Blood of Dawn Read online

  “I guess Dad felt like he had some making up to do, leaving Mom living in that rattrap apartment for twenty years.” I grabbed the bag out of the trunk and hustled to the front door. On the porch, I poked the doorbell and listened to the ding dong, ding dong, of the chime.

  No answer.

  I rang the bell again.

  “Maybe she fell asleep,” Elmer suggested.

  “I didn’t just drive over here for nothing.” I poked the button a third time; when that didn’t work, I handed the bag to Elmer and went back to the car for my phone. I hit 1 on my speed dial and listened to the phone ring. It rang ten times before my mother picked up.

  “Hello?” Mom said, sounding sleepy.

  “Mom, I’m outside. With pie.”

  “I called. Didn’t you get my message?”

  “No.”

  She yawned. “I’ll be right there.”

  I clicked off and rejoined Elmer on the porch. Grimacing, he shoved the bag into my hands.

  The door finally opened, and a very rumpled Mom poked her head out. “Sloan, I’m sorry. I told you not to bother. Your father called right after I talked to you. He came home early. And he brought me some pie.”

  I shoved the bag at her. “But I bought all of this, and I don’t want to eat it.”

  She snorted, jerking backward, like I’d just shoved a bag of radioactive plutonium at her. “Get it away. I can’t look at another pie. I ate too much already.”

  “But it’s the middle of the night, and I drove an hour to get here. And I have to be at work by nine—”

  “Not my fault, Sloan. You didn’t answer your phone. I think you should hurry home and get into bed. You can still catch a few more hours if you don’t waste any time.” Her eyes started watering, and her face turned the shade of a turnip. “Oh, no. I told you to get that pie away from me. Gotta go. Bye.” She clapped her hand over her mouth and slammed the door in my face.

  My arm dropped to my side, and I slid a sidelong glance at Elmer. I give him credit. He was looking outraged on my behalf.

  “I can’t believe she slammed the door in your face,” he said.

  “That’s my mother for you. She’s a strange bird.” I headed back to the car, dumped the bag of pies in the trunk, and climbed behind the steering wheel. Elmer was already in the passenger seat.

  I glanced at the red glowing numbers on the clock. Now, I was seeing a 2, two dots, a 4, and a 9. I had almost an hour drive ahead of me before I could climb back into my bed. My eyes were gritty and blurry, my head foggy.

  I started the car, shifted into reverse, then shifted back into park before the car had rolled a single inch. “To heck with this. I’m not driving home. She called me out here, so she can let me sleep over. It isn’t like she doesn’t have room for me. There are five bedrooms in this place.” I poked my cell phone, calling Mom.

  “Sloan,” Elmer said, “there’s something else we need to talk about. It’s about a certain debt you owe me.”

  “Oh, yeah, right.” I was hoping he’d forgotten about that.

  “You remember, I said we’d meet at midnight . . . several nights ago.”

  “Um, no. I forgot. Sorry.”

  Elmer’s daytime invisibility had come in handy in my last case. We were chasing a bloodthirsty aswang and I had been desperate. The problem was, his help had come with strings attached. At this point, I still had no idea how thick those strings were.

  “So, were you thinking cash?” I asked.

  “Money?” Elmer shook his head. “I don’t need more money. I already have enough of that. No, I was thinking about something else. Maybe something to add to my collection.”

  “What collection?” A quiver of dread wound through my insides. To be fair, my father had warned me about the dangers of striking a deal with a Sluagh. But I’d chosen to ignore his warning, in the interest of serving the greater good, of course.

  My phone rang. I checked it. Katie.

  Was it unusual that Katie was calling at almost three in the morning? Not necessarily. The girl kept crazy hours. But calling multiple times in the last hour? That was a reason for concern. Not to mention, I was glad for the distraction.

  I answered, “What’s up?”

  “You need to come home. Right now. Right. Now!”

  The line went dead.

  “Elmer, we’ll have to talk about this later. Something’s wrong with Katie.”

