Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 92559 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92559 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
“It was twenty-two minutes before the maid arrived for the night,” Butch cut in. “And she confirmed the alarm was off when she arrived, which was unusual.”
“After those digits were entered”—Vishous shrugged—“they they were in like Flint.”
“I loved those movies,” Tohr said under his breath.
“Zowie.” The cop lifted his glass. “Cheers to Coburn.”
“So who wants Broadius dead.” Tohr looked at V. “I only scratched the surface on his identity. I need you to go further.”
“No problem.” Vishous tapped his lappy. “By noon, I’ll know a lot. By nightfall, I’ll be able to tell you even what his favorite fucking color was.”
“I love you,” Tohr said under his breath.
“You should.” V started touching the screen. “Because while we’re on the subject of surveillance footage, I know who left that envelope in the Audience House’s waiting room. Lady and gentlemales, I’d like you to meet our courier.”
As everybody went forward again, the Lenovo was turned back around. “Meet Candice, daughter of Meiser.”
This time, there were four images in a square, each offering a different angle of the waiting area. When V hit the play button, a short female in a wool coat entered and checked in with the receptionist, her voice well modulated and quiet. Then she nodded pleasantly to the male and female who were seated on the couch, and took the single chair by the door.
“I’ll speed it up,” V said as he tapped something.
Abruptly, the little clock in the lower right-hand corner went into flight mode, and the three vampires twitched and jerked through their movements, their feet tapping, their hands shooting up to cover a cough, a series of tiny, split-second tilts of heads punctuating the Alvin-and-the-Chipmunks-octave, staccato convo that was exchanged.
And then the couple was called out. After which a male came in with a female and a tiny baby in a pink blanket. They took the place of those who’d departed on the sofa.
More time passed at a dead run, and more supersonic chatter twittered along.
Then one of Saxton’s paralegals came in and the female in the single chair stood up. As she did, an envelope fell out from under her coat and got wedged in the juncture between the arm and the seat.
Tohr frowned. “She didn’t know it was—”
“Wait for it.” V tapped the upper right quadrant feed, which showed the door. “Wait . . .”
Just before the female stepped out, she glanced back—and not at the couple with the young.
Her worried eyes went to where she had been sitting.
And the envelope she had left behind.
“She knew what she was doing,” Tohr said.
V nodded. “She did.”
“So why’d she deny it?”
“Well, there’s the fun part. I tried to call her back? She didn’t answer. Phone’s a burner, address was a lie, and there’s no record of that name in any of the databases.”
“So who the hell is she?”
Vishous shook his head, and shut the laptop. “At this point, your guess is as good as mine, true?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
When the sun was properly peeking over the horizon, Callum pulled on his parka and stepped out of the garage’s secondstory living quarters. As he went to shut the door, he caught sight of something on the newel post at the top of the staircase.
With a frown, he picked up the yellow and white tube. Turning it over, he read the label: Polysporin.
He put the ointment back where it had been left for him—and with the next step he took, he felt the pain in his ankle as if it were a fresh bite.
Funny, how you could ignore something as long as you weren’t fucking reminded of it.
Yup, on the descent, he was definitely limping, and as he exited the garage, he inherited another physical inconvenience: Snow-blindness.
Covering his eyes with his bare hands, he thought, Well, hell, all I need is a good knee to the balls to finish things off.
After his retinas calmed down, he lowered his arms, but still had to fight the squint as he headed to the truck. Overhead, the last of the storm clouds had moved off, and the sky was a brilliant, robin’s-egg blue. With nothing to block the sun’s rays, and everything covered with snow, daylight was amplified to an unbearable brilliance.
Breathing in deep, the inside of his nose hummed, and when he exhaled, he created his own cloud that hung in the still air in his wake. Odd, that there was absolutely no wind. It was like the intensity of the blizzard had used up all the energy in the elements, and there needed to be some kind of recharge before there was so much as a breeze.
Before he got behind the wheel, he looked over at the big house. The safety shields were down for the day all around the rambling structure, the reflective skins providing dozens of snapshots of the winter landscape. Even with them in place and keeping the sunlight out of the interior, he was willing to bet the vampires were all underground, in those newly built subterranean bedrooms.