Seduced by the Night (43 page)

Last week's snowfall lay in dirty piles of slush along the edges of the street and he had to step over several small puddles to avoid getting his shoes wet. When he reached the park, he stepped onto the paved path. His senses were
hyperextended
as he strained to pick up even the slightest sound and though he heard nothing, he sensed he wasn't alone.

Moving as silently as he could, he continued on, eyeing the large grouping of bushes ahead to his right. He was less than twenty yards away when a figure suddenly appeared on the path before him.

Time stood still as
John
stopped to study the man whose features were too shadowed to see clearly. It wasn't unusual to see someone in the park this late and the man could be anyone—or no one in particular. Yet, when he lifted his head, his eyes, glowing with an unnatural red light, caught and held
John
's attention.

Vampire
. The word echoed through his mind, no longer sounding as absurd as it had earlier.

At that moment,
John
heard a noise, off to the left, and turned to see what it was. From out of the darkness, the lithe figure of a woman came racing toward them, long black hair flapping wildly in the wind behind her. The exact details of her other features were lost in deference to the sword in her hand, which she wielded with apparent confidence and purpose.

Her attention seemed focused solely on the other man and, screaming like a banshee, she raced forward, showing no signs of slowing.

Almost belatedly realizing her intent,
John
shouted at the man to run. Then, without a thought to himself, he rushed to intercept her, leaping through the air in a flying tackle. He caught hold of her sword arm with one hand and, wrapping his other arm around her body, bore her to the ground.

They landed with a painful jolt that should have knocked the wind out of her, especially with
John
's added weight on top of her. Amazingly, though, she recovered quickly and immediately began fighting him, trying to buck him off, all the while shouting at the top of her very British lungs.

"I'll kill you, you blood-sucking—"

"Settle down,"
John
ordered her. "I don't want to have to hurt you." His words seemed to have a small effect as the woman ceased her struggling long enough to really look at him. When she did,
John
saw her eyes open wide in surprise.

"You're human!"

John
found her choice of words particularly interesting given his own purpose for being in the park. He took another hard look at her. "That's right. What were you expecting?"

Instead of answering, she started to struggle, so he levered himself up, flipped the woman onto her stomach and shoved a knee into her back to keep her down.

"
Oompf
! Bloody Hell," the woman swore, twisting her head, trying to look at him. Her dark hair, in wild disarray, enveloped her head like a dark cloud. "What are you doing?"

"I would think it's obvious," he replied, trying to ignore her enticing shape as he ran his hands up and down her body, searching for hidden weapons.

"You're letting him get away! Let me up now before it's too late."

John
glanced around and saw that the man had, indeed, disappeared. The observation brought anger and disappointment. He'd never know, now, if that man was the one he'd been searching for.

He turned his attention back to his prisoner and saw that her sword now lay harmlessly off to the side. He picked it up to move it a safer distance away, noticing that there was something familiar about it, but he couldn't remember what. Then he flipped her over and helped her to sit. "You want to tell me why you're running around the park at night with a sword?"

A glare was the only response he got.

"Look, here in the states, we don't go around waving swords and trying to lop off people's heads. And I'm betting over in England—that's where you're from, right?— I'm guessing they don't allow it, either. So, bottom line, you're in serious trouble."

Still, she ignored him.

John
cast a furtive glance in the direction that the man had disappeared. "Who was that? Your boyfriend?"

She huffed at him in anger. "Not bloody likely."

He tried to read her expression. Green eyes, darkened to the color of emerald gem, looked up at him from between the twin silken curtains of ebony framing her face. Suddenly, the screaming banshee was gone and in her place was a lost waif.

When she spoke, her words were soft and beseeching. "Please, you have to help me. More people are going to die if we don't stop him. You have to let me go."

She sounded so sincere, he was almost tempted to do as she asked. "I don't think so."

She swore and renewed her struggle to break out of the cuffs.
John
let her try, knowing that she wasn't going anywhere. Watching her, he was reminded of her strength when she'd fought him and one thing was very apparent. This was no lost waif. This was a deeply disturbed, possibly clinically psychotic woman in desperate need of a seventy-two hour lockdown and a
Thorazine
drip—and he knew just the man to arrange it.

John
was jerked from a deep sleep by the sound of his phone ringing. As he lay there debating whether or not to answer it, the ringing stopped. He held his breath, waiting to see if it started up again and when it finally seemed like it wouldn't, he closed his eyes and let his mind drift…

His cell phone started ringing.