  Elmer humphed. “There’s always something wrong. I’m not going anywhere.”

  There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking.

  —Alfred Korzybski

  2

  I made it as far as my street before my phone rang yet again. This time it wasn’t Mom. It wasn’t Katie either. It was Jordan Thomas, one of my coworkers and also the subject of more than a few steamy dreams since I’d started working for the PBAU.

  I answered, “JT, what’s wrong?”

  “Where are you?”

  I suppose there was good reason for him to ask that. He probably would have assumed any normal person would be in bed at this hour, sound asleep. I’m not any normal person, though. Which is partly why I was interning for the FBI in the first place.

  “I’m heading home. Why?”

  “The chief needs you to get to the following address ASAP.” He paused.

  “Go ahead,” I told him. There was no need for me to write down the address. Not that I’m bragging, but my memory is insanely good. Since taking this job a few weeks ago, I’ve memorized roughly half of my father’s research on paranormal creatures. That’s somewhere around ten years’ worth of work.

  He rattled off an address in Baltimore, then added, “I’ll meet you there.”

  “Okay. I need to run home and change first. I don’t think anyone’s going to take me seriously in what I’m wearing right now.”

  “Why not?”

  I glanced down at my shirt. “Just trust me.”

  “Okay. But you’re going to have to show me what you’re wearing another time. I’m intrigued.” At the hint of naughtiness in his voice, parts of my anatomy started tingling.

  That was not a good thing.

  Ever since my first day on the job, I’ve had a thing for JT. Who wouldn’t? He’s sexy. He’s smart. He’s brave. And I’ve been doing everything in my power to keep from throwing myself at him like a shameless hussy and begging him to take me. Because I have big hopes for a long-term future with the FBI, I have resisted the urge. But there have been times when my self-control has been pushed to the limit. Like when he’d caught me coming out of the shower, and I was wrapped only in a towel. And when he’d been taping the microphone wire to me, and the only piece of clothing between my nipples and his hands was my lace bra.

  For the most part, JT has been good about respecting my wishes to maintain a respectable, professional distance. But every now and then, his voice goes low and husky, or his eyes grow come-hithery. It doesn’t help that our boss, Chief Peyton, keeps pairing us together to work on cases.

  Or she gives us undercover assignments where we have to sleep together.

  “Gotta go, bye.” I clicked off.

  Elmer gave me a raised-brow look.

  “Sorry, work calls.”

  “But we need to talk. About my acting lessons. And that debt. You owe me, Sloan Skye. You have to pay.”

  “I will. Say, would the acting lessons count as payment?”

  “No.”

  Stubborn, stubborn undead guy.

  “But where am I going to find an acting coach at three-thirty in the morning?” I asked. “This is no small favor you’re asking.”

  He shrugged. “This whole TV thing was your idea. You figure it out.”

  Once again, I was going to have to call my father. I hated doing that. I’d lived without the man for twenty years. It irritated me how often I found myself groveling for his help since his return. Granted, technically speaking, it was his fault tha
t I’d had to find Elmer an alternative wife in the first place. He’d promised me to Elmer a long, long time ago. Like, while I was still in diapers.

  “I’ll call my father after I change my clothes. That’s the best I can do.” I steered into my apartment complex, rounded the bend, then stomped on the brakes.

  “Oh, no,” I said.

  Our building was on fire. There were fire trucks and police cars everywhere.

  “So much for changing your clothes, eh?” Elmer said, his voice sounding a little too cheerful.

  “What did she do?” I muttered as I cut a sharp U-turn. I parked in the first lot that had an open parking spot and dialed Katie.

  “Sloan!” she shouted.

  “What happened?”

  “It wasn’t my fault. I swear. The fire didn’t even start in our apartment.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. I was asleep when the smoke alarms started shrieking. Where are you?”

  “First lot, behind the rental office.”

  “I’ll drive over.”

  Five minutes later, we were both standing between our cars, staring at our building, watching the glowing flames poke out of broken-out windows in our apartment. “It doesn’t look like we’ll be able to salvage anything,” Katie said sadly. “My research.”

