Amos’ expression barely flickered. He’d probably heard worse in his long tenure with the Sons.
“I didn’t kill Absalom,” he said quietly. “I was working to displace him because he was an ineffective leader, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t still my brother in Christ. I would not have shed his blood.”
There was an odd serenity in his face when he said it that made her inclined to believe him. Priscilla didn’t always trust her intuition when humans were involved, however. She’d never been superb at reading people, and misreading them had led her into trouble before.
“So where were you during the night of the murder?”
“At the compound,” he said, smirking just a little. “Though I doubt you’re going to take the word of my flock as anything near gospel.”
“Can anyone who isn’t part of your inner circle corroborate your story?”
“Joella stopped by that evening. She came to warn Absalom to stay away. As if he was going to give up that easily.” Amos snorted. “The lovesick fool moved us halfway across the country to get her. He wasn’t going to stop because she said please.”
“From what I understand, her name is Tilly Hall now,” Vance drawled. “And it’s a little suspicious that the only person who can confirm your story is missing.”
Amos blinked. It was the first genuine expression she’d seen on his face since she’d met him. A blank shock crept across his face before he could conceal it.
“You didn’t know she was gone,” Priscilla said quietly.
He shook his head. “Do you have any idea where she might be?”
Arthur’s face was darkening to a dangerous shade of red. “I’m not buying this bogus act, Buckley. Tell me where you’ve put her, or so help me I’m going to see to it you never get out of a cell.”
Amos was shaking his head slowly. Not in denial, the way Arthur obviously took it, but in an effort to process what he was hearing.
“Joella is missing,” he said slowly, sounding out each word like saying it slowly would somehow make it untrue.
“Her name is Tilly!” Arthur exploded, a hand coming down to hit the metal table in front of him. Vance jumped in surprise and Priscilla flinched. “Have the decency to use her legal name, for heaven’s sake!”
Priscilla leaned forward and put a gentle hand on Arthur’s shoulder. His whole body spasmed in response to the touch, and he whipped his head around to glare at her.
“What?” he demanded.
“He doesn’t know,” she said in an undertone. “I’d stake my unlife on it. I don’t know if he was guilty of Absalom’s murder, but I don’t think he knows where Tilly is.”
“He’s guilty,” Arthur hissed. “He has to be.”
Vance hummed thoughtfully. “She’s got a point, Arthur. You know what they say in the academy. Facts are facts, not what you want ’em to be. You don’t get to bend them to fit what you want to be true. I don’t like him, but I think your lady friend is right. He’s not the perp in your missing persons case. Otherwise your search would have turned up something. There was nothing there.”
That tickled something in the back of her mind and she closed her eyes, trying to chase down the elusive thought. If she listened to the men argue, she was going to lose it. After a moment of hard thought, it came to her.
“Maybe what we’re looking for wasn’t there for a reason,” she said. She opened her eyes and fixed Amos Buckley with a stare. “You called Tilly a thief. At the time, I thought you were talking about Absalom and implying she was the murderer. But that wasn’t it, was it? What did she take when she came to confront you?”
Amos’ mouth twisted. “Our list.”
Arthur and Vance stopped arguing and turned their attention back to Amos. “A list?” Arthur echoed.
He nodded. “We compile a list of people who need proselytization.”
“What?” Vance asked, his brow furrowing.
“People who need Jesus,” Priscilla translated with just a hint of wry humor. “Their holy hit list, as it were.”
Amos didn’t contest it.
“We didn’t realize it was gone until evening,” he said. “Absalom was worried she’d call ahead and warn everyone on the list, or worse, call the police.”
“So he went looking for her,” Arthur said. “That’s why you accused her of the murders when Priscilla went to confront you.”
Amos nodded. “It made the most sense at the time. Has it occurred to you that she might have run to escape justice?”
Vance grunted. “He has a point, Arthur.”
“No, he doesn’t,” Priscilla said dismissively.
