Blood Dark (20 page)

T
he bedsit was empty
, dust-motes floating in the air over the unmade bed and through the thin fabric of the closed curtains.

The team was already underway dusting for prints as Caitlin stepped over to the small, round table that sat central to the room. She pulled her gloves on.

The forensics team was laying thin sheets of plastic over the fingerprint scanner, removing strands of hair from the pillows, and rooting around in the tiny, windowless shower room. One opened a drawer near the kitchenette sink, taking out a phone. The place had been empty for a few days but if Sophia McKay had lived there, they’d know.

Laying central to the table was a mass of photographs. From what she could tell, they seemed to be of the Dehains’ club, several focusing on Jake. The one that lay aside from the others had him with a girl. The pretty blonde was laughing as she gazed up at him on the dance floor. According to the digital read-out on the bottom right-hand corner, it was taken the night after the alleged assassination attempt.

She’d had a quick background read on all the names on Abby’s list on the way over there. West and Cordell were residents of Midtown. Both had been on the missing persons list for over fourteen months. Sophia McKay, a resident of Summerton, had been missing for just under a year.

So far, Abby’s story did indeed seem valid.

From her research, Caitlin had also learned Sophia had two sisters – an older sister, Leila, and a younger one, Alisha. She’d seen photographs of both on the system, which was why she frowned at the picture of the blonde in the photograph with Jake.

She indicated for Tyrell to join her as she placed her laptop beside it. She swiped through to bring up Alisha’s picture. ‘Does that look like the same woman to you?’

He tilted his head to the side slightly, his gaze flitting between the two images. ‘It’s hard to be sure but I’d say so.’

A photograph of Alisha gazing up into Jake’s eyes as they were hip-tight on the dance floor.

She tucked the photograph in a plastic evidence bag, handing it across to one of forensics, along with a couple more that seemed to show the same woman. ‘Are you able to run these through the face-recognition when we get back?’

The forensics girl shrugged. ‘Sure.’

‘If I gave you a name, would it help?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Make a note of Alisha McKay.’

The forensics girl nodded and stepped away, taking the pack of photographs with her.

Caitlin reached for another photograph in the pile, and frowned as she saw the hint of something on Alisha’s neck. Her first instincts had been she was part of the set-up; now her gut wasn’t so sure.

‘Hang on a sec,’ Caitlin called after her, ‘can I borrow your magnifier?’

Caitlin placed the translucent screen over the top of the photograph and homed in on the small mark.

It was unmistakable.

‘We’ve got a match,’ one of the team announced, interrupting her thoughts and handing Caitlin the screen where the thin film with the fingerprint had been laid.

Her heart flipped. Her stomach lurched.

The confirmation was undeniable: Sophia Mckay’s fingerprints were all over the bedsit. One way or another, she’d been there. She had no doubt the clothes would quickly be attributed as hers, along with the hairs on the bed.

‘That’s not all,’ the forensics guy said. He switched films and handed the scanner back to her.

The screen took a moment to adjust but the confirmation came through loud and clear.

‘It seems West was here too,’ he declared. ‘And from the state of the bed, I’m guessing those two were pretty involved.’

‘Keep going,’ Caitlin said as she headed out onto the stairwell, still gripping the photograph she had homed in on.

She sat down on the step and swiped her laptop back into activity.

So much of it was a hunch – one of the ones that had her solving so many cases over the years, pieces of a puzzle forming in her head, knowing they joined together despite no clear vision of the end picture.

She re-read everything about the two sisters twice, before turning her attention back to the third sister, Leila.

It hadn’t clicked on the way over there in the car, her attention too fixed on finding out whatever she could about Sophia. But now those pieces were rapidly falling into place, her gut instinct telling her that maybe it wasn’t just two sisters who were somehow involved but that, more significantly, Leila –
interpreter
Leila – was too.

Hand trembling, she speed-dialed the TSCD, asking to be connected to Conference Room A.

‘Coles,’ came the abrupt response.

‘Coles, it’s Parish.’

‘I’m privileged.’

‘Coles, do you have Leila McKay on your list of interpreters?’

‘Better than that, I have her at her desk. What’s up?’

‘Describe her,’ she said, looking down at the official Summerton ID photograph.

‘Long russet hair. Slim. Maybe five foot five. In need of some sun. Sound like her?’

