Night Call (Book 2): Demon Dei (7 page)

Her summoner withdrew the phone. He knew she’d committed the picture to memory.

“He goes under the guise of the Night Caller. The supernatural population of Brisbane is scared of him. I don’t know why.”

The Night Caller? As in the man Nick had contacted to exorcise her? The mysterious Matt Hawkins of Night Call? Well, well. This was getting interesting. But she didn’t want to let her summoner know she knew this guy. That was one secret she would keep to herself—unless he commanded it out of her, that was.

“And what is he to you, my master?”

“He’s a hindrance. I had suspected he would be brought in to help on the case, but had hoped I could stop it from happening.”

“The case?”

“The case of Geraldine Davis’ murder. Her family has brought him in to help them discover her murderer.”

Amaya sighed in frustration. “I thought it was safely pinned on the husband.”

“It seems he went to work that night. He has a fool proof alibi.”

“Why bother with this other guy? Why not just take out the husband?”

“That would be pointless. Chris Davis is only to be punished, not killed. This Night Caller though, is a different matter. He’s big news amongst the Old World creatures here. I’ve no doubt he’s been called in because they suspect supernatural means in Geraldine’s death.”

Rustling her feathered wings, Amaya nodded. “I take him out before he can find you.”

“Yes. And once that’s done, I’ll have another job for you.” His hood turned toward her with a distinct air of forbearance. “Unless of course you have somewhere else to be.”

She glared at him. “Actually, I don’t.”

“Good. For a demon, you seem reasonable, Amaymon. Maybe we could come to some agreement once all this is done. Child of Asmodeus.”

Amaya’s shoulders slumped. Brilliant. Once his murderous intent was done, his nasty little mind was reverting back to a pubescent state.

And here, she’d thought she’d escaped the succubus tag a long time ago.

In the elevator to Ivan and Brad’s apartment, I drilled Mercy about not doing anything strange. She took it with a bored shrug and studied the silver fingernail polish she’d spent all evening applying. I knew she was taking it all in, though, so I wasn’t too worried.

Ivan answered the door. He was still in his work clothes and seemed really nervous.

“Problem?” I asked.

He looked Mercy over. I’d had some luck in moderating her outfit. Hot pink shorts, black stockings with steel-capped work boots and a tight t-shirt proudly saying ‘I’d Kill for a Nobel Peace Prize’.

A while back, Mercy had been pretty popular around the local club scene. She’d fronted a band called Nasty Kitten. A lot of people didn’t remember her or the band now. Ivan and Brad were among the few who did and they’d recognised Mercy from a distance. I just hoped neither of them thought to bring up her past tonight. She remembered nothing of it, though I had told her once. It meant little to her. I didn’t know how she would react to someone asking her about it.

“Hope not,” Ivan said, looking at me again. “Erin’s here.”

Okay. I could deal with that. Again, not so sure about Mercy.

“Give us a moment, please,” I said to Ivan and drew Mercy back down the hall  a bit. “
Merce, Erin’s in there. Are you going to be okay with that?”

Back when I’d liked Erin, Mercy had felt my emotions and been jealous of Erin. Or overly protective of me. Not sure which. Anyway, the poor kid had panicked, thinking I’d leave her for Erin. If I was lucky—hah!—maybe Mercy would have forgotten about it all.

“Erin?” She shrugged. “Whatever.”

Aw. The Terrible Teens. I supposed I wouldn’t get much sense out of her for another couple of months.

“All right. Come on. Remember, act normal.” I thought for a second, then clarified, “Human normal. Not vampire normal.”

She just stamped up to Ivan. “Hi, I’m Mercy.”

He hesitated, then said, “Ivan.”

“May I come in?”

The old myth about vampires not being able to come in uninvited was false. I’d just instilled some manners in my girl.

“Sure.” Ivan stepped back and waved her in. I followed. “I’m glad you came,” Ivan said to me as we walked through the entry hall. “Brad and Chris are really hoping you can help.”

“I’ll do my best.” Which was as much for me as it was for him. I was going give this investigating lark a red hot go. Fingers, toes, knees and eyes crossed.

Ahead of us, Mercy disappeared into a room off the hall. I could hear her announcing herself to all and sundry. I hurried in, just in time to see two men introducing themselves.

A guy about Ivan’s age, blond and worn looking, introduced himself as Brad. An older man, perhaps a handful of years older than me, turned out to be Chris Davis. He was a portly guy, with touches of grey in his hair, and a sad, round face.