“What makes you say that?” Arthur asked.
“Tilly is nine months pregnant. She is due to pop any day now. I may not have ever had children, but I’ve been around enough women who have over the centuries. She’s not leaving her home and fiancé when she’s that far along. If Tilly was running, she’d at least have taken Zachary with her, not to mention a few things she’d need from home. Matilda and Zachary haven’t seen her for three days, Arthur. Something’s wrong.”
Arthur didn’t look pleased by that, but she could tell he accepted it. He reached into his breast pocket and withdrew the small notebook he kept for cases like this. He uncapped a pen and slid both across the table to Amos.
“I want names,” he said shortly.
Amos stared uncomprehendingly at the paper. “What?”
“The names of everyone on the list that you can remember. There’s a chance that one of them might be hiding Tilly.”
Amos dithered. “You’re sure it will help Joella?”
“I think this is the only lead we have. Do you want to help her or not?” Arthur asked.
Amos began to write. The list was long and his handwriting was hard to read. There were quite a few names Priscilla recognized. Diane Webb, Logan Hobbes, her own, Dean’s, Maddison Baker, Edward Jameson, Matilda Reid, and Willis Perry to name a few.
Most of the crimes worthy of the Sons’ contempt happened to be things beyond people’s control like, say, their species. The rare exceptions seemed to be members of other religions, like Edward, and people with no religion at all like Perry.
She frowned. No, there was more to it than that, wasn’t there? Perry worked with many animals that the Sons would consider unclean. He had access to them and showed them off at public events. Now that she thought of it, that didn’t seem quite right to her either. The commute from Boston to Bellmare wasn’t outrageous, but surely that journey would have been difficult with animals in the car. She’d never seen him driving a truck or using any official zoo gear.
It hit her like a thunderbolt from above. Priscilla gasped as the pieces slotted into place.
“The bite!” she exclaimed.
Vance and Arthur turned to her, eyes clearly questioning her sanity.
“The bite?” Vance said. “What bite?”
“The bite! Absalom’s bite!” They continued to stare at her in incomprehension. She sighed and pointed to the file that Arthur was holding. “The bite that killed Absalom. Gabriel said it couldn’t be conclusively proven to be human. I think I know what made it! It wasn’t a vampire or a dog.”
“What then? A werewolf?” Arthur asked, sarcasm thick in his voice.
“No. A monkey. Probably a chimpanzee or a baboon, from the severity of the wound.” She took a deep breath and told them what she was almost certain was the truth.
“Perry has illegal pets, and Absalom found out. That’s why Perry set something on him.”
Arthur paled, quickly coming to the same conclusion she had. “And if Tilly visited him, she knows too. He’s not likely to let her leave alive.”
“Why would this gal go visit Perry?” Vance asked, his brow furrowing. “They weren’t friendly, were they?”
“No, I don’t think so. But if his name was on the list she stole from Amos, she might have gone to see him and could have seen something she wasn’t supposed to. The same things that Absalom foun
d. We need to find him now. The faster we leave—”
“The greater likelihood we get her out of there alive. I’ll drive,” Arthur said decisively. “Thanks for your help, Vance.”
Vance stared between the two of them, clearly bewildered. “What do you want me to do with these guys in the meantime?”
“Charge them or release them,” Arthur said, striding toward the door. Priscilla was already waiting for him beside it. “I don’t care. We have a killer to catch.”
Chapter Thirteen
Priscilla felt sick to her stomach, and it wasn’t just Arthur’s breakneck driving that was giving her nausea.
“You don’t really think he’s killed her, do you?” She had to shout over the noise of the siren. It was going to give her a headache if it remained on for much longer, but she didn’t care. As long as it got them to Perry’s remote strip of land in record time, she’d deal with the discomfort.
“I can’t rule it out,” Arthur said. But he looked as ill as she at the prospect. Any murder was evil in Priscilla’s book. But killing a mother who was still with child ... it just seemed especially heinous.
