Blood Secrets (8 page)

“How are you holding up?” Varik asked as he rejoined her.

“I can’t get that vision out of my head.” The pavement cracked around the rock she was pushing with her foot.

“It was just a vision. It can’t hurt you.”

“I know but …” She tapped the rock back into place.

His hand slipped beneath her chin, gently encouraging her to raise her head and look him in the eye. “But what?”

“There’s something I didn’t tell Damian about the vision.”

“You withheld information?”

She nodded.

“Damn it, Alex.” Varik raked a hand through his hair. “You can’t keep secrets from Damian—”

“You don’t understand. There was someone—”

“—not when you’re facing a Tribunal inquiry.”

“He tried to force himself into my mind!”

Varik quieted and they stared at each other for a moment. Finally, he broke the silence. “What do you mean?”

“When everything was black and it seemed like I was being ripped apart, it felt as though someone was trying to force his way into my mind. It only lasted a few seconds, but I definitely felt it.”

He clasped her shoulders, bending slightly to ensure eye contact. “You’re absolutely certain the connection was with a male?”

She nodded.

Under vampiric law, forcing one’s way into another’s mind was tantamount to rape. The invasion and fear she’d experienced had left her shaken.

“Listen to me.” Varik gently placed both hands to the sides of her face. Tightly controlled anger made his body vibrate against hers and the blood-bond buzzed in the back of her mind like a swarm of angry bees. “I will find the son of a bitch who did this, and I’ll rip his fucking head off.”

“There’s more.”

“Tell me.”

“I’m not even sure it’s part of the vision. It doesn’t make sense, but just before I woke up, I saw my father.”

“You saw Bernard?”

“Yes.” Alex took a deep breath before continuing. “He was with a woman and they were kissing. I couldn’t see her face but it was definitely
not
my mother.”

Varik released her but remained silent.

“Like I said, it doesn’t make sense.”

He wrapped her in his arms and held her. “No, it doesn’t, but we’ll figure it out.”

She nodded against his chest, unable to speak past the maelstrom of emotions that swirled within her.

He pulled back and his lips found hers while his voice whispered in her mind.
I love you, and I won’t let anything happen to you
.

She broke the kiss and stroked his cheek with her hand. “I know,” she murmured. “But you shouldn’t promise something you can’t deliver.”

“Alex—”

“We should follow Freddy and Reyes to the lab.” She
moved away. “We have a lot of work to do if we’re going to catch this Dollmaker of yours.”

Varik looked for a moment as if he would protest, and then simply nodded and pressed the button on his key ring to unlock the Corvette’s doors.

Alex sank into the cool interior and was grateful when he started the engine and turned on the heater. Her thoughts ran in circles—recalling images of the dead girl, bits of the strange chants she’d heard, and the sensation of being pulled apart.

Anxiety gnawed at her spine. But was the source of her anxiety what she’d experienced or the brief glimpse of her father kissing another woman?

As Varik sped down the highway and into the heart of Jefferson, Alex watched trees give way to houses and single-story commercial buildings and realized she didn’t know.

Tasha eased her sedan through the minefield of dry potholes and ruts that comprised the driveway of Coone’s Pull-n-Go Salvage Yard. A chain-link fence topped with rows of barbed wire enclosed the yard but didn’t hide away the hundreds of derelict cars, trucks, motorcycles, and farm equipment scattered across what had once been several acres of pastureland. She parked beside a small single-wide mobile home that had seen better days and tried not to twist her ankle among the many ruts when she stepped from the vehicle.

“You the police?” an older man with a bushy gray beard asked from the mobile home’s porch. He adjusted the band on a grease-stained cap before using it to cover an equally unruly patch of matching hair on his head.

She flashed her badge as she rounded the front of her sedan. “Lieutenant Tasha Lockwood.” The edge of a
deep pothole gave way and she had to catch herself on the hood of her car to keep from falling.

“Watch your step there,” the man said. “Some of them holes could break a leg if you fell right.”

“You should do something about that.”

The man shrugged. “Don’t do no good. First gulley washer that comes through and they’re back.”

