Page 14 of Countdown to Murder
“Honestly, Miss MacKenna, I’d feel better if we had you in a room with one or maybe two windows, and a door. There are nineteen windows in your bedroom, and another dozen in your closet and master bath. No one has been walking with you into those spaces, and we need to rethink that.”
“The prior owner put a saferoom suite in the basement, but I get claustrophobic down there. I might be able to survive for twenty-four hours there if you haven’t captured him by Halloween, but I’ll probably freak a few hours in.” She sighed. “I’m not opposed to being sedated though, if that’s the only way to assure my safety.”
I shook my head. “We’ll find an option you can live with, ma’am. Another room in the house I feel is more easily defensible. Perhaps one of the guest bedrooms on the second floor?”
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I pulled it out and looked at it. Jones, using the encrypted app, meaning therewas something to tell me he didn’t want the other Drake people to know about until he’d told me. Not good.
“Yeah.”
“The cook’s helper is dead. He drank from her and then let her bleed out. Fang marks. I’m going to cut them out so we can call it in. Do you want to see the body first?”
“Pictures first, with a ruler. Take measurements. I’ll call it in from up here. I don’t want to let Miss MacKenna out of my sight.” Which was shorthand for him to document the scene, send it to control through the encrypted app, and then wipe the images from his phone.
“I’m assuming two sets?”
“Yes, and put two of your men on the cook.”
“Copy that.”
I hung up and braced myself for whatever reaction the client gave us.
“Your stalker has upped the game. He killed the assistant cook. I’m going to have to call the FBI agent assigned to your case. I don’t know if they’ll use their own crime scene people, or whether they’ll want to use local talent for that and the autopsy. Either way, there are going to be a lot of people here.”
I saw the fear rising, and then saw her turning it into anger. Not necessarily the worst way to go, but we’d have to deal with whatever came out, and I had a feeling the anger would be directed at us instead of the vampire.
“I’m paying a fortune for you to have nineteen people here guarding me, and you’re telling me he killed one of my employees!? What the fuck am I paying you for!”
“We don’t have a twenty-four-hour guard on your people, ma’am. We assumed you were his target. We’ll put all of your people in rooms near the one you go into, so we can more easily guard everyone on the premises.” Should we have tried to chase him?No. There was no way to know where he’d flown when he left the attic.
She shook her head. “No. I’ll send my people away.”
I nodded. “If you send the cook away, it means one of our people will cook for all of us, but it also means it’s fewer people for us to have to protect. It’s mostly a wash as far as we’re concerned, so that works. We’ll ask the FBI to get them safely onto a plane and out of here. I assume you’ll send them home on your plane?”
“Of course.” She leaned back. Deflated. “He followed us here despite your people trying to lose him. I thought it would give me at least a few days without him. If he can find me here so quickly, he can find me anywhere.”
He’d found her here because he’d seen her thoughts while in Miami. If we took her to a Drake safehouse and made certain only those with super-strong shielding knew about it, we could get her away from him, but she’d eventually have to go back out into the world, so we needed to take care of him. He was here, now we just had to kill him.
And there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that was the only way to deal with the bastard.
I looked at my watch — just under an hour until dawn. Jones had arrived early the previous morning, and the client along with the five people who’d been guarding her in Miami had landed at the airport an hour before sunset, when the vampire couldn’t easily move around. His people could move him inside of a lightproof box, but it’s a bulky workaround.
The vampire had likely arrived during the night and had come to scout the property before the dawn took him. By now, he was probably headed back to wherever he was bedding down for the day. His people would be mindfucked into following his orders without even considering doing otherwise, which meant we may eventually have to deal with humans or shapeshifters during the day.
“This guy prefers the cover of darkness and has never been active during daylight hours,” I told the client. “Doesn’t mean he won’t be, but I’m inclined to keep everyone active for another thirty minutes, and then we’ll head to the second floor with you, Ma’am.”
Once the other civilians were gone, I intended to make the first, third, and fourth floors off limits, and I’d put cameras and motion detectors in. I might be able to do the same with a portion of the second floor. I’d put men in thestairwell at each floor, prepared to jump into action if a motion detector went off.
I looked to Mira, wishing I could ask her if she’d had more attempted contact, and she must’ve known what I was thinking, because she turned her head right and then back to center a teeny bit.
I looked back to the client. “My notes say you’ve been sleeping during the day?”
“Yeah. I tend to be a night owl anyway, and this asshole has made it so I’m scared to sleep at night. Ember stays with me during the day when I sleep.”
“Either Ember or Mira will be with you at all times, and possibly another guard as well. Do you have a specific guest room in mind, or can we pick?”
“There’s a corner guest room with a bigger master bath, but I guess that means more windows for you to guard, so I’ll let you figure it out. I prefer one with a queen or king-sized bed, and I’ll assume you want me in one with a private bathroom, which would also be my choice. There are fourteen guest bedrooms on the second floor, ten have their own bathroom and the rest share a bathroom between them, one bathroom for every two bedrooms.”
“Actually, if I can put guards in a bedroom attached to your bathroom, it gives us another entry to protect you. They won’t enter unless activity is picked up.”
