Hot Demon Nights (8 page)

“Do you know if Felding received any money up front for the drug?”

She nodded. “Victor said he pocketed a huge bribe.”

“And he knew this how?”

“When Victor had gone to talk to him about stopping the experiments, he overheard one of Mr. Felding’s phone conversations. Do you think Mendez killed Victor?”

“I wouldn’t know at this point.” This put a whole new slant on the investigation, one I had to get back to the office to track. “Thank you, Miss Trent, for your cooperation in this investigation.” I gave Blaise a direct stare. “Let’s go. We have more bases to cover.”

Blaise patted Rachel’s back once more and stood. He removed his wallet from his back pocket and pulled a business card from inside, handing it to the woman. “If you think of anyone’s actions or anything out of the ordinary that stands out in your mind, feel free to call me. Keep your doors locked.”

The woman took the card from him, holding onto his hand for a moment longer than necessary. “Thank you,” she said, like he’d thrown her a life preserver.

I rolled my eyes and headed for the door, leaving with or without the demon.

As I climbed into the car, I bit back the smart-ass remark I wanted to make as soon as Blaise got in the vehicle.

Something in his expressions stopped me.

“What?” I barked out.

“Something isn’t right here.”

“You’re telling me.” I flipped my phone open and dialed Detective Thomas, letting him know what we’d just learned. I clicked the off button and sat for a moment in silence.

“Victor was killed by someone he knew and trusted,” Blaise said.

“True. Someone who drank wine.”

“Felding received money under the table for a drug that wasn’t yet ready,” Blaise continued.

“From Rico Mendez,” I added. “One dangerous son of a bitch.”

Blaise nodded. “Mrs. Felding was attacked on her way home last night.”

“From visiting a friend.” My eyes narrowed. “I wonder what friend.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to talk to Mrs. Felding,again,” Blaise suggested.

“My thoughts, exactly.” I frowned at him. “I really hate it when you finish my thoughts.”

“Can’t help it. You were headed the same direction I was going.”

I twisted the key in the ignition and pulled out into traffic. “What about interviewing the other scientists?”

“After Mrs. Felding.”

We didn’t make it two blocks before my cell phone rang.

Blaise answered while I negotiated a turn.

For a long moment, he listened in silence, his face stone cold, expressionless. “We’ll be there in twenty minutes, depending on traffic. In the meantime, could you have a unit go by and collect all video feed over the last week of the front of Mrs. Felding’s apartment building? Looking for any visitors who might work at the F&L lab.” He clicked the off button, flicked the blue strobe light switch on the dash and nodded in my direction. “Take a left at the next corner.”

My pulse leaped as I switched on my turn signal and made that left. “What’s going on?”

“Gordon Felding’s cryogenically frozen body was stolen from the F&L building last night.”

Chapter Eight

W
hen we arrived at the F&L building, it
had already been surrounded by no less than a dozen emergency vehicles. I
flashed my badge and was granted access without question. Inside we spoke with
the security guard on duty, a different guy from the night before, the shift
having changed before the theft was discovered.

The police officer in charge gave us the details.

One of the scientists responsible for monitoring the gas and
chemical levels of each of the cryogenic chambers noticed one had been emptied
between the time he left the chamber for his fifteen-minute break and the time
he returned around 5:30 that morning. He’d reported it to his supervisor, who’d
searched the database and determined that the missing client was none other than
the recently deceased Gordon Felding. The supervisor had immediately called the
police.

Blaise moved toward the security room. “We’ll need to see the
videos of the room, corridors and any exterior cameras.”

“We started reviewing right away.” A man in a white coat
stepped forward and identified himself as the supervisor in charge of the
cryogenics chambers. “We discovered several anomalies.” He nodded to the guard
seated at the desk in front of half a dozen screens. He clicked on his mouse,
running the video of the cryogenics chamber. At one point, the video
blinked.

“There.” The supervisor pointed to the screen. “Based on the
footage, there are fifteen minutes missing that correlate with the night
attendant’s scheduled break, right before shift change.”

“And you questioned the night cryogenics attendant?”

“I did. He didn’t notice anything amiss when he returned, since
that particular chamber wasn’t within sight of his office window. It wasn’t
until he’d settled in and scanned the computer readings that he discovered one
of the chambers operating in the red. He immediately performed the protocol for
a breached chamber and notified me. By then it was too late. Mr. Felding’s body
was gone.

“What about the corridors and the parking garage?” I asked.

The guard clicked the mouse and the screen played a section of
the video around the same timeframe as the fifteen-minute glitch in the
cryogenics chambers. This video had the same hiccup, as did the parking
garage.

“Are any of the vans missing?” I asked.

“No. Only those on scheduled deliveries.”

“I want to know the destinations of all those vans on
deliveries. Do they have GPS tracking devices installed?”

“Yes, all of our vehicles have them, but not all of them have
been working consistently. We’ve had a technician running diagnostics on the GPS
units over the past two weeks.”

