Dangerous Games (12 page)

Dammit, I didn’t
need
an attraction to a man who hated what I was. I had enough of that with Quinn. Of course, the moon heat didn’t give a damn about that sort of thing. It just saw a craggy-faced candy it wanted to taste.

Luckily for me, the moon fever had yet to fully begin.

I stopped when I reached the living room doorway and did a sweep of the room with my still-recording phone. There had definitely been a fight in this room—furniture was upturned, the TV and glass coffee table were smashed, and books and magazines scattered everywhere. So, if Dunleavy had fought for his life, why were there no marks on his body? Or could I simply not see them because he was lying on them?

Would I even see bruises on skin that had been stripped off?

The stench of shit was stronger here than anywhere else, but again, it was more human-based than the scent I associated with Gautier. Though that was here as well, just not as strong or as fresh. As I scanned the floor, looking for the source, I saw the feet.

Female feet, to be precise. Even from where I stood, I could see the pink nail polish on some of her toes. The rest of her body was covered by the upturned couch and several layers of book and magazine wreckage.

I glanced over my shoulder. Cole was kneeling beside an open bag, setting up the mobile recording device. Though why they called it mobile when it didn’t actually move anywhere, just hung from a ceiling and recorded a three-sixty view of the room, was anyone’s guess.

“There’s a second body in the living room. Hurry up with that thing.”

“Guardians are not supposed to interfere with investigations.” His voice was short, impatient.

“I don’t really care what guardians are and aren’t supposed to do.” Which was more of a truth than Cole would ever know—and a statement that would annoy the hell out of Jack when he heard it. Not that he’d be surprised by it, mind. “How about you quit worrying about what I’m supposed to be doing, and just put a little speed into what you’re supposed to be doing?”

“If you’d shut the fuck up and let me concentrate, I might be able to.”

I somehow managed to restrain my grin, and looked back at the wrecked living room. A glint in the left-hand corner of the room, near one of the rear windows, caught my eye. The sun had come out briefly from behind the clouds, and in the sudden beam of sunlight, something sparkled a pretty red. It didn’t look like the sort of sparkle you got with glass. Even glass covered in blood.

Frowning, I carefully picked my way through the mess. A muttered curse followed my steps, meaning Cole still hadn’t got the mobile unit together yet. I kept my phone on record and knelt near the shadows.

Sitting in the dust that had accumulated behind the now upturned TV was a ring. I recorded its position with the phone, then carefully picked it up. It was thick and silver and obviously worth a bit of money. Not the sort of thing a thief usually left lying about carelessly. So, where had it come from? Gautier? I’d never seen him wear rings or jewelry of any kind in the past. But then again, I’d never known he had a hankering for skinning before today, either. I suppose the ring could have belonged to Dunleavy—only this ring was designed for a man with thin fingers. Dunleavy had fat little sausages. And if he’d stolen it, he surely would have taken more care of it.

This ring
would
fit Gautier’s fingers. So, was it his? And was losing it accidental or intentional? With that psycho, anything was possible.

When I brought it into the sunlight the engraving on the heavy, flat top revealed itself. It was a dragon with three heads, its claws wicked barbed, and body snakelike. Six bloodred rubies gleamed in the dragon’s eyes.

Just looking at it had chills skating across my skin and I had no idea why.

“You are not supposed to be moving evidence.”

Cole’s sharp voice made me jump a little. I tried to cover the movement by turning the ring over in my hand and studying the inside of it. “I recorded its position.”

“That is not the point.”

“No, the point is I’m stepping into your territory and you don’t like it.” I looked up at him then. “Get used to it, buddy, because I’m going to be messing up your life a whole lot more in months to come.”

His stance stiffened a little. No male wolf likes to be challenged, especially when the challenge was as ambiguous as mine. “When the cleanup team arrives on a crime scene, they are in charge,
not
the paid killers.”

His voice was filled with cold contempt, and anger swirled through me again. People who judged en masse rather than on an individual basis annoyed the crap out of me. I was sick enough of defending my heritage to all and sundry. I didn’t need to start having to defend my job as well—especially when it was a job I hadn’t particularly wanted in the first place. “Well,
this
paid killer has never been one to follow the rules. Just ask Jack.”

“Oh, I intend to.”

I shook my head in disgust and looked back down at the ring. There was something written on the inside of the band, but it wasn’t in a language I recognized. Actually, it looked like nothing more than a bunch of weird little symbols.

I took a photo of it, then rose. Cole pressed the mobile unit against the roof, waited until the suction took hold, then hit the record button. The unit whirred to life, and one of the lenses behind the black glass sphere did a circuit around the room before coming back to rest on the two of us. From here on in, any movement and all conversation would be tracked.

“What?” he said, finally looking back at me.

I held out the ring. “Do you recognize the language?”

He took the ring and studied it intently. “Looks old Persian, but I can’t be sure.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Persia doesn’t exist as such, anymore.”

“No, but old Persian cuneiform inscriptions do exist, and they look like this.”

“And how do you know that?”

“I study old-language forms in my free time.”

He had to be kidding, right? “So those weird little pics are actually words?”

“Yes.”

“Could you get a priority transcription on it, and send me the results?”

He looked at me for a moment, then moved to the door and grabbed a plastic bag from his kit. “I’ll see what I can do.”

I clamped down on the irritation that ran through me, and pointed toward the body. “Do you have any objections to me checking her out?”

He glanced up at the mobile unit. “Scan all elements north side of room.”

“Scanning.”

I looked up in surprise. “I didn’t know those things talked.”

He raised an eyebrow, like he was amazed a guardian was admitting not knowing something.

