Bless The Beauty (2 page)

Edgar Hoover Building. My gaze fell back to Chase and I couldn’t help the smile that rose within me. “It feels good to be home.”

“You live a sad life.” Chase snorted.

“Sorry to break it to ya, you live the same life, jacko.” And one we both loved. It wasn’t only the love together that was the reason for our happiness—it was this poured concrete Brutalist architectural style building where our heart and passion lay.

Chase dismissed my remark with a grin before he pulled into the basement parking garage. Only a few feet in, he steered the car into an empty spot, then cut the engine.

Quickly, I exited the car and Chase trotted up beside me as we walked through the dimly lit space. Just as I reached the elevator doors, I pulled the security card from the back pocket of my pants.

When we met the reinforced steel door, I swiped it through the card reader to identify myself.

It only took moments before my picture showed on the screen above the reader, as it said in the annoying woman’s computer voice I had grown to hate. “
Voice
identification.”

I leaned forward, levelled my hand against the cold concrete wall. “Screw you.” For months, I used my name to identify myself, but after time, I realized it was smart enough to recognize voice levels.

Now, it just annoyed me. More than once, I’d told the voice what I wished I could tell others aloud.

There was a sense of freedom in it all really. To speak your mind without having consequences—the perfect friend, I thought.

A minute later, a loud beep acknowledged receipt before the voice responded,

“Welcome, Special Agent Hadley Sloan.”

“Nice.” Chase laughed. He followed suit, yanked his identification from the pocket of his jeans then proceeded to swipe his card. After the same response from the computer awaiting his clarification of clearance, he leaned forward and winked at me. “I’d like to screw you good.”

“Welcome, Special Agent Chase Finely.”

“Mmm.” I wiggled my brows in a sultry suggestion as the elevator doors opened. “I like that idea.”

Chase grinned, inclined his head to the elevator as he placed his hand along my lower back to usher me in. Once in, he hit the button for the fourth floor and the elevator shot up. He leaned against the wall and gave me a knowing look. “Wonder what’s up.”

“Considering the emergency text, I’d say it’s something serious.” Yes, our teams only worked during the night hours. No Agent could work all hours of the day. The job would be too draining.

Needless to say, it’s why this job fit me so well, I was never asked to work the day shift, which suited me just fine.

Chase nodded as he angled his head back to glance up to the mirrored ceiling.

“Fuck.” He sighed then looked back to me. “I should have slept more instead of spending the better part of the day buried inside of you.”

I raised my hand to my dead heart in shock, my face an expression of utter dismay.

“You’d rather sleep than fuck me?”

A slow grin swept across Chase’s face. “When you put it that way, no.”

I lowered my hand as he began to approach me. His eyes darkened, the pupils widened so quickly, I sucked in a breath from the power of it. No matter how much I had this man, just this look from him caused moisture to gather in my panties.

My body shivered each and every time he showed his intent, and now, I could barely control myself. I licked my lips to moisten them as I readied my mouth for his impending kiss. My knees braced as my body tensed to take the weight of him when he came at me.

Only a hairsbreadth away from our lips connecting, the elevator chimed and snapped me back to the present. In a swift move, I moved aside and raised my hand to his face.

“You know the rules.”

Chase sucked in a deep breath, frowned and stepped back. “No relationships within the Bureau or severe consequences. Yes…” He groaned, giving me a final once over. “I remember.”

It was another checkmark as to why we couldn’t make our relationship official. It’d mean one of us would need to polish up our resume to find other employment. Neither of us wanted that, but rules were rules, and put in place for a reason. Someone high up in the government had decided it complicated things. I couldn’t see much reason in it, but who was I to put up a stink.

The doors of the elevator hadn’t even opened before Mike’s enraged voice echoed through the halls. “Took you both fucking long enough to get here.”

I smiled innocently at my boss as his dark brows furrowed in unhappiness at me. His briskness was mostly for show. Behind those dark stern eyes, was a deep respect between us. I appreciated his whip ’em into shape attitude and understood the reasons for it. My team would walk circles around him if he let them.

