How to Elude a Vampire (VRC Vampire Related Crimes #2) - Alice Winters Page 0,89
when he came in.”
“What’d he do?” Marcus asks.
“He… he told me that my mother ruined me. That he’d fix me. He liked to tell me how I was his. How I was only his doll, and I would always be his. He said that the moment he saw me, he knew that I belonged to him.”
“Did he allude to how long he’d been watching you?” Marcus asks.
“I don’t know… he’d say things about watching me grow up, but I was a teen. I’d been growing up quite a bit.”
“I’m just trying to figure out if he knew you before you were with Orin or after. We know he knew your mother, but how well or how long?”
“But like Orin said, she worked at a vampire establishment. She could have known him for years or just met him.”
“Did she bring people home?”
“Sometimes. There was a time or two we went to her workplace with her because we didn’t have a place to go for the night. It was a pretty shitty setup, honestly. There’s no telling how many vampires she came in contact with while working there.”
“There were never any who paid particular notice to you? Special attention?”
I shrug. “Her boss was nice, but he was a little guy, this man isn’t. I don’t know.”
He gives me another squeeze. “Alright. We’ll keep thinking and working and see what we figure out. Let’s go to bed for now. Are you tired?”
“I am.”
He pulls me in with one arm and kisses my forehead. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
FINN
Marcus had some paperwork to give the others and I wanted to talk to Brooks, so we risked driving to the department. I can’t imagine it would upset him if I came in just to drop something off and was around for five minutes.
I walk into Brooks’s office as Marcus goes to do whatever he wants. “Hey, do you have anything for me to work on while at home?” I ask.
“I thought you were taking a little time off?” Brooks says.
“Yes, and now I’m bored of my time off. If you don’t give me something to do, I’m going to… go find something to do, and I’m positive it’ll have something to do with someone with pointy teeth,” I say.
He leans back in his chair. “Finnigan Hayes… are you blackmailing or threatening me?”
“Is it working?”
“No.”
“Dammit. Come on, Brooks. Please? Pretty please? Please, please?”
“Fine, I’ll email you some stuff but you’re only working on it at home, and you will not leave that house, you hear me?”
“Thank you!” I shout and yank open the door before he can change his mind. I slam into Miller, who must have been planning on knocking on the door. “Oh! I’m sorry!”
“It’s okay,” he says as I slip past him and rush over to where Marcus is sitting at his desk.
Marcus does a light head flick and I wonder if I’ve been caught. I hadn’t exactly told him I was going to beg Brooks for work. Instead, he pushes me into my chair before pulling me over to his computer.
“Were you here when we found out that Perez’s body cam had been on but destroyed?” Marcus asks.
“No… I must have missed that. Why didn’t I hear about that?”
“I think you were at the doctor or something. It showed nothing and gave us no information, so we didn’t look into it further. It really showed us nothing, at least we thought, but come here.” He pops earbuds into my ears and parks me in front of his computer before hitting play. I can hear the sound of crunching leaves as Perez walks through the woods. Then I hear a step behind him before the body cam goes dead.
“Did you hear it?” Marcus asks.
“Someone stepping behind him?” I ask.
“No, no, no. Listen closer. There’s another set of footsteps that we didn’t notice before. I hear it.”
He plays it again and I hear nothing more than I’d heard the first time.
“Marcus, you know your bat senses pick up more than mine.”
“Close your eyes.”
I close them and then abruptly open them as he blasts the noise into my ears. “Oh my god. Deafening me won’t help. I trust you!” I say as I look at him.
He scrutinizes me. “Hmmm… such weak and feeble ears.”
“I’m going to show you what weak and feeble is,” I say as I jab him in the side with my finger. Huge mistake because it feels like I broke it. “Why are you so fucking solid?”