When he called lunch, Tony reminded everyone to be back in an hour, then told Adam he might be late. That there was something he had to investigate downtown. If Adam believed the investigation was necessary to protect the world from a magical attack, well, Tony wasn’t responsible for Adam’s misconceptions.
Jack Elson could go fuck himself. Tony wasn’t playing at anything. Two men were dead, Valerie had a connection to them both, and she was hanging around Lee.
And he didn’t have a fucking wand.
The drive into Vancouver from Burnaby wasn’t fun, traffic seemed to be insane at any time of the day lately, but Tony wanted the car with him, just in case. In case of what, he had no idea. Stuck behind an accident on McGill Street, he pulled out his phone and realized that of the three people he could call for advice, two of them would be dead to the world—literally—until sunset. His third option, Detective Sergeant Mike Celluci, would likely tell him the same thing Jack had. Stay out of it.
Lee was in it.
So was he.
As the car in front of him started to move, he pocketed his phone and hit the gas.
Gastown was a historic district as well as an area the city was fighting to reclaim and, in the middle of the day in late fall, the only people out and about were a few office workers hurrying back from lunch, a couple of bored working girls hoping to pick up some noon trade, and a man wearing a burgundy fake fur coat passed out in a doorway. The alley didn’t look any better by daylight.
Tony walked slowly past the graffiti and the dumpster and the other debris he hadn’t noticed that night. He walked until he stood on the spot where the old man’s body had lain, checked to make sure no one was watching, and held out his left hand. The scar he’d picked up as a souvenir of the night in Caulfield House was red against the paler skin of his palm. The call wasn’t specific; he had no idea of where the old man’s identification was or even what it was exactly, he just knew it had to exist.
That would have to be enough.
Come to me.
It took Tony a few minutes to realize what he was seeing—that the fine, gray powder covering his palm was ash. He traced the silver line back to a crack where the lid of the dumpster didn’t quite fit. Watched it sifting out and into his hand. There was quite a little stack of it by the time it finished. Mixed in with the ash were tiny flecks of crumbling plastic and what might have been flecks of rust.
The old man had ID with him. Someone had burned it then dusted it over the garbage in the dumpster. Even if they’d looked, the police would never have found it.
Tony flicked his hand and watched the ash scatter on the breeze.
Most modern identification was made of plastic.
It would take more than a cheap lighter to destroy it so thoroughly.
Lee wasn’t exactly surprised to see Valerie standing at the end of the driveway when he headed out to work. He pulled over and unlocked the passenger side door. She stared at him for a long moment through the glass—although, given the tinting, he doubted she could see much—and then, finally, got into the car.
Enclosed, she smelled faintly cinnamon. He loved the smell of cinnamon. Her lips were full and moist, the lower one slightly dimpled in the middle. Her eyes made promises as she said, “I know places we can go where we won’t be interrupted.”
“That’s not why I stopped.”
“That’s why everyone stops.” A deep breath strained the fabric of the dress. “I can give you what you need.”
“I have what I need.” As a line, it verged on major cheese, but it was true. “What do you need?”
“What do I . . . ?” She blinked and the promises were unmade. “No one’s ever asked me that before.”
“I’m sorry.”
She looked startled by the sympathy. He had a feeling no one had ever apologized to her before, either. Slender fingers tugged at the hem of her dress. “I . . . I could use a ride downtown.”
“Okay.” Lee pulled into traffic. “That’s a start.”
Amber snapped her gum and pushed stringy hair back off her face. “So you’re not a cop?”
“No.”
“Or some kind of private dick?”
Tony spread his hands. “I don’t even play one on TV.”
“Then why are you askin’?” She sagged back against the building and yawned. “You don’t look like some kind of religious nutter. What’d this girl do for you that was so fucking great you need to find her?”
“It’s not what she did for me . . . ”
“Ah.” Amber cut him off. “I get it. Jealous boyfriend.” She laughed at Tony’s expression. “Honey, you haven’t looked at my tits once, and even the nutters check the merchandise. And—” her voice picked up a bitter edge “—you turn, just a little, when a car goes by. Enough that a driver could check us both. You’ve got a history. Afraid he’s going to find out about it?”
“He knows.”
“Uh huh.”
Tony had no idea how this had suddenly become about him. “Look, I just need to find Valerie. Reddish brown hair, short blue dress.”
“Black heels? Black sweater, kind of cropped? She just got out of one of them expensive penis-mobiles on the other side of the street,” Amber added when he nodded. “At least someone’s making the rent today.”
Tony turned just in time to see Lee’s car disappear around the corner and Valerie walk into a sandwich shop. He shoved the fifty he’d been holding into Amber’s hand and ran across Cordova, flipping off the driver of a Mini Cooper who’d hit the horn.
The sandwich shop was empty except for the pock-marked, middle-aged man behind the counter.
“The woman who just came in here, where did she go?”
The man smiled, looking dazed. “I didn’t see a woman.”
“She just came in here.”
His smile broadened. “I didn’t see a woman.”
