Heart of Fire

by Lisa Edmonds

  Sean turned and headed toward the Heights. “It’ll give me a chance to check on my troublemakers.”

  I slapped my forehead. “I forgot to ask you: what was that fight about yesterday?”

  Sean told me the story as we drove. Apparently, the younger members of his pack were walking past a group of anti-vamp protesters when words were exchanged. It was a fistfight and no one went furry, but the cops showed up and cuffed everyone when they found out some of the fighters were shifters.

  Thanks to Sean’s lawyers, everyone was out of custody within hours. What had taken most of Sean’s time was dealing with pack members who were upset at what they saw as an overreaction by police. Sean was angry, too, but since everyone had been released without charges, he tried to use the situation as a learning experience for his young werewolves about picking their battles.

  “It’s hard for them,” he told me as we turned onto his street. “They’ve grown up in a world that romanticizes werewolves but fears and hates them too. They get angry and when you’re young and angry and full of testosterone, you don’t always think about the consequences of your actions.”

  He pulled into his driveway and parked next to my car. I slipped out of his jacket and took my keys and notebook from its pockets. “Thanks for the ride. I’ll give you a call when I’m done down at the cop shop.”

  He leaned over the center console and kissed me. I ran my fingers through his hair and held him close. When we came up for air, he ran his nose along my hairline. “You be careful. If you feel like things are getting out of hand, walk out of there. If you need an attorney, call me.”

  “It ain’t my first rodeo, pardner.” I kissed him lightly. “I’ll be fine. Go check on your wolves.” I opened my door and hopped out.

  “You want to take the oxygen?”

  I shook my head. “I’m good.” I hesitated, then reached back to touch his hand where it rested on the center console. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For everything.”

  He smiled as gold rolled over his eyes. “You can thank me later. In the meantime, I’ll be thinking of ways you can show your appreciation.”

  “I have some thoughts about that,” I told him. “We’ll compare later, see whose ideas sound like the most fun.”

  “This is the sort of challenge I like,” Sean said, his eyes gleaming. I laughed and shut the door of his SUV.

  Diaz and I eyeballed each other across the table. “I hope you can appreciate our position,” the detective said.

  “I can appreciate that you’re under a lot of pressure to solve this case quickly,” I replied. “That doesn’t change the facts.”

  Diaz’s partner, Ferguson, looked up from his notes and glared at me. “So far, all I’ve heard is guesses. I’m not hearing facts.”

  I drummed my fingertips on the table. “Once again, the well-documented and scientifically proven facts are that one single vamp cannot drain an entire body; it’s not physically possible. Another fact: no matter how many vamps are drinking from a single body, once the heart stops, they can’t drink more than a few more ounces because the blood stops pumping. The only logical conclusion is that a vamp didn’t kill Mark.” I raised my hands. “I’m sorry the facts aren’t what you want them to be, but the longer you insist on following this line of investigation, the further it’s going to take you from the real killers.”

  Diaz sat back and regarded me. I’d given them a detailed statement about when and where I’d seen Mark the day he was killed, and then the detective brought up what I’d said in the alley. At first, I thought he just wanted to argue, but I was beginning to wonder if some doubt was creeping into his mind about whether a vamp had killed Mark. There was something in Diaz’s eyes that said he was listening.

  Ferguson, however, wasn’t having any. “The fact is there is a vampire bite on Mr. Dunlap’s neck and vampire saliva in the wound. It is entirely consistent with a vampire bite.”

  “It’s not entirely consistent, for the reasons I just stated,” I said. “The facts definitively exclude a vampire bite as the cause of death. It is, however, entirely consistent with exsanguination via two large-bore needles and planted saliva.”

  “Is it possible that a vampire used needles to drain the body?” Diaz asked.

