Sleight of Hand (7 page)

As he went back I saw unmistakable vampire fangs in his open mouth.

Number two got the side of the pole across his chin while he was tangled up with number one and went down with a broken jaw.

Number three managed to hit me in the face again as I launched him back down the stairs, but he took my pole with him and I had no time before the next.

Fang 3 was the fourth through the door. He was a student of Kung Fu, and a very good one. His relentless attack of twisting, snapping punches quickly started to break through my defenses. I let some land, only partially blocking them, so I was in a better position to punch back. Any body punches I landed he seemed to be able to ignore and he kept his head well protected. I was in trouble, taking a lot of pain, and I was tiring more quickly than he was. He only had to keep that up and I was finished.

Then he tried a movie-style
coup-de-grâce
.

His beautiful, graceful kick went over my head as I ducked. My ungraceful fist went straight and hard into his groin, and I swept his leg out from under him. He slammed into the floor, doubled over and making noises like a sick puppy. Well, good news! At least one of the major disadvantages of being a man transferred to vampires.

Number one tried to get back up.
Ten out of ten for effort, boy, but not when you can hardly breathe.
I slugged him tiredly and he collapsed again.

Number two was still out of it, groaning and squirming on the floor. It looked like a broken jaw and concussion. I ran down the stairs.

Number three had a broken leg and I figured he should have a concussion as well after falling an entire flight of stairs. He was lying very still. It was Fang 1. As a reflex, I checked his throat pulse, which I guess might seem an odd thing to do with a vampire. Regardless, he had a pulse of sorts and his eyes flickered open.

I stepped back. “Next time, a written invitation might be better,” I said. “Then it won’t hurt so much when I turn it down.” I was unsure whether he was tracking well enough to take that in. He didn’t laugh, anyway. I went down the remaining stairs at a run and was out of the building and away.

There was a group of people gathered around Mr. Obvious, one of them talking into a cell. I headed down the other way, trying to walk as if I were oblivious to anything else.

At the end, I turned the corner to get out of view from the alley and leaned against a wall.

I was still panting and I was nursing a whole new set of aches and bruises, but I was in better shape than any of them. I had gotten the upper hand over a group of four vampires and I pumped my fist in exhilaration. Yes! They were quicker and stronger than me, but they’d only learned to fight. I’d gone to a harder school and I’d learned to
win
.

Sober thinking quickly took over. This hadn’t settled anything. It didn’t mark the end of either group’s intentions towards me. I was pretty sure neither group would know what I was doing in LoDo. The best place for me at the moment should be Troy Huber’s apartment. I was just around the corner from it. I calmed down and walked there slowly, just another person in the night. Almost.

Chapter 7

When I reached the lobby door of Troy’s apartment building my breathing was back to normal, but I opened it with fingers still shaky from the aftereffects of adrenaline. I noted the security camera as I walked to the elevator and went up to the fifth floor. I pulled some latex gloves out of my kit and snapped them on.

One hand in my backpack, holding the HK, I let myself into Apartment 503. It was dark.

“Troy?” I called out as I flicked the lights on, on the small chance that he had come back, but the place had an empty feel to it and there was no response. I locked the door behind me.

I dropped my backpack, sank down beside the door and let out a long sigh. Strangely, I felt much better now. It was like when I was in the army. I had always been stressed before an operation, but once it started, it went where it went.

I had to expect both groups to try again.

The crime boss would get a replacement for Mr. Obvious and maybe the replacement would be better at the job, or use a sniper rifle or whatever. I needed to take the initiative on that. If I could find out who the boss was, the playing field became more level. I could even get the police to do the work, if I could find some hard evidence. I’d need to start that tomorrow.

The vampires would come again. It was reassuring that they had put so much effort into capturing me, rather than killing me. If things escalated, then I guessed I would have to call in the colonel. I couldn’t think of any way I could precipitate things or find out more about them in a hurry, so that was wait and see for the moment, however much I disliked that option.

