Hope and Vengeance (Saa Thalarr, book 1): Saa Thalarr, book 1 (5 page)

"You got it." Joey finished his work and pulled the flash drive out before shutting down the computer. "There. He'll never know we were here."

Joey and I wore gloves—that was standard in any investigation. Leave no trace behind—we'd been taught that early on. I allowed Joey to leave first, then locked the door from the inside and concentrated on turning to mist. Neither Cheek nor the security guard would ever know we'd been there.

* * *

"This doesn't explain the bite marks on the bodies," Xavier pointed out when I phoned him and explained what we'd found. Dawn was approaching in England and Xavier would be forced to end the conversation quickly.

"I know," I said between clenched teeth. Nearly two hundred twenty years after my turning, Xavier still treated me like an ignorant dolt.

"Then find an answer," Xavier's voice was clipped as he rang off. I cursed softly as I tossed my cell onto the kitchen counter.

"Thanks for updating the bathroom. It's less ugly now," Joey said from his chair at the tiny kitchen table. He continued to wade through records filched from Roy Cheek's computer on his laptop.

Much of Joey's luggage had been equipment. There were no bag limits on the Council's jet and the back of the SUV had been filled with Joey's things when I picked him up. A portable printer was connected to his laptop and he'd printed several lists, correlating names and dates of disappearances. I now had a more comprehensive list than the one Anna had shown me.

"You're welcome," I muttered to Joey. Xavier's words still rankled, and this wasn't the first time Joey had overheard Xavier dressing me down. I was Chief of Enforcers but in Xavier's eyes, I would always be his inept child. Joey was politely telling me, in a backhanded way, that anything Xavier said was worth ignoring.

"I know you love me," Joey teased, keeping his eyes on the laptop screen. I laughed.

* * *

Joey and I stared at the huge black man who stood inside Anna's condo when we arrived the following evening. Anna introduced him as Lion Kleander. Taller than I was by three inches and built of solid muscle, Lion handed me a look that might have made me quail if I hadn't been vampire.

"Lion is helping with the investigation," Anna informed me after inviting us to sit at her small table. "He's been asking Kirby Lee's neighbors what they saw." Joey and I sat and listened as Lion explained that a teen boy had seen someone backing Bill Gordon's boat out of the garage the night before Bill's disappearance.

"It wasn't Bill Gordon," Lion's voice was deep and even. He didn't have an accent; nevertheless, I felt (and I couldn't explain why) that English wasn't Lion's first language. "And then something changed hands between the stranger and Kirby Lee," Lion added.

"Why don't the police have this information?" I asked. It hadn't been in the report I'd been given.

"The kid who saw the transaction sneaked out to meet with friends, and he smelled of marijuana." Lion flashed a wide grin. "I got the idea he'd be in trouble with the law and his parents if he volunteered that information."

"Then how did you convince him?" Joey asked. He and I were wondering how (without compulsion) Lion had gotten the information.

"You'd be amazed what a gift card to the local electronics store will accomplish," Lion's deep chuckle rumbled in his chest.

"So, Kirby Lee may have sold her husband's boat," I worked through the information we'd been given.

"And we know, just by looking at the garage, how much he loved his boat," Anna's hazel eyes locked with mine.

"You think she sold the boat to put a down payment on her new car, because she didn't have a job. How did she get approval for the loan?" I asked. "They wouldn't have approved the loan without collateral of some kind. And when did she get the car?"

"She purchased the car two days after her husband was reported missing, so she didn't use his information to secure the loan," Lion said. "But we don't have an answer as to how she managed to buy the car."

"That may be the question we answer next," Anna sighed. "In the meantime, there's this." She shoved a newspaper in my direction.

"What's this?" I asked, lifting the paper. An article was circled in red on the front page of a Corpus Christi newspaper.

"The EPA is investigating Hartshorne Oil, that's what," Lion replied. "Seems they're oh, how do you put this—polluting everything in sight."

"They're cutting corners on keeping that shit from leaking into the air and soil," Anna muttered. I was shocked to hear profanity from her. "To save money," she added grimly.

I read the article, which stated that the Hartshorne refinery in Corpus Christi could be shut down if demands for a cleanup weren't met. Hartshorne's corporate officials were puzzled over the whole investigation and Roy Cheek, in an interview, claimed the refinery was doing everything it could to keep pollution at a minimum. At the end of the interview, Cheek accused the EPA of launching a witch-hunt and threatened to sue them.

"Cheek's trying to keep them away from the refinery," Joey muttered, reading over my shoulder.
Should we tell them what we found?
He asked mentally.

