The Merzetti Effect (A Vampire Romance) (16 page)

Delano nodded his approval. “Good thinking. We’ve got all the capacity we need, even if we have to fall back to Calgary or Vancouver.”

Eli inclined his head in acknowledgement.

“What about Janecek?”

“We’ve got ears to the ground everywhere, but no sign of him since the attack in St. Cloud. I’ve heard a rumor that he’s back in Prague, but I wouldn’t trust that piece of intelligence. It reeks of disinformation.”

“He won’t have left the continent.”

“Probably not even the country,” Eli agreed. “I’ll keep the pressure up until we find him. It’s hard to hide for long from other vamps.”

“Indeed. Okay, what about the other matter I asked you to look into?”

“The money’s going to an offshore account in the Cayman Islands.”

“And?”

“And those suckers are secret.”

Delano raised an eyebrow. “And?”

Eli sighed. “And as usual, money talks, at least when you have as much of it to throw around as you do.”

“So what did you learn?”

“The account belongs to a Lucida Machias, which is almost certainly not her real name.”

“Spoken like a man who has a theory.”

Eli took a photograph from the file in front of him and slid it across the table. “I think it’s probably this woman. Lucy Michaels.”

Delano looked down at a photo of two women, standing arm in arm and smiling at the camera. One of whom was a much younger Ainsley, probably no more than nineteen or twenty. The other woman was shorter, finer boned than Ainsley, with curly dark hair to Ainsley’s straight fall of blond hair. He glanced over his shoulder, belatedly realizing he’d succumbed to an instinct to make sure Ainsley wasn’t within earshot. Stupid. She was upstairs in the penthouse, sleeping, a fact he’d taken trouble to ascertain before he and Eli had come down here to the lab to talk.

“Where’d you get this?”

“Ainsley’s apartment. But don’t worry. It’s a copy. The original is intact.”

“And who is this Lucy Michaels?”

Eli passed another document across the table, this one a copy of a microfiched newspaper engagement announcement. “She used to be Lucy Heatherington. In fact, that was her name when she posed for that snapshot with Ainsley. She left for college, but wound up having a baby out of wedlock in August eight years ago. No father named on the birth certificate. Came back to St. Cloud and worked for a book-binding company. She quickly met and married the guy in this picture, Weldon Michaels, who adopted her daughter, Devon. Michaels was the deputy chief with the local police department in St. Cloud at the time, and he’s now the Big Cheese there.”

“Chief of Police.”

“Yep.”

Delano lifted an eyebrow. “And how does this lead to a secret bank account in the Caymans?”

“Fourteen months ago, Lucy and Devon Michaels did a disappearing act.”

Interesting. “A missing persons kind of disappearing act?”

Eli shook his head. “There’s not even a murmur of anything like that. But they up and left. I got that directly from the woman who cleans house for them. She also thought Mr. Michaels might have a bit of a problem with his temper, judging by the bruises Mrs. Michaels tried to conceal.”

“An abuser.”

“No doubt about it. I had a little look-see into Lucy Michael’s medical records, thanks again to the power of the almighty dollar. She’s suffered enough fractures and contusions to raise her doctor’s suspicion, but when he confronted her, she wouldn’t cop to it. Too scared, is my bet. I mean, who’s she gonna turn to for help? Not the local PD, it would seem.”

Delano gritted his teeth. Cowardly bastard, terrorizing a woman and child. Then another thought occurred to him.

“What about her family? If she just up and disappeared, and her husband is known to have a temper, why aren’t they clamoring about her disappearance? Is she in touch with them? She must be. I mean, if he’s a mean S.O.B., who’s to say he didn’t beat them to death and bury them in the basement?”

“No family.” Eli tossed another document across the table. “She went into state care at the age of eight, when her mother, a single-parent, was shot dead at work.”

“Domestic situation?”

Eli shook his head. “Good guess, but no. It was a co-worker who’d recently been fired. He went postal, killing his boss and Lucy’s mother, and injuring three others.”

“And she went immediately into foster care?”

“Yep. And for two of those years‌—‌approximately age 11 through 13‌—‌she stayed with a foster family by the name of Dickinson. Albert and Gail Dickinson.”

Delano frowned. Albert Dickinson? “In St. Cloud? On the north side?”

“Yep.”

