Bite Back: Raw Deal Part 12

"No friends coming around?"

We'd never met outside of work. We'd never spoken about what we did outside of work. I was at a difficult point here. Partners talked about things. I wanted to feel easy with Knight. On the other hand, I didn't want to have him invite me over or get the wrong idea.

"I haven't had time," I said.

"So, what do you do? Forget what you might get up to next weekend. We had a day off on Friday. You must have done something after you caught up on sleep?"

"I fixed my car," I said.

"The Focus? It's stopped bouncing?"

"Pretty much." The car had become the standing joke of the parking lot in the week since the fuel pump started to fail. Or rather, the jerking joke. A rich source of humor for the boys.

"You didn't spend all day doing that though. What else?"

Dressed up as a vampire and went hunting. What the h.e.l.l do I say? And why the h.e.l.l the sudden interest?

"Oh, I went out that night." I kept it vague, hoping he'd move on to something else. It was too early in the s.h.i.+ft to divert him with donuts.

"Where?"

"Just a dance club. Why?"

Something was off. He'd had a session with Homicide and now he was asking me what I do during my time off? Who really wanted to know? And why?

"I don't know," he said, backing off. "We've never talked about it. I guess I've just realized I don't know what my partner gets up to, on her days off."

"Trust me, it's boring at the moment," I said. "All my old friends from school are gone or married, and my friends from the army are miles away. I've been so busy getting settled back in, I haven't really had time."

I hadn't missed that 'partner' he'd thrown in there, but what to make of it? Did he really mean he felt we were partners now, or was it a slip?

There was a call on the radio, and conversation ground to a halt. Between calls it limped along until we finally dropped it. A thick fog rolled in across the city and the number of calls dropped. But Knight didn't launch into his usual spiel at any time. Something was definitely wrong.

Chapter 16.

MONDAY.

Even for a foggy 4 a.m., it was quiet.

We'd returned to the station and parked the cruiser.

I needed to find out the details on the murder from last night. The colonel was arriving at midday, and I hadn't gotten a solid lead for him on the vampires. The best I could do was have all the related information ready.

I switched my cell on, dawdling behind Knight as he strode toward the door.

There were ten missed calls from Domine, the last one ten minutes ago.

My stomach lurched. This couldn't be good. What had gone wrong?

She answered immediately, as if she'd been sitting by the phone.

"Amber, please, we need your help."

"What's happened?"

"Did you not hear? About Marcel?"

"No, I haven't heard anything about Marcel. Slow down, tell me what's going on."

"There's no time. The police have been here-"

"Hold it." I stopped her, the first hints of a sick certainty rising in my gorge. "Mike," I called to Knight, slipping into using his first name without thought. He stopped and waited while I caught up to him.

"What was the name of the guy killed last night? The one they thought was the same MO?"

He frowned. "Marc Ellis. Why?"

s.h.i.+t.

"Can't stop now. I'll explain later." I sprinted towards my car.

Marc Ellis. Valery Hawks. Marcel and Valerie. Domine's way of making everything sound more exotic.

"Amber," Knight called out behind me. "Wait! We have to talk. You can't hold out on your partner!"

Like he had, all this last patrol.

"Domine?" I said.

"I'm here."

"Was his real name Marc Ellis?"

"Yes, yes, of course, I'm sorry, I forgot you wouldn't know."

I reached the car and slid inside. My mind was linking things up, but it was far too late.

Marcel the artist. Valerie the artist. They worked together at the club. She had paintings of his, in her folder.

"Marcel knew where Valerie lives?" I said as the car started.

"I don't know, Amber, truly, I don't, but I am afraid-"

"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.