Chasing Daybreak (Dark of Night Book 1) (8 page)

After making my way around the room once, I returned to stand beside Shane. Xavier grabbed another folder—apparently, the one he’d been looking for—tucked it under his arm, and slid the drawer closed.

“And you believe we had something to do with this woman going missing?” Xavier asked, this time looking at me.

I took a breath. “This is the last place we tracked her to. It stands to reason that something of a paranormal nature happened. Soccer moms don’t just vanish without a trace.”
Unless vampires are involved
, I added silently.

“Her name was Lisa Welch, you say?” He turned back to the file cabinets.

“Yes.”

Xavier opened a drawer and retrieved another file before slamming it closed and motioning with both hands for us to go upstairs. He followed, turning off the lights as we reached the top step.

Catherine sat on a stool behind the register, reading a soap opera magazine. Xavier waved to her.

“Thank you, Catherine.”

She saluted sarcastically and went back to reading.

When we reached the front door, Xavier pressed the second file into my hands. Our fingers touched for only a moment, but the connection was electric, giving us both pause, if only for a heartbeat.

“This may be of some help. I want to assure you, none of my people would have done this thing.” His expression was serious—if reserved. He turned to Shane. “Shane, I look forward to your introduction next week. Until then.”

He nodded curtly, and then he crossed the street to a sleek, black limo waiting at the curb. As soon as it sped off, I opened the folder.

“What does it say?” Shane asked.

I shook my head, unable to process what I saw. “You aren’t going to believe this.”

Lisa Welch was a hooker? I’m just not sure I can wrap my head around that.”

Shane propped his feet on the coffee table as I brought out a hot cup of coffee for me and a warm cup of blood for him.

Taking his with one hand, he grumbled, “A paper cup?”

I’d picked up some disposable travel cups at the store, the kind with lids. That way, I at least wouldn’t have to watch him drink it. Plus, blood stained white coffee mugs. I’d thrown away four of my favorites before I laid down the law about cup segregation. Unfortunately, I’d discovered that segregation wasn’t enough.

“Yeah, you get blood moustaches when you drink out of the big mugs. If you’d prefer, I could pick up a box of bendy straws.”

He snorted and took a sip. “No thanks. This is fine.”

I took the file back from his lap. According to what we’d read, Lisa Welch was an escort, although what that meant in the vampire world, neither Shane nor I knew. The file also indicated that her husband was in serious debt to a bookie associated with the Conclave, but there were no details on that.

My father had suspected for a long time that the Vampire Council had their fingers in a bit of everything from law enforcement all the way to the highest branches of government. They ran their organization like the Mafia.

The head of the Council was Sekhmet, the oldest known vampire in existence. She and her two advisors, Nichols Von Wielder and Elizabeth Lathery, ruled from a secret location somewhere in North America. While Sekhmet appeared occasionally, she seemed content to allow the regional Chancellors to do the heavy lifting.

Xavier was responsible for the Conclaves in both the Carolinas and Georgia. He also had two advisers, Ahnarra Collins and Gerard Van Swieten. Ahnarra, I’d met. Gerard was more of a mystery.

“Lisa becoming a hooker makes a twisted kind of sense,” I stated. “The husband gets in over his head. She goes to the bookie, looking to cut a deal to pay them back. Do you think he knew?”

Shane shrugged. “Nobody else knew. She might have been able to keep it quiet.”

I sat back, lacing my fingers together behind my head. “Maybe. They gave her a credit card to use for expenses, but it wasn’t found with her belongings. So where is it?”

“I see what you’re saying. She either took it and ran off—”

“Which would have earned her a one-way ticket to a shallow grave for bailing on the Conclave—”

“Or whoever killed her took it back. Assuming, of course, that she’s dead.”

I nodded. “My gut tells me she’s dead. The question is—why?”

Shane and I were still pouring over the new information when a sharp knock came at the front door. It was well past office hours, nearly midnight. He went to check it out and came back with a huge, white box tied with a red ribbon.

“It has your name on it,” he said, handing me the card.

Isabel,

I hope it’s not too small. It’s hard to judge size on someone so much shorter than I am.

See you next week.

~Mercy

I frowned. Shane took the card from me and laughed. I took the box, touching it with only the tips of my fingers.

“It’s not a grenade, Isabel. Just open it.”

Pushing the stack of papers aside, I set it on the desk and tugged the bow, mumbling, “It could be a grenade. Or a severed head or something.”

The box practically fell open, revealing layers of crisp, honey-gold satin. With a gasp, I pulled the dress out and stood to hold it to my body. The bodice came down to an empire waist tied with a delicate crème-colored ribbon above a full skirt. The sleeves were small puffs designed to fall almost off the shoulder and covered in sheer lace that matched the ribbon.

I ran my hand along the smooth gown. I hated Mercy with a burning passion, but I had to admit, she had great taste in dresses.

“It’s amazing,” was all I could say. And it was the God’s honest truth.

“You’ll look beautiful,” Shane whispered.

Looking at his face, I was transported back to the day we picked out my wedding dress. I knew it was bad luck for him to see it before the wedding, but I’d never believed in superstitions.

Maybe I should have.

Then I remembered that the whole point of the stupid ball was to make Shane more a part of their family, and less a part of mine. I stuffed the dress hastily back into the box and tossed it aside.

“Whatever. Listen, I’ve been thinking. All the local vamps will be at this party, right?” He nodded, frowning. “Well, so the vamp from the car might be in the mix. I think we should take the opportunity to sniff around a bit.”

He snorted. “Oh, that’s punny.”

