smile. “It’s at least a half mile to the highway. And several miles down the hill. I hope you girls aren’t thinking of hitching a ride.”
Victoria shrugged and gave him a sassy look. “What are you, Dad’s spy?”
Lazar laughed. “Hardly, but I think he’d rather have you ride with someone he knows and trusts than a stranger.”
“A tourist bus comes down from Mt. Baldly twice a day,” Valerie said. “The last one is due in about thirty minutes. We know the driver and plan to hitch a ride with him.”
Lazar studied the twins. Both girls’ features were basically the same, but there was something about Valerie that reminded him of Angela. It wasn’t the hair or her more timid voice. Maybe it was the gentle curve of her throat. He still recalled the softness of Angela’s flesh in another lifetime when he sank his sharp incisors into it. Unfortunately, the orderly stopped him before he could steal away her life.
“How about this deal? I’ll take you right to the door of your destination.” Lazar glanced at his watch. Damn it, girls, just get in the car. I don’t have time to fool around. “Come on, we can get to know each other better.” He’d never done twins.
* * * *
The evening shadows darkened the room and added to Angela’s near panicky mood. She breathed in and out, trying to fight the emotions swamping her, but she couldn’t. Dear God, according to Kyle, her girls got into a car with Lazar! She flicked on the bedside lamp and hurriedly finished dressing and then grabbed her keys from the nightstand. She wished Damon was here. But she couldn’t wait. She tensed when he entered bedroom, brimming with excitement and smelling like sweat and his woodsy aftershave. He approached quickly and kissed her temple. “Where have you been?” she shouted.
Damon wrinkled his brow, no doubt wondering why she’d spoken to him so sharply. “Rick and I were doing some investigating so I had my cell off,” he said.
Tension knotted her nerve endings. She leaned against the dresser and folded her arms to hold herself together.
“We talked to the present occupant of the apartment Lazar listed as his home. And we acquired some additional and very interesting information from the apartment manager.” Damon reached past her and turned off the sad melody playing on the radio. “And you’ll want to hear this—”
“No! Listen to me first! I have another newsflash about your friend Lazar. Kyle took a call from the girls while I was in the shower. The message: Don’t worry, we caught a ride down the hill with Lazar. He’s dropping us at The Ruse Room on Foothill.”
Damon froze. “Dear God, no! Stay put in case they call again. I’ll go get them.”
“Kyle can take the calls. I’m going with you.”
As they headed down the stairway, they met Rick. Damon gave Rick a quick once-over. Perhaps having a young-looking guy along would get them past the bouncer easier. Rick was tall and twenty, but with his young face, he could pass for eighteen or nineteen. His black plaid, long-sleeved Wrangler sports shirt and black jeans and boots added to the image. And the diamond earring in his ear completed the wild-seed appearance. “Come with us to the Ruse Room.”
“Don’t tell me the girls went to that shady, drug-infested teen hangout,” Rick said, looking worried.
“Unfortunately, they did. I might need you if there’s trouble.”
When they arrived at the club, Damon forced himself to breathe in and out slowly. “I have to find my girls,” he told the bouncer. He flipped open his
wallet with the photos of the girls. “It’s a matter of life and death.”
The muscled bouncer in his fifties said, “Lots of luck, buddy Your girls are with a couple of bad dudes who love to get their dirty hands on the innocent ones.”
“Where?”
“Pool room, in the back.”
Rick brushed past the bouncer and took off running. Damon and Angela followed.
“Hey, you can’t go back there,” the bouncer said. But, apparently, the noise of a gang of bikers roaring up to the curb in front of the club stopped him from coming after them. Damon figured it was Deeto and his gang, ready to provide backup if needed. He’d just talked to them on his cell.
Damon felt Angela’s grip tighten on his arm as they weaved their way through the crowded teen hangout with blaring music and writhing dancers. Damn it. His girls hadn’t been using good judgment lately. He shuddered. The risky behavior was probably because of the feral wolves residing within them.
