the pooch on that choice. Second chances weren’t things she spared anyone, least of all a man in law enforcement. Maybe the power went to their heads, but she had yet to meet one with an ounce of sense or ethics. She’d been damaged enough by men like that. Besides, hot men were easy enough to come by.
If you worked with models.
What the hell was she doing? No work was getting done this way. As she reached for the intercom to check in with Piper, the phone rang.
“All right, sweetie, got you Denton and Campbell to take the investigation. They’re verifying identity and hunting down the kid’s application. Photos are back, most of them anyway. I’m sending digitals your way. The dicks—ha-ha, thought you’d get a kick out of that—are getting the prints.” Piper took a deep breath, finally, but cut Alice off before she could speak. “I’m going to dinner. How’s sushi?”
“It’s only dinnertime?”
“Dinner number two.”
Alice offered a weak laugh. “Right. Like I could leave. I haven’t even called Glenn yet.”
“So? He’s as useful as a bellybutton.”
No disagreement there . “So I can get out of answering all these messages from the media. He’d jump at the chance to deal with them.” Being the center of attention had never been one of Alice’s favorite pursuits. “You should know. They’ve been calling your line.”
“You mean your line. You have to eat sometime, Alice. You’re like a tiny bird. It’ll only take a bread crumb to fill you up.”
“Jealous? Anyway, I can’t leave. I’ll pick up something bigger than a bread crumb on the way home.”
“Yes, Boss.” And then the little hooker hung up. Boss? Really? Piper was begging for a little retribution.
Alice fortified herself with the luxury of a soda from her mini-fridge before making the call to Glenn. All he cared about were the media messages, but she gladly passed them on. Delegation, of course. Not like she was camera shy or anything. With that business out of the way, she opened her e-mail to view the pictures.
Clearly, this wasn’t a blooding case. First, the vic wasn’t human, despite what she’d told Killian. Second, though the boy had been bled out, there was minimal blood on the scene, which meant the killer moved the body. She’d know more about the primary murder scene when the detectives pulled the transformation records. And finally, candle wax circling the body indicated some sort of ritual had occurred.
The neighbors hadn’t seen nor heard anything prior to the body being found by a transient seeking shelter. No luck with eyewitnesses. No luck period.
Her only option was to interview the vampires responsible for the kid’s transformation. Which meant talking to Killian. As much as she’d love to leave that part to Denton and Campbell, she didn’t trust the agents. They’d give in to Killian’s bullying.
With a yawn, Alice stretched and then leaned on the edge of her desk. A final e-mail from Piper appeared in her queue. She didn’t want to open it. It was the unholy crevice of night, and she had enough trouble getting up in the mornings as it was. Who knew what other pleasant little surprises were in store?
Guess she was a glutton for punishment. She clicked on it, and it was exactly the information she needed. The kid had been housed on the estate of a Dominus named Ander. Just Ander. No last name. The guy had to be older than the pyramids. The e-mail didn’t say whether Ander had been the one to transform the kid from human to vampire.
It crossed her mind for all of a second to call Killian, but it was a very, very short second. She’d contact him in the morning when there was no chance he’d answer. No deep voice rumbling in her ear and making her spine quiver. It was really hard to hate a man’s guts when your spine was aquiver.
With a stream of self-recrimination rolling like a script through her head, she ran a quick Google search on Ander. She’d never heard of him before,