[Draven's Crossing 1] Hidden Diversions (22 page)

Kristopher looked
up,
face a crimson mask in the low light of the flickering television. Ivan took in the scene and shook his head. Kris needed to get stable
quickly,
otherwise they were always going to have to watch him when he fed. His brother
rose
, a mirror image to Ivan with only the blood separating their features. Ivan took a moment to look at the scene.
Two bodies.
Two women.
His head whipped around as he inspected the second body. “Shit!” Ivan shouted.

Kris had killed Sadie. Ivan’s knees turned to water as he stared at the love of his life’s body, throat ripped out,
face
covered in speckles of blood.

Kris pulled Ivan up and dragged him away. “Come, go, now.”

Ivan let him, his head and heart filled with the image of Sadie on that grimy floor, dead.

Chapter Twelve

THE BODIES ARE PILING UP.

DO WE HAVE A NEW SERIAL KILLER?

Mangled remains are found and Michaela O’Connor is missing. Do we have more than one killer? -Isadora Jones, DC News Blast

Detective Santa Rosa pinched the bridge of her nose. She felt the start of an ache at the forefront of her head. Torger still wasn’t answering his phone, and his brother refused to say where he was. Jagger was MIA too. Her inner lioness wanted to rip her boss apart and track down that irritation of a vampire but instead she walked around the apartment and took in the details while the Crime Scene Unit was doing their job and officers were taking statements. So far, they’d gotten nothing. No one had seen or heard anything. But the most interesting thing was that they were right around the corner from Michaela O’Connor’s condo.

She didn’t want to make connections but she couldn’t help it. To make matters worse than two bodies was that the second female body, of unknown origin, looked a little too much like Ivan Evanson’s assistant, Sadie Mayflower, for her liking. Right now their people were running her prints. If they got a hit, she would have to go drag Torger from wherever he was and into the office. She sure as hell wasn’t going to deal with Draven.

“It’s official. It’s Sadie Mayflower,” Officer Duggen announced.

Groans went up around the room and Alyssa sighed. She turned on her heel and left the room. “Going to get the boss,” she called over her shoulder.

“Good luck!” Duggen called after her.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m gonna need it,” she muttered as she pushed back her hood, ripped off her goggles and headed to the bike with the suit still on. She could put on a new one when she got back but first she needed Torger here, now.

* * * *

Torger rolled over onto his back. His stomach growled but he didn’t want to move. Isy was draped over his chest, her fingernail tracing a circular path around his nipple. Life was bliss at the moment. All tension had drained away. There was no job, bodies, Draven, or politics to deal with. All he had was Isy and that was fine by him. If only it could stay that way. With a grunt, he sat up. They were still on the floor much to his amusement. With a smile, he got to his feet and held out his hand to Isy.

She stared at it as if it were a foreign object. “What?” she asked as she grasped his hand and got to her feet.

“Shower and then eat,” he said as she pulled her toward the bathroom.

“Why?” she asked as she followed him.

“Because we can’t work naked, and I don’t want Urban to know what you look like naked. Jagger won’t care.” He chuckled.

Isy snorted.
“Fine.”
She wrapped her arms around his waist and shuffled behind him. “But you better make it up to me later.”

“I look forward to it.” He pried her arms open, turned on the shower and waited for the water to heat up.

Once everything was ready, they got into the stall and did a quick clean up. As much as he wanted to take his time and maybe get in a quickie, there was still stuff to do. Once they were dried off she got dressed in one of his shirts and pajama bottoms, which looked ridiculous on her, like she was swimming in cloth. He, on the other hand, put on denim and a simple cambric shirt. They headed out of his room hand in hand to find both Urban and Jagger at the kitchen table working.

“Thank god, you’re done!” Urban declared as he looked up. “I thought we’d have to go deaf in order to get work done.”

Jagger for his part was staring at a file, not saying a word. He didn’t even look up. “Went to Madcap Madigan, got the records. Seems this has happened before, but it was at the beginning of the town’s founding. Before the advent of technology and the news stations, magazines and newspapers haven’t gotten around to logging all the info into the system. Take a look.”

Torger let go of Isy’s hand, accepted the file and took a seat. Isy sat across from him and got to work on a stack of files near Urban. “Interesting,” Torger said as he skimmed over the paper.

“Seems bodies had shown up, similar in fashion to what we have but nothing was done. The police marked it up to a rogue vamp. They put down some crazed lunatic and that’s when it ended.”

Urban handed him a cup of coffee. “And there’s more. A buddy of mine got back to me about that pill. There’s a program that’s been going on to develop medicines geared toward people who’ve been attacked by both vampires and shifters. Those instances are rare, yeah, but the outcomes can be extreme from blood cravings, uncontrolled body temperature, massive headaches, cravings for meat or live prey, and the urge to shift but only going through the symptoms and not actually changing.” He took a sip of coffee before he continued. “It’s a government sanctioned program but the testing pool is limited seeing as how the attacks, as I’ve said, are rare. Evanson gave money to the program which, at the time, had two candidates. Both died. Now there are two more taking the drug. Evanson is one of them, and a relative of his is the other one.”

