by AE Jones
“Of course he is.” This kid was on the short list for sainthood. There had to be something they could do for him. I wrote the name David on the board, but as I wrote the letter H, my hand shook so hard I dropped the marker. I stared at the floor, watching it roll away.
Talia jumped to her feet. “Kyle?”
Jean Luc flashed and caught me before my body seized up fully. Muscles locked in my legs and had me whimpering like a whipped puppy. He picked me up and laid me on the couch while Misha fetched a blanket and covered me.
“Should I call 911?” Talia asked.
“Non. She will be all right.” Jean Luc turned to me. “Breathe through it like we practiced, ma petite. With me now. Deep breaths.”
He rubbed my shoulders, and his vampire thrall rushed through me. I closed my eyes and let the warmth envelop me, and as I’d learned, I didn’t fight the names bouncing around in my cerebellum. I had to let the Key show me what it needed to, and when the names lit up, two came to the forefront, and I sighed as my muscles unclenched.
After a few minutes of deep breathing, I opened my eyes to find Jean Luc sitting on the coffee table next to me, smiling. Talia and Misha hovered close by, both wearing worried frowns. Misha was holding something wrapped in plastic.
“She will need some protein now,” Jean Luc said for Talia’s benefit while Misha unwrapped the stick and gave it to him. “This is beef jerky. Are you ready for a couple of bites?”
I pushed myself into a sitting position slowly, and Jean Luc tucked the blanket around me. I took a bite of the jerky, chewed, and swallowed the salty meat.
Talia scowled and put her hands on her hips. “Is someone going to tell me what the hell is going on?”
I nodded at Jean Luc, who launched into the story.
“Last summer, when Sebastian and the Pavels were looking for the Key of Knowledge, we found it. Or rather the Key found Joe.”
“What does that mean?”
“The Key is not a physical object. It is knowledge that is absorbed by its keeper. In this case, it was supposed to be Joe.”
I set the jerky down, my stomach souring. “Sebastian tortured Dalton because he believed Dalton had stolen the Key. He didn’t know it was a part of him. And when we finally rescued Dalton, he was badly damaged. Nicholas felt the only way to save his life was to change his memories of being the Key and knowing us.”
Jean Luc frowned. “Nicholas forced you to erase Joe’s memories.”
“He might have threatened me, but he wasn’t wrong. It saved Dalton’s sanity. But when I finished, I had somehow not only absorbed Dalton’s memories, I had absorbed the Key.”
“Does Nicholas know you have the key?” Talia asked.
“No. And I want to keep it that way. You’re only the sixth person who knows about this. Jason, Doc, and Griffin do, too. Oh, and Marie, which makes seven, but she’s a ghost.”
“She can still tell people,” Misha groused.
Talia sat on the coffee table next to Jean Luc but directed her question to me. “And what hit you just now was the Key at work?”
“Yeah. I have all of this stuff floating in my mind, and I can’t interpret it, so the Key forces the issue sometimes. I see phrases and names like some sort of giant rolodex in my brain. Jean Luc’s been trying to help me access the information without all the drama.”
“Through his thrall with you,” Talia replied.
“Uh, yeah.” This was going to get awkward real quick. Only I would end up in a position where I had to explain why a vampire bit me and placed me under his thrall. And to his vampire girlfriend, to boot. It was like a supernatural version of Days of Our Lives. Cue crescendo music and long, drawn-out stares.
Talia reached out and grasped my hand. “Jean Luc’s explained that he bit you to protect you from Sebastian. I’m fine with it. And if it also helps you with these episodes, then so much the better.”
Misha was still hovering, so I moved my legs so he could sit on the couch next to me. He put his arm around my shoulder. “What did the Key have to say today, little one?”
“David, the museum security guard, is on my list of names. I’m not sure why I didn’t respond to his name when I first heard it, but when I started to write it on the board, the Key walloped me.”
“Better here than at the art museum,” Jean Luc said.
