The Vampire's Curse (18 page)

"It's not fair that you blame me for phoning Mike. She was wrong, not me." Tears flowed down her cheeks and she was quick to wipe them away but the little streams turned into raving rivers and it was useless to fight them. "She does nothing right and you give her everything."

Patty watched her sob until she was calm enough to do it quietly.

She said nothing, just shook her head a little.

Patty turned around and Jackie could only assume that she was going to her room for the night. The light was shut out, leaving her in the dark, and as soon as she heard the door to her mother's room close she buried her face in her blanket and fell into the sofa crying.

***

Kyle made it to the scene as the firefighters finished putting out what had to have been an inferno with the way it left the building destroyed. The wind was, then, sucked from his sails as though he’d been punched in the gut.

He leaned back against a squad car to catch his breath and clutch at his chest after emotional pain after pain pierced his heart like flying needles, quick, unexpected, and sharp.

The uniform who’d been driving looked at him sideways. “Hey buddy, you okay?”

No, he wasn’t okay. He’d felt emotions like this before, recognizing they were not his, but Jackie’s, but that still didn’t make him okay.

He took three calming breathes to slow his jumping heart and searched inside of himself.

She wasn’t afraid like she’d been at her mother’s store, no, this was something close to home.

She was in no danger, so he didn’t have to worry, what she felt was old and deep.

This was connected to her mother, and his guilt was jagged because he was the one to leave her there.

Shit. What exactly happened?

When Kyle bothered to stare back at the uniform, he was still looking at him oddly. “You need me to get someone here for you?”

Kyle got himself under control.
Soon. I’ll come back for you soon
. “I’m fine, just the smell of burning, y’know?”

The uniform grinned. “Yeah, I’m still not used to it. Take your time.”

Kyle nodded. Three more deep breaths and he was up and ready.

Black soot and smoking beams of wood were all that remained of the pathetic rubble. Some firefighters packed up their hose as others trudged through the rubble and debris to ensure that it wouldn't reignite.

Police stood around just outside the yellow tape, questioning anyone they could find while onlookers, drawn to the scene by the flashing lights of ambulances, fire trucks, and cop cars, jogged back to the warmth of their apartments in shivering groups now that everything appeared to be over.

Carter found him and led him to the inner circle of the working photographers and detectives, which was behind a line of yellow tape, lifted for them by a watching officer.

"Know this place?" Carter asked.

Kyle shook his head, “Never seen it before. What is it?”

"It was called The Magic Touch, another small business similar to Patty's. That fellow there," he pointed to another man in a heavy brown winter jacket over top of short, blue-striped pajama bottoms and sneakers, who was answering questions asked by a uniformed cop holding a pen and pad. "that's the owner."

"Hope he has insurance."

"If not he's going to suffer for a long time." Mike sighed, removed that cowboy hat of his, and rubbed his face and hair. "He was so worked up that I read his mind without him even noticin’. However, that same excitement makes it hard for me to see what I needed to see, but I was still able to tell that this wasn't something he did for the insurance, and he wasn't apart of Clayton's murder."

Kyle shoved his hands in his pockets to ward off the cold, it was more noticeable and biting now that he was human for the night. He looked around but didn't see what he was looking for: an ambulance and a body. "Was he already taken away?"

"Sorry, I tried keeping the body here but procedures need to be followed. We can have you look at it later."

"But I've never seen or heard of the man before." Kyle reminded him.

"I just want to look into everything I can. Maybe you met him on your travels to find this city but he went by a different name."

Kyle understood where he was going and immediately sympathized with the job that Carter had to do. Even if it was probably a dead lead, it needed to be checked out. "Kind of like Sarah Valier?"

Mike's lips quirked as he led him towards his vehicle, "Exactly."

They made it to the hospital and down to the morgue before the medical examiner could even get to the body. Carter offered him a mask before they stepped into the chilled and sterile room, but Kyle waved it off and went in.

When the smell hit him Kyle wished he'd taken it.