  “Possible,” I said. “But unlikely, since blood isn’t just a source of nutrients for vamps. The life energy within the blood is essential for their continued existence. Stored human blood lacks that energy. Aside from jokes about vampires making ‘withdrawals’ from blood banks, vamps don’t store human blood. It wouldn’t do them much good. They need a living human donor or they might as well be drinking tap water.”

  It was starting to compute with Diaz; I could see it. He was adding two and two and getting four now, not three.

  I’d brushed against both of them when we were walking into the interview room and hadn’t sensed any residual blood magic—not that its absence cleared them of involvement with the harnad, but it moved them down the list of possible suspects within the department. I’d been hoping Brody would be Diaz’s plus-one in the interview, but no such luck.

  “You and Mark were looking into the women who have gone missing from the Stroll,” Diaz said. “Sharon Dunlap says you both thought a harnad is taking them, not vampires. What proof do you have?”

  I shook my head. “If we had proof of who took them, whether it was vamps or mages, we would have brought it to you. That’s what we were hired to do.”

  “By the vamps,” Ferguson said snidely.

  “Yes, by the vamps.” I looked at Diaz. “Are we done?”

  He tapped his pen on the table. “For now, unless there’s anything you’d like to add to your statement?”

  “No.”

  “Then thank you for your cooperation.” We rose and filed toward the door. Diaz offered me his hand and I shook it. Ferguson just looked at me.

  We went down a short hall. Ferguson went left, heading into the bullpen of cubicles that were the detectives’ offices. Diaz led me toward the main doors of the Major Crimes division.

  A dark-haired man in a suit came in through the doors, carrying several folders. We bumped into each other as Diaz was reaching for the door.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” the other detective said absently. He headed for the coffeemaker as Diaz and I headed down the hall.

  Our walk downstairs was silent. As we approached the side door, Diaz paused. “There aren’t any harnads in the city.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  Diaz hit me with that cop stare. “We’ll find who killed Mark. If you find evidence that will help our investigation, you’re required to turn it over to us.”

  “I know my job, Detective. I want these bastards caught and I want them to pay for what they’ve done.”

  He nodded once as if I’d said the right thing and reached for the side door. “Then be careful,” he told me as I stepped out into the night.

  “You too, Detective.” The door closed behind me.

  I dug my phone out as I walked to my car. I had two text messages and a voice mail. The text messages were from Sean, letting me know he was ready to meet when I was free, and Kim Dade, saying she had Brody’s phone records now and was analyzing them. She’d already sent me Brody’s basic info, including a picture, which was how I’d known who to bump into on my way out of the bullpen.

  I hadn’t sensed any residual blood magic on Brody, which probably meant he hadn’t gone to the warehouse, but he’d definitely falsified the statements of Travers and Andrews, so he was involved somehow.

  The voice mail was from Lake, and it was a long one: three full minutes, recorded a little over an hour before. I sighed, got in my car, and shut the door. No sense putting off listening to it. I braced myself and hit Play.

  For several seconds, I didn’t hear anything. Then I heard what sounded like a car door opening, shuffling sounds, and some muffled thumps. He must have accident
ally called me without realizing it. That explained the three-minute recording.

  I was about to hit Delete when someone spoke. “Who the hell is this guy?” I didn’t recognize the voice.

  Another unidentified voice, also male. “I don’t know. He’s out, though. Shit, this guy is huge. Help me move him so I can get his wallet.”

  I went cold.

  More rustling, then a heavy thump. A few seconds later, one of the men swore. “He’s a fed. Look.”

  “Why is a SPEMA agent tailing West?”

  “Hell if I know. You better call in and find out what he wants us to do.”

  A long pause, then: “Yeah, this is Bobby. We got West, but there was this big guy in a truck watching him. We hit him with a sleep spell and he’s out, but we just found out he’s a fed. His I.D. says Special Agent Trent Lake, with SPEMA. What do you want us to do?”

  Another long pause. I waited, my heart in my throat.

