Chasing Daybreak (Dark of Night Book 1) Read online

  “You think, super nose? Or are you sure?”

  He sat back. “I’m pretty sure.”

  “Do you know whose scent it was?”

  I knew that most vamps had a smell unique to them, and they could often recognize each other by the scent alone. Of course, Shane was a newbie and didn’t know many other vamps. At least as far as I was aware.

  He shook his head. “I didn’t recognize it. But if I could get a stronger whiff, like maybe from the car, then who knows?”

  I frowned. “I don’t think the husband is going to let us get anywhere near that car.”

  “So what are our options?”

  “I can think of one, but you aren’t going to like it.”

  “Why?” he asked, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.

  “Look, if I’m going to call in a favor this big on your hunch, I want to be sure it’s not a waste of time. So are you positive you scented vampire?”

  “Yes, one hundred percent. Who are you going to call?”

  “Ghostbusters,” I said sarcastically. Opening the file that held the photocopied info on the car, I picked up the phone. “I’m calling Tyger.”

  Shane slammed his hand on the cradle. “No, you’re not.”

  Patrick Wallis, aka Tyger, was one of my oldest friends. We’d been inseparable until we turned twelve and his lifestyle drove a wedge between us. By lifestyle, I didn’t mean a sudden desire to dress in Prada and sing show tunes.

  Currently, Tyger was the leader of a local motorcycle gang and had been in and out of jail more times than I could count. When I first took over the office, I was hired to look into a string of burglaries in the upscale side of downtown Charleston. Tyger was arrested for the crimes, but I eventually caught the real thief, a rival gang member trying to get him put away so he could usurp his leadership position. Tyger was grateful, and for a few days, I was really glad I’d been able to help him. That was, until the thief had been beaten almost to death while out on bail. I didn’t have any proof that Tyger was behind it, but I believed down to my toes he was. Calling to ask him for a favor was a risk. And from the look on Shane’s face, not one he wanted me to take.

  “Shane, it might be the only way to get our hands on that car. If you have any better ideas, I’m all ears.”

  I left it hanging in the air between us. If Shane was really on to something, then this might be our only lead. We could get a hold of the car or we were sunk before we began swimming. I could see from his expression that he was weighing the options.

  Finally, he made a dismissive motion with his hand. “Fine. Make the call.”

  The only number I had for Tyger was the bike shop he owned. They were closed, so I left a message asking him to call me.

  Behind me, Shane pulled out the rolling white board and cleaned it off. Together we reconstructed, as best we could, a time line of the day Lisa Welch disappeared.

  We worked until the scent of dry-erase markers started giving me a headache and the end result was less than impressive. The police had tracked Lisa’s day from eight AM, when she took her kids to school, up to four PM, when she called her neighbor. She said she was “running late” and asked if they could pick the kids up from the bus and keep them until she got home at five.

  Lisa Welch was never seen or heard from again.

  I stepped back, looking at the time line.

  “Okay.” I pointed. “She had lunch with her sister Marlene from eleven forty-five ‘til about one-fifteen. Marlene told police Lisa was agitated about something, but wouldn’t say what and didn’t mention anything about her plans for the rest of the day. Lisa paid for lunch, and they went their separate ways. Lisa’s car was found abandoned at eleven that night at the Old Town Mall.”

  “Do we have copies of the financials?”

  I rifled through the stacks of papers Reggie had allowed us to copy and tossed Shane the bank and credit card statements.

  “The police say there were no unusual charges on either the bank card or her Visa.” I continued tapping the dry-erase marker on my chin as Shane leafed through the statements.

  “Apparently, she didn’t pay for lunch either. At least, not with either of these accounts. Where did they eat?”

  I checked Marlene’s statement. “The Brand Steakhouse. Maybe she paid cash?”

  “Pricey place. When was the last time you paid for a seventy-dollar meal with cash?”

  “Good catch,” I stated, impressed. “It might be worth checking with the sister.”

  “Maybe Lisa had a credit card the husband didn’t know about. Especially if she were hiding something.”

