Deadly Liaisons (14 page)

More than that, he couldn’t get his mind off the way she fel under his spel when they’d made love. So eager and responsive

…every kiss, every touch made him crave even more. Here he’d hoped taking the plunge would have revealed a woman who couldn’t meet his expectations. When in truth, she had exceeded his wildest dreams.

The way she pul ed her hair behind her ears, chewed on her bottom lip, ran her long fingernails over the notes, made her look sexier than hel .

She tilted her head to the side, looking puzzled. Then she narrowed her eyes. “Some of these are
my
slides! When the hel did you steal them from my apartment?”

“You needed them
here
. And here are the samples from the dead police officer outside your apartment.” He motioned to a table where a microscope and slides caught her attention.

For a moment, she stared at them, then looked at Daemon. He again waved at the samples. “See if you can learn anything from them. You’re the expert, after al .”

She made a face and he figured she thought he was mocking her. After living so many centuries, he’d learned a wide variety of occupations, some of which came in handy now and again. So yes, he was somewhat of an investigative expert, but two heads were definitely better than one. Her gaze shifted to the official police files sitting next to the microscope.

Looking back at him, she parted her lips, her eyes questioning.

He shrugged. “Files on the murders. We’l need to see al the evidence if we’re to solve this case.”

“The chief gave them to you?”

“Borrowed. I don’t trust him, Tezra. It’s just too convenient he found out who murdered your parents. I don’t like expedient solutions.”

“As much as I hate to admit it, you may be right.”

He studied her glum expression and wondered what kind of a relationship she’d fostered with the chief. “Why do you say that now?”

Sighing, she examined the slides. “I’m a friend of Mandy Salazar who speaks very highly of him. She’s a police dispatcher and has been for years.”

“For more than ten years?” He couldn’t help but wonder if the earlier police kil ings were related to the recent ones.

She lifted one of the slides and placed it under the microscope. “A careful y calculating vampire committed the first murders and tried to make it look like a hunter’s vendetta. The new ones are done by a raging vampire, no finesse at al . I’m almost certain two different rogue vampires kil ed the police officers.”

Folding his arms, Daemon tilted his chin higher. “We have already discussed that the kil er could have changed his MO. Was Mandy Salazar working for the chief when the other officers were murdered?”

Tezra didn’t look at him, but nodded.

“And?”

“I didn’t know her early on. I was only sixteen at the time and she was twenty-two. While I was trying to learn what I could about the first police murders, I chanced to meet her. She said the chief had been under a lot of strain before the kil ings, and she was afraid this would break him.”

“A lot of strain.”

“Yes, she figured it was concerning family issues. You know, most often that’s the case. Anyway, he kept pretty quiet about it, though she could tel something was wrong because he’d become moody and il -tempered when he normal y was a pretty cheerful guy. I’ve never known him as anything but somber and serious. I can’t even imagine him being jovial. But I questioned some others, and they said the same thing, that it was like a storm cloud had settled over him and changed him permanently.”

“Before the kil ings?”

“Yes.”

“And then?”

“For a while things were worse. She said it was real y bizarre. She went to get a cup of coffee in the break room and three policemen there immediately silenced their conversation. At first, she just figured they were talking about some woman they’d had sex with or something crude that they didn’t want her to hear, but then one of the men was murdered. Two weeks later, another one was. And you saw what happened to Officer Stevens.”

“So Mandy thought maybe a connection existed between the murders of the three men and the secret talks they’d had.”

“Yes.” Tezra sat back on the leather chair. “I assume the police officers had murdered a vampire friend of his, and he took revenge. When I began investigating Krustalus, he murdered my parents as a warning. The point is why would he wait ten years, change his MO, and begin kil ing again? It’s got to be someone else.”

Daemon looked at the files, then back to Tezra. “You al uded to the possibility that the earlier case had something to do with the chief.”

“Oh, yes. Wel , after the men were murdered, the whole police force was antsy. The chief pretty much barricaded himself in his office for weeks, then when no more kil ings occurred, he started to lighten up. Except he never did return to his cheerful self.”

