“I’ll recognize her,” Emma insisted stubbornly.
Duncan frowned and shook his head slightly, as if already regretting his decision. “You will tell me if you think it’s Lacey or not,” he said finally. “And then you will leave. Baldwin will drive you home.”
“But if it’s Lacey—”
“Take it or leave it,” he said, his voice every bit as uncompromising as hers had been.
Emma nodded once. Duncan reached for her hand, but she pulled away, choosing to proceed under her own power.
She moved in a blur, her eyes so filled with tears she could barely see. Her mind kept whispering denials, kept telling her it didn’t have to be Lacey, that there’d been other women at the parties, that this house and Victor had been around for years, and that the land around here was riddled with old burial grounds. But in her heart she knew what she’d known ever since Lacey hadn’t come home Sunday night. She’d known that something awful had happened, because nothing else would have kept Lacey from calling her. And now . . .
“Emma?” Duncan’s voice next to her was gentle, full of compassion. But she didn’t want his compassion, couldn’t afford it. She had to stay strong. She looked around and realized Duncan’s vampires were all looking at her expectantly. They were standing in a circle around something, and now had opened the circle as if to admit her. She looked down and her heart began to pound.
“Emma, you don’t have to do this.”
She brushed away Duncan’s hand and stepped between two of the vampires, nearly tripping on a pile of dirt. One of the vamps caught her arm, and she looked down into a big hole in the ground. No, not so big. Just big enough for . .
A cry of denial was torn from her throat, a wordless, animal sound of grief. Emma stumbled as she backed away, suddenly wishing she hadn’t insisted on being here. She didn’t want to see what was in that hole, didn’t want to see that dead thing wearing a grotesque caricature of Lacey’s face, her blond curls limp and tangled, her limbs twisted in death as they’d never been in life. She wanted to rewind her life and keep Lacey home from Victor’s party. They’d eat popcorn and drink bad wine and watch cheesy horror flicks until neither one of them could sleep. And they’d never have to worry about anything worse than movie monsters under the bed.
“Emma.” She hadn’t even seen Duncan move, but suddenly he was there, wrapping her in his arms. And she knew the monsters were real this time.
She shoved away from him. “Don’t touch me,” she hissed. “If not for you—” She knew she was being unfair, that it wasn’t Duncan who’d put Lacey in that grave. But it was his people. Vampires. Monsters who preyed on humans, who seduced Lacey with their promises of wild parties and high living. She stumbled down the side of the house, bracing herself against the wall, determined to get back to her car. She had her cell phone there. She’d call the police and—
Duncan’s strong arms scooped her up. She fought against him, but he only tightened his hold and ordered, “Stop it, Emma.”
“Put me down,” she demanded, pounding on his shoulders, hearing herself sob with grief and not recognizing it as coming from her own throat. “I don’t need—”
Duncan’s arms were like steel bands as he carried her to the front of the house, anger radiating off of him in waves, though somehow she knew the anger wasn’t directed at her. Emma saw her car, saw Baldwin rushing ahead to open the door. Duncan lowered his head to her ear and whispered something.
And then there was nothing at all.
Chapter Twelve
Duncan watched Emma’s car until it rolled beyond the line of spruce trees and he couldn’t see it anymore. She was in the backseat, sleeping deeply, and she’d stay that way for several hours, until Lacey’s body had been recovered and the scene processed. He and his team had a few hours left, but they would have to return to D.C. before morning. There was no way he’d ask any of his people to spend a single day sleeping in this nightmare of a house. When they were finished here, when the forensic people had recovered every last bit of evidence they could find, he’d have the whole damned building razed to the ground. After that, the land could sit fallow. Maybe in a century or three, the horror would fade.
He’d already called the experts in to deal with this. If there could be any good fortune in this tragedy, it was that it had happened in Virginia, with the FBI’s Quantico facilities so close by. Several vampires worked in the labs there, although their identities were known to only a select few in the vampire community. Raphael, of course, knew who they were, which meant Duncan did, too. The death he and his vampires had discovered here tonight couldn’t be covered up completely, but it could be managed. How well depended on Emma. If she went to the human authorities and demanded an investigation . . . Well, he wouldn’t let it come to that. He didn’t want to replace her memories, but he would if necessary, knowing that if she ever found out, he would lose her trust, and might very well lose her. But he could not jeopardize the whole of vampire society for the sake of his affection for Emma Duquet.