  Shane was right. I’d seen that before. It was pretty common with cheating spouses for one to have a secret account. Heck, some had whole secret lives, including houses and cars.

  “I’ll call Marlene in the morning,” I offered.

  “No offense, but after the reaction you got from the husband, maybe I should take a stab at this one. The file says she waits tables down at Club Rouge off Peach Street. I could go work my charm on her.”

  I gritted my teeth. He was right again. Something about him had total strangers ready to spill their life stories to him. Even before becoming a vampire, he’d been charismatic. When you added the otherworldly aura, it was downright unsettling. At least to me. Everyone else found him irresistible.

  “Fine,” I agreed reluctantly.

  Shane flashed a dimpled smile and tossed me the marker he’d been holding.

  “Don’t wait up,” he hollered over his shoulder as he walked out of the office.

  Watching him leave, I hoped I was doing the right thing sicking him on Marlene. The poor girl probably wouldn’t know what hit her.

  Shane bounced in from Club Rouge just after three AM, looking like the cat that ate the canary. I raised my eyebrow as he talked.

  “…Marlene told me that good old Robert had a history of gambling problems. A few years ago, Lisa discovered some of her grandmother’s jewelry missing. She suspected Robert hocked it to play the ponies, or at least that’s what Lisa told her. Lisa made him start going to Gamblers Anonymous until he had it under control. Also, Lisa did use a credit card to pay for lunch.”

  “There wasn’t anything about this in the police file.” That surprised me. They’d dug into Robert Welch with a fine-tooth comb, even after his alibi cleared him as a suspect.

  “She said she’d totally forgotten about it until I asked about the credit card, because that day Lisa was wearing one of the missing rings. She noticed it when Lisa handed the card to the waitress.”

  I was impressed. “Well done, Shane. Anything else?”

  He grinned. “She asked me out this weekend. I had to let her down gently. The poor girl was totally into me.”

  I rolled my eyes. “That’s great. Tomorrow, I’m going to see if I can find out where the Gamblers Anonymous meetings were and talk to a few people there. It’d really help if you called your computer guy tonight to see if he could track Lisa’s movements from the steakhouse using the traffic cameras in the area. Also, according to the records, she used her cell phone to call and check her home messages at a little after two o’clock. Maybe he can do his tech voodoo and pinpoint where she was when she made the call.”

  Shane nodded. His one useful connection in the vampire world was Richard Clark. Richard was over a hundred years old and could make a computer stand up and sing Jimmy Buffet songs if he wanted it to. Oh, and he was kind of evil. Like, invented Wal-Mart evil. Shane and Richard had both been changed by a vampire named Irena Tarkeroff. It sort of made them brothers.

  “Sure. I’ll pay him a visit.”

  Did I mention that Richard was extremely paranoid and reclusive? I’d asked Shane once if I could meet the tech genius, but he’d told me Richard was dangerously unstable around humans. Too many years of feeding off them had left him with little in the way of self-control. And Irena wasn’t exactly the maternal type. She tended to turn and run, leaving her newbie vampires to fend for themselves. Luc
ky for Shane, he’d been found right away. Richard hadn’t been so lucky. According to Shane, Richard was changed and abandoned to roam the back alleys of London, feeding off street people. He was finally captured by the local Conclave in 1889 and caged until they could calm him—over fifty years later. Now he was a hermit, content to tinker with computers from the safety of his basement beneath Conclave.

  I didn’t ask to meet him again.

  With a nod of thanks, I clicked off my desk lamp. “I’m going to bed. I’m exhausted.”

  “Yeah, you should rest. You look like crap.” Shane snickered.

  Too tired to verbally shoot back, I locked up the office, trudged upstairs to my room, and crawled into bed.

  When I woke up the next morning, there was a note from Shane stuck to the already-brewing coffee pot.

  Isabel,

  I need to talk to you about the initiation next week. Please keep an open mind. Also, I left the street camera footage from Richard on your laptop. You can thank me later.