The intensifying tremor in her hand was irritating. ‘Can you keep a close eye on her for me?’

‘Something I should know?’

‘No. I may just want to run a couple of things by her later.’

After Coles hung up, Caitlin held her phone against her mouth for a moment.

There was a time when the discovery should have brought a sense of elation. There would have been a time when she would have bounded back to Max’s office, waving whatever bit of vital evidence she had uncovered.

She slammed her laptop shut and placed it on the step. Standing, she clutched the handrail as she took a couple of deep breaths, staring down the gap to the terracotta floor-tiles below. Despite her best efforts to keep her hand steady, it still trembled as she held her stomach.

If she was right, if it was all right, Kane was either as much a victim of deception as she had been or, as was more likely, he’d lied to her to protect Caleb.

Niggles of doubt about his intentions flooded her, the darkest and hardest to face that Kane had mindfully deceived her. That he had put Caleb before her.

That maybe Kane had looked her in the eye and lied to her.

Worse – that he
had
used her.

K
ane wasn’t
sure how long he’d stayed there before he’d forced himself to stand and make his way back out onto the street.

He’d returned to the east side within the hour, most of his journey there a blur.

He always knew it couldn’t end well, but he had never envisaged that he would lose her completely.

The thought clawed at his chest, ripping open old wounds, the deepest gut-wrenching sense of sickness overwhelming.

A world without Caitlin felt like no world at all.

His deepest instincts were to pull her closer, to shield her, to lock her away once and for all. But he’d have to tell her why. He’d have to tell her the time bomb was ticking for her again, just as it had been with the soul ripper. Except this time, he had no idea how to fight her monster because he didn’t even know what that monster was.

He crossed the near-empty club, headed down corridor after corridor, shoving doors open before making it into the VIP area. He barely acknowledged Erica sat on one of the sofas as he grabbed a six-pack of beer from the table. He marched to the room at the back, slamming the door behind himself.

He grabbed a chair and dropped it in front of the tall and narrow sash-window in the far left hand corner of the dim and empty room.

Sliding the window up, he let in the breeze as he lined up all six bottles on the windowsill.

He sat back in the chair, a beer in hand, knocking back its contents as he looked out at where the shadows fought the afternoon glow, the latter casting the rubble with subtle amber hues.

Once his bottle was empty he tossed it sideways across the room, shattering it against the wall before he reached for the next in the line-up. He knocked it back even quicker than the last before more splintered glass rained down like hail on the dusty wooden floor.

When he grabbed the third, he leaned forward, lowered his head, resting the bottle loosely between his parted thighs.

Hearing the click of heels stop outside, he didn’t need to glance over his shoulder to know who it was as he heard the door open. He’d known the rhythm of those footsteps for the last thirty years.

Erica pulled up a chair and rested its back against the wall beside the window so she was facing him.

He glanced at her silver sandals glinting in the light, at the distinguishing feature of the long-stemmed flower tattoo entwined around her ankle and creeping up the back of her calve to lick around the front just below her knee. It matched the one that he knew was concealed beneath her left breast, the one on her inner thigh inches from her sex, and the one that snaked from her behind up the small of her back. He’d seen her body enough times over the years to know every inch.

‘How long has it been?’ Erica asked.

He glanced up at her. ‘How long has what been?’

‘That you’ve felt this way about her.’

He reverted his attention out of the window as he sank back in the chair, Erica vocalising it making the darkness in the room even more intense.

‘Is that why you haven’t been around as much these past couple of weeks?’ she asked, when he didn’t answer. ‘Have you been with
her
?’

‘I’ve had a lot to deal with as you know.’

‘I saw the way you looked at her when she came in the room yesterday, Kane. I saw the way she looked at
you
. I could almost feel the spark between you, let alone see it. You’re in dangerous territory.’

He looked across at her, into her big brown eyes that were glistening with concern.

‘You’re straddling two worlds, Kane, at a time when we need both your feet firmly in ours.’ She glanced across at the shattered glass. ‘If you love her, let her go. No good can come of this.’

He took another mouthful of beer to burn away the lump that was reforming in his throat. It had been a long time since he’d cried in front of anyone. Erica may even have been the last. The closest friend Arana had, she’d been as devastated as him about losing her.

