Harlequin Nocturne September 2014 Bundle: Beyond the Moon\Immortal Obsession (34 page)

“Are you like your brother, then?”

Anxiously, he tossed the cell phone she had dropped in the alley from one of his hands to the other. Madison would be missing her phone, but for the time being, it was the only piece of her accessible to him. It was another link, if he chose to use it.

Restless, St. John shifted on his feet, forced to think ahead. It didn't take a master to predict how the Hundred's thoughts would go. Getting rid of Madison would be necessary if she showed her face again at
Space
waving sharpened sticks and muttering the word
monster.

If she, as a media insider, came sniffing around, an edict would be issued that she had to be dealt with, from the same beings trying so hard to blend in with society.

Hell, it was not only dangerous for him to see her again, but crazy to do so. This was an untimely distraction that threatened his agenda, when he had spent several years shoring up his own well-cultivated place in the vampire community in order to flesh out the identity of the one traitor that had infiltrated the Hundred.

If Madison were to come nosing around, he'd be faced with a choice. Find that traitor, and let fate have Madison, or forget all the time and effort spent on finding that traitor and his degenerate vampire cult, in order to protect innocent mortals, and ultimately the secrets of his kind.

The situation was grim. Even so, he had to choose one of those options. He knew Madison well enough to guess she wouldn't back down on the issue of her brother.

St. John stiffened suddenly. His skin grew colder as his gaze moved to the detective who had placed a hand on Madison's arm. The man had stepped closer to her, offering comfort of sorts in a way that he, himself, could not do.

His fangs flashed. He gritted them in distaste.

And he knew why.

Christopher St. John, one of the seven Blood Knights fashioned for the task of protecting the sacred blood of the immortals, was experiencing a pang of jealousy that nearly choked him.

The little cell phone case snapped in his grip. An old curse left his lips.

A woman like Madison could no doubt have any man she wanted. But she was so much more than a
mere
woman. So much more than a beautiful face. Madison Chase was intrigue in a delicate package. She was light tinged with dark, a challenge and an enigma. She was the keeper of her own secrets, and the temptation of the damned.

And that hellish weapon taken from her brother's coat had made her awareness prickle, as it had his. It had opened her up to taking a second look at her brother's obsession.

Oh, yes. It was necessary for him to meet her again, if only to discover why his bond with her, his snare, so carefully set into place on that dance floor, had worked the other way around...ensnaring him.

His purpose for being in London had hit a fork in the road, a five-foot-six, redheaded fork in the road.

“Tonight,” he said, his attention riveted to Madison. “Tonight, if you are going to be foolish about this, I will be waiting for you. Be glad it's me, Madison.”

Chapter 8

“I
will be waiting for you.”

Had she heard that?
Couldn't have.

“Do you know what this is?” D.I. Crane asked, but she tuned out his voice in favor of the distraction that had come in the form of a disturbing mental touch; a whispered voice that struck like quick, exploring fingers, leaving her feeling violated, and vulnerable.

Trying to locate the origin of the voice that no one else seemed to have heard, Madison looked around, then up at the Eye. When the detective beside her removed his hand from her sleeve, she reluctantly returned her attention to him.

D.I. Crane gestured for Teddy to join them.

“We won't need you for anything else at the moment,” he told her as Teddy approached. “Why don't you get some breakfast.” To Teddy he said, “Where are you staying?”

“The Doncaster,” Teddy replied.

“Can you see that Miss Chase gets back there, and remain in the area in case we need something further?” the detective asked.

“No can do,” Teddy said. “We're off to work right now.”

“Ah, yes.” The detective glanced to the van and the crew standing beside it. “I forgot about the press call.”

When Madison glanced down, there was no awful pointed stake or leather jacket in the detective's hands. Another detective had taken them away, saving her from the unwanted scrutiny of her crew, if not the rest of the cops present.

“I'll be around,” Madison said. “There's more than one case to be solved here.”

“There usually is,” the detective concurred. “But we'll have questions, such as what your brother might have been doing here at the Eye, and when he left the jacket. I suppose you'd have no idea about that?”