Chase stepped out of the elevator then glanced back to me with a wicked grin.

“When I went to pick Hadley up, she was pissing around with her makeup.”

I took a giant step forward across the little space in the floor. The elevator doors shut behind me as I scowled at him and gave his arm a punch, and laughed a little too. “Why would I even bother looking pretty for you bunch of dorks?” When silence reigned, I glanced back at Mike, who didn’t look amused.

He waved us forward, stern and serious. “Enough jokes, we have a situation.” He spun on his heel and headed toward the strategic room.

As I followed in behind, I examined Mike. Despite the fact of being in his early forties, he was in better shape than most thirty year olds. As the Director, he was steady and strong. Tonight though, something was off about him, which only added to my suspicion that whatever we were about to be faced with was a tragedy. “He looks tense,”

I said quietly to Chase.

Chase nodded but said nothing as his brows furrowed and his gaze stayed focused on Mike.

Quickly, we made our way through the main part of the office and it was exactly what I expected to find at this time of night—empty. Only our team worked the night shift. Sure, other teams were on call for different departments, but the Criminal Division was usually the only ones who walked these halls once the sun went down.

Our team consisted of me, the interrogator, Mike as the man in charge, and Chase as his second-hand man. The final member of the team was Nick who dealt with all the forensic work, which only confused me.

We were all specialists in our chosen field. Of course, none of them knew that I was only good at what I did because I held the ability to warp a human’s mind and will the truth from them. Hell, being a vampire had to have some perks and I wasn’t going to waste such an ability. Even Chase didn’t know.

The less he knew of my vampire abilities the better. I liked being as mortal as I could around him, besides the fact that I needed to drink his blood to survive.

Just as I cleared the door into the strategic room, Nick—the forensic wizard and whom I considered family—sat at the wooden table, waiting. It was partly why I loved this job. I could have that closeness only received from a family without the ties. If I had to walk away, I could. Not that it was something I hoped to do, I was happy here.

“How do you look so damn sexy in the middle of the night?” Nick asked me with a grin. His short black cropped hair made his pale skin almost glow. His equally dark eyes examined me with suspicion as his thin lips melted away to nothing in thought.

I laughed flirtatiously as I flipped my hair over my shoulder. “What can I say? When you’ve got it, you’ve got it.”

Of course, to mortals I did look beautiful. It was a way to lure them, although, I never resorted to such measures to feed from them—or hadn’t in a very long time, I should say. I took the blood I needed to survive only from the willing. Always. Which happened to be Chase and he could take it. He loved red meat.

Nick just laughed then glanced over at Mike as he said, “A situation has come up.”

He began handing out the files. “Milwaukee, Wisconsin law enforcement has a serial killer they’ve recently arrested, Chad McKinney.”

I flipped open the file to see a young blonde woman who was obviously dead, if the blue face had anything to say about it. But that was only what struck me first. The longer I looked, the more it became obvious this woman was clearly on display. Everything about the position she was found in was on purpose. Her golden locks lay perfectly around her face. She had freshly applied makeup on her lids and cheeks. Even her cherry red lipstick appeared moist.

“He wanted them found,” I said aloud.

When I looked up, Mike confirmed my thought with a nod. “He left them in very open spaces and didn’t conceal their bodies.”

“Either he is really stupid,” Chase’s eyes burned with the thought of a hunt, “or incredibly smart.”

Nick flipped a page, his nose buried in the file. “Looking at this, I’d say it was the latter.”

I agreed but kept it to myself as I moved to the next photo. The redhead was in the exact same position, right down to the very same shade of lipstick. It didn’t take rocket science to know all the pictures would be the same. I flipped back to the first picture to examine the minute details in the hopes of finding something.

Silence filled the room as I became lost in the picture. I could assume the others had followed suit, since the only sounds in the room were our deep breaths. Not that I needed to breathe, but I liked to. It might scare the mortals to see a person who can hold their breath indefinitely.