Tasha reached the porch’s steps and stood on the lowest, still looking up at him. “Are you Mr. Coone?”

“Last time I checked.”

“Are you the one who called in to report a suspicious vehicle?”

“Nope. That was my son, Buddy.”

“Is he here?”

The elder Coone pointed toward the yard and the sound of an approaching vehicle.

Tasha turned to see an all-terrain version of a golf cart speeding in their direction. The cart bounced over holes and kicked up a plume of reddish dust behind it. The morning’s rain hadn’t affected this part of the county and the dust cloud overtook the vehicle. The driver stopped beside the porch and dust settled on everything in its path: the sparse brown grass, the weather-roughened wooden steps, the hood of Tasha’s car, and Tasha herself.

The driver hopped from the cart and retrieved a toolbox and cylinder-shaped car part from the rear flatbed. He nodded to Tasha as he set the box and part on the edge of the porch. “Are you here for the alternator?”

Before she could answer, the elder Coone spoke. “She’s police. Here about the car.”

Tasha showed her badge and introduced herself. “You made the call, Mr. Coone?” she asked the younger man.

“Yes, ma’am. Found it sitting in the back this morning
when I went to pull a radiator. It’s definitely not one of ours.”

“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but how can you tell?” she asked, glancing over the rows of rusting shells and partially stripped hulks.

The older man snorted and the younger chuckled. “We keep track of all vehicle identification numbers. When a new one comes in, we log the number into our computer system. Anytime we pull a part we enter the part into the system and which VIN number it came from. Saves us a lot of time searching for viable parts.”

“That’s how you knew this vehicle wasn’t one of yours.”

Buddy Coone nodded. “Plus this car stinks to high heaven. Smells like something big crawled up in it and died.”

“Did you open the car?”

“I didn’t touch it except to check the VIN number through the windshield. Couldn’t stand being that close to it.” He gestured to the cart. “We can take a ride out there in the Mule and you can see for yourself.”

Tasha joined him in the cart and winced as they bounced over the poorly maintained pathways of the salvage yard.

Buddy pointed to a sturdy grab bar attached to the cart’s metal frame near her head. “You may want to hold on to that ‘oh shit’ bar. This is going to get a little rough.”

She barely had time to catch the bar before he guided the Mule into a shallow gully. Muddy water splashed up from the wheels, spattering her pants with brown and orange.

He gunned the engine and spurred the vehicle up the opposite side and back onto an overgrown path. They slowed as a chain-link fence and a row of metal frames that had once been cars came into view.

Buddy stopped beside a section of the fence sporting bright red stakes woven through the links and driven into the ground. He pointed to the stakes as he and Tasha stepped from the cart. “Before I found the car, I noticed the fence here had been cut and pulled back. See these tracks?” He waved his hand over the ground in front of them.

Tasha noted the wide swath of grass and weeds that appeared to have been crushed. “Looks like something big was pulled through the fence.”

“My guess is whoever dumped the car here cut the fence and either pushed or dragged it in.”

“And the stakes in the fence?”

“Temporary repair. I’m going to have to replace this entire section here but at least this keeps the deer from wandering through.”

“Who owns the property on the other side?”

“That’s part of the old Cottonwood Plantation. It used to belong to Benjamin Corman but he passed away a few years ago. I’m not sure who owns it now.”

Tasha nodded, making a mental note to visit the plantation.

Buddy motioned for her to follow him. “After I saw the fence, I followed the tracks and found the car over here.”

As they approached a battered dark blue Ford Focus, the slight wind that had been rustling the dried leaves of a nearby sweet gum tree picked up, carrying with it the unmistakable odor of decay.

Tasha grabbed Buddy’s arm, halting him. “I need you to stay back here.”

He covered his nose with his hand and nodded, his face pale.

A gnawing sense of dread ate at her brain. She drew her sidearm, startling the salvage yard owner. Tasha picked her way through the tall grass toward the Ford,
keeping her nine-millimeter Beretta pointed toward the ground but poised to swing into a firing position at any moment.

She studied the vehicle as she carefully approached from the side. It sported heavy dents in the sides, roof, and hood. The windshield had been shattered from what appeared to be multiple impacts. A quick glance showed glass shards on the floor and backseat as well as dark stains on both front bucket seats.

