When Temptation Burns: A Shadow Keepers Novel (Shadow Keepers 6) (4 page)

And maybe, by helping undo even a little of the harm done to them by a shadower, he could shed some of the foulness with which he’d been marked at birth.

Determined, he pressed his palm hard against the cold forehead and tried again.
Come on, come on
. He recalled the list of names that Rhys had rattled off to Cecilia, along with the photos they’d pulled of the identified girls. This one, he remembered, was named Alicia.

Come on, Alicia. Help me out here. Let me in. Let me see
.

His body shook from the effort of pushing past his exhaustion. His powers weakened when he didn’t feed, but if he could just push harder. If he could just catch even the slightest whisper of the memories that lingered after death.

Silvery wisps seemed to dance in front of him like fingers of fog. He stretched out with his mind, trying to catch the threads and pull them closer. They slipped from his grasp, easing off into the dark veil of the beyond.

A hand closed on his shoulder, and he jumped.

“Back it off,” Tucker said. “You’re pushing too hard.”

“Is it too hard if I find the son-of-a-bitch?” His voice was harsher than he’d intended, but Tucker didn’t even flinch.

“Wear yourself down and you won’t make it back,” Tucker said. “Unless you’re willing to feed on the street.”

Doyle flinched. In Los Angeles, he could go to Orlando’s, a soul-trading club where at least he had some level of dignity. If he fed on the street, he was nothing more than a monster.

Tucker knew damn well how Doyle felt about feeding. And if Tucker was pushing, Doyle knew that his exhaustion must not only be showing, it must be spilling out of his skin. Didn’t matter, though. There wasn’t time to feed. Wasn’t time for anything except to push it down and press on. “We’re running out of options.”

“Doyle.” Tucker’s voice was firm, but kind. “It’s been too long.”

“There was something,” Doyle said. “A remnant, but
too faint to catch. Maybe one of the others survived longer. Even half an hour more of life might do it.”

“You’re going to slide under.”

Doyle ignored his partner, turning his focus to Gomez. “Bring up the rest.”

“Dammit, Doyle. I don’t want you looking at me like I’m a Happy Meal.”

“I said I’m fine,” Doyle snapped, the words coming out with rare fury.

“The hell you are.”

The tight wire of Doyle’s temper snapped. “I don’t feed off friends, and I don’t need a fucking babysitter.”

“No?”

Doyle’s fists clenched, and he battled the urge to take a shot at Tucker’s too-perfect nose.
Shit
.

Back it down. Back it the fuck down
.

He drew in a breath. Tucker was right—he was ripped up. Getting close to the point where he’d have no choice but to feed. Cross that line and he might not make it back to Los Angeles. Too far gone and it wouldn’t just be the vamps who were hurting humans.

But damn it all, he couldn’t walk away now. Not when they were so close. Not when Rhys was killing so many, so fast, and girls were still missing.

“I have to do this,” he whispered, so low he doubted that Tucker’s human ears could hear him. As usual, his partner surprised him.

“Fuck,” Tucker said, then sighed. “If it gets bad—if I think you’re going over—I’ll do what I have to do.”

Doyle nodded, and as soon as Gomez brought the second girl up, he bent over, pressed his hand against her cold skin, and let himself slide in.
Nothing
. He checked all of the girls, the result was still the same—a big load
of nothing, only now Doyle was so weak he could barely stand. “Just give me a minute,” he said, giving up and sinking back down on the filthy linoleum floor.

In front of him, Tucker stood shaking his head.

“I had to try,” Doyle said.

“I know. What now?”

It was a good question. With effort, Doyle forced himself to his feet, determined to focus. Cobwebs seemed to fill his head, and he rubbed his temples, trying to banish them. “Rhys had a reason for coming here,” he finally said. “This motel.”

“It’s remote. Abandoned.”

“A lot of motels are. And office buildings. Apartments. Why this one?”

“Might be random,” Tucker said.

