Blood of the Pride (12 page)

“I’m looking for Ms. Desjardin. This is the Toronto Police Service.” It wasn’t Hank or anyone I had worked with.

“You’ve got her. What’s up?” I steeled myself for yet more bad news. The cops never called to just say hello.

“Do you still reside at 333 Triller Avenue?”

“Yes.” My pulse began to increase exponentially with each word. “I’m at a friend’s right now. What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry to inform you that someone broke into your house last night. Neighborhood Watch reported the incident and a patrol car arrived soon after. We were unable to find an intruder but we did secure the scene. How soon can you come home?”

“I’m on the way.” I hung up on him and pushed the chair back from the computer desk with such fury I think it left skid marks.

“
Merde
!” I grabbed my jacket, startling Bran who was still waiting on his own connection. “I have to go.” I wheezed as I struggled to get my shoes on.

“What happened?” Bran bounced to his feet and walked over to me. “What’s wrong?”

“My place was trashed last night.” I dug in my back pocket and found my wallet. My fingers trembled as I checked the contents. All my credit cards were there. I knew my house and car keys were in my jacket pocket. At least I didn’t have to worry about identity theft, not right now. “I have to go see what’s left. Five bucks says that Attersley’s there as well, wanting to know what’s going on and if it’s got anything to do with the Winters case.”

“You shouldn’t drive.” Bran plucked the car keys from my numb fingers. “It’ll be fine.” He stroked my cheek with one finger. “It’ll be fine.”

“No, no it won’t.” I shook my head, looking back toward the folders on the table. “I’m not sure if it’s ever going to be fine again.”

Bran pulled me into a bear hug. “It’ll all be okay. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

I chuckled into the shirt, smelling both of our scents on the fabric. “Don’t try to play the tough guy. It doesn’t work for you.”

“Oh, sure. Mock my inherent manliness.” The exaggerated sigh tickled my ear. “At least let me pretend to be your protector.”

I nodded. “Just don’t get in the way if it starts going physical. You have no idea how rough Felis can be.”

Hanover grinned, reaching back and patting his back with one hand. “Oh, I think I have some idea.”

I jerked a thumb toward the door, feeling my face get warm. “Let’s get going before something else happens.”

We made our way to the elevator and down to the parking garage, my heart rate rising with each step. I slid in on the passenger side and wondered about insurance, repairs.

Jazz.

We drove in silence, Bran allowing me to be alone with my thoughts while he maneuvered the Jeep along King Street. We got stuck behind a streetcar that was obviously not the real Red Rocket, the driver spending an inordinate amount of time at each light and stop. Bran glanced over at me and yanked the wheel to one side, racing up a side street and pulling us back onto Queen Street.

We slowed down to a crawl when we turned onto Triller and pulled into a rare parking spot not far from my house. There were two police cars in the narrow street, one of the uniformed officers leaning on his car’s hood and scowling as a prostitute walked by, waving at the man with a wide grin. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that “she” was a “he” who had better legs than most women I knew, including myself. Cosmic injustice.

The plainclothes detective met me at the space previously occupied by my front door, a young pup who stared at me with a bland, textbook-home-invasion-file-report-and-leave look. “Yeah?” He scowled.

I wasn’t in any mood to play with a kid. “I know Attersley’s here. Get him.” I scowled back, knowing mine was much better.

The young man stared at me for a second. He turned and cupped his hands around his mouth before bellowing up my stairs, “Hank? Some woman here to see you!” He returned to his previous position of leaning against the wall while studying his notes.

“Hey.” Attersley let out a sigh as he trotted down the stairs, the standard brown suit stretched to its limits on his oversized frame. “Sorry you had to come home to this.” The balding overweight detective glared at Bran. “You gotta be Hanover.”

“Good to know my rep’s still going ’round the station.” Bran said as he caught up with me.

The front door, well…wasn’t. It had been kicked in, the wooden door blasted off the hinges and lying in my hallway, heavy shoeprints all over it. The forensic peeps were still all over it. Hank nodded at me.

He glanced at the reporter for a second, then back to me. “Any reason why someone would want to break into your place?”

I shook my head. “Between thee and me, Hank, nothing I was working on would create this sort of reaction. Nothing.” I hated to lie to him but I had no choice. As it was, staying at Brandon’s for the night may well have saved my life.

A white blur sped by one of the CSI men, startling the dark blue coveralls enough to have him jump back a foot and scramble for his pistol. The ghost resolved at my feet—Jazz, wide-eyed and bushytailed.

