Family Pride (Blood of the Pride) (6 page)

I really wished I had full control now.

I’d have loved to scratch up Brayton’s expensive desk, scar the lovely varnished dark wood with the wonderful screech of destruction.

When we pulled up in front of the hotel, the doorman waited patiently as I hopped out, recognizing me from before.

“Wait here,” I instructed the cab driver. “I’ll be a few minutes.”

The elderly man shrugged and tapped the meter. “Take as long as you want. She keep running.” He grinned, showing off a pristine set of blinding white teeth. “I got no place to be.” He waved at the doorman before parking off to one side of the long driveway.

The lobby was jammed with tourists, this latest swarming consisting of chattering teenagers out to take pictures of anything and everything Canadian. Cell phones bobbed above the crowd as the desk clerk attempted to translate from French to German and back again for the lone chaperone. I slipped by the commotion and headed for the stairs.

Different smells and sounds assaulted my senses as I walked down the hallway, more than on my previous trip. Wound up from my confrontation with Brayton, I felt more and more of my Felis senses coming out.

Especially the urge to kill.

A moan from behind a door, matched with a gasp. The sharp, almost acidic smell of sex.

Crying behind another. Sobbing, muffled with a pillow or clothing.

A childish giggle at the third. Boyish, high-pitched. Low whispering, another male.

By the time I got to the end of the corridor my senses were saturated, the virtual pool overflowing with what I could smell and hear. It took a concentrated effort to clamp down, get control and restrict my intake to what I wanted. I’d learned hard and fast the first day I’d landed in Toronto how to pick and choose what I wanted to experience. It’d proven to be an asset to my livelihood but still a sore point at times when I lost control.

I paused in front of the hotel door. There was no use in taking my anger out on Molly—whether I agreed or not with what she was doing she was Liam’s mother.

A slow, deep exhalation brought me down to earth. All I needed was a set of signatures and this would all be over.

I rapped at Molly Callendar’s door with short, sharp bursts.

The door shifted under my touch. I touched the white painted wood with my fingertips and pushed it open.

At first I didn’t panic. The thick carpet in many hotel rooms made it hard to shut the door enough to have the lock catch. It looked closed but it only took a fraction of an inch to keep the lock from grabbing. It’d happened before when I’d left.

The coppery scent smashed into my mouth as I stepped inside. I knew the smell, knew it intimately.

Blood.

Another sharper, more pungent smell rose up. I didn’t need to be Felis to recognize that one.

Feces and urine.

And not just what a baby would create.

I moved toward the couch, picking each step with care. If I was right the police would want to know exactly where I placed my feet.

Molly Callendar lay between the couch and the coffee table, dead. She lay facedown on the cheap industrial-issue carpet, her arms stretched out in front of her toward the crib. Blood seeped out from under her left side. She’d been shot in the chest.

The other bullet hole was at the back of her head. It’d taken part of her face off but I recognized her. Her short red hair was now dotted with bits of bone and brain.

I instinctively knelt down and pressed my fingers to her throat, hoping against hope to find a pulse. The odds were against it but miracles had happened before.

Not even a flutter under the skin. She was cold and clammy to my touch; she’d been dead for a while—not long after I’d left her.

My inner voice snapped she was past saving and I had another person to worry about, another life in this room of death.

The baby.

I sprang toward the portable crib, not caring where I stepped.

It was empty except for a small stuffed lion sitting in one corner, winking at me. No diaper bag, no bottles of formula.

No baby.

I closed my eyes and tried to pull up what little calm I had left. The situation had gone from bad to worse to horribly, horribly terrible beyond anything imaginable.

I retreated to the front door and dug my cell phone out. It took three tries to hit 911, my numb fingers refusing to work properly.

The cab driver wasn’t going to like losing his return fare.

* * *

The police came, the cab driver left and the hotel owner was very, very unhappy.

The homicide detective who showed up flinched when I mentioned my friendship with one of his colleagues, Hank Attersley, and my intention to say nothing to anyone but Hank. A short phone call later, and I was off to the police station with an escort to see Hank while CSI processed the scene and the coroner dealt with the dead body.

