Part 12 (2/2)

”I couldn't get an answer from Valerie's home number,” I said. ”I thought that meant she'd gone.”

”She's not in Nebraska,” said Domine. ”I called her mother. I called her cell. I've left messages. There is nothing.”

”Did you go to her apartment?”

”I tried the intercom outside but there was no response. No lights on in her apartment. That was the first time I called you.”

”I'll be there in a few minutes. I'll call you back.”

I ended the call and pulled out of the parking lot, my tires screeching. Knight had been walking towards me, trying to flag me down, but I couldn't stop. Wouldn't.

The lights were still off in Valerie's apartment. Given the time, that wasn't surprising. Everything was calm and orderly on the surface.

Except when I looked carefully, I could see the outside lock was damaged. It hadn't been last time. I drew my gun. Anger and frustration boiling over in me, I gave it a hard shove and I was through. I sprinted up the stairs.

I could smell vampire long before I got to her door.

It was locked.

”Valerie!” I pounded on the door until the second smell started to seep into my awareness. Then I took a couple of steps back and kicked right through it.

I flicked on the lights, hoping I was wrong. Anything, anything but what I found.

Pictures hung skew. One penguin painting looked up from the floor, the gla.s.s shattered and the frame splintered, the previously happy look distorted into bewilderment.

Leo the cat was against the wall in the hallway, looking like he'd been casually thrown aside. His back was broken.

Chairs in the living room were overturned. There'd been a brief, futile struggle.

Valerie was lying sprawled on her back in the living room, arms above her head and her throat savagely torn. Her clothes were twisted and ripped, as if she'd been held down and struggled wildly. Her face had frozen into a rictus of pain and despair. There was no wide pool of blood, and she was so pale.

I dropped to my knees beside her. Under my questing fingers, there was no pulse beneath her jaw. No life in the wide, shocked eyes.

There was blood and skin under her fingernails. She'd fought and scratched, but she'd trained her hands to paint, not to fight. She'd had no chance against one of them, let alone three.

Looking at her throat, I put my hand to my own. These were not the neat punctures I'd seen on the first victim. This was the kind of savagery I'd experienced in the jungles of South America. Were these vampires losing control?

A sc.r.a.p of paper dropped on the floor caught my attention. I didn't need to pick it up to recognize it as the coat check I'd written my number on and asked Domine to give to Marcel.

They'd gone looking. They hadn't found Valerie, so they'd found Marcel instead. And before they'd killed him, he'd given them Valerie's address.

My fingers were numb, fumbling with the radio b.u.t.ton.

”Farrell here,” I said, my voice strained. ”I need Homicide.”

Chapter 17.

CSI and the ME were inside the apartment.

I'd left the station in my own car, so I didn't have crime scene forms or tape. I was improvising, standing in the doorway with a notebook. Mainly, I was working at not revisiting all the decisions I'd made over the last few days. They kept coming at me like a blurry nightmare.

I'd been awake for over twenty hours. I desperately wanted another patrol car to come spell me. Given the complications of my connection with this case, I would have thought there would have been someone here by now.

Instead of my relief, the next to arrive was Buchanan. He had a second detective in tow, an older guy I hadn't met before. Buchanan looked at my notepaper crime scene form as if I'd personally insulted him, but he signed. The second guy signed as Nunez, and stayed while Buchanan went into the living room to get in CSI's way.

”You called it in as the same MO?” Nunez asked.

”Yeah, from what I heard,” I said. ”Throat torn up. Not as much blood as expected.”

”Was the body moved here?”

No. I shrugged the question away. ”Ask CSI.”

Nunez looked at the door. ”Was it like this when you got here?” He pointed at the damage.

”No. I kicked it.”

Just like that, we were on a slide to questions I couldn't answer without the colonel's say-so. If I said I'd smelled vampires, Nunez would call for restraints.

”Why?” Buchanan came back out to join the party.

I couldn't just stand here and refuse to answer questions.

”I believed the victim was in danger.”

”How did you work that out, Farrell?” Buchanan eyed me coldly.

The anger he'd stoked so well last time came back to the surface, but I kept it in hand.

”The last victim, Marc Ellis, worked with her. There was an incident at their work prior to Ellis's murder that involved both of them. I received a call from her boss saying she'd hadn't gone home to Nebraska as expected. I dropped by and the main door downstairs was damaged. There was no response from inside the apartment and I thought I smelled something.”

It sounded thin as tissue.

A couple of uniforms arrived at that point. I handed one of them my makes.h.i.+ft crime scene form and let them take over.

Buchanan and Nunez crowded me to one side.

”You're familiar with this victim?” Buchanan's tone was terse.

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