Glancing at the bedside table, he noticed two things. His cell phone wasn't where it should have been and the clock showed it was almost noon, which meant he'd had almost two hours of sleep. Throwing back the covers, he half-rolled, half-fell out of bed, still fully clothed in yesterday's wrinkled outfit, and stumbled across the room to where his coat lay draped over the back of a chair.

Hauling it up, he dug in the pocket closest to him until his hand reappeared on the other side, having slipped through the hole he hadn't known was there. There was something about that new hole that should have bothered him, but the incessant ringing demanded his immediate attention. Reaching into the other pocket, he dug out his phone and answered it just before it rolled over to voice mail.

"
Boehler
, here." His voice sounded like wet gravel under rolling tires.

"I want to see you in my office. Now," Gamble ordered.

"Yes,
si
—" He was speaking to a dead phone. Gamble had already disconnected the call.

John
stared at the phone in dumb fascination for a minute. "Good morning to you, too," he mumbled, wondering what he'd done wrong this time.

The events of the prior evening came racing back—the dark figure in the park, the screaming banshee with her sword. With his luck, the man was someone of influence and power and had shown up at the station to press charges against the woman who'd tried to kill him, only discover that she wasn't in custody. Why he hadn't arrested her,
John
couldn't say. He attributed it to the judicial insanity that seemed to be sweeping the city lately. After all, why should he follow the rules when no one else did? Okay, he knew the answer to that, but chose to ignore it.

John
remembered the look of hate and betrayal when he'd dropped the woman off at the psych facility for lock-down. He could keep her there seventy-two hours for observation, after which time, she'd either have to face charges or be admitted for a full psych evaluation. He'd been hoping that twenty-four hours would be enough to convince her to cooperate. His plan to pay her a little visit as soon as he woke would have to wait.

Not bothering to change clothes,
John
ran his fingers through his hair and put on his shoes. His holster was slung over the bedpost, so he strapped it on and then checked the gun to make sure the safety was on. As he left the bedroom, he grabbed his coat and pulled it on as he walked through the small apartment, checking all his pockets as he went. He was almost to the front door when he froze and rechecked his pockets.

His wallet was there but his ID badge was missing.

He put his hand into the right coat pocket and felt it slide all the way through the fabric. The hole! Great Just what he needed.

He pulled out his cell phone and called the main desk of the police station. "Hi, Joyce. I need to report a lost ID. Yeah—mine."

The call took about ten minutes and by the time he clicked off, he was in his car, already halfway to the station. Traffic wasn't a problem and fifteen minutes later, he was walking through the building, headed for Gamble's office.

His cell phone rang again and he recognized Joyce's number. Hoping someone had turned in his badge, he answered the call. 'Tell me you have good news."

"Sorry,
John
, not the kind you're hoping for," she replied sympathetically. "Sammy, over at Impound, called. He said to tell you they just brought in a car you might be interested in—a rental."

John
knew the Jane Doe from the night before hadn't materialized out of thin air. He figured she'd left her car close enough to walk, so had asked to be notified of any cars being towed in that were picked up inside a two-mile radius of Thompson Park.

He glanced at his watch and saw that it was almost noon. "Joyce, Gamble's expecting me to walk in the door any second. Can you call Sammy back and tell him not to do anything with the car? I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Will do."

"Okay, t
hank
s. I owe you."

Once he reached Gamble's office, he took a bracing breath and then knocked on the closed door.

Gamble's voice erupted from inside, "Come in."

John
opened the door, but hadn't even made it to the chair in front of Gamble's desk before the assistant chief started in on him. "Were you in Thompson Park last night? South side?"

Warning bells started pealing inside his head, but he saw no reason not to answer. "Yes."

"What were you doing there?"

"Just taking a walk."

Gamble stared at him, his hard glare boring through him. After a second, he opened his middle desk drawer, reached in to grab something and then tossed it across the desk to
John
. "Lose something while you were there?"

John
stared down at his badge, realizing now it must have dropped out of his pocket when he was wrestling with Jane Doe. That part made sense to him. What didn't make sense was how Gamble came to have it.

Resisting the urge to snatch it up, he held Gamble's steady gaze. "Where'd you find it?"

"Under a bush, about eight inches from Simon Brody's dead body."