Those things mentally filed away, I needed to work to pay the rent, which was the reason I was here in the first place. I took a pair of plastic booties from my kit and slipped them on over my boots. So sexy.

I stood still in the middle of the floor and surveyed the room. The apartment faced over the creek towards Elditch Park. Good living space with pale cream walls and quality wooden furniture was my first impression, immediately followed by
too neat
. Troy was a
very
tidy bachelor. Or he had a maid. Or someone had cleaned up thoroughly.

There were two bedrooms off the living area, a master bedroom with the same view of the park and a second bedroom for an agoraphobic dwarf. I started there. Troy was an avid cyclist and he kept his fancy street racer in the second bedroom on a sheet of blue plastic, along with a wall of photos from bike racing events all over Colorado. The small pine dresser held a jumble of brightly colored bike gear. Nothing seemed out of place.

The master bedroom was no more illuminating. The bed was neatly made, but only with sheets. Clothes hung in the closet, looking forlorn. I noticed jackets and pants were all mismatched and shoes were just tossed in the bottom.

“Not so neat in here, Troy,” I muttered.

The storage space above the clothes rail was taken up by a couple of suitcases, both empty. I got a chair and checked if there was anything suggesting another missing suitcase, like a dust pattern, but there wasn’t. There were some spare sheets in a plastic bag, but no other bed coverings.

A stack of magazines lay in a pile by the bed—a company magazine which featured Troy and the Golden Harvest, some biking and cooking magazines, and a few general interest.

His razor, toothbrush and toothpaste were in the bathroom. If he had gone on a trip without telling anyone, he hadn’t used his suitcases and he hadn’t taken the things you would expect.

The kitchen looked well used. Everything had been washed and put away. In the fridge, half-wilted lettuce lay next to a carton of milk with an expiration date over the weekend.

I turned back to the living area and noticed a couple of framed photographs, both of Jennifer Kingslund—one with Troy outside the Golden Harvest, and one of her alone.

A local newspaper lay on the table, open to a picture of Troy receiving an award for winning a bike race. I checked the date—last week. He wore a distinctive shirt and shorts with a large yellow and black diamond pattern. It was so distinctive, it made me go back to the second bedroom and check out the bike gear. The clothes weren’t there.

I walked back. The whole living area smelled clean. Not clean in a nice way; a sterile, bleached way. I got down on my hands and knees, cursing the aches and bruises, and sniffed the carpet. Next to the coffee table, someone had washed it with bleach. It was a shade lighter and the smell was very strong.

Moving the stuff off the top, I lifted the coffee table. On the underside of the foot was what looked like dried blood, as if a little had seeped underneath before the carpet had been washed.

That did it for me. I eased myself back up and got my cell. She answered right away.

“Jen, it’s Amber, can you talk?”

“One moment, please.” I could hear some background noises as she finished a conversation, then she came back on. She was back in clipped businesswoman mode, despite the late hour.

“I’m listening,” she said.

“I’m at Troy’s apartment. Can I ask you a few questions?”

“Go ahead.”

“You said he wasn’t at work over the weekend. When was the last time you or your staff saw him?”

“He finished work on Friday at about 11:30 p.m. I checked with the staff at the restaurant. That’s the last I know.”

“Do you know if he has a cleaning service come in?”

“It’s a company apartment, Amber. We pay for a cleaning service to go in on Fridays.” Ahh. That’s why she had the keys. That crossed one question off the list, but I was still going to have to ask her some personal questions.

“Do you know him well enough to say whether he’s a tidy person?”

“Troy? No. We met at his place occasionally. It wasn’t dirty or anything, but it wasn’t neat. Typical bachelor.”

“Jen, you may find this intrusive, but I have to ask. Is there anything between you and Troy on a personal level?”

“You mean lovers? No. Not my type and anyway, not a good idea these days.”

“Okay, Jen, this is my reading, worst case. He was dressed for biking, about to go out or just come back. Some of his biking clothes are missing but the bike’s here. Either someone that he knew came over, or someone very good broke in without damaging the door, and waited for him to come back. There was a struggle, some blood was spilled. Someone washed the carpet with bleach. He was carried out, wrapped up in his comforter or bedspread.”

