I stopped—my ear pressed against a rough wooden door—and stared down the length of the hallway. Maxime was on his knees in front of another door, peering underneath it, while Holden drew flashy red Xs across two other entryways.
If I did have the option, which room would I pick?
A vampire who wanted to hide himself from others of his kind wasn’t going to go for the obvious spot. The rooms at the very back—as far from others as possible—would have been the most instinctual place for a vampire to hide if he was forced to use this warehouse.
Which would make it the first place other vampires would look for him. I took a few steps backwards and assessed the units from the center of the hall, trying to imagine this place as my father would have. He wanted to hide something, and maybe the best place to do that was in plain sight.
Where was the scent and distraction the most dense?
Taking another step backwards, I stopped in front of the room where a jazz quartet was at work. Trumpet bleats and drum snares made my ears throb. Across the hall was the room with the meth smell coming from it. Next to the meth lab Holden had already marked the door with an X, but the room beside the jazz space had an untouched door. It was protected by only the most basic padlock, with nothing fancy to distinguish it from the other rooms.
I pressed my ear against the door and listened. I’d already checked this door once but dismissed it in a rush due to all the distraction surrounding it. Maybe that was the point though. Perhaps it was my father’s gene pool I inherited the smarts from, because this would have been the perfect room to choose if he wanted someone to pass him quickly by.
I longed for my sword, since it would have sliced through the lock like it was made of butter. But my weapon choice had been vetoed by Holden at the hotel. We were on a simple informational scouting mission. A sword would just draw unwanted attention. Unfortunately he was right, so I’d agreed to leave it behind, opting for my favorite gun instead.
I couldn’t shoot the lock off, that would be too much noise in the small space and would definitely bring us an unwanted audience. Hoping no one would come out of their rooms at that moment, I braced my back against the wall and kicked the door.
The particleboard gave no resistance, practically crumbling around my foot. It swung wide, slamming against an interior wall before swinging back towards me. Holden and Maxime were drawn by the sound and came to join me in the dark mouth of the room.
“This one?” Holden asked, giving a repulsed glance into the rooms surrounding it.
“They’re all equally bad,” I reminded him. “This one felt right. ”
“No vampire in his right mind would hide so close to that…smell. ”
“Wouldn’t that be what he’d expect another vampire to think, though? I mean, this is the last place I’d want to hide too, b
ut that makes it perfect. ”
We stole into the room, shutting the broken door behind us to cut down on the chances of someone noticing it and calling the police. Cloaked in darkness, I became less capable than the others. I could see, but not as well as a full-blooded vampire, and I didn’t want to risk missing an important clue.
Fumbling along the wall, my hand found the light switch and a fat spider at the same time. I flicked on the light and recoiled. The spider—now exposed and irritated—raised its front legs in a challenging gesture, then scuttled down the wall and out of sight.
Fucking spiders. I’d fought a lot of scary monsters in my time, and still spiders gave me the creeps. Keaty, my PI partner, had once told me he’d been sent to recover something stolen by a fae. Turned out the fae spent his days in spider form, guarding a webbed nest of jewels and money that would make Smaug weep with jealousy.
I got a wicked case of the heebie-jeebies whenever Keaty told that story. He’d obviously survived, and knowing Keaty, the fae had not. But learning there was a type of fae who took the form of a giant spider? That was the kind of knowledge human beings were lucky not to have.
Wiping my hand on my pants to rid myself of the tactile memory of the spider, I gave the room a glance now that I could see it better. Holden and Maxime were doing the same, and I wondered if they saw anything I was missing.
The space was clean, much tidier than I’d expected given how disgusting the building itself was. A plain, scarred wood table sat in the center of the room. There was a set of pliers and a roll of soldering wire on it, but nothing to indicate what they were for. A simple chair—wood, but not matching the table—was tucked underneath. All the walls had orange carpet stapled to them, likely as a buffer from the sound in neighboring rooms. It seemed to work, because the jazz was an almost enjoyable volume from in here, the too-sharp high notes blotted down or muted out entirely.
Yellowing flyers and handbills for long-ago concerts in local bars were tacked into the carpet, and someone had spray-painted a lime-green penis beside the door so it would appear to be ejaculating on whoever was walking into the room.
Nothing here told me about my father. The clues were all remnants of a previous tenant, one who’d possibly been in a band called Lady Killers and had an affinity for alien cock.
Either I’d picked the wrong room, or Sutherland was hiding his secrets better than I expected. I’d given myself too much credit as a detective. Over the years I’d learned a lot from Keaty, but I was still the student in so many ways. If he were here…
Of course.
I jerked my cellphone out of my pocket and pressed the speed-dial key for my mentor.
“McQueen,” he grumbled. “This had better be good. It’s two in the morning. ” I’d forgotten about the time difference between California and New York.
“Oh don’t pretend like you were asleep. ”
“As a matter of fact I was. Sometimes I do need to yield to my basic human needs. ”
Hearing Keaty confess to having human needs was about as strange to me as a serial killer liking cuddles. It didn’t fit.