Sweating and frantic, he tried not to look at his watch and reveal his rising panic. What if his girls weren’t even here and the bouncer was just pulling his chain? It was absurd that he preferred to find his girls with a couple of bad dudes in the backroom than have them be off somewhere with Lazar, a Nobel Prize winning scientist.
* * * *
Rick slipped into the pool room, lowered his sunglasses, and scanned the place. He sighed in relief when he saw the twins. Victoria looked mind-blowing, if one liked the hot, wild type. She wore a black hip-length jacket over a clinging white shirt and black skinny cargo pants that revealed every slender curve. She tossed that long, full, wind-blown onyx hair provocatively and handled the pool cue like a pro. Her ankle boots reminded him of a line in a song. Damn it. And she was just the girl who could walk all over him with her boots.
Valerie stood across the room by an old-time juke box, reading the selections, her long blonde hair shading her face. Her jeans and top were clingy too and certainly too provocative for a room full of tattooed thugs who looked like the only school they’d ever attended was the school of hard knocks. They were no doubt the owners of the Harleys Rick saw parked outside when he came in. He suspected they were sizing her up to be their next blonde bimbo.
Since she was in no immediate danger, Rick sauntered over to Victoria. “Looks like you’ve played before.”
Victoria stroked her lips with the tip of the pool cue. “Yeah, baby, wanna play?”
He tried to convince himself that her tough, lustful attitude came from having a feral wolf living inside of her. Whatever lit her fuse, a persistent impatience at her blatantly sexual gestures in front of these hungry toughs warned him that his feelings went beyond desire. His growing concern for her was so strong that no matter how much she irritated him, the caring failed to fade. And those feelings could cost him.
He’d seen the pool room in the mansion and wondered if she’d take the bait if he offered a provocative suggestion to her. It would be easier all around if he could get the girls out of this den of simmering testosterone without a hassle.
“Not afraid to play a pro, are you?” she taunted in a tone that reminded him of heat rising off the desert floor in mid-summer.
He lowered his voice. “Honey, I prefer it. But how about we use the rec room in your home? Then we could play for something really interesting. Besides, I prefer to show up a hot, lusty babe like you in private.”
Her eyes blazed, whether with interest or anger, he wasn’t sure. But before she could reply and give him a clue, her dad shouted from the doorway. “Victoria!” His neck and jaw line were blood red.
It was comical how Victoria’s demeanor changed. She put down the pool cue and shrugged. “Look, I gotta go, guys. My party-pooper dad just arrived.”
The muscle-bound jerk with a quarterback build said, “So you’re Daddy’s girl? I thought you were a woman out for a good time.”
“Not tonight. I know my dad’s look and it’ll be best if I get him out of here before he explodes and gets us all banned from this place.”
Across the distance, the jerk with muscles gave daddy-Damon a once-over. “I’m not afraid of that old man.”
Rick rolled his shirt sleeve up, exposing a scorpion tattoo he’d gotten when he briefly belonged to a desert gang while working undercover for his brother. “But her dad’s not alone,” he said. “Ever hear of Deeto and his gang? They’re outside waiting for the fun to breakout.”
Valerie had already hightailed it over to Angela who was right behind Damon. Rick couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Valerie was nodding.
Rick grasped Victoria’s arm. She wrenched away, and for several annoying seconds, she scorched him with her gaze. “Hands off, employee of the hour.”
Rick felt like shaking the sexy spoiled brat. “Come quietly, Victoria. You don’t want to make trouble for your dad.”
Beneath lush lashes, she sent Rick a sidelong glance. “But maybe I’d like to make a problem for you.” Then she strode toward her father with an irritatingly beautiful animal grace.