“Not enough evidence to make anything of that.”

“Like I said, I figured the drastic change in his mood probably had something to do with his family life. So I began to investigate that.” She flipped through the files and read through each page like a speed-reader would.

“And?”

“I’m afraid there was nothing much there. He had a wife and two young sons. No mistresses that I could discover. I checked out his financial status. No gambling debts or substantial money crisis that would account for his behavior. His parents were both alive and wel . No problems with the in-laws, another source of contention in bad marriages. He genuinely seemed to love his wife and children.”

“Any siblings?”

She looked up from the files. “A sister and her husband who were both police officers.”

“You know, Tezra, getting you to reveal what you suspect is like getting blood out of a tomato.”

“Nothing there either.” She closed the file and opened the next one. “The brother-in-law was wel -liked and is stil with the police force. The chief’s sister committed suicide some years ago.”

“Suicide.”

She paused in her reading. “Yes, clinical depression. She’d been on medication and took an overdose.”

“When?”

“A year after the kil ings.”

Daemon rubbed his chin while he considered the information. “Why was she depressed?”

“An organic thing, apparently. Nothing going on in her life. Oh, she couldn’t have children, so I suppose that could have been it.”

“And her husband? How did he feel about the matter?”

“Broken up about it. Same thing with the chief. Mandy told me she figured his sister’s suicide would send him over the edge.

But apparently, he got over it and got on with his life.”

“Lots of siblings don’t get along.”

“I wouldn’t know. My sister and I always did.” She looked up at him. “What about you and your brother?”

Daemon gave a sardonic smile. “When he’s not getting himself into trouble.”

“Oh?”

“Usual y over blood bonds. The women he chose to be blood bonds; sometimes their boyfriends didn’t like it.”

“Did he use his charms to get the women to agree?”

Daemon shook his head. “He’s always had a way with women, even before the plague made him vampiric. But in truth, the vampirism does accentuate the ability, and we real y haven’t a lot of control over it.”

She
hmpfed
. “That’s like saying you have no control over what you eat or—”

Daemon chuckled darkly. “That is not what I’m saying at al .”

“Sounds like it to me.”

Touching her cheek with his fingers, he grew serious. “You wil have the same effect on men, though from what I’ve seen, you already wrap them around your finger and render them senseless.”

“In your imagination.”

He leaned down, pul ed her hair aside and kissed her neck. A shudder went through her as her hands stil ed on the file she’d been reading. “I have heard the humans’ crude comments concerning you, Tezra. It is not just my imagination.” He sighed, deeply exasperated, knowing if any man approached her in an attempt to fulfil his sexual fantasies with the huntress, Daemon wouldn’t be responsible for his actions. “You stil haven’t told me why you think the chief might have had something to do with the vampire kil ings of his police officers.”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then opened them and studied Daemon. “I think like you do—he has a connection or he wouldn’t have gotten Krustalus’s name so easily. I think the chief knew his name al along, but worried there wasn’t anyone who could or would be wil ing to take the vampire down until now.”

Daemon opened his mouth to speak, then his lips turned up a notch. “I like it when we’re on the same path. But you stil don’t think the crimes are connected? What if the recent murders triggered Chief O’Mal ey to contact you?”

“It’s possible the chief was concerned Krustalus was at it again. I’m wondering if they’d had somewhat of a truce. The police officers murdered Krustalus’s friend, Krustalus took revenge, the chief turned the other cheek, end of investigation. According to these files, the inquiry into the murders was hastily conducted, then the cases were filed away as unsolved, as if no one even wanted to get to the bottom of them. I have no idea about the Council of Hunters’ investigation concerning my parents’ murder, except that they questioned several hunters who were borderline rogues. Again, the results of the inquiry were inconclusive.

Anyway, that’s what I’m speculating for now about Krustalus and the relationship he has with Chief O’Mal ey.” She took a deep breath. “Thank you for ‘borrowing’ the files and letting me look at them.”