“The same foster home where Ainsley lived for the better part of two years.”

“Bingo.”

Delano raked his hair back. All too easily, he imagined the two girls bonding, clinging together… “I guess that sheds some light on why Ainsley has sacrificed every disposable dime she’s earned for the last year and a half.”

“I guess so.”

“Do we know where they are, this Lucy Michaels and her child?”

“Do we really need to know that?”

Damn Eli for his questions. Of course, that’s what made him so valuable. Delano met the other man’s probing gaze with a level stare of his own. “Yes.”

Eli leaned back in his chair. “Why? So you can use the information to keep Ainsley in the fold, once she figures out she can’t possibly be infected? Or that you’re exploiting her for her genetic material?”

Delano felt the bite of his own nails in his palms, and forced his fists to unclench. “You seem inordinately concerned about Miss Crawford.”

“Of course I’m concerned about her. But dammit, Delano, I’m just as concerned about you. I’m as passionate as you are about stopping these murderous bastards, but there’s a line beyond which you go at your peril.”

Delano felt the anger rise in his chest, felt the blood lust rise with it, too. He clamped down on it.
Hard
.

Eli had been there, to that line he talked about, and maybe some distance beyond. And he’d somehow made his way back. He knew whereof he spoke. That knowledge tempered his words.

“I appreciate your concern, my friend, but you can rest easy. I was actually thinking more in terms of being able to offer Ainsley an assurance that her loved ones would be safe. Because it occurs to me that if Mrs. Michaels found it necessary to go to these lengths to get free of her abuser, it’s not likely he’s going to shrug it off and move on with his life.”

Eli rubbed his left temple. “Okay, you got me there. And no, we don’t yet know where she is, but it’s only a matter of time before our people find her.”

“So you do have someone on it?”

“Several someones.”

At Delano’s uplifted eyebrow, Eli rolled his eyes.

“Let’s say I anticipated your answer.”

“And Chief Michaels? Is he also looking for her?”

“Oh, he’s beating the bushes for her, all right. And he’s got a few things going for him. Not only does he have the resources of law enforcement at his fingertips, but he comes from money, too. Lots of capital there to finance an ongoing search.”

“But?”

“But his pockets aren’t quite deep enough. He can keep a succession of PIs on payroll, and if he’s careful, he can abuse the police resources under his control. Together, that’s a pretty potent combination. But frankly, he doesn’t have enough money to crack open the doors we opened. If he finds her, it will be through a serious misstep on her part, and so far, she doesn’t seem inclined to careless mistakes.”

“Good work.”

Eli inclined his head in acknowledgement. “Would you like a report on my afternoon with Ainsley?”

Before Delano could reply emphatically in the negative, the piercing bleat of alarm rent the air.

Both men surged to their feet.

“Fire alarm,” Eli opined. He whipped out his radio and conferred quickly with security staff downstairs. Seconds later, he holstered the radio. “It’s the real thing. We got a small blaze on the second floor, and fire trucks on the way.”

Dammit. “We’ll have to evacuate.”

Eli cursed. “This reeks of Janecek.”

“Don’t I know it. But we don’t have a lot of choice. So which is it? Up or down?”

“Down.” Eli’s voice rang with certainty. “Even though we’ve got men up there, the roof would be the best spot to spring a trap. I say we take our chances on the street. Emergency Response’ll be here in minutes. Probably the press, too. Harder to ambush us in that kind of public glare.”

Delano nodded. That would have been his call, too, but it was good to have it confirmed by his chief tactician. “I’ll round up Ainsley and keep her by my side. You marshal all hands. Except for the team on the roof, I want everyone on my Montreal payroll down on that street.”

They hit the stairwell at the same time, Eli barking orders into his radio as he lunged upward, two steps at a time.

In the penthouse, Eli called a “Meet you in the lobby!”, then took the second stairwell, the one that led all the way down to the ground floor.

Delano set off for Ainsley’s suite. He nearly ran into her, quite literally, at the door to her bedroom, avoiding a collision only by catching her by the upper arms.

Clad in a long t-shirt, her hair mussed, she wore the dazed look of someone wrenched from a deep sleep. “What is it? Are we under attack?”

“There’s a fire on the second floor. We’ve got to get out of here until the fire department can contain it.” He pushed her back into the bedroom. Spying a bathrobe draped over a chair, he grabbed it and handed it to her. “Put this on. That’s a lot of steps down to ground level.”