“Random doesn’t do us any good. Besides, he’s a methodical son-of-a-bitch.”

“So we pull the strings,” Tucker said. “See if we can find a connection. Something that ties this place to Rhys.” He frowned. “Pretty thin.”

“Maybe. But it’s all we’ve got. Start with the property owner. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

Apparently the stars were aligned in their favor, because within five minutes, the research team back at Division 6 pinged Doyle’s smartphone with the motel’s tax records. Doyle took one look at the file and whistled. Tucker was at his side in an instant, peering over his shoulder.

“Creevey. Well, color me intrigued.”

The motel was owned by one Horace Creevey, a human who happened to be the father of one of the vilest human serial killers currently biding his time on death row. Kyle Creevey had kidnapped and tortured almost two dozen
girls, and bragged about it. Not only that, but he swore that he’d done the deed to impress the vampires who were going to make him immortal.

It was a ridiculous ploy that the press had assumed was part of a pitch for an insanity plea. The PEC had thought differently and had kept an eye on Kyle, but the case was within the human system’s jurisdiction, and as no rogue vamps had made any obvious attempts to contact Kyle, the case was filed once he was locked up.

“Maybe all his talk about knowing vampires was true,” Doyle said.

“The property’s owned by his dad, and dad wasn’t exactly supportive of his son during the trial.”

“But it’s a connection,” Doyle said tightly. “And right now it’s the only one we’ve got.”

“Glad you came back, sugar-snatch.” Kyle Creevey, gorgeous enough to have have made the cover of
People
magazine with the headline
Too Pretty to Be Evil?
, pressed his lips up to the visitor window at the federal penitentiary in Lompoc, California, giving Andrea Tarrent a rather disgusting view of his tongue and artificially whitened teeth. He smacked his lips, and when he looked hard at her she could see the evil behind those startling blue eyes. “Guess you missed me, huh?”

Andy didn’t even blink. Once he had completely grossed her out—okay, he
still
completely grossed her out—but after spending five months covering the investigation and trial, there wasn’t a lot about Creevey that surprised her anymore. In fact, the only thing that had surprised her was the call she’d received that morning from the prison’s visitor coordinator telling her that Creevey wanted to see her.

Now she was sitting nose to nose with him, separated only by a glass barrier. His voice was muted, softened by the cheap speaker embedded in the cubicle wall. All around her, she could hear the buzz of the other prisoners’ conversations. There were eight of them in the room today. Four men behind glass, four women talking in soft voices. Of all the women, she was the only one who wasn’t in tears, the only one who wasn’t pressing her hand against the glass and wishing it would dissolve so
she could touch the man beyond. God, just the idea repulsed her.

“You asked me here, Kyle,” she said, knowing how much the convicted kidnapper and murderer hated being called by his first name. “Why don’t you tell me why?”

“You sayin’ there has to be a reason? Maybe I just like seeing your purty face.” He spoke with an affected accent, calling on his dirt-poor Mississippi roots in favor of the fine speech patterns he’d perfected at Pepperdine and the affectation of class and breeding that had become his trademark. The spit and polish that had drawn women toward him like a spider drew in a fly. Kyle Creevey was an actor, through and through, and his stage had been all of Southern California. He’d played the part of the heartless sociopath, and twenty-three women had been sucked into his theatrics, believing that the smoke and mirrors were reality.

“Like seeing me? I doubt that.” She narrowed her eyes and leaned forward, knowing she was intentionally baiting him. “I think it’s more of a compulsion. I think you liked talking to me because you couldn’t figure me out. Couldn’t understand how there was a woman who didn’t fall for your shit. I think you still can’t believe it.”

Andy kept her eyes on his face as she leaned back. She was only slightly exaggerating. Surely there were other women in Southern California who’d seen something vile in this man. Women who were alive because, after meeting him in a bar, they’d turned around and walked in the other direction, some sixth sense letting them know that the blond man with the patrician face wasn’t going to sweep them off their feet. At least not the way they were anticipating.