It took over an hour to get washed and rinsed through the system, finally ending up sitting in an interrogation room waiting for Hank and in the early grip of a major migraine.

My cell phone had stayed mercifully silent. The last thing I needed right now was to try to explain to Bran why I was at the police station.

I looked around the room. The two-way mirror was scratched and bent in spots, showing physical contact. It smelled like sweat and fear and blood with a little trace of urine mixed in.

I fought not to gag. The walls were a drab gray and for a frantic second I thought they were closing in on me.

Being trapped is one of our greatest fears. We chafed at the bit doing office jobs and thrived outside—putting us in cages was akin to a death sentence.

I swallowed hard, forcing the ball of fear away. I had nothing to fear from the police.

Bran, however, was a whole other thing. I definitely wasn’t making our lunch date.

The stainless steel table had seen better days—the scrapes and dents on the surface held a thousand stories, none of which I wanted to hear or to add my testimony to. I shifted in the uncomfortable wooden chair and cleared my throat.

“Any chance of getting a bottle of water here?”

I knew there were people on the other side of the glass. I couldn’t scent them but I knew they were there, studying me like a butterfly under glass.

“Please?”

The door opened, admitting Detective Hank Attersley.

He tossed a plastic water bottle at me as he closed the door.

I caught it with one hand and wrestled the cap off. The condensation dripped onto the table, forming a small puddle of water.

He threw a file folder on the table, sat opposite me and glared, a snarl curling his lips. The generic brown suit was tight across his shoulders, with the white shirt desperately trying to hold in an ample belly brought on by having a wife who loved to cook and cooked well.

Hank and I had a love-hate relationship.

He loved making a little money on the side by helping me out. I hated the fact he kept trying to set me up with his wife’s nephew or worse, convince me to “go legal” and join the force.

He flipped the folder open but didn’t look down at the pages.

A black-and-white picture of Molly Callendar was clipped to the top page. Smiling, vibrant, alive.

I knew the other photographs would be buried at the back under the autopsy report. Pictures no one other than the police needed to see.

“Fuck, Reb. What have you gotten yourself into this time?” He answered his own question. “Murder. Fucking murder.”

I smiled, trying not to bounce in the chair. It was uncomfortable to sit still but jumping around would signal nervousness and I didn’t want to be here a second longer than I needed to be. “Missed you too, Hank.”

He rubbed his chin, the ever-present five o’clock shadow standing at attention. “Haven’t heard from you for a few months. You still hanging with that fellow?” His lips turned up on the last word as if he’d stepped in dog poop.

“His name’s Brandon Hanover. And yes, I’m still ‘hanging’.” He was making small talk, working his way up to the big event. “Still living in Parkdale and still paying my bills like a good little Canadian.” I tilted my head toward the world outside the closed door. “Let’s get down to business. Any idea what happened to Molly Callendar?”

His expression didn’t change. “That’s what I’m about to ask you.” He looked at the black-and-white photo before moving to the first typewritten page. “Girl, what the hell were you doing there in the first place?”

“I was running courier. I put everything in my statement.” I reached over and tapped the top page. “Delivering a legal document that needed to be signed by the victim. On my second trip I discovered the body and, as per the law, notified the authorities ASAP.” I tried not to sound bored. This was the third or fourth time I’d had to explain my presence and it was getting both annoying and upsetting.

Attersley grunted. “We’ve already spoke to Brayton. He confirms your temporary employment and your assignment.” He rapped his thick knuckles on the papers. “So how did you meet Brayton?”

The casual tone didn’t fool me. He wanted to know how a cheap PI ended up running papers for one of the biggest investment firms in the city.

I paused. If I told him about Michael Hanover I could be knocking over a whole nest of snakes. But if my answer didn’t line up with Brayton’s statement I’d be in Hank’s gunsights for not giving a truthful statement.

I took a deep swig of water, buying myself a few more seconds to think.