I picked up the phone and hit number one on the speed dial.

A female voice with a thick Asian accent crackled through the receiver, “House of Noodles.”

I proceeded to place my usual order of orange chicken, wontons, and lo mien.
Thank goodness for twenty-four hour delivery
, I thought as I hung up. It was then I noticed a light flashing on the machine. I’d been so distracted by the file Xavier had given us, I’d forgotten to check it when we got back.

I hit the playback button.

“Isabel, it’s your mother.
Again
. We’re having a family dinner this Friday night to meet your sister’s new boyfriend and you
will
be there. I think they might be getting serious. If only your father were still around to see it. I expect you’ve taken care of that thing we discussed, and I also expect you to be at the house at five PM sharp. No excuses.”

Beep
.

Well, it looked like I had plans tomorrow night after all.

Shane laughed a
you-are-so-screwed
laugh. I threw a pencil at him, which he caught with two fingers and launched skillfully back into the pencil cup. Huffing, I switched on my computer and took out the scrap of paper with Phoebe’s would-be suitor’s name on it. Pulling up the people search website, I typed in his info.

Duke Murdoch was a volunteer firefighter who’d moved to Charleston from Virginia after losing two friends in a terrible hunting accident. He had a clean driving record, no outstanding warrants, and had never declared bankruptcy. Duke looked like a solid guy. I switched off the monitor, content to give my mother the green light on Phoebe’s new beau. With any luck, they’d settle down, spit out a kid or two, and get Mom off
my
back.

The doorbell rang, signaling the arrival of dinner.

I paid the delivery boy, and then brought the order into the kitchen. “Shane, I’m gonna need you to do me a favor.”

“Forget it,” he answered without hesitation.

“Hey! I’m doing this stupid ceremony for you. You owe me.”

He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Fine. What?”

“I need you to call me at six o’clock, make that quarter till six, tomorrow night.”

“Ah, an escape clause.” He nodded. “No problem.”

“Thanks.” I dove into my box of chicken.

“Whatever,” he replied in a nearly perfect imitation of my earlier remark. “I’m going to go to bed. I need to get my beauty sleep.”

“There aren’t enough hours in the day,” I joked.

“Ha-ha.”

“I’m going to stay up for a while. I want to see if the number of the credit card they gave Lisa is in the file anywhere. If it is, I can put a trace on it, see if anything hits.”

He nodded, chucked his empty paper cup into the trash, and headed upstairs.

I finished my chicken, grabbed a fresh cup of coffee, and sat back down at the computer.

***

The account number wasn’t in the file, but there was a receipt from a motel that used the old card slides. Using that number, I called the company and got an e-mail of the recent charges. Lisa had used the card to pay for lunch with her sister, but that was the last charge.  There was also no record of who’d ordered the card, but I did get the billing address. A law firm downtown.

Also in the file was an accounting of what Lisa was being paid and the reduction of debt owed by her husband. Almost every penny from her illicit activities was going to pay off a fifty-thousand-dollar debt Robert Welch owed to a bookie referred to only as 360.

I dug back into Robert Welch’s police file. Robert worked as an accountant for the law firm of Morris, King, and Deford. The name seemed familiar. Flipping back to the file from Xavier, I discovered why—a memo regarding a potential client for Lisa, a Judge Harris. It suggested that compromising photographs of said judge might be helpful in passing state legislation regarding a vampire registry bill, one of the many ideas circulating in congress.

The memo was on Morris, King, and Deford stationery. And the icing on the cake? Lisa’s credit card bills were being sent to M, K, and D.

A quick search confirmed the Council had ties inside the law firm, so many in fact, that I was beginning to believe the entire firm was a front for Council activities. I’d always believed that lawyers were blood-sucking demons. Now I had proof.

So Robert was working for the company responsible for coercing his wife into a life of prostitution. His alibi for the time she went missing was airtight. But was that by design? I was beginning to suspect that the grieving husband knew more than he was admitting.

Before I even opened the door to my childhood home, I could smell Mom’s homemade lasagna. The house was a modest one, by Charleston standards at least, two stories tall with gray-and-white siding and a burgundy door. It had nothing on the massive, old plantation houses or the towering homes in the downtown area where I lived. My parents lived a few miles outside of town in a place called Ridgeville. Out in the boonies, my mother always joked. It wasn’t that far from the truth. The yard was enormous, five acres fenced in, the only opening a large, iron gate at the head of the driveway that opened by electronic keypad. It was the home my great-grandparents had moved into just before they died, and it’d been in the family ever since. My Great-Grandpa Thaddeus hadn’t been rich by any means, but his wise investments had bought this house and still managed to bring in enough, when combined with my father’s pension, to at least pay the taxes and monthly utilities.

I’d barely stepped over the threshold when my younger sister Sarah launched herself at me, wrapping me in an enthusiastic hug. I squeezed back, grateful that her time at UCLA had left her exterior, at least, unchanged. In a family full of dark-haired, short-ish Italian women, Sarah looked out of place. Thin, straight, strawberry-blonde hair was twisted into a bun at the crown of her head. Even without makeup, her face was flawless and pale, compared to her light blue eyes. When we’d been little, I’d teased her that she was adopted. Sarah had cried for hours. So did I… after my dad got through tanning my hide for it.

“When did your flight get in?” I asked as I squeezed my little sister.

“This morning.” Clinging to me, she whispered, “Please help me,” into my ear.

I rolled my eyes.
Mom must be in one of her moods again
.

“Sarah,” Mom called from the kitchen, “run and get the good salad forks out of the china hutch, will you, dear?”