  “Fine, we’ll bring him to the warehouse,” the man said finally. “Gary’s driving the BMW and I’m driving the van, so we need someone out here pronto to drive this guy’s truck unless you want someone to find it here.” Pause. “No, if we lock it up, nobody’ll think nothin’ of it until we move it.” Pause. “Okay, yeah, no problem. We’ll put him in the van with West and head your way now.”

  “I’ll pull the van around,” the other man said.

  “Yeah, go do that. Hey, what’s this?” A loud rustling. “Shit, it’s his phone! He called someone before—” The voicemail ended.

  I looked at the screen. Delete Message?

  I was breathing hard and my heart raced. Hands shaking, I carefully saved the message, then started my car and backed out of my parking space as I called Sean.

  He answered on the first ring, his voice warm. “Hey, Alice. You done at the—”

  “I need you to meet me right now across the street from West’s office,” I interrupted. “How far away are you?”

  “Twenty minutes.” I heard a door slam and running footsteps. “Or less.”

  “Make it less.”

  23

  Sean listened to the voice mail twice, his face grim.

  We were sitting in Sean’s SUV, in a parking garage four blocks from West’s office. By the time we got to the alley behind the convenience store where Lake was apparently watching West, it had been almost two hours since Lake’s voice mail and there was no sign of West’s car or Lake’s truck. Bobby and Gary were long gone with West and Lake.

  I’d asked Malcolm to go look for the harnad warehouse, never thinking that it was West who might be targeted next. Had there been a coup in the harnad, or had we been mistaken all along about who the harnad’s leader was?

  A quick look around confirmed there were no security cameras on the surrounding buildings that would give us a view of the alley. There were cameras on the exterior of the convenience store, but the owner told Sean they only showed the pumps. We left and went to the garage to figure out our next move.

  Sean’s phone reported that West’s car had left the parking lot twelve minutes after the voice mail. One of Sean’s employees informed us the BMW was parked on the street outside West’s house. Presumably, Gary hadn’t been able to cross the wards protecting the house and had opted to leave the car on the street instead.

  My hands shook with adrenaline. “Why was Lake tailing West? How did he even know who West is?”

  “I don’t know.” Sean did something with my phone and his beeped. “I sent myself a copy of the voice mail.” He turned my phone off, pulled off its back, and removed the sim card.

  “Hey!”

  He stuck the phone in the cup holder. “They know who he called,” he reminded me. “They have your number and probably your name. If they have the resources, they could use this phone to track you. They’ll find out where you live. You can’t go home.” He sent someone a text and received an almost instant reply. “I’ve got someone heading over to watch your house.”

  I rubbed my face with my hands. “They took Lake to the warehouse. We have to get him, Sean. There’s no way they’ll let him live.” I thought of what they might be doing to him and felt sick.

  “Stop,” Sean said, squeezing my hand. “Those thoughts won’t help us find him. Focus on what we know, what we can do.”

  I took a deep, shaky breath and let it out. “We have to find that warehouse.”

  “You said Brody hadn’t been there as far as you could tell, so we probably can’t get it out of him. We haven’t heard from Malcolm, so he hasn’t found it yet. Who else knows where this damned warehouse is?”

  I’d had a plan percolating in the back of my brain for several days, but it was so far out in left field that I had mentally consigned it to a drawer labeled “For Emergency Use Only.” If this didn’t qualify as an emergency, I didn’t know what would.

  “I have an idea,” I said.

  When Rachel Barrow opened the door, her smile was radiant. She was so focused on Sean that she didn’t see me silently waiting off to the side of the porch. “Mac,” she said, leaning against the doorway. “I’m so glad you finally called me back. I thought you’d forgotten about me.”

  Sean grinned. “I didn’t forget.”

  He moved so fast she didn’t have a chance to make a sound. In a blink, he had an arm around her throat and a hand over her mouth and they were inside the house. I entered behind them and closed the door.

  Rachel’s eyes widened when she saw me. She started screaming into Sean’s hand.