But considering his body count, there weren’t too many of those women. Most fell to his charms, then fell dead into his arms.

Andy had never been tested—not in that way. But she’d been the first reporter to interview him after the police talked to him in connection with the disappearance of Melissa Jane Roth. At the time, nobody had considered Creevey a suspect. He’d been a regular at the Back Street’s Wednesday night happy hour, and he’d been seen chatting with Melissa on one or two occasions. He’d been cooperative and polite with the police and with Andy. Happy to help, he’d said. Anything to find out what happened to poor, pretty Melissa.

The police had believed him. Andy had believed him, too, but she hadn’t liked him. He’d turned on the charm, and although she couldn’t put her finger on what it was about Kyle Creevey that bothered her, she’d walked away from their interview feeling stained. She wasn’t surprised when he was arrested for the kidnapping and dismemberment death of Janeen Rusch, but she was annoyed with herself for not trusting her intuition. Especially when Melissa’s case was reopened and the LAPD’s investigation zeroed in on Creevey as the prime suspect.

“Didn’t fall for me?” Creevey repeated. “Sweetheart, don’t flatter yourself. Maybe I didn’t shove my tongue into your honeypot, but you came for me just the same.” He licked his lips, and Andy shivered. “I called, and you came, your pen poised over your paper, looking all professional and serious, but underneath it all you were creaming your panties, knowing I could give you what no other man could—one hell of a
fucking
good story.”

“And you know what, Kyle? I did get the story. I used you to get a cover story in one of the country’s most
prestigious newsmagazines, and that story’s still paying off for me. And what did you get? A nice warm cot on death row.” She smiled sweetly. “Don’t play games with me, Creevey. We’ve known each other too long.”

He tossed his head back and snorted with laughter. “You got me there, buttercup. And you’re right. We’ve known each other too long—too intimately—to play foolish games.”

“So you’re going to tell me why you asked me here today? Because flattery or not, I don’t believe it was to compliment my ass.”

“I called you here because of that story you’re so damn proud of. I read it, you know.”

“Did you? And were you astounded by my insight? Blown away by my perceptive prose?”

“Mighty arrogant take you had there, missy. Calling me evil. Strong word.”

“True word.”

The corner of his mouth rose just a little. “Maybe so, girl. Maybe so. But that don’t mean you got the rest of the story right.”

“No?” She forced herself not to cross her arms over her chest. She could hold her own against Kyle Creevey, but he still creeped her out. Especially when he slid into that bumpkin routine of his—the bad grammar, the lip smacking. Somehow the knowledge that he could shift on a dime and be not only proper but downright classy made him all the more creepy.

She’d thought when the story printed that would be the end of it. And even though the story really had bumped her career to the next level, she was still happy to be done with him. The call from the visitor coordinator had sent a hot wire of dread shooting through her,
and she’d almost declined. But ambition won out, and so here she was. He’d reached out and reeled her in, just as he had with his victims, leaving her with self-loathing almost as strong as her determination to ferret out whatever new story he might be sitting on. “All right,” she finally said. “So tell me.”

He tilted his head back and laughed. “Could set my watch by you, girl. You don’t want to need me, but you do. You
owe
me, babycakes. If it weren’t for me—if it weren’t for all those purty dead girls—you’d be serving coffee at Starbucks, and you damn well know it.”

“You’re the one who asked me here. You want to tell me, then tell me. Otherwise, it’s a lovely Saturday, and I’ve got better things to do than look into your ugly face.”

“Now don’t be mean, sugar. I’m your golden goose. More important, as fond as I am of seeing my picture plastered all over the media, you turned your spotlight on the wrong guy.”

“The wrong guy?” She shoved her chair back and started to stand. “Nice talking to you, Kyle. But if you called me down here to feed me some bullshit about how you’ve been wronged and the jury convicted the wrong man, then let me be the first to tell you to go screw yourself. I’m outta here.”