How to Rattle an Undead Couple - Hailey Edwards Page 0,35
only on his ears to alert him to anyone who might approach.
“You’ve done it now,” Leisha snapped. “Linus is on to me.”
“I did what we agreed upon.”
The second speaker resonated with a peculiar multilayered voice that rang both foreign and familiar, but no one Linus could identify beyond the eerie distortion that allowed her, for it was a woman, anonymity.
“Two weeks early. What were you thinking?”
“I have my reasons, and they are not for your ears.”
“Goddess, what a mess. I’m out. I’m rather fond of my head. I would prefer to keep it attached to my neck. I did what you asked. I seduced the Deathless vampire.”
“How bad was the sex if he ran from your bedroom never to return?”
“The sex was fine. Great even. That’s not the point.”
“You were supposed to use him to gain access to Grier.”
“He’s loyal to her. He’s a dead end. There’s no way he would get me into Woolworth House.”
Rustling drew Linus’s eyes open in time to spot Corbin belly-crawling into the hedge with him.
Noticing the sigil in use, Corbin pointed to his eyes and then to the house.
Linus nodded that he had things in hand.
Corbin retreated to a more defensive position.
“Do you feel that? The wards have been breached,” the first woman snarled. “Someone followed you.”
“You’re being paranoid. It was probably a squirrel.”
“Get out.”
“But Linus—”
“He’s your problem now.” Footsteps punctuated her anger. “Don’t contact me again.”
Smudging the sigil on his hand, Linus broke the connection to allow himself precious seconds to reorient.
The front door opened then slammed shut, and Linus glanced up in time to peer through the leaves as Corbin moved to intercept Leisha.
That left the mystery woman for him.
Easing out from under his cover, he crept to the back door. Finding it locked, he used a sigil to remedy the problem, entered the home, then began a careful sweep of the living space, tensed for confrontation.
Aside from a used coffee mug in the sink and a rumpled bed, he found no signs that anyone lived there. With online home rentals at an all-time high, he had run across more than one person who preferred a furnished home for a weekend or week, enjoying the local experience, rather than staying in a hotel.
An open window explained where the mystery woman had gone, but there was no sign of her now.
Certain he was alone, he pulled out his phone and dialed. “I’ve got an address for you.”
“Let me have it,” Bishop answered. “And then tell me what to do with it.”
Linus rattled off the address. “Find out if this is a rental and who rented it last.”
“That won’t take but an hour or two. Keep an eye on your phone. The analysis of Orin’s footage ought to be ready by then.”
“Thank you.”
“Welcome.”
There was no point in combing the space, of that much he was certain. It was too clean, too staged. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t go through the motions regardless. Drawing a sigil of Grier’s design onto his palm, he swept his arm throughout each room in search of bronze powder or filings, which was lethal to gwyllgi. The best he could hope for at this point was that Lethe could spare someone to come pick up the scent of the renter, and he didn’t want them harmed due to his carelessness or impatience.
The house yielded no answers, or further threats, but the ward, however, might tell him something.
Exiting the home, he began his search for signs of who and what had moved against them.
“Leisha is bound and gagged and waiting on the backseat,” Corbin announced. “I got a call from a friend with the SPD, who gave me a heads-up a neighbor reported suspicious activity around a rental house. She then lectured him on how the neighborhood was going downhill since the Truetts started letting strangers vacation in their home.”
A quick text to Bishop with that information halved his newest workload.
“A quiet street like this,” Corbin mused, “anyone who doesn’t belong is going to stick out. Big time.”
The reverse was also true, and it made excellent camouflage for predators. “We need more stringent guidelines for these rentals.”
“People using the human app versus the para app know exactly what they’re doing.” Corbin shook his head. “They can slide in and lay low without having to announce themselves to the local factions and go through the whole rigamarole for a lousy weekend out of town with the family.”
The problem being, a weekend out of town with a family often entailed multiple locals disappearing