“True. While it was at it, the Key gave me another name, Marlene Thompson.”
“Do you think she has something to do with the case?” Talia asked.
“Maybe.”
Misha kissed me on top of the head and rushed to his laptop. “Let me do a search on the name and see what I get.”
Jean Luc held up the jerky. “You need to eat some more of this or your headache will not go away.” He looked at Talia. “Protein seems to help her after an attack. As well as sleep.” He turned back to me. “Close your eyes for a few minutes and rest.”
I pouted like a petulant child, but he simply stared at me until I reached for the jerky. He was never intimidated by petulance.
“Fine,” I said, “but I’m not sleepy.”
* * *
I stretched and sat up. I couldn’t tell how long I’d been asleep, but my stomach rumbled loudly. Which was probably what woke me up to begin with.
Misha chuckled from his perch at the table. “I’ve ordered Thai food for dinner. It should be here shortly. How are you feeling?”
“Better.” I pulled the blanket off and sat up, flexed my still-tight shoulders, and then ran my fingers through my short hair to smooth it down enough that I didn’t look like a punk. Now that I’d dyed it blond instead of my neon color of the week, I was at least attempting to look respectable. “Any breakthrough on the case?”
“It’s only been a couple of hours, Kyle. I’m good, but not that good.”
“Did you find anything out about the name Marlene Thompson?”
“There are three hundred and thirty six in the US. Three in Ohio.”
“Anything interesting about them so far?”
“One of them is a pharmacist in Columbus, one is a retired teacher in Ashtabula, and the third is a phlebotomist in Dayton. I’ll set up an alert to track any news items involving the name.”
I nodded, my nerves jumping. I’d done the same thing for Dalton after I changed his memory. I basically cyber-stalked him until Misha found out, talked me into letting him watch over Dalton, and promised to tell me if anything important happened.
My phone rang, and I picked it up from the table and glanced at the screen. Griffin. I held up the phone and showed it to Misha. Griffin wasn’t supposed to call me until later today. I glowered at Misha, who held up his hands, palms out, in defense.
“Don’t look at me. I didn’t call him.”
I went into my office and closed the door to escape Misha’s big ears. “Hello.”
“Hello, my sweet.”
My heart beat a little faster at his endearment. “How are things going?”
“Good. I’m packing now and will leave shortly.”
I sat at my desk. “You don’t have to come home early on my account.”
“I’m not. Our meetings ended early. What’s wrong, Kyle?”
Crap. “Nothing.”
“You’re lying to me.”
I let out a huff. “You can’t smell my emotions through the phone, shifter.”
“No, but I can hear them in your voice.”
I hesitated. This “being honest” stuff was taxing my nerves. “I had another incident.”
“With the Key?”
“Yes.”
He growled.
“I’m fine. I was with Jean Luc, and he helped me. It wasn’t as bad as the time in Vegas.”
“We need to find a way to stop this.”
I ran my palm along the pockmarks on my wooden desk. “We will.”
“What triggered it?”
“We have a new case.” And I spent the next few minutes filling him in.
“Be careful, Kyle.�
�
“I’m glad you’re coming home.” I took a deep breath. “I miss you.”
A low rumbling sound came through the phone.
“Did you purr?”
“Yes.”
“Awww. Does Lion King need some nooky?”
He groaned. “Don’t play with me on the phone, Kyle. I can’t handle it.”
I laughed. “I’ll find some way to make it up to you when you get home.”
He groaned again. “You’re going to pay when I get my hands on you.”
“Promises, promises.”
Chapter 5
Could a person explode from eating too much Pad Thai? I stuck my chopsticks in the takeout box and set it on the table. Misha gazed at the box like it was a long lost lover, and I pushed it to him to finish. I had never seen anyone eat the way he did. He chalked it up to his demon metabolism.
Talia snickered from her spot on the couch next to Jean Luc. “Watching him eat is like watching a Three Stooges movie. You keep telling yourself it’ll be over soon, but it just keeps going.”