Torger looked up. “But he doesn’t have any relatives. Not that I know of. His parents are dead, brother’s dead. He had an uncle who was part of the Council, but he died and gave his seat to Evanson.”

Urban shook his head. “According to my source, it’s a close relation.
Shares the same father and mother.
I’m guessing his brother isn’t as dead as we were led to believe. As we know, those who suffer from para-lunancy were thought of as better off dead. It’s really rare to get through that and come out with enough sanity to control both sides of your new personality.”

Torger stared at his brother. “Shit. So what does this mean for us?” Dark thoughts swirled around his mind, but he didn’t give them voice. His stomach knotted.

“That Evanson’s brother may be the person responsible for those secondary attacks,” Isy said quietly.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.” Torger slammed his fist down on the table. It rocked and coffee sloshed over the edge of the cups onto the surface. He stood up as tension ramped up in his body. “Draven’s gonna go postal. Do we have proof? We need tangible leads, things we can nail him on. We need threads we can grasp or we’re gonna end up with more than egg on our faces.” He gazed at his brother and then at Jagger in turn, praying one of them might be able to give him answers or maybe a way out.

The doorbell rang and Torger let out a growl. Another body, bad news, he just knew it. He stomped over to the front door and yanked it open. Detective Santa Rosa stood before him in a white suit, anger and relief on her face. “Finally, I’ve been trying to call you.”

She brushed past him into the room. “We’ve got some news and you are definitely not going to like it.”

Torger didn’t miss her looking over Jagger before taking over his abandoned seat and downing the rest of his coffee. He didn’t protest. Instead he just grabbed a new cup, refilled hers and rested a hip against the counter. “Tell me.”

Alyssa went through the night’s happenings from the incident at Michaela O’Connor’s apartment and finding Sadie Mayflower’s body.

“Oh my goddess!
I have to call her parents. Do they know yet?” Isy stood up and paced.

“We’ve sent a police officer out to notify the family. But we have a lead. The lab is running the blood found on the scene and we’re looking through the security tapes. The HellHound unit is following the trail of the blood. They have yet to check in. Everything is high priority.”

Torger shook his head. “Good job. I’m gonna go change and head into the office. Jagger, update Draven. Urban, look for tangible things we can use in court. Our case needs to be air tight. Isy, you stay here.”

Alyssa’s phone rang and everyone froze, they all gazed at her, waiting. The seconds stretched into eternity between the time Alyssa dug her phone out of her pocket and answered it. “Shit. I’ll let him know.” She hung up and looked at Torger. Regret swirled in the green depths of her eyes. “Michaela’s body was found, blood drained, matches the serial killer’s MO. Letter addressed to Isadora Jones under her hand. She was setup on a flower strewn pyre.”

Isy sank down onto a chair. Her hands shook as tears slipped down her face. “Michaela’s dead?” she whispered.

Torger wanted to go to her, hold her, hug her but he had a job to do. “We’ll get the son of a bitch, I promise you, honey. Let’s get going guys.”

They didn’t have time to lose. He got dressed in his uniform and checked his cell phone, ten missed calls all from Alyssa and the department.
Nothing from Draven yet.
He wasn’t sure if that was relief or an omen. By the time he got back out into the living room Jagger was gone, Isy was on Urban’s laptop typing away and Urban was on the phone. Alyssa waited for him by the door. He darted over to Isy and pressed a kiss to her temple. “Let me handle things,” he whispered.

“Just catch the bastard,” she hissed as she continued to type.

“Will do.”
He went to Alyssa and followed her out to the driveway. “I’ll follow you in. I’ve got my cell phone turned on so you’ll be able to reach me now.”

Alyssa just waved, got onto her motorcycle and started it before taking off. Torger followed in his SUV, worry gnawing at his gut. Was Evanson tied up in more than just the mauled bodies? Draven really was going to shit kittens when Jagger brought him up to speed.

* * * *

Evanson curled up in a ball as the ache in his heart continued to thud away. Why did Kris have to kill Sadie? What had she ever done to him? Kris refused to talk about it, instead saying things like they could be together now like it used to be. That Sadie had been an obstruction and things would be better now.
Better how?
The police could be knocking at his door any second now once Sadie’s body was discovered, and there was no telling what Draven would say or do. Everything was falling apart. To top it all off he still had to contact Abbott about the latest blood batch he’d taken. The scientists assured him that once they had enough, they’d try the infusion trial run to drain away the infection from both of them.

Then he could return to being normal.
Normal, ha!
There was no normal with Sadie dead. He had nothing to live for, not even his seat. Kris had taken it all from him. Muffy was gone, Sadie was gone and now his career was dust. Anger filled him as rage saturated his body. Kris had to go.

* * * *

Torger arrived at the station. It was a madhouse of police officers all over the place dashing from one desk to the next. Reporters were seated in the waiting area with cups of coffee and looking at their smart phones. For once they weren’t asking questions. The reason why became apparent. An officer darted over to them with a paper, read them something off it and then moved away.

Without him, they’d setup a system of what they would tell reporters, minor details and the news hounds were accepting and reporting. Isy would be pissed that she was missing out. He slipped out his phone and called her.

“What? Calling to rub it in? I’m not there and your brother’s an asshole,” she growled.