“Ron was the link to Angelo.” Boaz exhaled. “That’s how the killer found Angelo, why they risked it.”
A cautious hunter was rarer still, and even more dangerous. Most humans made mistakes identifying the monsters among them and got caught early on. This one had been operating for months, all across the country.
“Jaden was the first vampire killed in the area.” She thought it through. “He was one of Ron’s lovers, so that’s our link.”
The killer must have asked Jaden for names, and Jaden gave up Ron, who then fingered Angelo.
“We need to find out where Jaden was from originally,” Boaz said. “There’s got to be a link between him and the previous victim from Savannah.”
Jaden might have been the first in the area, but they tended to happen in clusters. There must be a reason the killer left Savannah to come here. They still had no concrete evidence pointing toward why he had hit Savannah after a stent in Maine, but Boaz would find it. No matter how long it took him.
“I’ll get Abernathy on it.” He paused. “I caught him flirting with a woman at the roadblock earlier. I couldn’t tell if he had the hots for the driver or for the car. Any idea who was behind the wheel?”
“The woman who reported Ron’s murder, I think. I didn’t get close enough to ID her, but I heard talk a clan master bought his top earner a new ride, so it fits.” She glanced toward the flashing lights. “She’s a bounty hunter, a vampire. She was tracking him for a payday when she stumbled across his corpse. Odds are good she was out searching for Angelo tonight when Abernathy put a kink in her plans. His clan was desperate to locate him before he did something foolish.”
“Tracking this killer could make her a target.”
“With a job like hers?” Honey scoffed. “She can protect herself.”
The brutal tableau before him burned in his mind’s eye. “I bet Angelo thought the same thing.”
Waving the cleaners in, Boaz tipped his chin to Honey then set out for his bike to head back to the Whitaker place for the day. They would have reports ready for him to read at dusk, along with fingerprints to compare to the previous crime scenes.
Eight
Cass woke me up with one of her favorite stalking games. She let herself into my room, climbed onto my twin bed, and straddled my hips. She leaned down, hands cuffing my wrists, and raked her fangs across my juicy carotid while purring deep in her throat.
And then she hissed when I flipped her off me, onto the floor. She landed nimbly, like a cat.
The self-defense classes were her idea. Really, she only had herself to blame.
Not bothering to open my eyes, I murmured, “Not today, Satan.”
“You suck.”
“But you don’t.” A smile tickled the edge of my mouth. “Not on me.”
“I wouldn’t have bitten you.” She hesitated. “Hard.”
“I’ve been bitten by vampires.” I cracked an eye to glare at her. “It’s always hard, and it always hurts.” I flashed my forearm, which was crisscrossed with white lines, a favorite spot of theirs. “It usually scars too.”
“Bites don’t count when they happen in the heat of battle.” She pouted. “I could make it good for you.”
“Mm-hmm.” I yawned, blowing morning breath in her face when she got too close. “Keep your fangs to yourself, missy.”
A cough moved through her chest, and she wrinkled her nose. “You’re no fun.”
“So you tell me. Like every day.”
“Friends are supposed to tell friends when they’re stuck in a rut.”
“Friends are also not supposed to eat friends. Friends are not food.”
Red lips curving in a sensual grin, she leaned closer. “I—”
“Nope.” I tapped the end of her nose. “Bad vampire.”
Cass dialed up the charm. “But—”
“Bad.” I tapped her again. “Vampire.”
Growling, she bared her teeth at me and rose into a crouch, muscles coiling, ready to spring.
Lucky for me, her phone rang. The jingle was a familiar one. It belonged to our boss.
“Gustav.” She switched to speaker then stuck her arm straight out to avoid those pesky radio frequency waves from beaming into her head and cooking her brain or whatever it was this week. I often lost track. “What have you got for me?”
“Ask me in person sometime,” the shifter chuckled, “and I just might show you.”
While Cass chuckled at the come-on, I mouthed, You two were made for each other.
“Promises, promises.” She sighed lustily, which I hadn’t known was possible. “You’re all talk.”
“This mouth is better at things unsaid, sweetheart.” A growl entered his voice. “Try me.”
Hunger sparked in her eyes, and she wet her lips, about to take this into territory my ears were too young and innocent to hear.
“Hi, Gustav,” I chimed in. “What’s up?”
“If you’ve been listening in, I’ll let you take a wild guess.”
Heat flooded my cheeks, and I wished I had kept my mouth shut.
“I got a runaway.” His sigh blasted the receiver, but he dragged his thoughts back on task. “This one is hot.”
Cass rose in a fluid stretch of lean muscle. “Hot as in…?”
“Handling this case will burn you,” he warned. “Though the kid is a looker.”
Pulse thumping, I pushed upright. “Kid?”
“Twyla Thorn.” He tapped a few keys. “Adopted by a vamp couple when she was six. She’s sixteen now. Blonde hair, blue eyes. Tall, lean. She’s going to be a knockout in a few years.”
Given vampire reproduction was a no-go, I had heard of plenty of couples who chose to adopt human children. Some did it for status, others for curiosity, a few out of boredom, and in very rare cases, love.
The one thing they all had in common?
Beauty.
To be clear, I mean physical beauty. There’s no barometer for inner beauty. You can’t look at an infant and know what’s in its heart. Then there’s the whole nature versus nurture argument that even the undead can’t agree on.
The goal, from what I had seen and heard, was to raise a child who would one day be resuscitated as a full member of the clan who took them in. Over time, it replenished their numbers with vampires already used to clan structure, making less work for the masters.
Basically, this kid, Twyla, had a different brand of biological clock, and it was ticking. Loudly.
“She ran away?” I threw aside the covers. “Are you sure she wasn’t kidnapped?”
Vampires tended to keep their offspring on a short leash. They weren’t afforded much opportunity to mingle with other humans. The clan didn’t want them getting any ideas. They were encouraged to spend their free time with other wards instead.
And yeah. Total isolation in the age of social media was the perfect recipe for teenage rebellion. No doubt.
“She went out with another vampire-fostered girl named Belle Francis. Belle says she pulled into a fast food chain on the way home from a movie, and as soon as the car stopped in front of the drive-thru, Twyla jumped out and ran.”