I reached down and waited, allowing her to climb into my arms at her own speed. She wasn’t a young kitten anymore and just a bit arthritic, so it took her a little bit longer to do anything. The burst of energy we had just witnessed might have just burnt her out for the day.

She snuggled into my chest and began to purr, a rumbling torrent of happiness at finding me again and of relative safety. I stroked her long Persian fur and mumbled to her while I waited for the investigators to finish. Her body began to go slack, getting heavier as the old girl began to relax.

“No idea what they took, if anything. Looks more like they just trashed the place from top to bottom.” The senior officer talked to Hank, within earshot of the two of us. “No prints on the door. Guy was smart enough to use gloves for that. Got a good set of footprints, but without something or someone to match them with, well…” He shrugged and closed up his metal chipboard.

“Right.” Resting his thumbs on his bulging waistline and belt, Attersley turned to the two of us. “They’ll be out in a few minutes. I’d call up the insurance adjuster and then see what you can salvage.”

He handed me an unfamiliar business card, a fat construction worker grinning off the glossy cardboard at me. “They’ll come and help board up the doors and windows. Tell them you know me. Get you a good rate.” He scowled at Bran. “Be careful about the company you keep, Reb.”

The stout detective turned to walk away and stumbled over a loose piece of stone, recovering in time to strut toward his unmarked bronze sedan. The two police cars eased their way out of the narrow street with enough three-point turns to make a puzzle expert green with envy.

I looked at the gaping maw of the front door while the remaining investigators packed up their tackle boxes and headed for their van.

Jazz purred loudly from her position in my arms, her claws digging into my jacket.

“I have to go in now,” I whispered to the white cat. “You just behave yourself, okay? I’m glad you weren’t hurt.” She let out an angry meow, as if to challenge my assessment of her attack abilities.

I entered the front door with a slow shuffling step, trying not to squeeze the life out of the cat. My night-vision kicked in just in time to be confronted with the devastation.

It looked like I had been hosting a frat party for the boys from hell. My couch torn open and the stuffing scattered everywhere, my office desk’s drawers smashed into kindling and anything resembling a piece of paper torn and shredded.

“Wonder what they were looking for.” Bran appeared beside me. He reached out for Jazz, pausing as she surveyed the outstretched hand with her nose twitching for a few seconds. Her purr skipped a beat and then continued when he stroked her head. “Hey, sweetie. Glad you’re okay.”

Jazz let out a growl, her claws digging into the leather just enough to let me know that she knew and agreed with my assessment.

It hadn’t been a random break and enter, no mob of crack-heads looking for something to sell for a few rocks of happiness.

Someone had been looking for something.

I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with the smells and scents of the house. The different odors mixed and matched around me, jumbled up with the policemen and the different outdoors smells they were carrying along with aftershave, other women and men and one definite cough-drop-hiding-the-booze flavor. I couldn’t tell if it was any of the men from the files or my original attacker. It was all just a jumbled blur threatening to make me throw up.

Brandon looked at me. “Let’s get out of here.” He stepped over a piece of wood once belonging to the bottom of my couch, now jutting into the air like a flagpole. “Do you need anything from here? I mean, right now.”

I shook my head. I was numb from the inside out, my brain freezing up like I’d swallowed a gallon of ice cream.

“Let’s go back to my place. You can deal with this later.”

“He was here looking for me. For any information I had that could lead to him.”

“Davis looking for the files?”

I shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. Could have been Langley, could have been the kid looking for a rematch.”

Bran stroked Jazz under her chin, encouraging her to loosen her grip on me. “Whoever it is, he arrives and you’re not here. If he’s looking for the files he’s tearing up the house to search for them and comes up empty. If not he’s just trashing the house ’cause he’s pissed you’re gone.” He glanced toward the kitchen.

I spotted the remains of the Brown Betty on the floor.

“Damn. That was my favorite.”

Jazz trilled for attention, drawing my eyes to hers. She pawed at my arm once before pushing her way under my jacket, snuggling next to my warm body.

She had the right idea. “Let’s go.” I looked down at the white bundle nestled in the crook of my arm. “Does your corner store deliver?”

“If they don’t, now they will.” Bran pulled his cell phone out. “Name it.”

“First let’s call these guys.” I handed him the card, still cradling the fuzzaloid. “Just dial it and hand it to me. I don’t think I want to let her go right now.”

The workmen assured me they would have the house sealed up within the hour, instantly snapping to virtual attention when I mentioned my police reference.

