Chasing Midnight (Dark of Night Book 2) (15 page)

Sitting in the office of Colton Harris’ campaign headquarters reminded me uncomfortably of sitting in the principal’s office in high school. I hadn’t been much of a troublemaker as a kid, but I also never backed down from a fight, a quality that landed me on the wrong end of a suspension more than once. I sat in the hardback plastic chair and tried not to feel small. Pulling out my phone, I punched in a quick email to Shane, asking him to check out the meds I’d found in Katy’s bathroom, attaching the photos and sending it off. I barely had time to tuck my phone back into my pocket before Colton Harris walked in and offered me his hand.

“Mr. Harris,” I said, shaking his outstretched hand.

He motioned for me to sit. “Miss Stone. What can I help you with today?”

Crossing my legs, I rested my clasped hands on my knee. I was trying to look friendly. If he thought I was accusing him of something, he’d close ranks even if he did nothing wrong. In the game of politics, sometimes the idea of wrongdoing was worse than an actual transgression.

“I’m here about your intern, Katy Fonte. Were you aware that she’s missing?”

He took a seat at his desk, smoothing down his tie. “Yes, the police came by a few days ago. As I told them, Miss Fonte left my staff months ago. I haven’t seen or heard from her since then.”

“Do you know why she left the campaign?” I prodded as gently as possible.

He shook his head. If Colton Harris made good on his Senate run, he’d be one of the youngest senators in state history, and one of the best looking. He was tall, but not enough to be intimidating, his face thin but kind. His ash-blonde hair made his green eyes almost startlingly brilliant and gave him a look of maturity. I could see why Katy was so taken with him.

“Miss Stone, what exactly is your interest in this matter?” he asked, laying his hands on the desk just as the door opened behind me.

“Colton, I’m going to suggest you not say anything at this time,” the man said hurriedly, crossing around me to stand at Harris’ side.

That’s hi
m
, Sue hissed inside my head.

But I’d already recognized him. It was the voice more than anything, but the build was right and instantly, a parade of goose bumps marched up my back.

“Miss Stone, this is Theodore Long, my friend and chief of staff. Teddy, this is Isabel Stone. She’s a private investigator looking into Katy’s disappearance.”

He held his hand out, and I found myself gagging as I shook it.

“Please, call me Teddy,” he said with a sly smile. “But I’m afraid we have a speech to prepare. Colton has already given a statement to the police.”

I nodded. “I’m aware of that, and I know how busy the future senator is.” I stood, leaning forward and lowering my voice as I continued, “But new evidence has come to light. Someone came into my office yesterday. She says she witnessed someone killing Katy Fonte.”

“That’s not possible,” Harris said, his face going pale.

“Has this witness identified or implicated the person responsible? Have the police found the body?” Theodore asked sternly.

I took a deep breath, trying to decide how to continue. If I played my cards right, maybe Teddy would give me something I could use.

“The witness in under my protection for now. She claims she saw a man meeting with Katy at St. Paul’s Cemetery last Sunday night. She also claims to have seen the man strangle her, and then leave with the body.”

He shifted his weight, glaring at Teddy, whose face remained stoic, almost amused as he listened.

“Also, we found this in her belongings.” I held up the thumb drive.

“What’s that?” Harris asked, his tone demanding.

“It’s the backup of Katy’s laptop. Very interesting stuff on here, Mr. Harris.”

He paled, and I knew I had him.

“Mr. Harris, I know you didn’t kill that girl. While she didn’t get a great look at the murderer, my witness i
s
ver
y
certain it wasn’t you. But someone wanted her and that baby gone. Someone who had a lot to lose if the story leaked out.”

“What do you want from me?” Harris demanded.

I stepped toward the door. “To be honest, I don’t think there’s anything I want from you. Either you or someone very close to you ordered this girl murdered. I might not have the proof yet, but you can bet your ass I’m going to get it. I’m going to find her body and once I do, I’m going to make it my personal mission to see that everyone who had a hand in her death is brought to justice.”

“You can’t prove anything. Colton was at a rally surrounded by witnesses the night she disappeared,” Theodore said as I grasped the doorknob.