Not yet
, I cautioned.
Let's see what else they have first
. I had an idea that Anna hadn't told me everything.

"I want to drive down Padre Island tonight; I caught something on the police scanner—somebody reported bits of fiberglass washing ashore. I want to make sure it isn't Bill Gordon's boat," Anna stood and stretched. As she'd been sitting next to me, I almost reached out a hand to rub her back. The urge was automatic—almost reflex. I forced my hand to stay where it was.

"I plan to go to the auto dealership and ask questions," Lion said.

"Joey, go with Lion," I ordered, making decisions quickly. "I'll go with Miss Madden to search for debris." I wanted to make sure we would receive all the information collected by these two. And I would be forced to inform Xavier that another investigator was now muddying the waters.

"May I tag along?" Joey asked Lion. I hadn't bothered to ask; I'd become used to handing orders to those who served with me.

"Sure, kid," Lion grinned. Even with Joey's vampire strength, I imagined that Lion could sweep him off his feet with a single swipe of a very large and powerful hand. I blinked away the image and turned to Anna.

"May I come with you?" I asked.

"I was hoping someone would," she offered dryly.

* * *

Padre Island National Seashore is a national park, and we paid to drive onto the beach. Past a certain point, however, you are discouraged from driving on the beach unless you have a four-wheel-drive vehicle. The sand is too loose and the environment too wild for anything else. Anna and I drove onto the loose sand of the beach, traveled down its length for nearly four miles and still had another mile to go to reach our destination when Anna finally spoke.

"Stop the car, stop the car," she shouted. I hit the brakes while the SUV slid to a stop in loose sand. Not waiting to provide an explanation, Anna unbuckled her seat belt in a blink and straddled my lap in almost as much time. Slapping my seat belt when it didn't open immediately, she jerked my door open and pulled me from the driver's seat. "Run, you overgrown oaf!" she shouted and grasping my hand, proceeded to pull me away from the vehicle. When I was reluctant to break into a trot behind her, she shouted again. "Run!" She jerked on my hand urgently. I ran, without really knowing why. We'd gotten perhaps a hundred yards from the SUV when it exploded behind us, knocking us to the sand and sending bits of metal and debris raining down around us.

Chapter 3
 

Lifting myself off Anna, I groaned and sat up, the explosion still ringing in my ears. Anna was slower to rise; her face was smudged with dirt and sand clung to her clothing as she brushed hair away from her face.

"How did you know," I rasped before shaking my head and turning away. The gulf waters continued to sweep the sand behind us, oblivious to the near-loss of two lives.

I sighed. Bombs will kill vampires if the explosion is near enough. Whoever had set the explosives in my SUV intended for us to die. Somehow, Anna Madden had known of it beforehand and gotten us to safety before the explosion occurred.

"I'm sorry, my ears are still not right," Anna shook her head at me.

"Give them a moment," I leaned closer to say. She nodded. I struggled to my feet, then offered her a hand. Her fingers trembled slightly as she accepted my assistance.

After a brief disagreement over what to do first, we walked the last mile (in the dark) to find bits of fiberglass washing ashore. I called Xavier while we walked; surprisingly enough, he didn't ask many questions and agreed to arrange for another rental. I knew he'd demand an accounting later, when I was alone. I didn't look forward to it.

"See this," Anna pointed to a broken piece of fiberglass that had washed ashore. "The last three numbers match those on Bill Gordon's boat."

"Why would someone destroy it after going to so much trouble to buy it?" I asked as we began our trek back to the bombed SUV.

"Because everybody is looking for it, now," Anna shrugged. We left the piece on the sand where we'd found it; the local authorities would find it in the morning. My current worry was what to do with the remains of the SUV.

"I'll take care of it," Anna sighed as we approached the wreckage. The axle was a twisted pile of metal but still intact. It was the only thing that remained in one piece. Pulling a cell from the pocket of her jeans, Anna dialed a number.

Half an hour later, the local sheriff, a park ranger and two deputies climbed from an SUV marked with Corpus Christi PD decals on each side. The sheriff was young, perhaps in his mid-thirties, and he and Anna knew one another. She hadn't wanted to contact him, I could tell, as he touched her shoulder. She carefully stepped away. Just as well; I wanted to toss him into the gulf for putting a hand on her.

"What have you done this time to piss someone off, Anna?" he asked as he and his deputies surveyed my bombed rental. The park ranger ignored us and began photographing the scene.

"Only the usual," she shrugged.

"And who is this?" The sheriff now looked in my direction.

"Someone who is helping with my current caseload," she replied. "Adam, this is Sheriff Paul Anderson," Anna made introductions. I was obligated to shake hands with him. I wanted to growl as I did so. Schooling my face, I muttered pleasantries instead.

