“I need your help with something. ”
“Naturally. Come by the office. ” The grogginess in his voice began to lift after he hefted a mighty yawn over the line. “Give me ten min—”
“Keaty, I’m in San Francisco. ”
Without missing a beat, he said, “I’m not coming to you. ”
“No, no. But do you think you can get to a computer?”
He sighed but didn’t protest, and given the rustling sounds, I was beginning to suspect I’d roused him from a nap at his desk. The familiar creak of leather was a dead giveaway. I wondered if he slept with his eyes open.
Windows announced its alertness from his laptop with its cheerful chimes, and he said, “What am I looking for?”
“I’m going to Skype you from my phone so you can see the room I’m in, okay?”
“Fine, but what am I looking for?”
Giving him a quick review of the situation, I left out the part about Sutherland being my father. I’d tell Keaty eventually, but now didn’t seem like the right time. For years, Francis Keats had been a stand-in father figure for me. I knew our relationship had its issues because of what I was, but he loved me in his own sociopathic way, and I loved him. It didn’t seem right to tell him about my real father over the phone.
When he had the necessary backstory, I hung up and redialed using the phone’s Skype app. I might not be great with fancy-pants technology, but the video-calling feature had been forced on me by my younger sister Eugenia. Since she was all the way down in Louisiana with my uncle’s wolf pack, she liked to be able to see me.
Thinking of Genie, I felt a swell of joy in my stomach. I hadn’t known her long—we’d met for the first time that spring—but I enjoyed having at least one family member who liked me for me. My brother Ben—Genie’s twin—hadn’t yet warmed to me the way she had, but that was fine. I couldn’t expect a big Kumbaya-style hug-fest from my siblings when we’d gone eighteen years without meeting.
Genie and Ben didn’t know their father either. It seemed Mercy had trouble with commitment after Sutherland died, abandoning her twins the same way she’d abandoned me.
Keaty accepted the video invite, and his face filled the screen of my phone. He wore his simple wire-framed glasses, and his dark blond hair stuck up at the back. Instead of his usual pressed dress shirt and tie, he was wearing a rumpled white T-shirt. He really had been sleeping.
“You want me to tell you where you think this rogue hid something?”
“He’s not a rogue. ”
“Oh, forgive me. You want me to tell you where this missing vampire might have stashed items he’s intentionally keeping from the council, ignoring strict order from his leaders? Better?”
“Whatever. ” I didn’t want to waste time arguing with him. I’d never win, and we’d both end up irritated. Since irritation accomplished nothing, I moved on.
I pressed the option to flip my phone’s camera from the front to the back, so Keaty was now able to see the room as I did. The image of his face on my phone went from annoyed to zoned-in.
“Go slow,” he instructed. “I need to see everything from the floor up to the ceiling. ”
I did as he asked, going around the room in a painstakingly slow circle, scanning the camera up and down as I went so he could get a glimpse at every nook and cranny, every visible inch of the place. As I approached the door again, my heart sank. He hadn’t stopped me once, made no comments that might suggest he’d seen something noteworthy.
“What’s that?” His voice was muffled by my hand.
“What?”
“Next to the door. ”
“You mean the awful graffiti?”
“Yes, can you show me the floor?”
I pointed the phone down to my feet to let him see the ground beneath the big green wang on the wall.
“Can you see that?”
I stopped looking at his face and turned my attention to the floor. All I saw was a fine coating of dust.
“Dust. ”