There was a reason these men were part of the team. They excelled in homicides, as did I.

Chosen and trained specifically to understand the disturbed mind of serial killers.

Moments passed before Chase broke the silence and shut his file with a loud bang against the table. “How many kills?” he asked Mike.

I glanced up from the file and smiled when I took a good look at Chase. He wore his usual ‘think tank’ expression—brows furrowed, lips pursed and eyes focused. He might be serious, but all I felt like doing was littering his face with kisses. Inappropriate, but I could never ignore just how sexy he looked when he was all focused like.

Mike took a sip of his coffee, then answered, “Seven in a week.”

Chase raised his brows and whistled. “Busy boy.” His gaze turned curious. “If they have the suspect what’s the problem here?”

“Before his capture, he abducted two other women, Kelly Lewis and Sabrina Stopforth. Both women are presumed to be alive. The problem? The suspect won’t give up where they are located. He has indicated enough that he has them hidden.”

“Ahh…I see.” Chase drummed his fingers on the table.

Mike closed his file folder and let out a long deep breath. “We need to get down there and investigate him. Learn more so that when Hadley interrogates him she has enough to go on.”

I sighed quietly to myself, not loud enough for mortal ears to hear it. This was the annoying part of the job. I could just walk right in there and make him spill his guts. But if the team had been called in, it meant the police working the case were at a dead end.

Meaning, if I sauntered in and got the information, I would set off warning bells. That I couldn’t allow.

Vampires had rules. Ones made by our leaders known as Mistress Vampires, each of whom run a region in the United States. The rule above all else was clear cut—keep your identity a secret. It kept vampires safe from being hunted and destroyed. Anyone who broke that rule, paid for it with their life.

I liked living too much to make that mistake. Each and every time there was a case, I followed the same protocol. Gather information and history about the suspect’s past, while the men headed off to do the investigative part. Then, when we all had enough, I took what I had and made it
appear
that I had gained a one-up on the police force.

Annoying, but rules were rules.

Mike finished off his coffee in a few deep gulps then glanced at the clock. “Flight leaves at nine, which is in an hour.” He nodded to the door. “Go get your shit from your lockers and meet at the airstrip in twenty.”

Nick jumped up, eager as he always was before we were knee deep in a mystery.

And the shit-eating grin on his face only confirmed his enthusiasm. “And let the games begin.”

An hour and half later, the plane touched down and we were immediately en route to the Milwaukee Police Department, District Seven. Now, as we proceeded to step through the front doors of headquarters we weren’t given a very warm welcome. Every police officer that greeted us appeared less than happy of our arrival, as most of them scowled as we walked by.

“Tough crowd,” Chase grumbled.

I wasn’t surprised to receive this kind of reaction. It was understandable, so I tried not to let it affect me. First off, it was close to eleven now. All the cops here were running on empty and probably had been for days since they were in the deep of the investigation.

Second, the crimes happened in their city. They weren’t looking for help in finding these missing women. They wanted to be the heroes and I respected that.

However, the choice wasn’t theirs any longer. Seven young women had lost their lives and two more remained missing—the need for pride within this police force had left. I could handle the grumpy men if it meant these two women were found alive.

It wasn’t often we were brought in on a case where the victims were still missing.

Usually, they were already dead and we were hunting a killer. To say this was a unusual situation would be very accurate.

Just as the door slammed behind me, a kind voice called out, “Mike.”

I glanced toward the voice on my right. The man’s tone matched his look with equal softness.

His sandy hair with hints of grey around his face was cut almost to his scalp.

His brown eyes squinted from the smile that crossed his lips. I could only assume that this was the the Chief of Police since he was the one greeting us. Standard protocol for this sort of thing and the man had an air of authority around.

“Nice to see you again, Ralph.” Mike extended his hand and confirmed my assumption that this was the man in charge since he knew him by name. “A nasty one you’ve got on your hands.”