"Plates registered to a rental company," one of the deputies held up the remains of the SUV's license plate.

"Adam rented a four-wheel-drive to drive down the beach. One might assume that whoever is targeting me has seen us together. Therefore," Anna didn't finish her sentence.

"Therefore they made sure to cover all their bases," Sheriff Anderson supplied. "Where is your car, Anna?"

"In the parking lot where it normally sits, outside my condo," she replied.

"I'll send someone out to look at it," the sheriff offered. Anna nodded a reply. Eventually, after answering numerous questions for the official report, another vehicle arrived to take us away.

"So, Anna," Sheriff Anderson said as he prepared to close Anna's door. "Were those pieces washing up on the beach parts of Bill Gordon's boat?"

"Yes," she replied and pulled the door shut herself, leaving Sheriff Anderson standing there, wearing a puzzled frown.

"Where are you going?" I demanded later, after we cleaned up inside her condo. Our officer had dropped us off there and driven away. My suit was ruined—it bore stains from seaweed and anything else littering the beach. Anna changed clothes and looked much better than I did as she collected her car keys from a bowl on the kitchen island.

"Adam, I'm going for a drink. I don't normally do that, but tonight, I need one," she snapped, hazel eyes flashing a challenge in my direction. "If you want to come, then leave that jacket behind, roll up your shirt sleeves and let's go."

"The bars are only open for another hour," I pointed out as I dumped my ruined suit coat onto a barstool.

"Then I'll have to work fast to get drunk, won't I?" she offered a tight, false smile. I left a message on Joey's cell as we walked out the door.

* * *

The Beach Bum Bar hummed with late-night business. Shoes and shirts for men were optional, and many had taken advantage. Women wore bikini tops in many instances, and most of the patrons were in various stages of inebriation when Anna and I walked in. Country music thumped from an old-fashioned jukebox in a corner and few paid attention as we made our way to the bar and slid onto barstools.

"Anna, what brings you here? I haven't seen you in a year," the bartender said, setting napkins down in front of us.

"A close call," she admitted with a sigh. "I'll have a bloody Mary. Heavy on the vodka, Lonnie."

"Got it. And you?" He turned green eyes in my direction. Lonnie had sun-bleached, short brown hair, laugh lines and was in his early forties. He'd smiled too much at Anna, in my opinion.

"I'll have the same, with only a splash of vodka.
Lonnie
."

"Right-O, mate." Lonnie mimicked an Australian accent—badly. It wasn't the first time an American mistook my British accent for Australian. Truly, they had no ear for such. After my second century, I'd learned to ignore it. Before, it made me angry and often resulted in unnecessary compulsion and gleeful thoughts of the offender's death.

"You were serious, weren't you?" I stared as Anna drank half her bloody Mary in seconds.

"I wasn't kidding," she turned hazel eyes on me. "Alcohol destroys my shields, and I pick up all kinds of garbage. I believe you'd call that rubbish." She tipped her glass and finished off the rest of the drink, slapped the glass on the bar and nodded at Lonnie to bring her another.

Leaning against the bar, I watched her drink two more. Lonnie had been more than generous with the vodka and Anna's gaze was hazy as she stared at me.

"Adam," she motioned with a hand, asking me to move closer.

"What?" I leaned in, getting a whiff of tomato juice.

"You see that man at the end of the bar—the one with the blue shirt?" Anna hiccupped, making the corner of my mouth curl slightly.

"Yes, I noticed him earlier." I hoped she could hear me; the music was still loud inside the bar.

"You need to stop him. He's really drunk. If you don't stop him, he'll walk out of here, get in his truck and drive away. He'll kill a car full of kids two miles from here."

"What?" I now stared at Anna in alarm. "What do you expect me to do about it?" I leaned in closer to ask.

"Adam, you can do this. I know you can do this. Just keep him from driving away, all right?" Anna hiccupped again.

"I'm supposed to take you seriously when you're drunk enough to hiccup?" I leaned away to search her face.

"Please, Adam?" She begged me with her eyes and her words. Cursing under my breath and wondering what might have possessed me to even consider it, I followed the man outside when he slid off his barstool.

"You will sleep this off in your truck." I deftly plucked keys from shaking fingers as the drunk stared at me. The compulsion would hold, although he was completely pissed. Just to make sure, however, I tossed his keys into a weed-covered empty lot next door. He'd never find them in his current state.