I dropped it and turned. “No, Teddy. Harris isn’t the one who choked the life out of her, but I’m beginning to think I know who did.” I turned and walked out, holding my breath all the way to my car. My hands were still shaking as I slipped into the driver’s seat and clutched the wheel, releasing a heavy breath. I hadn’t expected to be shot in the back in broad daylight, but Teddy was a desperate man. I could tell by the expensive cut of his suit combined with the wild look in his grey eyes. He was a man with a lot to lose. Maybe even more than Harris.

Theodore Long was my killer. And I’d just painted a huge target on my back for him.

You’re playing a dangerous game, Isabel.

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

i

When the shaking finally stopped, I managed to drive over to Heather’s shop. She’d already gone so I left her a note and the photo I’d taken from Katy’s room, stuffing them in her mail slot. She could work her mojo in the morning and hopefully, she could get me a location on the body.

It was dusk when I got back to the office, and Shane still wasn’t home. I flicked on the lights and tossed my leather jacket on the kitchen counter.

Shane will be here to get you soo
n
, Sue reminded me.

Of course. Our dinner. I sighed and leaned against the fridge. What was I going to do about Shane?

Go change into something prett
y
, Sue suggested.

“Shut up, Sue. This is your fault.”

Not so. I gave you the choice, and you made it. Now stop whining and get moving. He’ll be here soon.

“I don’t wanna,” I whined, stomping my feet like a child.

Yes, you do. Now get moving, missy.

“Fine,” I grumbled, amazed at how much a hundred-year-old dead woman could sound just like my mother. As I passed my office on the way up to my room, I noticed the blinking red light of the answering machine so I veered off to check it.

Bee
p
.

It’s your mother. Don’t forget about your fitting tomorrow. Noon. Jaxon Fabrics. Don’t be late.

Beep

Isabel, it’s Heather. Listen, I got a bad feeling today. I’m gonna go back to the office tonight to work on that stuff you’re going to leave for me. Whatever happens tonight, remember that I love you. Shane loves you. Be safe.

Bee
p
.

“That doesn’t sound good, does it?”

Inside my head, Sue frowned.

SHANE

The drive back to the Conclave gave him a chance to think. Initially, he was going to burst in and confront Xavier with the notebooks. But, while the fantasy was nice, it was also a good way to get his head ripped off. No, if he was going to risk severing his ties with the Conclave, he needed to know exactly what was in those notebooks. He blasted past the compound and turned onto the desolate stretch of road that led to an abandoned airfield near the swamp. He hadn’t even turned off his bike when the mechanical sound of motion sensor video cameras came to life all around him. Somewhere in a dank cellar, a half a mile beneath the ground he was now standing on, his vampire brother, Richard Clark, was watching him.

The freight elevator at the back of the empty hanger was old and rusted. The rust alone was probably frightening enough to keep any nosy humans out, but Richard wasn’t one to risk anything. There was a biometric scanner hidden beneath the old control box. Shane wedged it open and placed his hand on the scanner. In seconds, the archaic machine began lowering him into the depths of the bunker. Halfway down the lift, it stuttered to a halt and the bottom dropped out, leaving Shane to plummet the rest of the way down. He landed on one knee, half crouched. Looking up at the shaft, he realized that fall would have killed a human.

“Shane,” came a voice from the darkness. “What brings you to my corner of hell?”

Richard stepped into the small shaft of light. He was gaunt, his cheeks sunken in, eyes black and hollow. His lips were thin, stretched tightly over yellowed teeth that gave him a disturbingly emaciated look.

Shane pulled two bags of donor blood out of the back of his pants and tossed them to his brother. “I stopped for takeout,” he said and smiled as Richard caught the bags and looked at them like they might bite him back.

“Bags? Really? You know I like the fresh stuff.”

Richard was the only other living bloodline of Irena Tarkeroff, the vampire who had sired Shane. He was very old and very crazy. Xavier had told Shane that Richard was a promising doctor before Irena got her claws on him. She changed him and left him for dead. It was a habit of hers, one that eventually got her killed. Being left with no Conclave to teach him after the change, Richard had gone feral in turn-of-the-century London before finally being hunted down by his own. Rehab for vampires wasn’t exactly two weeks in the Betty Ford clinic. It was more
,
the rest of time in a dark basemen
t
.

