Page 11 of Be Very Quiet

“Follow me to my lair,” Tyler said. Melman spun around and raced for the offices.

“Me too,” Kai said, zipping after the other robot and overtaking him.

Luca felt silly chasing after two iPads on sticks, but he jogged to catch up with Melman and Kai. Kai peeled off and rolled toward BeBe Davis’s offices with a wave. Luca and Melman descended to the underground domain where Tyler’s office was located. He would’ve been able to find out the information he was looking for on his own, but it would only take Tyler a matter of minutes.

“Melman, recharge,” Tyler ordered the robot. It backed up, turned, and docked itself in a port against the wall. Amazing. It was like a tall, thin Roomba.

“What’s up, Luca?”

“I need you to run a phone number.” He recited the digits.

“It’s an office line at the Fitness Academy of Miami Beach.” His fingers flew over the keys. “Owned by Liliana Lima.”

Liliana owned her own business. Luca wasn’t surprised. She was amazing.

“Can you look up recent crimes in the last forty-eight hours in the Miami area? I’m specifically looking for a murder where the blood was drained from the body.”

“A Dracula killer, huh? Gruesome.”

“Something like that,” Luca muttered. Ted Rader had been a sadistic son-of-a-bitch. He’d raped and tortured his victims before killing them. There had been no trace of him for a decade. Surely, he hadn’t come back—

“Got one.”

Luca jerked his gaze to the monitor as Tyler accessed the story. Tyler’s printer kicked on, and he swiped the sheets and handed them to Luca. He scanned the article about the killing.

“Where is Lenox Avenue compared to Miami Beach?”

Tyler typed keys with rapid-fire precision. “Dead smack in the middle.” Tyler eyed him speculatively. “This means something to you?”

“It does. I worked a similar case a decade ago in Minnesota.”

“I’ll dig up the police reports and send them to your phone.”

“Thanks, Tyler. I appreciate it.”

Luca took the steps two at a time to the top floor where the bosses’ offices were located. Once he had Luke and Logan together, he explained the situation, going into detail about what had happened ten years ago, including Liliana’s involvement. He left out the part where he’d fallen madly in love with her. “I need to go down there and check it out.”

“I remember that case,” Luke said. “It stood out because of the perp’s methodology in draining the blood from his victims. He was never found?”

“No.”

As Luca expected, they instantly understood how important it was to him and offered unconditional support.

“Assess the situation, and if you think there’s a threat, we’ll send other agents to assist,” Logan told him.

“Take whatever you need from the supplies,” Luke added. “Keep us posted.”

Luca left the offices and headed to gather equipment. The murderer could turn out to be a copycat who had resurrected Rader’s killing methods. Or maybe it was happenstance that some sick bastard had raped and strangled women before draining their blood. The actual likelihood that it was Ted Rader was slim. There had been no sign of him in a decade. If he were alive, he’d have been killing. Still, Luca wasn’t taking chances, especially since it had happened close to where Liliana lived now. Seemed like an odd coincidence.

Luca paused with his arm outstretched. Liliana. Just hearing her name caused a rush of emotions to flood through him. He’d met her during the worst time of her life. He’d been a brash, twenty-two-year-old rookie on the police force; she’d been a twenty-year-old junior in college. Luca and his partner at the time, Richard Wells, had responded to the call and were first on the scene. The perp, Ted Rader, had sprayed bullets to keep them at bay, then shot Liliana as a diversion to escape. He and Richard had returned fire, and one bullet had tagged Rader in the face. Luca had stayed with Liliana while Richard had gone after him, but he’d lost him in the woods. Scent dogs followed a substantial blood trail, but it ended at a lake, where they assumed he’d stashed a boat. Rader was never found, nor had he turned up at hospitals within a thousand-mile radius. Authorities deduced the wounds had been fatal.

A bullet had grazed Liliana in the side, leaving a deep groove, and she’d suffered a bruised cheek and black eye. Luca had visited her in the hospital and sat with her for hours until her family arrived. He thought he’d slip out unnoticed, but Liliana wouldn’t let him leave. She’d been traumatized and afraid to go out in public, fearing Rader would find her. Luca had taken time off he hadn’t yet accrued to be with her the next week while she healed, and he had escorted her to her roommate’s funeral. He’d been crushed, but not surprised, when she’d told him she’d dropped out of school and was moving away.

Desperation had overtaken him that night, and he’d kissed her with all the passion he’d kept leashed inside. The kiss had been intense, carnal. Luca knew that if he didn’t stop, he wouldn’t be able to, so he’d summoned all the restraint he possessed and stepped back. He’d given her his contact information but hadn’t heard from her in the ten years since.

Luca had loved her the minute he’d spotted her in Rader’s clutches. Spending the next week with her had cemented the feelings. When she had left, he felt as if half of him had gone with her.

The passing of time had lessened the pain. At first, he’d thought of her hourly, then daily. That had morphed into weekly, and eventually, months would pass. It’d been years since he’d thought of her until she unexpectedly popped into his head as he watched Quinn Billings and Vanessa Lacroix together. It’d happened a couple of times since, the most recent being when Colt Fontaine and Willa Ashford had fallen in love.

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