Smelling of sweat and bourbon, the man obediently fumbled with the door of his truck. Sighing, I opened it for him, ordered him to roll down his window halfway and watched him climb inside the vehicle. As ordered, he fell asleep the moment his head dropped against the headrest. Closing the door on him, I left him snoring behind the wheel and went in search of Anna.

"Anna?" I leaned my mouth close to her ear—she'd propped her forehead against the bar.

"Adam, I'm drunk." She slurred her words.

"I know. I could smell you from the door," I teased.

"Hmmph," she muttered.

"Come on." I slapped a hundred on the bar and lifted her in a fireman's carry over my shoulder. We left the bar amid shouts and cheers.

* * *

"Here, you should drink this." I lifted a glass of water to Anna's lips. "It'll help with the headache tomorrow."

"Have some experience in the drunk department?" Anna had trouble focusing on my face. I'd set her on the sofa inside her condo, after driving her home. She'd slept most of the way, only waking for a few moments as I carried her into the condo.

"Long ago," I admitted. It had been; the last time I recalled being drunk had been with my younger brother at his stag party in 1790, only a few weeks before I was made vampire. I was twenty-seven when I was turned and until that time, my father worried that I'd never find a wife. Justin, my younger brother by two years, married first. My father, as it turned out, was right all along.

"I'll sleep here." Anna curled up on the sofa.

"I'll find a blanket," I murmured. After rummaging through a hall closet and finding nothing except a vacuum and a few jackets, I located Anna's bedroom. An extra blanket was tucked inside a cupboard within the walk-in closet. It surprised me, that closet. I expected more clothes to be hanging there. Instead, it was barely half-f, and I counted only six pairs of shoes.

"Were you disappointed?" Anna mumbled when I draped the blanket over her.

"No, sweetheart. Your keys are on the counter. Pleasant dreams." I walked away from her and closed the condo door softly behind me. I'd called her sweetheart. Where had that come from? Squaring my shoulders, I walked toward the stairwell, turned to mist when I determined I wasn't under camera surveillance and misted to Corpus Christi.

* * *

"Somebody was out late last night," Joey sang as I opened the fridge to extract a unit of blood the following evening. I stared at Joey over the refrigerator door.

"And you weren't out late as well?" I nipped the top off the unit and drank.

"I had a date. After Lion and I got done at the car dealership, anyway. I had an excuse. What's yours?" Joey's smile was smug as he watched me drink my meal.

"I also have an excuse," I retorted after emptying the bag and tossing it in a recycle bin. "Anna and I were almost blown to bits. Somebody put a bomb on my rental."

"What?" Joey stood abruptly, his mouth open in surprise.

"Exactly what I said. Xavier is arranging for another rental, and I'm sure there was a bit of difficulty with the rental agency." I smiled at the thought of Xavier having to explain everything.

"I can get us a rental if there's a problem," Joey sat down again. He'd been working at his laptop on the tiny kitchen table.

"Go ahead. It wouldn't hurt to have two," I nodded.

"I was thinking about checking on Roy Cheek again," Joey said. "The EPA shut down the refinery earlier today."

"What?" I was now the one surprised. I strode to Joey's side and read over his shoulder. He'd pulled up the online version of the local newspaper; the headline plainly stated that Hartshorne Oil's Corpus Christi refinery had closed that afternoon. The drilling platforms were still working, however, and plans were made to transport oil to another refinery in Louisiana.

"Anna was concerned about the work crews on the platforms. Too bad they weren't shut down, too," I remarked.

"What do you have planned for tonight?" Joey asked.

"I have an appointment with the local Packmaster. He has two of the bodies stored in a walk-in freezer. I'm going to examine them and take a few photographs."

"If you don't need me, I'll do some Roy Cheek watching."

"Go ahead. Rent two vehicles—use my credit card for mine," I pulled out my wallet and tossed a card on the table.

"All right," Joey said and pulled up a car rental website. "What do you want?"

"Get another SUV with four-wheel-drive. The last one came in handy."

"Until it got bombed," Joey snickered. "How close were you when it detonated?"

"I would have been in it, if not for Anna," I muttered and raked a hand through my hair. "I need to brush my teeth and call Xavier," I added.

I wasn't particularly enthusiastic about having the necessary conversation with Xavier. Anna's behavior was certainly far from normal, and whether she thought of herself as psychic or not, she certainly held talents associated with that gift. I worried that Xavier might be more interested in her than I wanted him to be.

I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror before brushing my teeth. I had my father's nearly black hair and my mother's gray eyes. When I was still human, I'd had no lack of female companions—if I wanted them. My brother often teased me about it; his hair, like my mother's, was a lighter brown. I often left the flock of tittering women with him and went to the stables to see to my horses.