Both of them seemed nonplussed with Mercy’s forthrightness.

“Matt Hawkins,” I said to them. So far, no sign of Erin and Ivan hadn’t followed me in.

“Mr Hawkins.” Brad held my hand with desperate strength. “I’m happy you’ve agreed to help us.”

“Yes,” Chris said softly. “Anything you can do would be appreciated.”

“Matt, please, and like I told Ivan, I’ll do my best, but if I turn out to not be suited to the job, I will back out without hesitation.”

They both nodded. Mercy stopped by my side to show me a picture of Ivan and Brad kissing in front of Luna Park in Melbourne. She frowned at it then looked at me askance.

“Put it back, Mercy,” I whispered.

“But they’re two men.”

“So?”

She frowned, at me, not the picture. “You only think about kissing girls, not boys. Does that mean there’s something wrong with you?”

Dear God. I could feel Brad and Chris staring at us.

“Just put it back.”

She muttered something and returned the photo to the bookshelf. Brain damage was looking to be a good explanation.

I’d considered, for all of about two seconds, leaving her at home. But if this was some sort of shape changing deal, she would be able to sniff out any supernatural influence easier and quicker than I could. If this Chris turned out to be something whacky, this case could be solved tonight.

With that in mind, I sent a question down the private line to Mercy.

“What do you sense about Chris?”

Mercy’s silent hiss tickled my brain. “He smells like garlic.”

I couldn’t smell anything but Mercy’s senses were sharper than mine. “Yeah, but what can you sense about him?”

“Nothing but garlic.”

As much as Mercy didn’t like garlic, it was a good result. At least Chris was good old human.

Ivan and Erin came in. Ivan carried a tray of drinks and Erin a plate of biscuits. She very carefully didn’t look me in the eyes, but the moment she saw Mercy, she turned a stunned glare on me. I just shrugged.

We settled down. Mercy tried to perch on the arm of my chair and I pushed her off. Lightning reflexes saw her land on her feet without a wobble. She snarled at me and dropped cross legged to the floor. The three men watched it all with politely curious expressions. Erin hid her face behind a weary hand.

“She’s on medication,” I explained, patting Mercy’s head. “I can’t leave her alone when she’s like this.”

“Sister?” Chris asked hopefully.

“Ah, not really. More like a cousin. Her family didn’t want her so I ended up with her.”

Mercy sent me a snippy little slap down the psychic link. I ignored it.

“What a sad story.” Chris smiled at her. Then he twitched in his seat and dug around in a pocket. “Sorry, sorry,” he muttered as he pulled out a mobile phone. Glancing at the number, he added, “It’s Rufus. I have to take it.” Chris hurried out of the room, phone pressed to his ear. “I thought I said I didn’t want to be disturbed. Yes, at Brad’s. We’re talking to the man Ivan thinks can help us...” His voice faded as he moved off down the hall.

“Rufus?” I asked the room in general.

“His son,” Brad answered. “Not Gerry’s, though. Rufus is from a previous relationship. Chris and
Merryl were young when she got pregnant. They kept putting off the wedding, though. Until Rufus was born, until they had enough money. Then Merryl’s car was hit head on by a truck. Rufus was seven. Merryl died instantly and Rufus suffered third degree burns.”

“Poor kid,” Ivan said.

“Jesus,” I whispered. “And now this.”

Ivan was about to say something more when Chris returned.

“I don’t know, Rufus. I’ll be home when I get there. And no I’m not going to see if Brad has the new Grand Theft Auto game. You’re grounded, remember? That means no games.” There was a short pause and Chris lowered his head, pinched the bridge of his nose. “Rufus, we’re not going to argue about this now. I’ll be home when I get home. Goodnight.” He hung up and pulled in a long breath.

“Trouble?” Brad asked.

Chris sighed. “Nothing unusual for a teenager, I guess. I found him smoking weed and he doesn’t seem to think there’s anything wrong with that. But, he’s not the issue tonight.” He sat down. “Shall we start?”

“That’s up to you, Chris.” I left it open for him to start wherever he wanted.

“It happened last Thursday,” he began, looking at his hands as they dangled between his knees. “She’d been contracted to do some troubleshooting work for Geotech. They’re a soil testing company and they do some geological surveying as well. They’d been having some issues with the calibrations on a laser they use to work out something in soil and rock or something. I don’t really understand it. She does… did very little contract work anymore. A couple of years back, she developed this means of directing a laser that cut out a lot of power wastage. I’m not sure on the specifics. I never could follow her when she spoke about her work.” He gave a little, tired laugh. “That’s why we ended up separating.”