Rick started to follow when he felt a cue stick slam across his back. He whirled and went into a judo crouch. “Get the girls out of here now,” he shouted at Damon. “I can handle myself.” Damon must have pushed Angela and the girls out the door. Because a second later, he was in the fight with him, using karate moves and kicks. No one who’d ever seen Damon in action would call him an old man. He had a killer instinct tempered with skilled reserve. Just the kind of man he wanted on his side.
When they were the only ones left conscious and standing, they headed out the door, sore and a little bruised, but glad the girls were all right. Out in the car, Rick found himself sandwiched in the back seat between the twins. His wide shoulders forced him to put his arms up over the back seat behind them. Victoria’s silky hair rested on his arm, taunting him.
He would’ve been amused by Damon’s lecture to the girls if he hadn’t realized how dangerous the situation had been and, after what they’d learned about Lazar, how lucky the twins had been to escape him.
“To make things crystal clear,” Damon continued, “you didn’t have permission to go to that drug-infested hangout.”
“I didn’t see any drugs,” Victoria said with the innocence of an angel. “Besides, we don’t do drugs. You know that. So why are you so mad? We were acting responsibly. We rode with an adult you know and respect, and we set an early curfew. He promised to return at ten-thirty and take us back up the hill. He’s a real cool guy.”
“No, he isn’t,” Damon shouted. “I learned some things today that changed my opinion of Lazar. I want you to stay away from him. Far, far away.”
Rick wanted to second that, but he remained silent. For now.
* * * *
After Damon made certain his girls understood how things could’ve turned deadly, he led Angela to the master bedroom so they could resume their discussion about Lazar in private. “I think you’re right about him,” he admitted. “We used a luminol scan and found blood in Lazar’s bedroom.”
She grabbed the telephone receiver and started to dial. He took it from her and hung up. “We can’t report this. We can’t prove Lazar was ever in that apartment. His name wasn’t on the lease. The lease was in the name of your former harassing boss, Dudley Knox.”
Her eyes widened. “Good grief. Dudley certainly got around before someone killed him.”
“I suspect Lazar. The only thing I have to go on is he listed that apartment as his home address and the blood.”
Now that he suspected that Reeves may have morphed into Lazar’s body, he was glad he hadn’t set it up for Hugh to give blood while in his werewolf state. Even though Hugh had specified that no one must know it came from him and that Damon had to do the extraction himself, Lazar would have caught on that it came from a family member.
“Well,” Angela said, “if Lazar was in the apartment, the police can find his DNA.”
Damon groaned at the mess he’d made of things, all in the name o
f protecting his family. “You forget, I found Kat dead on our property and buried her. And now my DNA is in the apartment with the blood.”
Angela’s eyes blazed. “Don’t say the blood…admit it. You know it’s her blood.”
He drew Angela into his arms and kissed her forehead. “We have no proof of that. If we bring in the police, we risk bringing trouble down on our whole family. Just let me handle it.”
She shrugged away from him, leaving his arms feeling so empty. “That’s how we got into this mess.” Her whispery shout filled the room. “Your perpetual drive to handle things.”
Damon’s stomach knotted tighter. “Don’t you think I know that?”
Every step he’d taken to protect his girls was backfiring on him. He’d wanted to protect them from the excruciating pain and their predator wolf taking over their senses. Equally, he wanted to protect them from feeling the hunger and raging desire of a feral wolf before they’d found love, hopefully no sooner than their late twenties. Better yet, their thirties.
The dark element stirred in the back of his mind that had plagued him for years. It was during January’s full wolf moon when a blue moon occurred and drove his father over the edge of sanity into the empty realm of suicide. Suicide, the eventual solution of most of his family, was not an option for his girls.
“I won’t give up on finding a cure for the girls, but I know now that I can no longer count on Lazar. Since he put false information on the employment form and deceived me, I know I can only expect trouble from him.”
Angela shook her head. “Just imagine what might have happened to our girls because you trusted Lazar. And worse yet, you made the girls feel it was safe to trust him. I can’t leave this in your hands any longer. I’m taking the girls and going to my mom’s until I can think of a safer place.”