  A chill swept up my spine. “My father’s research.”

  Katie slumped against the car. She was a mess. “I need to get some sleep. I guess I’ll check in to a hotel for the night.”

  “I’ll call my folks later. Their house is huge. There’s plenty of room for both of us.”

  “No, Sloan.”

  “Really, it won’t be a problem.”

  “Before you do that, let me check with the apartment complex, see if they have a vacant unit,” Katie suggested.

  “Fair enough. Let me know when you hear something.”

  Katie nodded. “Will do.”

  My phone rang. It was JT. No doubt he was expecting me to roll up to Brookline Street within the next fifteen minutes or so. Wasn’t going to happen. “I have to go,” I told Katie. “Do you have money for the hotel room?”

  “I grabbed my purse on the way out.” Katie opened her car door and flopped into the driver’s seat. “There’s no point in hanging around here any longer, I guess. It’s just making me more depressed, thinking about all my hard work, gone.”

  “Oh, hon.” I gave my depressed roommate a hug. “Didn’t you back up?”

  “Sure. But I backed up most of it on my portable hard drive. And you can guess where that is.” She tipped her head toward the building, which was now spewing thick clouds of toxic smoke and ash into the air.

  “I’ll get in touch with Mom.”

  “And I’ll call you once I hear from the complex manager.” Katie closed her door, started the car, and opened the window. I was strolling toward my car when she yelled, “Sloan!”

  I turned around.

  “Thanks. You’re a good friend.”

  “You’re my best friend. I’m here for you, no matter what. Even if the fire had been your fault.” Then I remembered the pies. “Hang on! I have something that’ll make you feel better.”

  Stephanie Barnett lived in a quaint, little tan stucco-and-brick Cape Cod in Hunting Ridge, a neighborhood sitting on the western fringes of Baltimore. Like its neighbors, the house was neat, well maintained. And both inside and outside, it was full of charming character.

  Sadly, it was teeming with police personnel combing every inch in an effort to solve the murder of a teenage girl.

  I found JT upstairs, in what I had to assume was the teenager’s bedroom. The walls were painted with black-chalkboard paint. And bizarre chalk illustrations covered nearly every inch of the walls: Gruesome faces with fangs. Skeletal, emaciated beings with buggy eyes. This was a girl who had been either fascinated by things that were dark and scary or was severely disturbed.

  JT was talking to a woman who had the look in her eyes of a bereft parent who’d just walked into her worst nightmare.

  “Mrs. Barnett, this is Sloan Skye,” JT said as I stepped up to them. “Why don’t you tell Miss Skye what you just told me?”

  “Sure. You need to take a look at my ex-husband. That bastard’s behind this,” Mrs. Barnett said as she dabbed at her watery eyes. “I know it. He did this to get back at me.”

  “What makes you say that?” JT asked as he scribbled some notes in the little notebook he carried with him.

  “Because he’s a sick freak who doesn’t want me to be happy,” she snapped. “Mike’s done some low-down stuff before, but nothing . . .” She sniffled, blinked, then sobbed. “Things were starting to look up for us. Finally. And he had to ruin it, like he always did. He was jealous, because I’d found someone and he hadn’t.”

  JT and I exchanged looks. Jealousy was a powerful motivator for some people. I’d read about some heinous crimes committed in the name of jealousy. But to kill his own child . . . ?

  “Has your ex-husband made any threats to you or your daughter before?” I asked.

  “Sure. He’s made plenty. It’s no secret the man wanted me dead.”

  “But your daughter?”

  “Well”—the woman faltered—“most of the threats were directed toward me. But he’s such a psycho. I wouldn’t put it past him to take out his anger on Stephanie. He’d never been close to her.” She pointed at the walls. “See all of this?” She sneered. “It’s because of him. And there’s something else.”

  “What’s that?” I asked, taking a closer look at the artwork on the nearest wall. It was drawn well, the work of someone who’d spent many hours honing her craft. The subject matter was odd, but kids sometimes expressed themselves in strange ways.

