"Is there anyone inside?" I asked eventually.
"A woman, a man, and a child in the first house. No one alive in the second." Amusement warmed his otherwise formal tones as he added, "And before you ask, there's no one dead, either."
"So if this is the next victim's address, he might already have her."
"That is more than possible."
I glanced left as a black Ford turned into the street. Rhoan. Given the Directorate plates, it couldn't be anyone else.
The car slid to a halt in front of us. There were two men inside, but only Rhoan climbed out. He didn't look happy.
The trepidation that had been up until now little more than a muted background buzz suddenly sharpened. I straightened. "What's up?"
"This whole setup. He's deviating from his previous MO and I'm not liking the possible reason."
"You think it's some sort of trap?"
"It can't be anything else," he growled. "We've done a quick background check on Vonda. She turned vamp about one hundred years ago, and has been leading a relatively low-profile life ever since. She works the night shift at the Ford vehicle factory in Broadmeadows and doesn't socialize much."
I frowned. "What about feeding? How does she cope with that if she doesn't socialize much?"
He shrugged. "She probably uses synth blood. They've gotten better at manufacturing it in recent years."
A fact he knew because his vampire half sometimes demanded blood, even if he didn't have the teeth to go with the hunger. "So Vonda has nothing in common with the other victims?"
"Other than that she seems the least likely target for a serial killer, no." He spun around and studied the houses on the opposite side of the road. "She lives with her sister, who also works at Ford. We had an infrared-equipped helicopter sweep the area a few moments ago. There's three people in the first house, but no one is at home in our target house."
He was half vampire and had infrared vision himself, so he didn't really need the helicopter to tell him that. Maybe he just didn't want to get too close to the house and spook our quarry—not that he was inside from the sound of it.