The guy was so stoned he wouldn’t have seen a parade go through. The only other door was behind the counter. When Tony moved toward it, he found himself blocked.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Counter guy didn’t look stoned now, he looked pissed.
“Look, I need to find that woman.”
And the smile returned. “I didn’t see a woman.”
It wasn’t magic, at least not magic Tony recognized, but it wasn’t right.
“I gave her a ride, Tony, what’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing’s wrong with it.” Tony paced the length of Lee’s dressing room and back again, wishing he had another ten or twenty meters to cover. “It’s just . . . she wants something from you.”
Lee rolled his eyes. “No shit. But I’m not going to give it to her. I feel sorry for her. She’s in a bad situation.” He caught Tony’s wrist as he passed and dragged him to a stop. “You should know about that.”
Except this still wasn’t about him. “I think she had something to do with those two deaths.”
“Then why did she scream that night in the alley? Why did she scream and attract attention to herself if she had something to do with the guy’s death?”
“She screamed because I was already on my way into the alley. She knew she was going to be discovered and screaming would shift suspicion away.”
“You have any evidence to support this theory?”
“I found the old man’s ID . . . ”
“Tell Jack.”
“It’s been destroyed. I’m guessing that between the time he died and the time she screamed—and he was still warm so that wasn’t long—something reduced his ID to a fine ash.” Tony twisted out of Lee’s grip. “Your average hooker couldn’t do that.”
“You could.” From the look on his face, Lee knew exactly how that had sounded. “Look, you have no proof Valerie’s involved in anything but bad timing. You’re not a detective . . . ”
“And you only play one on TV.”
“Is this about me? Because I’m paying attention to her? For fuck’s sake Tony.”
> “I saw how she looked at you.”
“I’m an actor. Lots of people look at me.”
Tony meant to say, I think you’re in danger, but when he opened his mouth, what came out was, “I saw how you looked at her.”
Before Lee could respond, Pam rapped on the dressing room door and called, “They’re ready for you on set, Lee.”
Lee took a deep breath and shrugged into the overlay of James Taylor Grant. “We’re done talking about this,” he growled, opened the door, pushed past Pam, and slammed the door so hard two framed photos fell off the wall.
“I think you’re in danger,” Tony said, staring at the broken glass.
“Lee . . . ”
“I’ve got that promo thing tonight.” Lee shrugged out of Grant’s leather jacket. “With the American affiliates. There’s going to be a lot of liquor, so I’ll probably get a room at the hotel.”
Not the sort of hotel a basic streetwalker could score an entry to. “Okay.” Tony held out the next day’s sides. “You’ve got a ten a.m. call tomorrow.”
Lee looked down at the paper, up at Tony, closed his eyes for a moment and sighed. “She’s very beautiful and I’m not dead but I would never . . . ”
“I know.” And ninety percent of the time, he did.
If he wanted to talk to a hooker, Tony had to go back to where the hookers were. Back in Gastown, he wrapped himself in a notice-me-not and wandered along the sidewalks, searching for Valerie among the men and women who had nothing left to sell but themselves.
A little voice in the back of his head had started trying to tell him that she was with Lee when he spotted her outside the Gastown Hotel on Water Street. Same blue dress. She was standing by a car. A classic Chevy Malibu. Mid-sixties probably, jet black. Tony couldn’t see much of the driver except for the full tribal sleeve tattoo on the arm half through the open window.
He was a block away on the wrong side of the street so he started to run. Stopped when she half-turned and looked right at him.
Her eyes widened and he had no doubt she could see him clearly.
As clearly as he could see her. Surrounded by traffic and people, she was entirely alone. Her need to be seen hit him so hard it nearly brought him to his knees.
Then she shook her head, got into the car, and by the time he reached the curb in front of the hotel, Tony couldn’t tell which set of taillights he needed to follow.
Nine-thirty the next morning, Tony was out in the studio parking lot waiting for Lee, pretending he wasn’t. He stepped back as Jack’s truck pulled in and then stepped forward again when the constable stopped a mere meter away. “Listen, Tony, can you do me a favor. Tell Amy . . . ”
“No.”
“I’m just going to be late, that’s all. I’ve got another missing person and my time is fucked.”
Tony closed his hand over the edge of the open window. “This missing person, does he own a classic car?”
He got his answer from the look on Jack’s face when he pushed up his sunglasses. “Tony?”
“Check around. See if an old John Doe with a tribal sleeve turned up. Left arm.”
Jack glanced down at the paperwork on the seat beside him. “My missing person has a tribal sleeve. Left arm.” When he looked up, his eyes had narrowed to the point where they were nearly cliché. “What do you know?”
“I spooked her and she got careless.” He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “And this isn’t a police case.”
Jack stared at him for a long moment and finally nodded. “You want me to call you when this old John Doe turns up?”
“You can.”
“But I don’t need to.”
Tony shrugged.
“So while I’m dealing with this case that isn’t a police case, what are you going to be doing.”
“Research.”
“Where do you research this kind of shit?”
“I work on a vampire/detective show, Jack.” Backing away from the truck, Tony spread his hands. “I’m going to talk to the writers.”