  “He filled my daughter’s head with a bunch of crazy talk about vampires. He believes in that kind of thing. In fact, he told her he’s a vampire. I was so mad when I found out about that. I went over to talk to him yesterday. Things turned ugly. It can’t be a coincidence that we had a fight just yesterday and I find my only daughter dead in her room this morning. That’s Mike—Michael—Barnett,” she said, enunciating his name.

  “Thank you for the information, Mrs. Barnett,” JT said, writing in his notebook. “Do you have an address for your ex-husband?”

  “Sure. He lives less than a mile away.” She rattled off the address; then she grabbed JT’s arm and turned beseeching eyes to him. “Please, please don’t let him get away with this. My daughter. My little girl.” She sank down, boneless, landing on the mattress. She covered her face with her hands. The sound of her sobs was heart-wrenching. It was something I knew I wouldn’t forget for a long time.

  JT tucked his notebook in his pocket and squatted in front of the crying woman. “We will do our very best to catch your daughter’s killer. I promise.”

  “Thank you.” The trembling mother motioned toward the door. “If you don’t need me anymore . . .”

  “Yes, of course. We’ll find you if we have any more questions. Standing, JT turned to me. I saw the glimmer of unshed tears in his eyes for a fraction of a second. Then he blinked and they were gone. Speaking softly, he pointed at the taped silhouette on the floor. “The victim was found here. Cause of death is undetermined, but there were puncture wounds on the neck.” Next to where she’d been lying was an alarm clock. I nudged it with my toe. Broken.

  “Again? Do we have another adze or aswang on the loose?”

  “I don’t know. But if it is an aswang . . .” He didn’t finish his sentence. I could understand why. The aswang preyed on pregnant women. We were investigating the death of a sixteen-year-old girl. Sixteen was awfully young to become a mother, but it was entirely possible.

  “Should we ask?” I tipped my head toward the door.

  “No. Chances are, if the girl was pregnant, she might have kept it from her parents, anyway. The ME will catch it when he does the autopsy.”

  “Okay.” I pointed at the outline. To me, it seemed the position of the victim w
as odd. She was found lying on her side, curled in a fetal position, arms and legs tucked in. Unlike the victims of the aswang we had recently caught, Stephanie Barnett had left her bed before being killed. On the other hand, the victims of the adze—the first unsub we had profiled—had died from a variety of infectious diseases, contracted when they were bitten. “What do you think about the victim’s position? Do you generally find murder victims curled up like that?”

  “Based on her position, I’d say she was lying there for a while. She might have been trying to protect herself. Or maybe she was in pain.”

  A shiver crept up my spine. I jerked my gaze away, scanning the rest of the room. “Nothing else appears to be disturbed. Have they found the point of entry for the unsub yet?”

  “No. There was no sign of forced entry. Doors and windows on the ground level were locked. Basement windows too.”

  I turned my attention to the window at the far end of the room. After our last case, I knew that paranormal creatures could access victims on upper-level floors, without the aid of a ladder. The window was closed and locked. “Was this window closed all night?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll ask the mother before we leave,” JT said as he circled around the room, checking the floor, walls, bedding, for any missed clues.

  At the opposite end of the room, I ducked down, checking under the bed. Lots of dust bunnies. One cardboard box. No weapons. No blood. Nothing.

  “The place is clean. No blood. Not a single drop. Did the ME find any other puncture wounds on the victim?”

  “No. Just the two. On the neck.” He tipped his head toward the door. “Ready to go? I’d like to have a chat with the victim’s father before the detective takes him in for questioning. We have puncture wounds on the neck and a guy who says he’s a vampire. Makes sense, right? Then we can review the case notes, see if there’s anything we missed here.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  We both headed toward the door; but before we stepped out into the hallway, JT caught my arm, stopping me. His lips curled into the hint of a wicked smile, and my heart did a little hop in my chest. His gaze flicked to roughly boob level. “I wanted to say something sooner, but it wasn’t the right time. Nice shirt.”