Over the years, Richard had discovered a love for all things computer. It was his only contact with the outside world. Shane tried not to bring too many things to him, but he needed someone to help him make sense of the notebooks.

“Fresh out of that, but I did bring you something else. A puzzle. You interested?”

Shane held out the notebooks. Richard snatched one and held it under his nose, sniffing deeply.

“Smells like vampire,” he sniffed again, “an
d
wer
e
, and… something else.” His black eyes blinked, and he looked up at Shane like he’d just been given a magic lamp.

Richard led Shane into a metal cage full of computers, microscopes, machines, and spare parts. It looked like a laboratory on steroids. With one smooth motion, Richard swept clear his workbench, everything else crashing to the floor. He sat the notebook down and cracked the spine open.

“It’s a record of experiments. Whoever this belongs to was… it looks like they were experimenting wit
h
wer
e
blood, trying to create a retrovirus.”

“To what?”

“The Vlad virus.”

Shane stared at him blankly.

Richard slid a pair of rubber gloves onto his wrinkled hands. “The Vlad virus is the virus that creates vampires.”

“It’s a virus?”

“Of sorts. Impossible to replicate synthetically. It alters the base DNA of anyone who comes in contact with it.”

“Is there
a
wer
e
virus?”

“See, you’re catching on. Yes. And if you could combine them, you’d have, in theory at least, a super virus.”

“That would do what?”

“Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? Who knows? The viruses are so fundamentally different, and for th
e
wer
e
virus, you have to be a genetically compatible carrier for the virus to even manifest. It’s all very tricky. Mother Nature doesn’t like us to screw with her creations.” Richard laughed coldly as his finger skimmed the paper at a frightening speed.

Shane cleared off a stool and took a seat across the bench. “So someone was experimenting with the viruses?”

Richard paused. “Interesting. According to this, the researcher was trying to isolate specific characteristics of each. They wanted to keep the traits like healing, reflexes, and sensory elevation. They were trying to use pieces of th
e
wer
e
virus, specifically the part that allows carriers to continue to age.”

Shane shook his head. “Wait, so they were trying to breed a mortal vampire?”

“Looks that way.”

Shane sat back, stunned. Why would Xavier be trying to create a vampire that could age, could die? It didn’t make any sense. Not worrying about aging or death was one of the few selling points of being a vampire.

“If it makes you feel any better, there’s no way they could have succeeded.” He spun the notebook around for Shane and pointed to a series of equations that looked like gibberish. Shane raised one eyebrow. Richard sighed and explained. “There’s no way to bond the virus. It isn’t cohesive. There’s a missing piece. The glue, if you will, that holds the virus together isn’t there. It just breaks down in the system. And according to these notes, every trial they did failed.”

“How many?” Trials. Experiments. Dead vampires an
d
were
s
.

“Well over a dozen, just in this notebook. There are probably many more like this, all the same. Failures.”

“And there’s no way to make it work?”

Richard shrugged. “Not with these samples. Like I said, there’s a piece missing. If you could find a medium that would bind the viruses, then maybe. But even then, there’d be no way to predict what traits would pass into the subject. They could get fangs and fur, or just bad breath and a sun allergy. It would need to be tweaked in trial. Can I keep this?”

Shane nodded. He didn’t need it. He had another. But now… now he wasn’t sure what to do. He’d never been particularly good at strategy games. He just didn’t have that innate ability to see moves that far in advance. Being a vampire hadn’t really helped that.

“Do you want me to try to make the serum work?” Richard asked impatiently, like he’d already asked once and Shane hadn’t heard him.

“Can you? You said it would never work.”

Richard bit his top lip. “I can take a crack at it.”

What were the odds? If Richard could make the serum work then maybe, just maybe, he could still have the life he wanted, the life he planned. Or at least a version of it. But then…

He shook his head. “No trials. No one should have to die to chase a cure that probably doesn’t even exist.” That would make him no better than Xavier. “But I guess it wouldn’t hurt to just take a look.”

Richard smiled, and it wasn’t a friendly look. “You always bring me the best toys.”