I didn't want that loneliness—that feeling of never really belonging—for any child of mine.
"Earth to Riley. Come in, Riley."
I blinked and glanced at Kade. "What?"
"I said, I'll do a couple of hours, but that's all I can manage."
"Great. What about around lunch time?"
He raised an eyebrow. "Another hot date with a certain werewolf?"
"It's not a date." More a battle of wills. "I don't want anyone killed, Kade, so I'll play his games until he gets tired of them or I can find something to pin on his ass and get him out of my hair."
"I'm sure if you tell Jack about the threat, he'll handle the situation appropriately."
"Maybe, but I'd prefer to handle it myself."
"Then I'll just hope that no one you care about ends up getting hurt, because I do not trust that man."
"Don't worry, neither do I." I collected my purse from the back of the chair, then walked across to his desk and kissed his cheek. "Don't suppose you'd like to help me out with one more thing?"
His gaze slid from my face to my breasts, which were on view thanks to the fact that the dress top had gaped forward when I bent over. "If it involves handling the beautiful ladies hanging in front of me, most definitely." I grinned and handed him the paper with Harriet Morgan's address on it. "Would you mind going to talk to this woman for me? Her car was seen leaving the beheading scene, but she reported it stolen the day before. Someone needs to talk to her and check her story."
He barely even glanced at the paper before putting it down on the desk. His big hands cupped my breasts, holding them almost reverently. "Are you sure these beauties don't need a good massage?"
I chuckled and gently pulled back. "I'm sure."
He sighed dramatically "I do miss them, you know."
"You didn't have them—or me—that often."
"I know. That's the most regrettable aspect of this whole situation."
I shook my head and grabbed my keys "You're incorrigible."
"Totally." He gave me a smile that was both cheeky and sexy. "I will get you back into my arms one day. You know that, don't you?"
"When hell freezes over, or Jack gives us the go ahead. And you know which one is more likely to happen first," I said, then waved and headed out the door and down to research.
Harvey Bastiel lived in Hampton—a beachside suburb one down from Brighton, but without Brighton's high end reputation or price tag. Which meant the properties near the beach here went for a lowly one million rather than two or more.
Bastiel's house was actually several streets back from the beach, but it was a beautiful old Californian bungalow located in what was known as the 'period precinct', so the price tag was right up there with houses that possessed a beach view.
I parked behind Cole's van and climbed out. The sea air spun around me, crisp and salty, and I breathed deep. It didn't do much to wash the tiredness from my system, but then, getting a good night's sleep was probably the only cure for that.
I swung open the picket gate and walked up a path lined with white roses. Their sweet scent spun around me, but it was laced with the aroma of fresh blood and death emanations from the open front door. There were dusted fingerprints on both the door and the frame, and Dobbs knelt several feet inside, carefully removing what looked like bits of flesh from the shiny wooden floor. He looked up as I entered and gave me a tight smile.
"The housekeeper was shot, but Bastiel was killed the same way as the others."
"Any sign of forced entry?"
He shook his head. "It looks like the housekeeper came into the house, saw what was happening, and made a run for it. She was shot in the living room."
"Why run into the living room? Why not run straight for the door?"
He shrugged. "People don't always think straight when someone is trying to kill them."
I guess that was true. And being confronted with a gunman in your workplace wasn't the same everyday occurrence for most folk that it was for us. "What time was she killed?"
"We're estimating somewhere between five and seven this morning, but we won't know for sure until we get back to the lab."
Five was awfully early for a housekeeper to arrive, I would have thought. "And Bastiel? Where was he killed?"
"In his bed." He indicated the hallway with his chin. "Cole's down there now."
I carefully stepped around the little globules, then headed down the hallway, my footsteps echoing sharply on the floorboards. The master bedroom was the third doorway along.
Cole glanced up as I stepped into the room. His craggy face showed signs of exhaustion. "I'm getting a weird sense of déjà vu."
"Why?" My gaze went past him to the body in the bed. If it wasn't for the fact that the white sheets were stained crimson, it would almost be easy to believe that Bastiel was asleep rather than dead.
"Because of this." Cole waved a hand at the body on the bed. "Vampires laying still while someone hacks away at their necks. We had another case like this a few months back, remember?"
How could I forget? That case had bought me Kye, and all the inherent heartache that came with him. "But I thought you said there was nothing in the toxicology reports or the tissue samples of the other victims that suggest drugs of any kind. Wouldn't the witch dust show up in the lab?"
"That stuff would, because we've analyzed it and know its contents. But what if it's something similar, consisting of ingredients we haven't come across? If they were natural, they wouldn't necessarily be flagged."
"I guess that's possible." And it suggested that these murders had been planned well ahead of time. It wasn't easy to find a witch in this city—not one who dealt with the dark arts, anyway.
I flared my nostrils and cast aside both the rich metallic tang of blood and Cole's deeper, spicier aroma. The under notes swirling though the air ran rich with the scent of vampire, human, furniture polish and wood smoke. And there was something else—something that was little more than a nebulous foulness that tickled the back of my throat and made me want to cough.
"There is something odd here." I took a deeper breath but the scent remained annoyingly elusive and undefined. The room itself held no hints as to what it might be. My gaze fell on the light layer of dust sitting behind the bedside lamp. "You might want to get some dust samples from the room, just in case."
"I already have." He paused, picking up what looked like a piece of lint and putting it into a plastic bag. "This odd scent you mentioned—did you smell it at either of the other murders?"
I frowned, thinking back. I had smelled something odd at Gateways—something just as nebulous and out of place. But Kye had arrived not long after I'd scented it, and had basically blown any memory of it out of the water.
Until now.
"There was a similar scent at Gateway's."
"Why didn't you mention it in your report?"
"Because I couldn't be sure that it wasn't just due to the mold in the bathroom."
And if I had gone back into the bathroom, it probably wouldn't have sparked any memories anyway, because it just didn't smell the same as the other witch dust.
I glanced around the room again. Nothing seemed to have been disturbed. There was a huge gold watch and a wallet filled with cash on the dresser, and several expensively framed paintings on the walls. The only link between the three—now four—beheaded men seemed to be the fact that they were all on the Melbourne council.