Madison shook her head.

“Well, I'll be in touch, Miss Chase,” D.I. Crane said before walking off in the direction of the other officers.

“That was your brother's jacket in the detective's hand?” Teddy asked.

“Yes.”

“If they found it this morning, then your brother must have left it here.”

“Him, or someone else.”

“Are you okay with that, Madison?”

Stewart running. Being chased. Hurt. Limping here. Removing his coat to see whatever damage he'd been dealt. Leaving in a hurry...

Those flashes replayed in her mind, over and over in a continual loop. There was no way to be okay with that if the images were real. But were they real?

“I'm fine,” she said. “If it means my brother is alive, I can't begin to tell you how happy I am.”

But as she headed toward the van, Madison had to shake off a spooky chill of acknowledgment that the voice in her mind had just issued a warning for her to be careful.

“Are you like your brother, then? Don't be foolish....”

She could have sworn she heard those words, and tried to shake off the notion that there was one too many sets of eyes on her back.

* * *

“There are press teams here from all over the world,” Madison said on camera, holding a microphone in both hands and trying to keep herself together after the shock she'd had.

“It's a good start on the Yale Four case. With all this coverage, surely someone will come forward with a tip, a break.”

She held up a piece of paper and moved it closer to the lens.

“We've just learned that the reward for the missing girls has been bumped up to a million dollars, and that the prime minister will formally announce this in a live interview this morning. That interview will take place in less than one hour. We will be covering his speech, keeping you informed and updated on all the efforts to find those girls.
Our
girls. For now, this is Madison Chase for CRTS Television.”

Teddy gave her a nod as the camera lowered. “Good sentimental call at the end there with the
our girls.
It's possible the prime minister might mention your brother eventually.”

Now that the camera had been turned off, Madison's insides were churning. Stewart might have been alive that very morning. He might be hurt. She needed to find him, do something, and was stuck here for a few more hours.

“We have time for breakfast if we can find a restaurant close by,” Teddy said. “I've been more or less ordered by that detective to make sure you eat. I think he liked you.”

Madison shook her head. “You go. Take the guys. I feel like walking.”

Both of them turned as noise broke out above the din of several other crews talking things over. In the span of seconds, the area around them fell silent, and a whole bunch of interested faces focused on the ruckus going on in front of the Parliament building.

Teddy grabbed and hoisted the camera, already focusing as he strode that way.

Madison took a step, stalled, whirled back, drawn by the strangest sensation of being called.

She saw him. Her mysterious stranger from the club stood in the shadow of an open doorway, looking as tall and chic and intimidating as he had the night before. Maybe more so, because of her nocturnal fantasies about him.

The arch over the doorway kept his features hidden. If he saw her, he made no move to indicate recognition. But she knew him without the necessity of a close-up. Her nerves had begun to vibrate with a low-pitched hum. Her heartbeat ramped up to a tempo she didn't like and sure as hell didn't appreciate when the guy's scent still clung to strands of her hair.

“Teddy.”

Her cameraman pivoted back with a nimble camera-balancing act.

“Can you get the front of that pub on tape?” she asked.

Teddy did so, then took off with the others.

“Got you for posterity,” she said, swinging around to find that the man of her secret nighttime desires had already gone.

Running after him as fast as her wounded feet would carry her, Madison stumbled into the crowded pub, where at eight in the morning news crews from all over the world were killing time until the prime minister's speech.

New and familiar faces were swapping anecdotes, information and jokes. In spite of the seriousness of the press call, these seasoned veterans of the information highway knew how to relax when time allowed—a necessity to their health and well-being in a job that detailed loss and sadness on a daily basis.

Lots of faces glanced her way, none of them the one she sought. The mystery man had given her the slip. Yet if he wanted to avoid her after the alley escapade, why had he been here?

Leaning against a portion of the long, gleaming, mahogany bar, Madison looked around for a back exit. He liked those.

Conversations ceased abruptly as someone else entered the pub. Her attention strayed to the front door, where a man had stopped. His gaze found hers. He headed toward her.