“Just secure it. I’ll worry about getting back in later.” I shifted the dead weight in my arms. She had fallen asleep. “All I’m looking for right now is making sure that no one wanders in before I get a chance to get the insurance people out here.” The supervisor responded by saying the workmen would put a padlock on the front door then drop the key off with Dan, my favorite doorman, within the hour. I handed the phone back to Bran.

“We’re good.” I drew in a sharp breath and looked around me. A bowl filled with dried flowers had rolled across the hardwood floor, dumping out the cheap potpourri inside. My stomach lurched at the image of some man searching through my bedroom, my bathroom. Tearing my life apart.

“Let’s go.” Bran’s arm went around me and started to pull me out of the debris. “We can wait in the car if you want until the guys arrive.”

“No, let’s go.” My voice was an octave higher than normal. “I don’t want to be here right now.”

Bran helped me into the passenger seat of my car yet again, stopping to stroking Jazz’s head where she lay on my lap sound asleep.

She remained that way the entire drive back to the condo, probably in part because I couldn’t stop petting her. The old street cat had moved in years ago and it was difficult imagining my life without her.

Dan nodded with a tip of his hat when we stopped at the front desk on our way up, not even raising an eyebrow at the sight of the white bundle in my arms, listening to the details and stating he would be waiting for the workmen. Bran unlocked his door and stepped aside, letting me walk in first.

“What do you need?” He picked up the receiver while we settled onto the couch.

“Litter box, litter and food.” I looked down at the sleeping cat with a smile. “And just so you know—she snores.”

“Just like her owner.” Bran chuckled.

Less than an hour later Jazz let out a loud meow and climbed down from my lap as Bran filled a huge soup bowl with dried cat food. She dropped her face into it as if she hadn’t eaten for days. I rolled my eyes from where I sat on the leather couch.

“Drama queen.” I turned my attention back to the Langley file, now spread out in front of me on the coffee table. The other two had been tucked away out of sight in what Bran called his “safe place”—a wall safe that probably could be broken into by an experienced safecracker, but I didn’t want to discourage the man.

Frank Langley had a pretty boring life. He had left the local Pride and gone to North Bay to marry Kelly Purvis, a member of another Pride from out West. They had no children and nothing of note in the file. Even if he had access to a private jet, he couldn’t have travelled down to Toronto and back out again multiple times to accomplish the killing and now the various attacks on me. Not to mention his wife being sworn to expose him if he dared to put the Pride at risk. And no motive to speak of—I doubted he had ever even heard of Janey. She was too young to have been with him in the same group of kits and he was too old to have much to do with a kit like her.

I ran my finger over the printout, looking for anything that would explain how his scent, slightly warped and diluted, ended up in my house and on Janey Winters’s body. There were no children in the marriage, no previous marriages on either side.

“We should get going.” Bran’s voice jolted me out of my reverie, low and sad as his hands landed on my shoulders, squeezing lightly. “I’ll drive, if you want.”

My mouth opened and closed. I had totally forgotten about Ruth’s funeral. Covering my face with both hands, I shook my head. “I didn’t even look at the clock.”

“It’s okay.” He leaned down to stroke Jazz’s back as the white cat hopped up and settled beside me on the black leather couch. “Been a rough few hours.”

“You said it.” I got up and gave a low laugh as the feline moved over, curling up in the warm spot in a satisfied ball of fur. “I’ll drive.” I nodded in response to his concerned glance. “I need to do something right now.”

We didn’t stop for coffee and donuts on the way up.

Bran cleared his throat every few minutes, fidgeting with the tie he had fastened over the dress shirt. He had kept the jeans on, giving in to my request to not make it too fancy. Myself, I was still wearing the shirt and pants from the previous day. Or two. I wasn’t sure, but I hadn’t wanted to go shopping and actually deal with anything other than the case at hand. Besides, hopefully the smell would keep other members at bay.

Bran’s hand rested on my knee for most of the way up, squeezing lightly whenever he saw how tightly my jaw was clenched. It wasn’t a good day to start anything, much less continue an investigation.

The parking lot was full when we arrived at the farm, every square foot of gravel taken up by cars in a thousand shapes and sizes, from huge Hummers threatening to dominate the skyline to small Austin Coopers looking like little clown cars. I slipped the Jeep into a space at the back, as close to the road as possible.

I wanted a quick escape route.

Bran looked at me, the question written on his face. I undid the seatbelt and laid my head back, closing my eyes. It was hard to find the words, much less force them into a coherent sentence through the exhaustion.

“This is going to be…difficult. Outsiders aren’t usually allowed anywhere near the farm, much less to a funeral.”