Arthur whipped around a corner and onto a gravel road, which forced him to slow down lest they slide off into a ditch. A giant cloud of dust billowed up behind them as he sped as quickly as possible toward Perry’s home.
Priscilla was surprised that it hadn’t actually raised eyebrows before. Perry’s house was situated on almost four hundred acres of land. That was big enough for a family farm to grow crops on. Yet, according to everything Arthur had been able to glean from a hurried conversation with his second-in-command, Jack Riggs, Perry wasn’t doing anything with the land. He mostly kept to himself and only showed up in town for animal shows.
Jack had been able to call the Boston Zoo and discover that Perry was no longer employed there, as of May. So that begged the question how he’d been able to bring so many dangerous and exotic animals to his shows without access to the zoo’s collection of animals. The answer was most likely black-market animal sales. It was a lucrative and surprisingly common trade, though most people sneaking animals into the United States were trying to sell pieces of the animals, not the whole animals themselves.
Arthur skidded to a stop suddenly, and the sudden discontinuation of forward motion was enough to give Priscilla whiplash. After she finished spitting out her own hair, she saw why he’d come to such an abrupt stop. There was another car waiting by the gate, a sleek black Hummer. Gabriel was already here.
She scrambled out of the car and Arthur did the same once the car was in park. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I got the results back from the lab I sent them to. The saliva in the bite isn’t human,” Gabriel said hurriedly. “It’s—”
“A chimp or a baboon, we know,” Arthur said, cutting across him. “Perry set it on Absalom, hoping it would look like a vampire attack.”
Gabriel nodded grimly. “It was a very clever diversion, I have to admit.”
“Why aren’t you already inside?” Arthur said, squinting at him.
“Electrified fence,” he explained, and tossed a rock at the nearest post. It crackled upon contact. “I’m trying to figure out how best to get over it. I assume it’s more to keep the animals in than to keep us out. Priscilla and I could probably survive a shock, but I don’t think you would, Chief Sharp. No offense, but you’re not built to take a shock designed to fell a tiger.”
“How do we get in?” Arthur snapped impatiently. “There’s a girl in there, and she’s probably dead or dying.”
Gabriel exchanged a look with her. “I think you ought to remain here and call additional services. Priscilla and I can go inside.”
“I thought you said you didn’t want a consultant on this case,” Arthur said. It was rather a poor time to be churlish in her opinion. “Now you want her at your back?”
Gabriel’s jaw flexed. “We’re immortal, not invincible, Chief. I don’t want to face down a deadly pack of beasts by myself. The only vampire even slightly qualified is right here and she’s willing to go.” He paused, and then turned to her. “You are, aren’t you?”
“Of course!”
“I don’t like this,” Arthur said, and Priscilla could make out the distinct sound of grinding teeth. “You need law enforcement in there, Winthrop, not a consultant.”
“Do you have any better ideas?” Gabriel snapped. “Every second we waste could cost someone their life.”
Arthur was silent for several seconds before he finally ground out. “Fine. Go. I’m getting an ambulance, animal control, and every cop I can spare out here.”
Gabriel didn’t need to be told twice. He glanced up, measured the height of the fence, and then backed up several yards. He got a running start and leapt as soon as he was a few feet away. His momentum carried him up and over the worst of the electrified fence. He clipped the very edge of it with his pant leg, and Priscilla heard the crackle when it made contact. She smelled burned material and the distinct odor of singed hair.
Priscilla swallowed reflexively. She’d never liked burns, and now she was risking quite a few of them if she misjudged the distance. She glanced up. The fence was quite high. Gabriel was probably right. It was meant to keep things in, not out. Some animals could leap astonishing distances.
She took a deep cleansing breath. Then she backed up further than was probably strictly necessary and ran toward the wall. At the very last second, she used every ounce of strength she could muster and pushed off against the ground, catapulting herself into the air. For a few seconds she was flying, the air whipping her hair around her face. Her momentum eventually died and she began to plummet. Her back grazed a point on the fence and searing agony licked up her spine as she fell. She barely had enough time to tuck and roll before she hit the ground.