“Hey! I like the Stooges,” Misha protested.
I grinned. “Of course you do, Mish.”
Jean Luc’s phone rang, and he answered it. “Yes, Captain. We are all here. Let me put you on speaker.” He set the phone on the table. “Go ahead, sir.”
“I just finished talking to the museum director, and she can’t find anything missing from the exhibits.”
“I don’t buy it,” I said.
Morrison paused for a second before answering. “Do you think she’s lying?”
“I’m not sure. What’s her name?”
“Cynthia Hamilton.”
Misha entered the name into his laptop.
I continued. “David told us the assailant’s backpack seemed heavy. I think they need to dig a little deeper and figure out what’s missing. And fast.”
“Have you gotten results from the autopsy?” Jean Luc asked.
“Pending the blood work sent off for testing, the ME has ruled the cause of death as a broken neck. We found no trace evidence of the assailant on Carl Willis or in the special exhibits room where Carl was killed.”
“Can you send us some samples from the scene?” Jean Luc asked.
“It’ll be tricky, but I’ll work on it.”
“And can you email me a copy of the autopsy results?” Misha asked.
“Sure. I’ll also put a fire under the director’s rear and see if she can figure out what the perp stole.”
I smiled. “I have a better idea. Misha was just about to run me home, and since the museum is on the way, why don’t we stop by and talk to the director ourselves?”
“She should still be there. With the investigation going on, the museum is closed today. I’ll tell her you’re coming so she doesn’t give you the runaround. Let me know what you find out.”
Morrison hung up, and Misha chuckled next to me. “I was running you home, huh?”
“Eventually. All I did was move the timeline up a bit.”
Misha clicked on the laptop keys. “Okay, a real quick look at Director Hamilton tells me she has a PhD in Art History. She is originally from Chicago and moved here to take the job at the museum. I doubt she has a record, but I’ll run her name through the database to be sure.”
“Do you want me and Jean Luc to come with you?” Talia asked.
“Nah. I’ll keep Misha in line. We should be fine.”
Jean Luc frowned, almost as if he didn’t trust me or something. “Maybe we should go with them.”
I picked up my coat. “Go home and have some vampire alone time. We’ll bring you up to speed tomorrow.”
Twenty-five minutes later, Misha and I walked through the main museum entrance and into the atrium, which always takes my breath away with its three-story glass ceiling. We followed a guard into an employees-only area, where he knocked on a glass door. A middle-aged woman with her hair bundled into a makeshift ponytail glanced up and motioned for us to enter.
Cynthia Hamilton walked around her desk, and I tried not to gape at her. She was a tall woman, as in NBA women’s basketball tall. Standing between her and six foot six Misha, I felt like a shrub in a grove of giant sequoias.
“Ms. Hamilton, I’m Kyle McKinley, and this is Misha Sokolov. I believe Captain Morrison told you we would be stopping by?”
“Yes. He said you were helping with the case.” She frowned slightly. “I’m not sure what I can tell you that I haven’t already told the police. I don’t know what was stolen at this point, if anything at all.”
Her office was chock-full of books and various museum pieces spread out on a long conference room table across from her desk.
“I can imagine taking inventory is pretty overwhelming,” I said.
She grimaced. “You could say that. Our building is almost six hundred thousand square feet. The CMA has approximately forty-five thousand objects on display, not counting the pieces in storage.”
“Holy crap.”
The director laughed harshly. “Exactly what I’ve been thinking since the day began.”
“Did you know Carl Willis?”
Her smile faded. “Yes. We have more than four hundred employees, but I try to meet all of them. Carl worked here for ten years. I can’t imagine why anyone would kill him.”
Misha nodded. “Would you tell us how you’re going through your inventory?”