And now he was on the cusp of facing that pain again. The pain he’s promised himself he’d never allow himself to feel again. And the lack of control terrified him; it infuriated him.

His only way of regaining that control was to shove Caitlin away.

Erica eased off the chair and moved onto her knees between his, her hands flat on his thighs. ‘If she won’t give up the VCU for you, Kane, you have to ask yourself why you would give up your master vampire status for her. Because that’s what it’ll take, just like it did with your father. You can’t have the best of both worlds. It’s negligent for you even to try. You protect your kind or you protect the woman you love. You can’t do both, especially not now. Your father’s sword has passed to you. You can’t wage war with that in one hand whilst you hold hers in the other. You have to hold it with
both
hands.’

Kane looked into her eyes – deep into her big, dark brown eyes, her dusky skin and long black curls backlit by the depleting light.

And he dared to let his gaze linger in that which was familiar. That which was safe. That which was simple.

‘If I lost you like I lost Arana,’ she said, reaching up to cup his face, ‘I don’t know what I’d do. I don’t know what any of us would do.’

‘You’re not going to lose me.’

‘You’re sleeping with the enemy, Kane. You are taking risks every time you take her to your bed. You know where her loyalty ultimately lies, where her devotion lies. When she knows the truth of what you’re going to do, she will run scared or she will take you down or, at the very least, she will hate you. There is no future for you. Why put yourself through any of it?’

She ran her hand around the back of his neck as she edged closer, as she slid the empty bottle from his hand, letting it clunk to the floor.

As she straddled him, he let her. As she slid her hands up his chest, around his neck, he didn’t stop her.

She dropped the spaghetti straps on her dress, took him by the wrist, pressed his hand over her bare breast before she leaned in to caress his neck with delicate kisses.

It was always such sweet pleasure with Erica. They both knew each other’s bodies so well. Most of the time they didn’t even need to speak. She came to him when she needed him and he came to her when he needed the simple pleasure of sex with someone he trusted.

Her palm glided down his chest as she eased a little closer, her breasts inches from his mouth as she edged forward and brushed her full soft lips up behind his ear.

For a while, it would make it all go away.

For a while, he could forget everything.

When Caitlin was long gone, Erica would still be there. Erica, who he wouldn’t have to lose anything for … give anything up for.

He stretched his neck back for a moment and looked up at the shadows cast on the ceiling.

It would feel so good inside her.

But he would feel nothing like what he felt when he was with Caitlin.
Nothing
like what he felt when he gazed down into Caitlin’s eyes whilst he was inside her. That feeling of them belonging together – like they’d always belonged; like she was a part of him and he of her.

His thoughts wandered to her walking through the door and seeing him with Erica astride him; how it would make her feel, the hurt it could cause her.

He wanted to be able to carry on regardless – to prove Caitlin didn’t really matter, that he could go back to how it was. That he could to prove to himself that he was in control – of Blackthorn’s fate, of his fate, of his feelings. That he was in control of the way he felt. That he could pick and choose.

That he could walk away now that he had reason.

Now that he didn’t stand a chance of keeping her.

But he couldn’t.

Falling for Caitlin wasn’t a choice. It had never been a choice.

And rejecting Erica was too easy as a result.

He slid her straps back over her shoulders to cover her, saw the disappointment of rejection in Erica’s eyes. Worse, he knew he was confirming her worst fears.

And he was confirming his own.

He was going to go and get Caitlin. He was going to tell her she no longer had a choice: she was going to be cocooned by him whether she liked it or not.

‘I’m sorry,’ Erica said, taking it as her hint to leave, ‘for you both.’

As his phone vibrated, he removed it from his jeans pocket at the same time Erica kissed him on the forehead before moving off him.

He was already halfway across the threshold behind her when he stopped abruptly.

Caleb and Jake have been taken in
, read the text from one of his many scouts.

‘Kane?’

‘What?’ he snapped, turning to face the source of the tentative male voice.

Charlie eyed him warily for a moment, the vampire seemingly not knowing where to put himself.

An uneasy feeling quickly formed in Kane’s chest that it was more than his curt manner that had caused apprehension in the vampire.

An uneasy feeling that intensified as he looked across the room to see Caitlin, her arms folded, her workbag across her body, her gaze leaking condemnation as it locked on his.