Gabriel was waiting for her, and offered her a hand up. “Not bad, Pratt,” he praised. “How’s your back?”
“Sore,” she griped, standing. The shirt she’d changed into before accompanying Arthur to Westwend was polyester, and she was regretting that choice as the fibers melted and stuck to her back.
Gabriel examined the damage in a perfunctory manner. “You’ll heal. Let’s go.”
He set off at top speed, and it was a struggle to keep up with him. Vampires could move extraordinarily fast, but it was nothing like media liked to depict it. The average vampire, like Priscilla, could only go as fast as the fastest human, which was about twenty-eight miles an hour for short stretches. Older or more practiced vampires could sometimes reach thirty to thirty-five miles per hour. It was a sad reality that most male vampires were just going to be faster because of biology. They were usually taller, more solidly built, and more active.
Gabriel pulled ahead of her and reached the small grouping of buildings a full minute before she did. The place didn’t look like much. It actually reminded her a little of the Sons’ compound. There were a lot of outbuildings in a circle around the main house and a barn.
The house was ranch-style with pretty ivory siding, a wraparound porch, and a slanting roof. All the lights were off inside, which meant that Perry was either in bed or not at home. She was willing to bet it was the latter.
Gabriel raised his head and very carefully sniffed the air. Following his cue, Priscilla did the same. Scenting wasn’t the same as breathing, though that could tell you quite a bit about your surroundings on its own. Scenting enabled a vampire to filter out smells that weren’t important, like the smell of honeysuckle somewhere on the property, or the fragrance of grass that had been freshly cut. Over all of that was the smell of animals. Warm-blooded, but rather unappealing as far as things went. She drew in a deeper breath, trying to find something human.
“It’s no use,” Gabriel muttered. “I can’t get anything human. We’re going to have to go into the outbuildings.”
“Are you sure?” Priscilla asked nervously. “There could be animals loose.”
A smile flashed across Gab
riel’s face for a moment before it disappeared. “I doubt it. Despite what he did, I think he really cares for these creatures. He’s not going to let them all loose so that the predators can eat the prey creatures.”
He had a point, and she tried to cling to that as they approached the nearest outbuilding. It was squat and long, built like a stable. She couldn’t scent any horses, so it was probably being used to house something else these days. She tried not to think too hard about what.
Gabriel pulled a pocket-sized flashlight out of his coat when they entered. Their eyes were very adaptable to darkness, but they couldn’t see in complete and utter darkness. He flicked the light on, and what she saw nearby made her wish that the light had stayed off.
There was a large glass cage situated against one wall and it contained a very large snake. Priscilla shrank against Gabriel’s side.
“Afraid of snakes, Pratt?” he asked in a whisper.
“If they’re big or poisonous, yes,” she hissed back. “Don’t laugh at me, they’re dangerous.”
“It’s a constrictor, if it makes you feel any better,” he said. “It’ll try to crush you to death, collapsing your airways. That’s not necessarily fatal to a vampire, as long as the ribs don’t pierce the heart.”
“That makes me feel so much better,” she said sarcastically.
They moved further inside and Priscilla couldn’t help but glance down at the ground, rather than at the snakes that slithered in cages all around them. There were oddly-shaped boxes scattered here and there. She bent and picked one up.
“Flash, Bang, Boom,” she muttered, reading the packaging. “This is an odd place to store fireworks, isn’t it?”
Gabriel shrugged. “I think owning illegal fireworks is a lesser crime than kidnapping. I don’t claim to understand how this man thinks. Maybe he thinks that no one will try to raid this place because of the snakes.”
It seemed like solid reasoning to Priscilla, but she was a little phobic about being poisoned after her experience last year. She dropped the container and carried on, following Gabriel further into the darkness.
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