“You were separated at the time of the murder?”

“Yeah. Had been for about four months. We still spoke a lot, though. A real lot. When we could talk about anything other than her work, that is.”

“She was dedicated?”

Chris smiled. “All physicists are. A lazy one doesn’t get very far, or much work. They’re all constantly striving for research positions and publishing papers. It doesn’t leave much time for family.”

“We used to be very close when we were younger,” Brad said. “She almost raised me. But when she really got into her studies and then her doctorate, she didn’t visit very often at all.”

“You said she hadn’t been taking much work lately,” I said to Chris. “Why’s that if it’s such a cut throat field?”

“The process she’d developed to direct lasers,” he said patiently. “She sold it for fifteen million dollars.”

“Whoa.” My thoughts took the track most travelled. “Were you separated when she got the money?”

“No.” He knew where I was going. “That was two years ago. We didn’t know what to do with that much money. Some of it went to charity and cancer research. The rest, about nine million, went into a trust in Gerry’s name. We thought about living off the interest, doing some travelling, but she’s not that sort of person. She’s always thinking, always solving problems. She gave up the work with lasers and shifted back more fully into mathematics. I’d thought the money would give us a chance to get to know each other again. We’d been working full time for our entire marriage and the talk of kids had been forgotten. I just wanted to spend some time with her, but she couldn’t stop. Eventually, I gave up and went back to work as well. It didn’t take long for me to realise I meant less to her than her research, so I walked out. She didn’t miss me for three days.”

I winced. “That’s tough. I hate to ask, but where’s the money now?”

“In the trust fund still. It’s been frozen for the duration of the investigation. There’s only about five million left though. Gerry started going through it a while back.”

“I’m hoping she bought big houses, fast cars and sexy yachts.”

He smiled at my poor attempt at humour. “No. I don’t know what she did with it.”

Mercy heaved a mightily bored sigh and flopped onto her back. She told me down the private line to wake her when something fun happened.

“And once the funds are released?” I asked as if nothing had happened.

“It comes to me,” Chris admitted. “Motive number one. Greed.”

Unless he was a
freakin’ ace actor, I didn’t believe he was that consumed with money to off his wife for it. The sense I was getting off him was purely grief and fear.

“You were at work the night of the murder,” I said to him.

“I wasn’t supposed to be, but a couple of the guys were sick so I was called in.”

“We can assume that whoever did this didn’t know you had been called in. If they disguised themselves as you, they would have thought you wouldn’t have an alibi.” I glanced at Erin. “And the authorities have checked out everyone at
Geotech?”

“All clean,” Erin said. “And no motive. She was there to help them fix a vital part of their machinery. Killing her would have been counterproductive.”

“Did she finish her work with them before she died?”

Chris shook his head. “Nowhere near done. They still needed her.”

“Courey mentioned self-funded research,” Erin said.

“Who’s
Courey?” I asked.

“Miles
Courey,” Ivan answered. “Detective. He likes Erin so he sneaks her out information.”

Erin gave him a mild look of reproach. “He doesn’t sneak me information. He just tells me what he can.”

I was more interested in the ‘likes’ part, but banished the thought. “Chris? Any idea what it was?”

“No. I knew she was back into the heavy maths, though.”

It almost sounded like the maths was a form of recreational drug. And perhaps it was for her. I’ve been down that dark path—drug addition, not work addiction. My stint on morphine hadn’t been too dangerous—fairly easily fixed with a few nasty threats from a canny doctor. The relapse in prison had nearly killed me though. Had Geraldine’s addiction gone so far it got her killed?

“There were no signs of her research at the house,” Erin said. “Could she have been doing it elsewhere?”

“Possibly.”

“Any thoughts on what she’d need for this research?” I asked him.

“Several computers, phone lines, notebook. It was all theoretical.”

“So she could have been doing it at the local library?”

“I don’t think so,” Chris said seriously. “Not unless the library has got hold of some pretty powerful computers. She would do some massive calculations on them that would eat up all the memory for days on end.”

More than your average high school grade algebra then.

“Whatever this personal research was, could it have been reason for someone in the same field to want her dead?” Erin asked.

Chris looked a bit worried. “I guess so. I used to call her Pandora and joke about her opening boxes that might be dangerous. If Gerry had made progress where someone else hadn’t, they might get annoyed enough to do something about it.”