The question was how much Brayton wanted to keep Hanover out of this situation. From what I’d seen, Brayton wanted to keep his buddy on the other side of the moon, if possible. Whatever Michael Hanover had on David Brayton was enough to make him claim a child who wasn’t his and arrange a support agreement that would last decades—but was it enough to keep quiet about possible involvement in a murder?

I rolled the dice.

“His boss, Michael Hanover?” I allowed myself the biggest shit-eating grin ever. “Brandon’s his son.”

Hank’s eyes widened. I heard a thump on the other side of the glass and imagined some low-level flunky being shredded by his superior for not making the connection. If they hadn’t figured it out before, they knew now and I wasn’t going to hide it.

“I met his parents yesterday. Daddy asked me if I could do a favor for one of his employees—I don’t know how much, if anything, he knew.” I spread my hands. “Get on the family’s good side and all that.”

Hank sat back and crossed his arms. I knew he was giving me more time to talk and for the other detectives behind the one-way mirror to watch me for any signs of discomfort.

I drew a finger through the puddle. “I arrive this morning and Brayton tells me he needs a ghost runner. He didn’t want to use anyone from the firm and risk being found out. Cash on the barrelhead, no paper trail and no one making the connection back from Callendar to Hanover Investments and David Brayton.”

Hank slowly nodded like a tired bobblehead.

I licked my dry lips. “I don’t have to tell you how much scandal this would cause if it hit the papers. Especially some trashy tabloid like the Toronto
Inquisitor
.” I couldn’t stop a sly smile. Bran had been working for the
Inquisitor
when we’d met and Hank’d warned me off the slick, silver-tongued reporter.

Hank didn’t say anything.

He didn’t have to.

“I figured it’d be a fast few hours of work and I’m in good with the parents.”

That much was the honest truth.

Hank didn’t respond. His left eyebrow rose a fraction of an inch.

I shut up. The line about anything you say being held against you isn’t idle talk.

He broke eye contact and studied the file, flipping through the pages. “Do you know what the paperwork Brayton gave you to take to the hotel was in regards to?”

“Child support. The father wanted Molly to sign off on a deal. Told me she was going to move out west with the baby and start all over.” I didn’t add my theory about who the father was. “I saw the agreement. Nothing too complicated.”

“She sent you packing.”

“She didn’t like the first draft. Couldn’t blame her for wanting more money. I’d have done the same thing.”

Hank glanced once to the mirror, then back down to the file. “So you went back to Brayton and returned to the hotel.”

“The cab drivers can verify my trips and my times.”

Now it was the detective’s turn to nod. “We’ve already looked over their sheets. They verify your story.”

I spread my hands. “So why am I sitting here?”

Hank snorted. “Because you were the last to see her alive other than the killer. And don’t think you weren’t a prime target for that title.”

“Past tense,” I replied. “Because I’m innocent.”

“Because your alibi checks out. And you don’t have any reason to kill a woman and run out with a newborn.”

I flinched inwardly. The cold truth pricked me in all the wrong places.

“So I’m free to go?”

His expression didn’t change. “We’ve got a dead woman lying on the floor of a hotel room. And a missing baby. Already got an AMBER Alert out on the little one.” He glanced down again at my typed statement. “Although ‘red fuzz’ isn’t much to go on. Too bad you couldn’t give us any birthmarks or anything to identify him.”

I resisted the urge to yell. “I only saw him for a few minutes bundled up in a blanket and Molly wasn’t exactly keen on showing him off. She was focused on studying the agreement. Liam’s a month old, maybe less. Find him and find him fast.”

The note of panic that’d crept into my voice hadn’t gone unnoticed. “What’s up with the kid? You know something? He got some medical problems we should know about?”

There was no way I could tell him Liam was Hanover’s baby. I had no proof other than my nose.

“Nope. I just don’t like babies going missing. Not when the mother’s been gunned down and he’s probably headed for some damned adoption scam.” The anger in my voice was genuine. There was an outside chance Molly had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, targeted because she had a newborn and seemed unprotected.

Stranger things had happened, sadly enough.