  “Be quiet, or I’ll snap your neck,” Sean told her.

  The muffled shrieking stopped.

  “I am the alpha of the Tomb Mountain Pack,” Sean continued.

  The blood drained out of Rachel’s face.

  “Felicia Lowell is one of my wolves. You were involved in her kidnapping and I would like very much to tear out your throat. You have one chance to live past tonight. You are going to do exactly as Alice tells you to do. Nod if you understand.”

  She nodded rapidly.

  We hadn’t really planned in advance to play this as “good cop/bad cop” or “nice mage/angry werewolf,” but it looked like that was what was happening. I wasn’t really in the mood to play the good cop, but if one of us wasn’t at least marginally nice to her, she might be too scared to do what we needed her to do.

  I stepped in front of her. “We know about the harnad taking the women from the Stroll for their blood. I’m betting you help them identify the best targets.” I could tell from her expression that I’d guessed correctly. “You are going to make a phone call to whoever your contact is and tell them there is a new girl on the Stroll who has earth magic. Her name is Katie. She’s blonde and she’ll be down at Eleventh and Elm tonight.”

  She stared at me, her eyes wide.

  Sean spoke again. “We will be listening to the conversation. If you say one thing that deviates from what Alice just told you or let on in any way that you are being coerced, I will break your neck, but I won’t kill you. I’ll take you back to my pack and let Felicia’s mother and brother tear you to pieces. Are we clear?”

  She nodded again.

  “I’m going to move my hand now. Stay quiet.”

  The second Rachel could talk, she said, “They’ll kill me.”

  “They won’t,” I said. “We’ll make sure of it. I can promise Sean will kill you if you don’t do as we say. I’ve already had to talk him out of killing you twice. I don’t think he’ll listen to me a third time.”

  Rachel made a little noise and tried to shrink away from Sean, but his arm was still on her neck. She sniffled. “I’m sorry about Felicia. She was really nice.”

  “Why did they take her?” I asked.

  “Bobby asked me if any of the girls were shifters, said they’d pay me double if I knew any. There aren’t any shifter girls on the Stroll these days; they make way more money booking online. I needed the money, so I told him about Felicia.”

  “Why did you break into her apartment a
nd steal her laptop?”

  Rachel didn’t ask how I knew about that. “To make it look like she was taken by someone she knew at work.”

  Sean’s eyes glowed. “How much did they pay you?”

  She whimpered. “Four hundred dollars.”

  “So, you made two hundred dollars each time you helped them pick a target?” I asked.

  “Three hundred if they had magic,” she said.

  “Blood money,” Sean snarled. “All of it blood money.”

  Literally, I thought. “And Danielle? You told them she saw the driver of the black BMW, didn’t you? They took her because of you.”

  She didn’t reply, but I saw it in her eyes. She’d told them about Danielle because she thought her source of additional income might go away if Danielle had identified the driver of the BMW.

  I took the anger and put it away. “Are you ready to make the call? Can you be convincing?”

  She nodded. “I’ll call Bobby.”

  I spotted her cell phone on the table and reached for it, but she shook her head. “They gave me a special phone to call him.”

  “Where is it?”

  “In my room, in the closet. Blue shoe box.”

  I brought it to her. It was a prepaid phone. Sean kept his arm on her neck.

  “Deep breaths,” I told her. “Be calm. Make the call.”

  Rachel held out her hand for the phone. I turned it on and gave it to her. She unlocked it, scrolled through the contacts list to the one labeled Pizza, and hit Call.

  The phone rang twice, and then a man answered. “Antonio’s Pizza. Pick-up or delivery?”

  I recognized the voice as one of the men on Lake’s voicemail: Bobby, the man who’d driven West’s BMW away from the scene.

  “It’s Rachel. I’ve got a pick-up for you.” Rachel’s voice was even and calm. I gave her a thumbs-up.

  “Give me a description,” Bobby said.