My gaze connected with Blaise’s. The vans’ GPS devices not
working coincided with the start of the zombie attacks, though the dead bodies
hadn’t, up until this point, originated from the F&L corporate building.

“Who, besides the cryogenics monitoring staff, has access to
the chamber?”

The supervisor shook his head. “Just me, my technicians and the
research scientists who helped set it up. And Mr. Felding, but he’s dead.”

“Which of your research scientists were involved in the
set-up?” Blaise asked.

“Some of the same ones working on the reanimation project. Dr.
Stewart, Dr. Trent and Dr. Henke.” The cryogenics supervisor counted them off on
his fingers.

My pulse pounded, making my blood wing through my system. Who
needed caffeine when you could have an adrenaline rush on the job? “When did Dr.
Henke leave the building?”

The guard clicked the mouse once more and he paged through a
list. “He left at 5:35.”

“Which way did he exit the building?” Blaise asked.

“His ID badge scanned through the parking garage exit.”

“What does he drive?”

Again, the guard clicked the mouse and brought up a database.
“A black BMW M3.” He scribbled a license number onto a sheet of paper and handed
it to us.

“I’ll need a home address while you’re at it.” I pressed my
lips together, my gut telling me we’d been chasing the wrong leads. “We may need
to pay Dr. Henke a visit.”

The supervisor escorted us through the building to the exit
leading out into the multi-level parking garage. It didn’t take long to locate a
shiny black BMW M3, parked in a corner, with the license plate that matched the
one the guard had given me.

“Come on, partner, we’d better hurry if we want to catch Dr.
Henke with the goods.” I grabbed Blaise’s arm, ignoring the tingles spreading
quickly through my body. We ran back through the building and out the front to
our unmarked car and climbed in.

The address the guard had given me was in an older section of
Brooklyn close to the bay where some of the warehouse buildings had been
converted to apartments. Though the sun had risen, the sky remained murky and
dark, clouds heavy with rain, the air bone-chillingly damp. I stepped out of the
car in front of a large, ugly warehouse that occupied a full block. The scent of
the polluted bay filled my nostrils along with car exhaust and something else. A
few cars were parked along the curb. There was no sign of an F&L delivery
van.

One doorway served as the main entrance. An overhead garage
door, the kind that needed a remote, was positioned at the other end of
street.

I pushed through the front glass door and headed to an old
freight elevator. It took us to the subterranean floor as indicated on Henke’s
address.

“Creepy,” I muttered as I stepped out of the wire-caged
elevator onto the professionally stained concrete floor. Only one door led off
the long corridor and it had the right number.

I knocked. No response. I tried the handle, but it was locked
and the door looked like reinforced steel.

“Here, let me.”

“You have that super strength talent goin’ on?”

“Some, but that’s solid steel. Fortunately, I’m really good
with locks.” He pulled a multi-use pocketknife from his pocket and inserted one
of the many tools into the lock, jiggled it a few times until the lock turned,
and the door swung open.

The smell hit me first. A combination of formaldehyde and
death, the same stench that preceded my encounter with the zombie on my fire
escape at the start of this whole adventure.

I glanced across at Blaise, glad I had him with me. Something
about this place gave me the willies big-time.

We entered into a sterile white living area with tall ceilings
and exposed metal beams, all part of the decor. I took the right door leading
off the main room and Blaise took the left.

“Bedroom’s clear,” Blaise called out. I could hear his
footsteps crossing to the door I’d gone through. My Glock led the way into what
could only be described as a mad scientist’s lab with Bunsen burners, electrical
gadgets, tubing and an operating table right out of a horror movie.

And next to the operating table on the floor, lying in an
awkward and decidedly unnatural position, was the good Dr. Henke himself.

Dead.

I stepped around the table and bent to feel for a pulse.

“Careful.” Blaise grabbed the insulated part of a loose
electrical wire hanging down from the ceiling, and held it away from me. “I
think this is live.”

As suspected, Henke was dead, his hands blackened as if he’d
had an electrical shock so strong it blew out the tips of his fingers.

Another scent lingered in the air. One I’d smelled the day
before. “Do you smell that?” I straightened, sniffing again, trying to
disassociate the formaldehyde and death from the other aroma making the inside
of my nostrils itch.

Blaise tipped his head back and shook his head. “No. I can only
smell rubbing alcohol and formaldehyde. What is it?”

“Perfume.”

“Think Henke was into reanimating dead women?”

“No, I don’t think so. So far the zombies have all been male.”
I glanced across at Blaise and spoke as the thought came to my mind. “But he
might not have been working alone.”

“Rachel Trent told us that Victor overheard Felding talking
about a cash deal.”

My fingers bunched into a fist. “With Rico Mendez.”

“Mrs. Felding’s apartment looked trashed, like someone had been
searching for something.”

