matter, because my daughter is gone and neither she nor the Unseelie lord got to make the exchange.”
The woman didn’t care if her daughter was found, dead or alive, Vail decided. This sexpot of an aging vampiress was only concerned about the goods. Whatever those goods may be.
Interesting. Why involve the daughter in a deal with the Unseelie if it had all been about the gown in the first place? If she’d been so concerned for her daughter’s safety, wouldn’t the mother have sent a man or thug to make the exchange?
A cell phone jingled, and Santiago excused herself to take the call. Her sharp voice echoed down the hallway in tandem with the clicks of her high heels until Vail could no longer hear the erratic tune.
He toed out from under the bed the cell phone he’d noticed while Santiago had still been in the room. Snagging it, he clicked it on and scrolled through the call log. The phone had not been used a lot, but one number showed up three times the day of the kidnapping. It didn’t list a name, but Vail didn’t need a name. He pressed Call.
A sleep-laced male voice answered, “Lyric?”
So they knew to expect her from this number. That was helpful.
“No,” Vail replied. “Lyric’s assistant. Just checking in, making sure things went as planned.”
“What assistant? Lyric never mentioned no assistant. You call her and get your story straight before you bug me, man.” Click.
“And how can I call her if she’s been kidnapped?” Vail rubbed the phone along his forearm, working the scenarios. “Unless she wasn’t kidnapped? Had she worked something out with Zett? Possible.”
If her family was into thievery, that made the chances of her being a thief high. Had she stolen the gown? Why? It wasn’t as though she could fence such an odd and valuable item to any in the paranormal nation without someone finding out. Faery, most especially, had a way of knowing when things were missing.
“Has to be Zett,” he muttered. “That’s the only way the gown could still be out there and not draw attention. The two of them must be working together.”
Which didn’t explain a thing. Zett had been about to have the gown handed over on a silver platter shaped like a gorgeous blonde vampire. He didn’t need to steal or kidnap a thing.
Vail could not overlook the huge white elephant sitting in the middle of this bizarre incident—Zett hated vampires. So why kidnap one?
It had been three mortal months since he’d spoken to Zett. Much longer according to Faery time. Vail did not relish seeing the obnoxious Lord of Midsummer Dark anytime soon. Zett would remind him of Kit.
Vail whispered blessings the sweet young kitsune/cat shifter was happy now with her intended husband.
“Her apartment was clean, too,” Santiago said as she reentered the room.
“Apartment? Your daughter kept a place apart from this home?”
“Yes, in the second arrondissement. It was close to a gym where she likes to practice the silks with a coach. My men have gone through it. It’s clean.”
The silks?
“You don’t know everything,” Vail said. “If you did, I wouldn’t be talking to you. Give me the address.” When Santiago balked, Vail provided angrily, “I can see things, find evidence your men couldn’t dream of finding. Now write it down. You want your daughter found? Learn to cooperate.”
HUMMING A JOHNNY CASH TUNE about ghost riders in the sky, Vail strolled the tiny apartment that belonged to Lyric Santiago. His thoughts strayed. What was a ghost rider? Was it an incorporeal being? What did it ride? He’d like to meet one, and go for one of those infamous rides.
“Yippi-i-oo,” he sang the chorus from the song.
The apartment was indeed clean. Too clean. Vail had never seen such a Spartan living space—save his own—and suspected the vampiress could not have used it much. Three pieces of furniture—bed, couch and the requisite coffee table—and a few items in the closet. That was it. No personal touches or monogrammed towels in the bathroom. It looked as though it was a new place that had not yet been staged for sale.
If she had used it because it was close to a gym, it was likely only a stop-off of sorts. Silks? He really should have asked what that was about. Sounded kinky. And he did like some kink.
He stuck around a few hours after casing the apartment. Parked across the street from the building, he listened to the car radio while keeping an eye on the place.
When two vampires approached the building, Vail grabbed his sunglasses and got out and crossed the street. He knew they were vamps because of their ashy-red auras. Something he’d tried countless times to see on himself in a mirror but could not. Did he not have the red aura, or was it just that a man could not see his own aura?
For the love of Herne, he was one fucked-up vampire.
The vampires noticed him striding determinedly toward them and veered from the door of the building and around the side. The streets were tight and this one ended at an inner courtyard shaded with overhanging vines and fragrant honeysuckle.
Fingertips trailing the brick walls, Vail walked right into the center of the courtyard and flipped a nod at the vampires. “Nice day, messieurs. Sun is out. Looks like you got your one thousand SPF sunscreen on.”
One sneered and lunged toward him, exposing fangs. His buddy caught him by the shoulder. “Who the hell are you?”
“Miss Santiago’s assistant. I’m sure I spoke to you earlier.”
“I thought I told you—” The man realized he’d just given up his identity, in a manner.
“What are you looking for?” Vail asked. He put back his shoulders, flaunting his broad frame and imposing height. The faeries had thought him a freak. Vampires tended to take a step back from him. These two wibs did not. “Did Lyric ask you to get something for her at the apartment? It’s been picked over by her mommy’s thugs.”
“Damn it,” the one who had lunged said. “I knew we should have come here right away.”
They were definitely her allies.
“So where is she?” Vail tossed out. “I didn’t get the final destination.”
“In the seventh—”
The bigger one slammed his arm across the smaller’s chest. “You’re not her assistant. That cold bitch ain’t got no friends. He’s working for the old lady.”
The smaller one, unleashed from the bigger one’s restraining hold, rushed toward Vail, fangs down in warning.
Normally, Vail got into mortal combat. It kept his adrenaline flowing, and he liked to do damage to people who pissed him off. But exerting himself over these two was a waste of breath. He had a few tricks up his sleeve.
Vail rubbed his palms together, loosening the faery dust ever embedded in his skin. Tilting his palm flat, he blew dust in the face of the attacker just as he moved within touching distance.
Faery