  ~Shane

  Shaking my head I poured myself a cup of hot coffee and opened the laptop Shane had left on the kitchen counter.

  The file was on the desktop labeled ‘Shane is Awesome,’ and proved to be a slide show of images from traffic cameras and ATM machines that ended with Lisa’s car parked outside The Broken Plow, a downtown antique shop. She was feeding the parking meter. With a silent thanks to Shane and Richard, I closed the screen, took another sip of coffee, and plotted my day.

  I started by going over the case files one more time. Before I knew it, noon had come and gone with no word from Tyger. I tracked down the Gamblers Anonymous group’s meeting place. For being anonymous, they really didn’t fly under the radar well. They had a full-page ad in the Yellow Pages. I scribbled the address on a sticky note.

  The group was meeting at the new headquarters for the Church of Redeeming Sacrifice. The CRS, an offshoot of several faiths, was openly opposed to the new vampire legislation some lawmakers were trying to push through. CRS members wanted to go back to the good old days where you could kill a vampire for no other reason than that they were soulless monsters who stood as an affront to God… yada, yada, yada. They weren’t the only faith to come out opposed to the vampires, but they were the only one I knew of actively hunting them down.

  So much for delegating this chore to Shane, I thought grumpily. In fairness, I might have been in a better mood, but I suspected he was spending his free time with his new girlfriend, and she got under my skin. So naturally, in my opinion, any time they spent together was a waste of it. That and Shane was supposed to be my partner. Leaving me to do the grunt work just sucked.

  The meetings were nightly at seven and open to anyone. I loaded up my purse with some of my new goodies and slipped my Glock into my back waistband holster. Pairing my faded denim jeans and white cami with a lightweight jacket just long enough to hide my gun, I was ready. My purse was small, so I could carry either an extra clip or lipstick. When you had to choose between makeup and ammunition, you knew your evening was off to a shaky start. With a quick glance in the mirror, I grabbed my bag and headed out. It was still early, but my first destination wasn’t someplace I wanted to visit in the dark.

  Maybe it was a good thing Shane wasn’t with me after all.

  Walking into Tyger’s motorcycle shop, I was glad I’d chosen the extra clip. One downside to having friends in places like this was that you weren’t always sure they were, in fact, your friends. Would the fact that once upon a time we’d dug mud caves together keep him from telling me to kiss his ass? I was hoping so. That and the fact that I occasionally bailed him out of jail.

  Trying to look more confident that I felt, I walked up to the counter, recognizing the man behind it. It was Brian ‘Tiny’ Rodriguez. He was about 6’9” and 360 lbs. of imposing. He’d earned the nickname Tiny the way a bald man became Harry or my uncle who’d lost three fingers in a sheet-metal accident had become Lefty.

  Tiny’s head was shaved so you got a full view of the snake tattoo that ran up his neck, around his ear, and up to the crown of his skull. Funny, it looked smaller in his mug shot.

  “Hey. I’m looking for Tyger.”

  “You found him,” a voice answered from the back room.

  I leaned over and saw him sitting at a workbench, packing bearings. With one finger, he motioned for me to come in. I did, closing the door behind me.

  Tyger wasn’t quite as impressive as Tiny, but he was close. A comfortable six-plus feet tall, he wore black jeans and a white wife beater smudged with grease and oil. He was ripped like a professional bodybuilder, the muscle so defined it was almost over the top. His freshly shaved scalp was decorated with a tribal tattoo that began somewhere on his back and ran up to his crown where it came to a spear point. He had enough silver hoops in his face to make a TSA agent cry, the largest being a bull ring through his septum. All that aside, when he smiled at me, we were nine again, and he was about to ask to share my pudding cup.

  “Isabel, it’s been a while. How’ve you been?”

  I sat down on the stool across from him. “Good. You? Keeping out of trouble, I hope.”

  He snickered, not looking up from the metal in his hands, but he didn’t answer.

  “I’m here because I need a favor,” I began hesitantly.

  He set the bearing down, grabbed a blue rag, and wiped off his fingers. “What would a solid citizen like you need from a guy like me?”