“Of course. Can’t use the elevator.” She accepted the robe and shrugged into it. “Just give me one more second.”

“We don’t have time to fuss, Ainsley. Come on.” He tugged her by the hand but she resisted.

“Wait! I need something for my feet.”

He released her. To her credit, she located her runners quickly and shoved her feet into them. “Ready.”

“Good job.”

The reached the stairwell seconds later.

“Stay behind me,” he ordered. “But not too far behind. I want you no more than a step or two away. Okay?”

She sucked in a breath. “We’re under attack, aren’t we?”

“I don’t know. But the blaze on the second floor is real. We have to get out of here. Just stay close. I’ll keep you safe.”

At the nineteenth floor, Delano growled.

“What?”

“This is taking too long.”

“I’m sorry,” she panted. “I can’t go any faster without risking a fall. I’m so dizzy from going around and around.”

“Climb onto my back.” Already a step below her, he crouched slightly to allow her to clamber onto him.

When she hesitated, he growled his impatience. “What, suddenly that’s too intimate? May I remind you of what transpired in my lab?”

“Delano!”

“On my back. Or it’s over the shoulder in a fireman’s lift. You have five seconds to make up your mind.”

At Four-Mississippi, he turned to grab her.

“Okay, okay! Turn around. I’ll go piggy-back.”

He accepted her weight with a grunt, purely out of spite. In truth, she didn’t weigh enough to slow him down. “Hang on,” he cautioned, “but try not to choke me.”

She did, in fact, nearly choke the breath out of him with her death grip around his neck. Of course, that might have had something to do with the speed with which he spiraled down the succession of flights. Even now, all these years later, he vaguely remembered how disorienting it felt to travel so fast, back before his faculties had acclimatized.

They hit the ground floor in under a minute. Delano knelt and let Ainsley slide off his back. She reeled left, straight into the wall‌—‌a reaction that had more to do with the speed of their descent than the bit of smoke they’d encountered around the third and second floors‌—‌and he grabbed her arm. Pushing the door open with the panic bar, he pulled her out into the lobby.

“Del.” Her fingers clutched at him and she leaned back against the mahogany paneled wall for support. “I’m so dizzy. I think I’m going to be sick.”

“It’ll pass in a minute, if you can hang in there. Just don’t close your eyes.”

Even as he offered the advice to Ainsley, his gaze swept the lobby. Eli was conferring with their security staff. Good. Judging by the way his orders came out in staccato puffs, he couldn’t have been too far ahead of them descending the stairs. Eli glanced up and saw them. He signaled to two officers and brought them over to where Delano and Ainsley stood, just outside the stairwell.

“Delano, Ainsley, this is Bruce Shalvis and Bob Hayes,” Eli said. “Do me a favor and keep ’em with you at all times. The fire department’s just arriving, but don’t go outside until I deploy the rest of the troops, okay?”

“You’re the boss when it comes to this stuff.”

“Oh, and take one of these radios.” Eli handed Delano what looked like a walkie-talkie. “Channel’s open. You’ll hear me on it periodically. If you want to be heard, depress the button and talk.”

Delano regarded the radio. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

A man in his element, Eli turned away, barking orders at the remaining security guards. In pairs, they peeled away and headed outside to take up whatever position they’d been assigned. When only one guard remained, a particularly tough-looking customer, he gave the okay for Delano and Ainsley to move out.

Delano squeezed Ainsley’s hand. “You okay to put one foot in front of the other?”

She pushed away from the wall, as though testing whether her vertigo had disappeared. “I’m good.”

Despite her assurance, she stumbled a few times on the way across the lobby, but once outside, she seemed to regain her equilibrium. Immediately, someone from the fire department seized Delano’s arm. In French, Delano identified himself as the building’s owner. The fireman proceeded to give him instructions and accompanied by lots of hand gestures.

Delano clapped the other man on the back.
“Oui, oui. Merci.”

“What’d he say?”

He took Ainsley’s arm and directed her across the street. The two security guards fell in behind, at a discreet distance. “He said we should be so kind as to get out of their way and stay back behind the perimeter they’ve set up until the fire is under control.” He gestured to the east. “Down there, where everyone is gathering. That’s where he told us to go.”