“Maybe a stash of cash?” My eyes narrowed as the trashed room
in the Felding’s swanky penthouse apartment came to mind, along with the memory
of the perfume that had made my nose and eyes itch the entire time we’d spoken
with her. Adrenaline raced through my system. I hated to admit it, but I liked
the way Blaise and I bounced ideas off each other…like partners. Damn, I was
beginning to think of him as a permanent fixture, not just a
one-case-wonder.

“I suspect Gordon was the only one who knew where a certain wad
of money was hidden. I wonder if someone decided it would be in their best
interest to jumpstart Gordon’s brain to find it?”

I hurried after Blaise, my blood humming. I didn’t have to ask
where we were going. He knew where I was headed and I knew exactly where to
go.

Blaise pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed.
“Detective Thomas, Dr. Henke’s been murdered. Send a forensics team here
immediately.” He gave the address. “Detective Danske and I are headed to the
Felding apartment in Manhattan. We will need backup.”

For once, New York City traffic cooperated and we made the
drive in less than twenty minutes, arriving at the fancy building, parking in
the street out front.

After flashing my badge, I had the security guard in the lobby
lead the way up with a master key that would get us inside the apartment without
having to use Blaise’s skill as a locksmith.

As the elevator arrived at the top floor and dinged open, a
scream echoed through the walls.

Blaise grabbed the keys off the frightened security guard and
got the door unlocked in no time flat. He flung it open to a scene from a
slasher movie.

A dull gray Gordon Felding had Ivana smashed against the wall,
his hands gripping her neck, squeezing so hard Ivana’s face had turned a
startling shade of blueberry. The woman had a plain canvas bag dangling from her
fingertips.

“Gordon!” Blaise shouted.

The zombie didn’t respond and his grip never slackened.

Blaise gripped his fists together and swung hard at Felding’s
head.

The former CEO of F&L, Inc. threw back his head and roared,
the sound so inhuman it made me shiver, but he didn’t let go of Ivana Felding’s
neck.

Blaise jumped on the dead man’s back and I threw myself at the
back of Felding’s knees. Between the two of us, we toppled the creature to the
floor, his hands still clinging to his widow’s throat, Ivana flopping around
like a rag doll. When he hit the hard tiles, his fingers loosened and Ivana
bounced two feet away.

As Mrs. Felding slammed onto her back, the canvas bag dropped
from her fingers and slid across the granite tile. The bag hit the corner of an
occasional table’s leg, spinning it sideways, slinging dozens of bills across
the expensive Persian carpet.

Gasping for breath, Ivana rolled up to her hands and knees and
crawled toward the money. She snatched it up and struggled to her feet, heading
for the door.

I tackled her before she got there, landing hard on her back,
knocking her flat on her face.

Gordon roared again and fought against Blaise’s attempt to pin
him to the ground.

With superhuman strength, the dead man flung Blaise to the side
like a dirty shirt and lunged after Ivana.

Blaise scrambled after him.

Gordon reached me first, yanking me up by my hair.

Blaise plowed into Gordon, knocking him to the side. Since
Gordon had hold of my hair, he took me with him, slinging me against the
couch.

Gordon released my hair and swung at Blaise, clipping his chin,
knocking him against a solid mahogany cabinet. The dull thud of skull against
wood sent a sickening lump to the pit of my belly.

The dead man lurched to his feet, his face contorted, the skin
sagging and gray-blue.

Ivana blubbered, sitting up, clutching the bag of money to her
chest, her lip bleeding, her normally beautifully coifed hair knotted and
standing on end. “Bastard! You couldn’t even die right. All I wanted was enough
to live on, but you couldn’t even leave me that in your stinking will.”

Gordon flung himself at his wife, knocking her back so hard her
head smacked against the granite and her eyes fluttered shut.

That’s when I remembered the ornamental Samurai sword hanging
over the couch I lay against. I staggered to my feet, my head swimming.

Blaise held onto a drawer handle of the mahogany cabinet and
dragged himself up.

The reanimated man flung his hands out to the side and gave a
blood-curdling cry, then ducked and charged into Blaise as if he were a water
buffalo on the savannah, defending his herd.

Blaise slammed against the wall. The creature wrapped his hands
around the demon’s throat and shook him so hard, Blaise’s teeth rattled.

My heart banged against my ribs. That was my partner—hell, my
lover—getting the living shit choked out of him. I couldn’t let that happen.
Wouldn’t let it happen.

A rush of adrenaline spiked in my veins, clearing my head. I
leaped up on the white leather sofa, ripped the Samurai sword from its perch on
the wall and dropped to the ground, racing toward the creature from hell. I
swung the blade with as much force as I had when I’d been attacked the first
time by a zombie.

The sword sliced clean through Gordon’s neck, severing his head
from his body. It dropped to the floor and rolled toward Ivana, bumping against
her thigh.

The woman blinked her eyes opened, took one look at the blank
stare of her dead husband, screamed and passed out.

The hands clenched around Blaise’s throat had locked in a death
grip, the jumbled messages from the brain no longer there to signal release.