That didn’t mean he discounted the crime committed. He might cover up the specifics, but he wouldn’t forget the offense. Victor was already dead, along with his four vampire guards, all of whom had no doubt participated in the violence and blood fest. But there were others still out there, humans who had willfully, joyfully, joined in the torture of young women for sexual gratification. He would hunt them down and destroy them every bit as permanently as he’d destroyed Victor.
“Sire.”
Duncan turned. “Yes, Miguel?”
“In the house, my lord. In what we believe is Victor’s safe room. There are videos.”Duncan met his lieutenant’s carefully shuttered gaze, and knew the night was about to get worse. He sighed wearily and placed a comforting hand on Miguel’s shoulder.
“At least now we’ll know who to kill next, Miguel.”
“We’ll hunt, my lord?”
Duncan nodded. “We’ll run them to the ground and listen to them beg as we shred their beating hearts.”
Miguel bared his teeth, growling his approval, and Duncan braced himself to enter that house of evil one more time. As he crossed the threshold and the horror pierced his soul, he had only one thought—despite the agony of his last breath, Victor had been granted far too gentle a death.
An hour later, he sat on the front porch, taking in some much needed fresh air, when an unfamiliar truck rolled up to the house. He stood, eyeing it warily. As if by magic, several of his vampires appeared, taking up positions between him and the approaching vehicle. It rolled to a stop and Duncan watched as a small, dark-haired vampire dropped first to the running board and then to the ground. Her mane of bushy black hair had been pulled away from her face and forced into a severe bun at the back of her head, and she wore a plain, dark pantsuit and black cotton blouse. Together they made her appear older than she was, or rather, older than she’d been when she’d been turned over a century ago.
“Phoebe,” Duncan called out, sending a mental command to his guards that this was the forensic expert he’d been expecting.
Phoebe Micheletti had never been an FBI agent herself, but she’d trained with one of their finest investigators, a human male who’d later become her husband and mate. After years of sharing the mate bond, and blood, with Phoebe, Ted Micheletti had been forced to retire early from the FBI when it became too obvious that he wasn’t aging. The two of them now ran a consulting business of their own, offering their investigative services to law enforcement agencies around the country, many of whom couldn’t afford to keep a full-time investigator on staff. Duncan was sure business was booming in these difficult economic times, and he knew that sometimes Phoebe and her mate worked for free. They simply enjoyed their work.
“Duncan.” She started to kneel, but Duncan stopped her. Phoebe lived in Virginia, which meant Duncan was officially her master now. But, though they’d never met in person before, they’d known each other for years, and he was too weary tonight for meaningless ritual.
“It’s good to see you,” he said.
“And you, my lord. Congratulations on your ascension.”
Duncan nodded, and Phoebe looked beyond him to the open back of a cargo van where two vampire forensic techs were loading a black body bag. There’d been no need to leave Lacey’s body in situ, no need to preserve the grave site. They already knew who’d killed her.
“Do we know who she is?” Phoebe asked.
“Lacey Cray,” Duncan said somberly. “Twenty-seven years old, and a secretary on K Street.”
“How did she end up here?”
“Victor.”
“Fuck,” Phoebe swore viciously. “I hated that bastard.”
“Surely, he didn’t mistreat you or Ted?”
She shook her head swiftly. “He wouldn’t have dared. Victor was a typical bully. He only picked on people who couldn’t fight back. So how do you know the girl?”
“Her roommate came to the house in D.C. the night after I disposed of Victor. Ms. Cray was missing. She’d apparently partied with Victor before, but she told Emma this was a big one. A weekend in the country.”
“Emma?”
“Emma Duquet, the roommate. She works for a congressman.”
“Well, that’s a complication. Does it get any worse?”
“Brace yourself,” Duncan warned her. “Victor was quite the voyeur. We’ve found video records of what went on here and in D.C. I don’t know if he was blackmailing anyone, or if he just liked to watch. We’re still working on identifying everyone, but Lacey’s is the only body we’ve found—and the only woman from his files who isn’t in any of the videos, which is telling in and of itself. I’m assuming at this point that the other women are still alive. If so, their memories have probably been wiped, which is a blessing, because the things that were done to them—” His mouth twisted and he looked away, unwilling to go on.