I waited, but Jennifer didn’t say anything, although I’d heard her breath hiss in while I’d been speaking. I went on. “But I can read this a completely different way. He doesn’t like covers on the bed. He spilled some red wine and cleaned it up. He went out for a jog instead of a bike ride. He got hit by a car and he’s in a hospital somewhere.”

“No. I’ve had my assistant check every hospital already,” Jennifer said. “Nothing.”

“That’s good work. Jen, if this is a crime scene, the longer we leave it, the less likely it is that the police will be able to do anything. For instance, there’s a security camera in the lobby. It’ll take the police to get hold of the footage in a hurry. Neighbors need to be questioned, and they’ll be a lot more cooperative with the police. I don’t
know
that there’s been a crime here, but I’m advising you to call them tonight.”

“Will they take it seriously, Amber? Will they do something quickly enough?”

“A request from you to the police is going to carry some weight, but I’ll be honest, it’s hard for them to spend time on a missing person when they have rapes and murders to deal with.” I thought quickly. “There’s not enough of me to do everything, but what about I bring in another PI agency just to do a missing person check on Troy? I can brief them and keep it very separate from everything else, so there should be no problem with any confidentiality issues. They might find him, or find some clues as to what happened that might get the police to concentrate more on it.”

She gave it some thought. I could imagine her sitting in her executive chair in her fancy office, and I wondered which cogs were turning in her mind—how much this was going to cost or how quickly Troy could be found.

“Okay, Amber,” she said. “I’ll go with it. What do I have to do?”

“Come down here. Make the call from the apartment, make the police come to you.”

“On my way.” She hung up.

I flipped through my contacts and dialed. The Georgia voice that answered was beautifully deep and gravelly, like smooth river rocks grinding together. We had worked with each other before and I would keep him on my list just to get that Dixie
molasses
poured in my ear from time to time.

“Victor! How goes it, Mr. G?”

“Well ’nuff, Amber. Whatcha doing calling me while I’m off work and restin’ at home?”

I laughed. “You’re never off work. And you know that little button on the top of your cell? It’s called an off switch.”

“Uppity like always. Whatcha need, girl?”

Victor Gayle ran the biggest small PI firm in town. His specialty was more along the lines of security and bodyguards, but I rated his team as good investigators as well.

“I need a missing persons investigation, Vic.”

“Oh, you want me to find why you got no clients?”

“Ha ha, so funny, big man.” I grinned anyway. “No. I’m working a related investigation and I can’t quite cover this as well. The police are going to be involved but I don’t think they’ll treat it seriously enough unless some more evidence turns up. Or alternatively, we find the guy and we can close this part of the case.”

I ran through a quick account of Troy’s details, and what I had found or not found at the apartment. I could tell Victor was curious as to how this linked with my case, but he didn’t pry. He said he would email me a reminder of his terms and promised to get someone on it in the morning.

Shortly after I’d hung up, the lobby door buzzer sounded. I checked the image—Jennifer and her driver—and let them in the building. It would be worth checking if the video intercom system stored images as well. I unlocked the door to the apartment.

“Amber!” Jennifer came through the door and looked at me, appalled. I hadn’t forgotten the fight, but I had forgotten that I would be showing signs of it. The bruises hadn’t matured yet, but my chin was raw and scraped and my lip was split.

“Ah, yes.” I rubbed my face gently. “I took a short cut through an alley on the way here and a couple of guys attacked me. It’s nothing.”

She stared at me. “Hardly nothing.”

I shrugged it off and, after warning them not to touch anything, I led her around and showed her the details I had seen and the conclusions I had drawn. I handed her back the keys along with Victor’s contact information.

“Time to call the police, Jen. And time for me to go. The police may see me on the security footage and if they ask you about it, you’ll have to say I’m investigating. Until then, play it that you just came here and were concerned by the things I’ve pointed out.”