She moved to the trunk, and the stench of rot worsened, forcing her to fight against her natural reaction to gag. A breeze blew over the car, swaying the partially open trunk and driving another wave of putrid odor into Tasha’s face.

She searched the ground for something to open the trunk without contaminating the scene with her fingerprints. She found a length of a broken oak branch, and holding it in one hand while readying her Beretta in the other, she wedged the branch into the gap between the trunk and tailgate and levered it open.

It took her mind several seconds to piece together what she saw lying in the dark well of the trunk. Once the mosaic clicked into place, forming a complete picture, Tasha stumbled away and retched into a patch of weeds.

“You okay, ma’am?” Buddy called to her.

Tasha held up her hand to signal she was fine and for him to stay back. She used a spare tissue she found in her pocket to wipe her mouth and then pulled out her cell phone. She hit a button and the phone dialed a preset number.

“Jefferson Police Department,” a woman’s voice answered. “How may I direct your call?”

“This is Lieutenant Tasha Lockwood. I need a forensics team, a flatbed tow truck, and the coroner to come
to Coone’s Pull-n-Go Salvage Yard right away. I think I just located Mindy Johnson.”

Ecstasy encased Peter’s mind. His body shivered with the remembered thrill of feeling her so close.

“Alexandra,” he whispered her name, reveling in the memory of their encounter.

It was the briefest of caresses, but for a moment her warmth had flowed through his body and his through hers. He’d pressed forward, excited that she had come to him in such an intimate way.

She’d been shy, shrinking from his advances.

And then she was gone. Ripped away by
him
.

Rage over his denial burned through Peter’s body. The Dark One continued to stand between them, an obstacle to be eliminated. It wouldn’t be easy. The Dark One was strong, far stronger than he.

But Peter was smarter. He knew the Dark One’s weakness and he would exploit it. He would crush the Dark One’s spirit, break him, and destroy him.

And then Alexandra would finally be his.

IN THE CONVERTED RECREATIONAL VEHICLE THAT WAS
one of the FBPI’s three mobile forensics labs, Alex sat at a small table in the rear section that served as a tiny lounge and sleeping area. Other sections of the forty-foot RV housed an on-site command center with satellite links to the Bureau’s main lab in Louisville. Separate areas for processing firearms, narcotics, fingerprints, audio/visual, and questionable documents completed the mobile lab’s complement of workstations.

Alex brushed a lock of hair behind her ear and glanced at the stacks of boxes crammed into the tiny space. Plastic bins containing bags of items from Mindy Johnson’s car and dorm room surrounded her while she sifted through reports, transcripts of conversations, and evidence documentation. She’d been poring over the information for hours, trying to absorb as much of it as possible, but the memory of her early morning vision continued to intrude upon her thoughts.

She focused on the preliminary report of the bloodstains found on Mindy’s passenger seat, but her gaze drifted to the large brown paper bag containing the doll. Forcing herself to look away, she sighed and used her hand to both prop up her head and shield the bag from view.

The report showed the blood was definitely human. The type matched that on file for Mindy with the Central Donor Registry, but it would take much longer
to run a complete profile comparison. For now, they were working on the assumption that the blood was Mindy’s.

She skimmed through the list of items taken from the girl’s dorm room: syringes, flexible latex tubing, alcohol swabs, an open pack of condoms, a date book, and a journal. Other items were listed as well, but the date book and journal piqued her curiosity. She rummaged through the plastic bins spread over the table to locate them. She found the date book but the journal wasn’t there.

Alex glanced around the lab and spotted Freddy hunched over a microscope. “Hey, Freddy.”

“Yeah, boss?” he asked, his eyes still trained on whatever he had under the scope.

“Any idea where this journal, Item Fourteen, is?”

He looked up and frowned. “It’s not in the bins?”

“No.”

“It should be there.” He joined her, pulling off his latex gloves and tossing them into a large trash can. He poked around in the same boxes she’d searched, and scratched his head. “No one’s touched these since yesterday except to add what we picked up from the car this morning.”