Bastard.

I couldn’t work up anything more than annoyance, though. The momentary twinkle in his pale blue eyes was just too cute for my hormones to ignore, and when
they
were interested in someone, everything else went out the window.

“Latest technology,” he said. “I hear the labs are currently working on units that are actually mobile.”

“Well, I’m sure that development will just rock your little socks off.”

“Just as much as killing rocks yours, I imagine.”

“Which just goes to prove some clean-team members don’t have very good imaginations.”

The mobile unit beeped. “Area scanned.”

“Then let’s go take a look, kemosabe.”

He looked at me like I was weird. Obviously not a big Lone Ranger fan. I resisted the temptation to smile as he walked across the room and stopped next to the sofa covering the woman. After studying the floor for several seconds, he looked over his shoulder at me. “It’s safe to move. You want to grab the other end?”

“For you, anything.”

He gave me the sort of look that would surely have silenced anyone with a bit of sense. Of course, I wasn’t anyone. Once again restraining my smile, I walked carefully across. This close to the woman, the scent of excrement was almost overwhelming. I wrinkled my nose and wondered how the hell Cole coped with it all. He had to hit smells far worse than this in the course of his work, which had to be a nightmare when you had a nose as sensitive as a wolf’s. I couldn’t imagine doing it myself—not day after day, month after month.

But then, I couldn’t imagine being a guardian for the rest of my life either—and right now, that was the only option I had.

After righting the sofa, the reason for the smell became obvious. The woman was naked and lay on her back, her arms pinned underneath her body and legs akimbo. The bruising on her thighs suggested rape, and the bruising on the rest of her body said she’d fought it as hard as she could.

And whoever had raped her had ripped apart her neck and sucked the life out of her. But they hadn’t been satisfied with that. Oh no. Because they’d then turned around and shit on her. The evidence of it lay between her breasts, watery and reeking to hell.

“Vampire shit,” Cole said. “Very few other creatures produce excrement that diluted.”

I looked up to find him studying me. “What?”

He waved a hand at the brown fluid. “That is the waste product of a vampire, and probably a baby one at that. Older vamps tend to have less color and form. Baby vamps are generally still shaking off their ‘humanness’ and tend to produce something vaguely resembling regular waste matter.”

“Seems I learn something new about vampires every damn day.” Although vampires’ waste products wasn’t really something I’d ever wanted to think about, let alone know.

“I’ve never seen a guardian look as furious as you do right now.” He cocked his head a little, expression hinting at surprise and curiosity. “It’s almost as if this death offends you.”

“And a senseless death doesn’t offend you? It doesn’t offend you that some bastard shit on this woman after he’d raped and killed her?”

He shrugged. “I’ve seen too much for something like this to offend me.”

I snorted softly. “And you think
I’m
the cold-blooded monster?”

“Cold-blooded killer,” he amended softly. “There is a difference.”

Not enough to matter, I’d warrant. I looked back at the woman and saw for the first time that she had dark skin and dark hair. This had to be Dunleavy’s girlfriend if the old girl in the first apartment had her descriptions right.

So, if Gautier was responsible for Dunleavy’s death, who had been in here, taking care of the girlfriend?

My gaze rose to the mess of her neck, and the excrement. My stomach twisted, and an odd sense of foreboding crawled up my spine. I turned around, studying the remnants of glass and furniture scattered about the room. Eventually I found what I was looking for, facedown on the brick hearth. I rose and walked over to it.

Picked up the photo frame and saw the dark-haired woman and the child within it. I closed my eyes for a second, cursing the unfairness of fate.

“Why the interest in the photo frame?” Cole asked.

“Not the frame, but the photo within it.” I turned it around and showed him. “See the child in the photo? We found her last night. She died this morning.”

“So whoever did this wanted the child?”

“No, I think she was just bait.” I rubbed a hand across my eyes. That’s why the young vamp had stood there for so long in the rain. Gautier had wanted to ensure we’d follow. He knew we’d try and save the girl. Knew we’d try and trace her parents. Which meant, maybe, he’d wanted us to find these kills. And had wanted us to find that ring.

The question was, why?

My gaze went to the woman again, and my frown deepened. “How long has she been dead?”

Cole looked down at the body. “Rigor mortis hasn’t yet set in, so she’s been dead less than three hours.” He met my gaze again. “Why?”

“Because the timing is all off. These two are recent kills, and yet the little girl was kidnapped much earlier.” And we’d killed Gautier’s little protégée last night, so it couldn’t have been him doing this. Though it
was
always possible that Gautier had more than one baby vamp in his nest.

But that still left the problem of how the baby vamp had gotten out of here when the sun was up. Gautier might be a young vamp, but he still would have a touch more tolerance than any youngsters he’d turned. The slightest caress of sunlight would be instant death to any one of them.

“Maybe she was kidnapped to buy their silence,” Cole said.

Maybe. Dunleavy
had
rung yesterday evening, desperate for help. This was obviously why. If Jack had acted earlier, if the Directorate had more staff, then maybe the little girl would still be alive. Maybe even her mom and Dunleavy.

It made me wonder what they’d known. Obviously it was something of extreme value, because death had come hunting them pretty damn quick. But how did whatever they’d known connect with Gautier? And how did Gautier connect to The Cleaver?

Because it was beginning to look like he
was
connected, no matter what Jack said—and no matter what Gautier’s so-called contest might imply.

I glanced down at the picture. It was better than looking at the real woman lying on the floor. “I think I’ll go question the neighbor again. See if she saw anything earlier. But please, save your cheering until I get out the door.”