Blood Secrets - By Jeannie Holmes Page 0,103
simple matter of obtaining an ID card and scrubs. Once he had those, he had the freedom to wander the hospital at will. It never ceased to amaze him how few people questioned a stranger if they appeared as though they belonged in their surroundings. It was a fault he’d learned to exploit long ago.
As he left the nurse’s desk, he heard laughter from the nearby employee lounge, followed by an off-key choir wishing some unfortunate recipient a happy birthday. The party wasn’t something he’d planned, but it certainly worked in his favor. He reached Strahan’s room and slipped inside.
Monitors beeped softly and steadily as Strahan lay sleeping. The dim glow of the monitors cast strange patterns on his skin and bedding.
Varik ignored it all, focused on the vampire. He glided to the bedside and paused, listening for approaching footsteps or changes in Strahan’s breathing. When he heard neither, he carefully covered Strahan’s mouth while simultaneously using his finger and thumb to pinch his nose closed, cutting off his air supply.
Peter woke, wide-eyed and panicked. He attempted to grab Varik’s hand but his own were restrained, tied to the bed rails, a precaution taken to prevent him from biting any of the human staff.
Using his other hand, Varik pressed against the still-healing wound below Peter’s breastbone. Strahan’s muffled scream was silenced by Varik’s fist striking his throat.
He released Peter’s nose long enough for him to draw a breath and then pinched off the flow again. He leaned close, whispering, “Remember what I told you, you son of a bitch? That I would kill you?”
Pale yellow eyes shot heated daggers at Varik, but beneath it was an intense fear.
“I’m going to kill you now. Before I do, I want you to know that Alex is mine—always has been, always will be—and I will do everything in my power to eradicate every memory you planted in her head. She won’t even remember your name.”
Peter strained to draw a breath, his face turning a bright red.
Varik struck him again in the throat and felt the soft tissue collapse. He quickly slipped his hand beneath Peter’s head, grabbed a handful of hair, and sharply twisted his head to the side. A wet popping crunch was the only sound as his neck broke. Monitors immediately flatlined and Varik switched them off.
He had moments before the staff returned to their stations and realized something had gone wrong. He hurried to the door and checked the corridor beyond. It was empty and he heard another peal of laughter from the lounge.
He exited the ICU without anyone stopping him. No one spared him more than a quick glance, too frightened to question the golden-eyed vampire, trailing the scent of new death behind him, as he disappeared into the night.
Tasha sat behind her desk, taking in the sight of the office she’d called her second home for six years.
Now it was going to someone else.
Her resignation had been an easy decision. While she wasn’t giving up police work—she would remain on as a detective—she was giving up her title of liaison officer. Someone else could have the job. She’d seen enough death.
Kirk Beljean’s attack had planted the seed of leaving in her mind. However, the sight of Mindy Johnson’s nude body hanging from the rafters of Peter Strahan’s attic had been the final act for her. She woke up at night in a cold sweat with visions of the girl reaching for her, demanding to know why she’d died. Tasha had no answers.
It was the lack of answers that drove her to resign. That combined with the years of stonewalling she’d received from the vamps. She didn’t like who she was becoming by working with them so the best solution—the only solution—was to step aside.
She also wanted to have more time to devote to her fight against Caleb. Seeing the grief the Johnsons experienced over losing their only child made her want to do whatever she could to keep Maya in her life.
She sighed and opened the final drawer she needed to clean out. Among the half-devoured rolls of antacids, energy bars, and unopened bags of herbal tea lay a simple brown paper bag.
Tasha frowned as she picked it up and was surprised by its weight. She opened the bag and gasped as it slipped from her hands to land in the drawer. It tipped on its side, partially spilling its contents.
Two bound ten-thousand-dollar bricks of cash peeked out from the bag’s opening, along with a handwritten note.
With a trembling hand, she picked up the note and read:
THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION, LIEUTENANT. PAYMENT FOR YOUR RECENT SERVICES. WE’LL BE IN TOUCH.
Tasha stared at the money, her thoughts racing. If she accepted it, she could afford to hire a lawyer to fight Caleb, and she might even stand a chance of winning. It meant she could be the mother she wanted to be to Maya—to be the mother she never had.
It also meant that she was someone else’s fucking pawn and nothing would change it.
She shoved the note and money into the bag and tucked it into her box of personal effects. If it kept her from losing her daughter, then she would play the part of a pawn.
Alex peered through the fish-eyed peephole in the front door and saw Director Baudelaire’s distorted face. She swiped at the tears lingering on her cheeks, drew a deep breath in a futile attempt to calm her suddenly racing pulse, and opened the door.
The smile that had started on his face vanished when he saw her. “You’ve been crying. What’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing. I was—” Her words caught in her throat. “Is there something you wanted, Director?”
His spine stiffened at the use of his formal title. “I wanted to see you—to see if you needed anything.”
Alex shook her head, avoided looking at him, and picked at a spot of peeling paint on the doorjamb.
“Right,” he whispered, shuffling his feet. “Well, if there is anything I can do, let me know.” He raked a hand through his hair and backed away. “I should probably go.”
As he turned, sunlight flashed off the badge at his hip, bringing with it a half-formed memory: a glittering pink-diamond ring on a silver chain. Loss washed over her and fresh tears followed the tracks left by their kin.
Strong arms swept her into an embrace. “I’m here, baby,” he whispered. A scent of sandalwood and cinnamon enveloped her. “I’m here.”
Alex clung to a man she had no memory of, and for the first time since she’d learned of the Tribunal’s inquiry or heard the name Peter Strahan, she felt completely safe.
She hoped the feeling would last.
epilogue
PETER STOOD BEFORE THE DOOR LEADING TO THE HALL of Records. Varik Baudelaire had no idea what kind of monster he’d unleashed when he killed Peter.
He grinned. He would make Baudelaire pay for what he’d done, and he would pay dearly.
He turned the knob to open the door but it didn’t move. Confused, he tried turning it the other way but met with the same result. “What the fuck is going on here?”
“Hello, Peter.”
He whirled around to find Bernard Sabian standing a few yards away with his hands in the pockets of his dark suit. “What did you do, old man?”
“Having trouble with the door?”
Peter pounded on the door. “What did you do!”
Bernard shrugged. “I didn’t do anything. When you died—”
“I was murdered, old man! Don’t play games with me!”
“Fair enough. When Varik rightly killed your pathetic ass,” Bernard sneered, “all that stored soul energy you used to boost your abilities went poof.”
Cold realization began to sink into Peter’s mind.
“The magic you used to create all those dolls, so long as they remained intact, required a beating heart to contain them, and yours doesn’t anymore.”
A wind kicked up, whipping around them and carrying the wail of a thousand souls.
Peter scanned the horizon for its source until he spotted the dark roiling mass heading toward them.
“And here they come now,” Bernard said. “I’d start running if I were you.”
Peter spun and fled, running across the field as fast as his legs would carry him.
The roiling mass gained on him. The shrieks and screams of all the souls he’d trapped spurred his flight.
The mass overtook him and he felt hands grabbing at him. He cried for them to stop, begged them to release him.
The once-trapped souls lifted him from the ground, tossed him about, ripping and tearing his flesh from the bone, and Peter knew his screams would continue as they tormented him.
Forever.