Lee half expected Tony to be waiting for him in the parking lot. They were used to spending nights apart—hell, they’d spent five weeks apart during hiatus while he was in South Africa shooting a movie—but this . . . He couldn’t fucking believe they were fighting over a woman. Wasn’t that what straight guys did?
When Tony finally appeared forty minutes later, Lee stepped toward him only to be yanked back into place by the stunt coordinator.
“Trying to keep you from breaking bones,” Daniel growled. “Pay attention.”
They moved directly from set-up to rehearsing the fight scene to shooting the fight scene.
By the time Lee was free and the crew had scattered for lunch, Tony was behind closed doors in CB’s office.
“How long’s he going to be?”
“Jesus, Lee, how should I know.” Amy reached under a fall of matte-black hair to adjust her headset. “Stupid PA quit and it’s not like I don’t have the whole office to . . . ” She rolled her eyes as the phone ran. “CB Productions, can I help you?”
His scene later in the day was all weird, esoteric dialogue, the vampire/detective version of techno babble. He should go to his dressing room and run lines but all Lee could think of was brown eyes and chestnut hair and a blue dress. “I’m done until three. Tell Tony I’ve gone into downtown.”
Amy nodded, rolled her eyes at whatever was being said on the other end of the phone, and waved him toward the door.
Valerie was waiting on the corner of West Cordova and Homer Streets. Well, not waiting for him but since he was the one who drove up beside her, Lee figured she might as well have been. “Hey!”
Her smile made him feel immortal.
“You hungry?”
“Hungry?”
Her confusion made him feel like pounding the men who’d all asked her a different question. “You do eat, don’t you? Come eat with me,” he continued, not waiting for an answer. “You and me. Just food. I promise.”
“Just food?” She pushed her hair back off her face.
“Lunch.” It felt like they were speaking two different languages. “I’ll pay for your time, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“He went where?”
“Downtown.”
“Son of a bitch!”
“Hey!” Amy lunged up from behind her desk, grabbed Tony’s wrist and hung on. “You want to explain yourself!”
Faster to explain than fight. “Lee’s hooker is something like a succubus.”
“She’s a demon? Tony, do not tell me we’re starting that demon shit up again because we barely survived the last time they came visiting!”
“No, I’d know if she was a demon.” After Leah and the Demongate, if there was one thing Tony could recognize, it was a demon. “I said she was something like a succubus. All her victims are men, probably men sexually attracted to her but . . . ” He waved a hand. He didn’t have a lot of actual fact although the show’s writers had come up with a lot of theories. “Anyway, she’s definitely sucking the life out of them and she wants Lee.”
“Who doesn’t,” Amy muttered, using her grip to fling him toward the door. “Don’t just stand here talking, move!”
The sandwich shop was not the place Lee would have chosen, but Valerie seemed comfortable there, so he tried not to think about health code violations.
“Why don’t you want me?”
The upper curve of her breasts was creamy white.
“I do want you.”
She gave him a twisted smile and stood. “Then why don’t we . . . ”
Lee reached out and pulled her back down into her chair, trying not to think about the feel of her skin. “Look, I want to help you. You can get out of this life. I know people . . . a person . . . who has.”
It wasn’t until she glanced down at the bracelet his fingers made around her wrist that he realized he was still holding on. When he let go, she frowned.
“Why are you doing this
?”
He shrugged and went with the truth. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”
She licked her lips and he couldn’t look away from the glistening moisture her tongue left on the pink flesh. “We should deal with that.”
He gave her back a twisted smile. “I’m trying to.”
Her laugh stroked him. “Not what I meant.”
“I know. Why are you doing this?”
Suddenly, she was only Valerie again. “What?”
“You asked me, I’m asking you.”
She stared at him for a long moment, and, just as suddenly, she wasn’t Valerie, she wasn’t anything he knew. To begin with, she was one hell of a lot older than mid-twenties and when she spoke, her voice sounded as though it came from very far away as well as from inside his head. “I take them into me but it never lasts and I’m alone again.”
Over the last few years, Lee had seen a lot of things that terrified him. This wasn’t one of them. “ . . . maybe it’s just that she’s so vulnerable, in spite of . . . everything.” What he’d said to Tony still stood. A word like everything covered a lot of ground.
“You don’t have to be alone.” And he was back in the sandwich shop again, sitting across a grimy, laminate table from an attractive woman in a blue dress. “I think you could use a friend.”
“A friend?” This expression, the staring like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing, he recognized although he was usually the one wearing it. “You don’t know . . . ”
“I have a pretty good idea.” He shrugged. “I’m the second lead in a vampire/detective show. I read some weird shit. Not to mention, my life has gotten interesting lately.”
“And you still think we could be friends?” She stared at him like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. All things considered, Lee found that kind of funny. “I’m a . . . ”
“Hooker.” He grinned when the corner of her mouth twitched. “Yeah. I know people who’ve got out of . . . that.”
“That?”
“Something very like that. My partner’s ex is kind of . . . ” It was as if thinking of Tony magically made him appear. There he was, suddenly standing on the other side of West Cordova and even through the sandwich shop’s filthy windows, he looked . . .
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