“I have our staff methodically checking through every room to ensure nothing is missing. For some of the smaller gallery spaces, which are filled mostly with paintings, it doesn’t take long to take inventory. But most of our rooms have multiple pieces in display cases, and many of the cases are linked to sensors that trigger an alarm if they’re opened.”
“Were any of those cases disturbed?”
“So far we haven’t found any. I have no idea what this thief was after. I confirmed that our more priceless pieces are still in place. It was first priority, and they’re all still here. Then I moved on to the special exhibits room, since it’s where Carl was killed.”
“What is currently in the special exhibits room?” Misha asked.
“We’re between exhibits at the moment. We were supposed to be opening a new one next week, an exhibit of ancient Mayan artifacts. The room isn’t completely set up yet.”
“And nothing is missing from there?” I asked.
Cynthia shook her head. “The pieces set up so far are all still there.”
“What about the pieces that haven’t been set up yet? Where are they being kept?”
“Some are crated in the room. Others are in the storage area.”
“Could you have your people look through those items next?”
“Are you following a hunch, Ms. McKinley?”
“I think the thief took something from that space and Carl died because of it. And if it helps, Captain Morrison mentioned the other security guard saw the thief carrying a backpack that appeared to have something heavy in it. I would think whatever he stole would need to fit inside, and almost fill, a backpack.”
“Interesting. That means we can exclude some of the bigger pieces.”
Misha handed her his card. “Call us if you find out anything, no matter how minor.”
Once we were in the car, I rested my head against the seat and took a deep breath. “Well, that was a bust.”
When Misha didn’t respond, I peeked over at him. He was sporting an impish grin.
“What?”
“You were the model of diplomacy in there, little one. I think you are growing up a bit, yes?”
I stuck my tongue out at him. “Oh, stuff it, Mish.”
“Maybe not so diplomatic after all.”
“I wasn’t going to give the woman a bad time. She’s got her hands full. I can’t imagine cataloging all the items they have on a normal day, let alone in the middle of this chaos.”
“Let’s go get some cannoli from my favorite bakery and think about next steps.”
“Misha we jus
t finished dinner!”
He grinned, and I rolled my eyes. How could I have forgotten who I was talking to?
* * *
I took a sip of the cappuccino Misha had talked me into buying and propped my feet on my coffee table. “So what do you think we should do next?”
Misha reached into the pastry box for his third cannoli and bit into it, the powdered sugar falling like snow onto his chin. “As soon as Morrison sends the autopsy results,” he said, “I’ll forward them to Doc so she can see if anything stands out. And I’m going to keep digging into potential demons that could have killed Carl Willis.”
“I can help with that.” I made a wiping motion over my chin.
He reached for a napkin and cleaned his face. “You hardly slept last night, and you need to get some sleep.”
“And you don’t?”
“I’m a demon, little one. I can go for days without sleep.”
I huffed out a breath. “It’s more than likely all the sugar you inhale.”
He chuckled. “I’m sure it doesn’t hurt. Jean Luc and Talia don’t need much sleep, either. I’m surprised you didn’t want them to come along with us.”
“I want them to have some private time together. Talia’s only been here a few weeks, and I don’t want them to screw things up again. Plus, someone on the team should be getting lucky.”
“Griffin will be home soon, yes? You’ll be getting lucky in no time. Unless he is not good in bed?”
My face heated. “Mish! We’ve had this conversation before. My sex life is not up for discussion.”
“I don’t understand why you’re so squeamish about sex, Kyle. I’ve told you I’m simply curious about human mating practices.”
“What are you, the demon version of Freud? I’m not squeamish about sex. I’m squeamish about describing sex to you.”
He tilted his head and stared at me until I blew out a hard breath. “Griffin is good in bed, and that’s all you’re getting out of me.”
“You seem more content lately, Kyle. I’m glad you’ve been able to move on.”
My heart stuttered, and I nodded, since I was at a loss for words.
His knowing gaze tightened on me. “As I promised, I’m watching out for Joe. He’s still working with the FBI in Chicago.”