Daemon bowed his head in acknowledgement, but she was too busy reading the paperwork to notice. He intended to transport himself to the greatroom to al ow her to look at the records alone, unsupervised. He had high hopes she felt more agreeable toward him, though he chided himself for having any feelings of the sort.

Before he left, Atreides spoke to him privately.
“Daemon, the hunter named Gavin is calling on his cell phone in the front
courtyard, but I can’t tell what he’s saying. They’re not leaving though. At the same time, Voltan’s overseeing matters out
back.”

“Prince Daemon, hunters have made their way through the forest, but our guards have advanced,”
Voltan warned.

Daemon ground his teeth.
“I’m coming.”

Tezra studied the glass slides containing the tissue samples under the microscope. Safe and secure for the moment.

“I’l be right back.” Daemon vanished before she could answer.

As soon as he appeared in the greatroom, she yel ed, “Wait, Daemon! Where are you going?”

Wolf form, or vengeful vampire? Daemon grabbed his favorite bastard sword from the rack next to the patio doors. With a blade sharply honed and a more impressive size than most of his ancient weapons, either swung two-handed or single-handedly while carrying a shield or another weapon, he gripped the leather hilt. To Atreides, he said, “Keep an eye on the hunters out front and inform me if they make a move. And don’t let Tezra leave the house.”

Her footfal s raced down the hal , but before she could reach the greatroom, Daemon motioned to Atreides, vanished and reappeared in the mist near the edge of the forest. He wasn’t about to get into an argument with Tezra over whether she could come with him. Protected in the house was the only place he wanted her to be.

Five hunters stood their ground near the edge of his property. In the form of wolves, Daemon’s vampire guards kept the hunters from advancing in the direction of the house.

His sword readied, Daemon stalked toward them with Voltan at his side. “Trespassing is a crime, gentlemen.”

The hunters held their swords outstretched, trying to keep the wolves from tearing them apart. The hunters barely looked in Daemon’s direction.

“I’m within my rights to have my people shred you into bite-sized pieces. For al I know, you are hunter renegades, have to be if you’re trespassing without a warrant.”

“The word is you have Tezra Campbel , an SCU investigator, locked up in your home. We’re within our rights to remove her from it,” the tal est of the five men said.

“We should kil them, my prince,” Voltan said. “Let me have the tal one. He is more my size.”

No one Daemon knew was close to Voltan’s nearly seven-foot height.

“Daemon!”
Tezra screamed at him telepathical y.

Daemon turned his attention to the house, sensed Tezra’s anger, but she wasn’t scared, which probably meant only one thing.

His brother was confining her to the house. “If any of the hunters slice at my guards, kil them,” Daemon told Voltan.

He returned to the greatroom and found Atreides pinning Tezra facedown on the couch, her cheek pressed against the cushions, her hand behind her back, elevated so she couldn’t squirm loose.

“Let go of me!” she screamed.

Atreides, red-faced and with clenched teeth, growled. “She tried to chase after you. I told her you wished her to stay safely in the Atreides, red-faced and with clenched teeth, growled. “She tried to chase after you. I told her you wished her to stay safely in the house, but she wouldn’t cooperate.”

When he released her, she jumped off the couch and swung her fist at Atreides’s face.

Interceding on his brother’s behalf, Daemon grabbed her wrist and pul ed her away. “I thought you wished to see the evidence from the officers’ kil ings.”

“I want to know what’s going on with the hunters outside. You can’t kil them, Daemon, or they’l cal you and every one of your people rogues and issue a termination decree for al of you.”

“I’m touched you’re concerned for my welfare.”

She jerked her wrist free. “I don’t want you kil ing them.”

Daemon motioned to his back door. “The hunters have no business trespassing on my land. They’ve been told repeatedly you are here of your own freewil by your own admission. Despite being a vampire, I have rights.”

“Yeah, wel , maybe I need you to live a little longer so you can keep me safe.”

He couldn’t help but smile. “I have no intention of dying by a hunter’s sword. But Voltan sometimes needs a chain to keep him in line. I wish to return to the problem out back, but if I cannot be assured you’l stay put…”