“Miss Chase,” D.I. Crane said in a lowered tone.

“Detective,” Madison acknowledged with another unwelcome jump of nerves.

“Would you please come with me?” he said.

Everyone on the room listened with the uncanny instinct all newscasters and journalists possessed for a potential story in the making.

Madison frowned. “Have you found something else?”

“Please,” he said. “Step outside for a minute.”

She preceded him to the door, then to the sidewalk, where two other officers waited.

“What is it?” she asked, really antsy now.

D.I. Crane pulled an item from another ziplocked plastic evidence bag he was handed.

Good Lord, had they found something else?

When the item in the detective's hand appeared, Madison was so taken aback with relief, she almost laughed. He was holding up one of the silver shoes she had lost.

“Yours?” he asked, addressing, she assumed, the surprise written all over her face.

“Yes. Where did you find it?”

“Where did you lose it?”

“Somewhere between a club called
Space
and the street beside it.”

He nodded. “You're sure this is your shoe.”

Madison looked to his other empty hand. “Hell, do you only have one of them?”

“Only one.” He held it higher for her inspection.

“It's mine. Would you like me to try it on, like Cinderella, to prove it?”

“Would you do that?”

She was glad he grinned. Until that moment, she hadn't been sure folks in the law-enforcement profession were capable of humor.

“I kicked the shoes off so that I could run faster,” she explained.

The detective's right eyebrow went up quizzically.

“The hour was late. I had to get back to my hotel and couldn't find a cab.”

This, she realized, was known as withholding information from the police. Private, personal information about her hunt for her brother, and the man she'd found instead in the club her brother believed housed creatures that went bump in the night. All these things were best left out of any conversation with the authorities.

“You just left your shoes behind?” D.I. Crane asked.

“After three drinks, let's just say I lost them, and leave it at that,” Madison said.

Crane's grin thinned out. “We thought the shoe might belong to one of the missing girls until one of your roaming cameramen identified it. I wonder how he would know what you wear?”

“A lot of people have seen me in those shoes, on more than one occasion.”

“That's what the guy from your crew confirmed when he saw the shoe arrive at the Eye.”

“I'm sorry it doesn't help on the Yale case. We would all like to come up with a clue as to their whereabouts. After finding my brother's coat, I understand why you jumped on this.”

The detective shrugged. “Is the shoe expensive?”

“You have no idea.”

“In that case, we'll keep a lookout for the other one.” He handed her the silver stiletto.

“I'll offer a reward if you do,” Madison said.

D.I. Crane made to turn without quite getting all the way around. “May I offer some advice, Miss Chase?”

“I'm all ears, Detective.”

“That club,
Space,
isn't the best place for tourists.”

“Has there been trouble?”

“Lately, it seems there has been trouble everywhere.”

The detective dug into his pocket for something, and handed her a business card. “You can reach me at this number, day or night, if you want to talk about your brother. We are looking for him, Miss Chase.”

“I'm glad to hear it,” Madison said.

He had more to say and wasn't shy about getting to it. “I'd prefer you heed my advice about that nightclub and the others around it. And if you lose more shoes, please let me know before we get our hopes up.”

“I'll do that.”

Wearing a good rendition of the perfect cop face, the detective said, “It's getting to be a habit...finding bits of your family's clothing lying about.”

“At least I'm not missing.”

“Not yet, at any rate.”

The detective left her with that cryptic remark. Yet it wasn't his warning that tugged at her senses; it was the feeling that the mysterious stranger was somewhere nearby, and that she hadn't been entirely out of his sight since they'd met.

Her sigh was one of exasperation. A handsome, brazen stranger and a cryptic cop? What the hell was going on in London?

She should have been more concerned about the cops actually helping to find her brother than wondering about that stranger, and the fact that the words she heard in her head had become like the melody of a subliminal song.

“Don't be foolish...”

“Yes, well, I'll try not to disappoint you,” she said aloud, earning a wary smile from an innocent passer-by. “And I'll raise you one pointed stake.”