Page 60 of Bad Luck Vampire

Alasdair’s head went back a bit in surprise. “How could that be? I drove it here. They had to have been connected.”

“When ye drove here, aye,” Inan said.

“Well, then, how...” Alasdair paused as understanding sank in. “Someone detached the cables in the few minutes between when I parked and came into the building, and when Sophie and I went back out?”

All six men nodded.

Alasdair considered that. He hadn’t been inside long. He’d had to wait a couple minutes for an elevator to arrive on the ground floor to take him up. Maybe a little more than a couple minutes, he realized thinking back. Long enough for four or five people to arrive and join him at the elevator, which had then stopped at three different floors on the way up before he’d ridden the last couple of floors alone. But Sophie had been coming out of the apartment as he’d arrived. He hadn’t had to wait for her, and he’d held the elevator for her so they hadn’t had to wait for its return to ride down. All told it had probably been between eight and twelve minutes.

No, Alasdair thought suddenly. He was forgetting the stop in the mail room and the chat with her elderly neighbor. He might have actually been inside for twenty minutes or more. And he hadn’t bothered to lock the SUV because he’d known he wouldn’t be long.

Still, twenty minutes wasn’t that long. How long would it have taken for someone to—

“It wouldn’t have taken more than a minute, maybe two to pop the hood, loosen the nuts, and remove the cables,” Colle said dismissively, making it obvious he’d heard his thoughts.

“But the engine would have been hot if he’d just driven all the way in from the Enforcer house,” Tybo pointed out.

Colle nodded. “Then whoever did it must have had heat resistant gloves or something with them.”

“It was well planned, then,” Alasdair commented.

“Aye,” Inan agreed. “Most people don’y carry around wrenches and heat resistant gloves.”

The men all grunted agreement, including Alasdair, and then he sighed and said, “So... someone didn’t want Sophie and I to go to Niagara Falls.”

There was silence as many glances were exchanged and then Colle said, “I think it’s a bit more than that.”

“More how?” Alasdair asked at once.

“Someone T-boned the passenger side of the tow truck on the way back to the Enforcer house,” his twin announced.

Alasdair’s gaze sharpened on Colle. A tow truck had been needed to tow the SUV back to the Enforcer house. Unfortunately, that wasn’t something the Enforcers had in their garage. A mortal tow truck service had had to be called in. But since there was both blood and weapons in the SUV, as there was in every Enforcer vehicle, someone had been needed to keep an eye on the driver during the process to ensure he didn’t snoop.

Alasdair had expected to do it himself, but Mortimer had said no, he didn’t have a vehicle for him to use to return to town until the SUV had been repaired, which would ruin his planned trip. He’d said he’d send one of the guys to ride with it instead.

Apparently, Colle had had trouble sleeping and had gone downstairs just as Mortimer was trying to decide who to send. His brother had volunteered for the job. He’d then caught a ride to Sophie’s apartment with Bricker, one of the other Enforcers who had been on his way home after his shift.

Colle had told him all of that when Alasdair had taken the keys down to him. Alasdair had then kept him company in the lobby for a few minutes until the tow truck had arrived. When Colle had headed out to join the driver at the SUV, Alasdair had returned upstairs to Sophie’s apartment, thinking it was all good and the SUV was taken care of. Obviously not, though. They’d been T-boned, Colle said, and on the passenger side, where Colle would have been seated.

“How bad?” he asked with concern.

“The driver’s dead,” Colle said solemnly.

Alasdair sucked in a breath, his gaze now sliding more carefully over his brother. If the driver had died, Colle had no doubt been one hell of a mess and only alive now because he was immortal.

“Yeah, it was bad,” Colle said grimly, obviously picking up on his thoughts.

The men all nodded, and Inan said, “He was in e’en worse shape this afternoon than you were last eve. He was half-encased in metal, but somehow managed to call the house fer help.”

“And thank the sweet Lord fer that,” Connor said grimly. “If there’d no’ been Enforcers in the area and mortals had come upon him first...” He shook his head.

“He only finished healing an hour ago,” Tybo told him grimly.

The simple words told Alasdair all he needed to know. It had taken Colle twice as long to heal as he himself had needed after the hit and run. It had been really bad.

“By then Russell had checked the SUV engine and found the battery cables had been detached,” Connor told him, and then explained, “The SUV was no’ much hurt in the crash. The front passenger side of the tow truck took all the damage.”

Alasdair shook his head, thinking about the unknown tow truck driver. Now dead. And Colle must have suffered terrible pain after the accident. “What about the driver of the vehicle that hit you? Surely their vehicle wasn’t drivable after that?”

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