  I pulled the ring across the bench, scooped a handful of grease, and finished packing the bearings as Tyger pulled the next piece off the old motorcycle. “I need you to get a hold of a car for me.”

  He laughed. “You need me to boost a car for you. Are you kidding? You wearing a wire under there?” A mischievous smile played at his mouth as he pointed a dirty finger toward my blouse.

  I shook my head and wiped off my hands. “I’m on a case. There might be evidence in that car that I need. I just want to borrow it for a few hours.”

  “Hypothetically, I might be able to help you with your case. But it’ll cost you.”

  I sighed. “How much?”

  “Please, girl. I don’t want your money.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  “I need a new security system here in the shop. See, last month the books came up short by a couple of hundred bucks. I need to know who’s cookin’ the numbers, you feel me?”

  I nodded. “I assume you keep everything on your computer?”

  “Of course.”

  “All right, show me.” I really didn’t want to test my new keystroke recorder just yet, but I supposed it was a fair trade, much better than what I’d thought he was going to ask for. It was a good thing I’d packed my gadgets.

  I installed the device and turned it on.

  “There,” I said closing the computer back up. “We should have some answers soon. Now, for your part of the deal.”

  I took out one of my business cards, wrote Robert Welch’s address and the plate number on it, and handed it to him.

  “It was good to see you, Patrick.”

  He cringed. “Don’t let anybody hear you call me that. And Isabel, take care of yourself.”

  I nodded. “I will.”

  The office was quiet when I got back. I didn’t intend to stay too long, but I needed to change out of my tall leather boots into less conspicuous-looking footwear before the GA meeting. But whenever I stopped at the house, I had to check the machine. There was message from my mother wanting me to come over for dinner. Apparently, Phoebe had a new boyfriend Mom wanted me to discreetly investigate. Mom thought he was “shifty.”

  I sighed and jotted down his information.

  The next message was a man’s voice crackling through the machine.

  “Isabel. I just thought you should know I’m out on bail. We should get together, grab a drink. Maybe I’ll swing by your place some time.” Then the caller just laughed and hung up.

  A shiver shot up my back. I recognized
the laugh. I’d heard it through a closet door just before a house was set on fire with Shane and me inside. It was Billy Young. I was on the phone with Reggie in a matter of seconds.

  He answered his cell with, “What’s up, baby girl?”

  “Reggie, were you gonna mention that the arsonist I helped catch was out on bail?”

  I could hear him sit up in his squeaky desk chair. “I didn’t know he was.”

  “Well, he called my place today. Said he’d stop by some time.”

  Reggie cussed. “You need me to get a car out there, keep an eye on things?”

  I thought about it. Suddenly, the gun in the small of my back felt really good.

  “Naw. I’ll let Shane know, but I’ve got pretty good security here. Just do me a favor and find the SOB, okay? And when you do, haul him in for harassment. I’ll press charges if I need to.”

  “Okay, sugar. You be careful now, a’right?”

  “Always am.” I hung up the phone.

  Shane walked in the front door a minute later with Mercy in tow. I could hear her annoying voice well before her face came into the office.

  Mercy had been young when she turned, only nineteen according to Shane, and she still acted like a permanent teenager. In a leaves-nothing-to-the-imagination red sundress and wearing dozens of bangle bracelets, she flowed into the room as if she were a movie star walking the red carpet. My hand twitched at my back, wanting desperately to shoot a few holes in her pretty face.

  “Isabel, so nice to see you again,” she said with a Southern drawl so strong that she could pass for Scarlett O’Hara in a remake of Gone with the Wind.

  I ignored Mercy. “Shane, Young made bail somehow. Slippery little weasel. Keep an eye out in case he comes snooping around here, all right?”

  That was when I noticed he was holding her hand. My trigger finger twitched again.

  “I will. But if you’ve got a second, we need to talk to you about the initiation next week.” He led Mercy to a chair in the sitting room.

  “Uh-huh,” I managed, sitting as far away from them as the small room would allow.