He gagged and had to hold onto his mouth to keep anymore of the smell to get at him. It smelled largely of bleach and a couple other things he couldn't name off the bat.

Mike slapped his back. "You going to be alright?"

Kyle stood straight, nodded, and sucked it up. "We'll only be here for a few seconds, right?"

"Long enough for you to see him, then we're getting out of the way before the autopsy starts. If it helps, the mask don't do much against the smell anyway."

It didn't help. Kyle moved along the clean tiled floors to the metallic table and took a look as Carter unzipped the body bag the clothes had yet to even be removed for evidence.

Kyle was lucky to go through his life and never see a dead man, aside from those ferals, and looking down at Charles Clayton wasn't much better than seeing them.

The man was short, balding with a large forehead. Half his face was black and peeling from the fire and his right hand was burned to the bones, on his other wrist was a deep circular scar. He had thick protruding veins over every visible area that the fire had not touched, but that could have also been because he was dead.

Kyle shook his head. "I've never seen him before."

Mike didn't argue that.

Kyle knew well enough to know that the fire that destroyed that store didn't kill him. He wouldn’t have been called here otherwise. "How’d he die?"

"The coroner said it looks like a bludgeon to the head. I think he’s right. The firefighters got him out before the fire could completely destroy him."

Kyle looked and, indeed, there was a space over the charred side of the head that was smashed in. "Poor bastard."

"Lucky bastard you mean.” When Kyle looked at him he explained. “The shop was almost gone but the floor was in good enough shape for us to see that he dragged himself a few feet before stopping.”

“He was alive when the fire started?” His voice nearly echoed in the sterile space.

Carter nodded. “For a few minutes, even though it was the only time his head had been bashed, the killer didn’t bother finishing him off. He started the fire while he was still alive. Our friend here died just in the nick of time before he burned to death. Would’ve been a lot worse, I’d say. I’ve only heard of that kind of cruelty from the Shepards.”

“Who?”

Carter looked at him and shook his head. “It’s easy to forget you’re not from around here. They’re a small mercenary group that runs around the country killing werewolves and vampires.”

“Wow.” Kyle said. “I didn’t know there were actual werewolf hunters out there.”

“Crazy, isn’t it?”

Kyle shook his head. “This still shouldn’t have happened.”

“You remember that he's a suspect in killing his own daughter?"

His gut told him otherwise at this point, and he suspected that Carter's did too. The detective only wanted to see where his own thoughts were.

"If he was bludgeoned to death after, most likely, breaking into the store that was burned down, then that suggests that the partner or partners he was suspected of having turned on him for whatever reason, possibly without him even knowing he was going to meet his death. If he'd been against the killing of his daughter, maybe he didn't know about it at all until it happened. That would be reason enough for a man to turn his back on his partners. They saw he was going to leave them, feared he'd go to the cops, confess, and bam!" He slapped his hands together sideways. "They take him out.

He looked at Carter, the man was nodding his head behind the mask he wore, which brought him back to the gagging smell he'd nearly forgotten with his enthusiasm towards his own theories. "Let's finish talking about this outside."

"Agreed. The medical examiner and photographers are going to want to get in here."

Not only did they leave the room but Kyle walked all the way down the hall and stood outside the elevator before he was comfortable with the smell of the air, though strong traces still lingered.

Carter pulled the mask off and inhaled deeply through his nose. “You said he may not have known he was going to die, I think he knew.”

“What makes you say that?”

“We should’ve stayed in there longer for you to see, but you’re not a detective so it doesn’t matter. You didn’t see the bruising on his one good hand.” He clasped one hand around his own wrist. “Right about here.”

Kyle nodded. “I saw that. It looked old and deep.”

“Right. Looked fresh in some areas and old in others. They were around his ankles too.”

Kyle understood. Bondage marks. “He was a hostage.”

"That’s the theory.” Carter wrinkled his nose. “When you get back to Jackie's you might want to change your clothes, have them washed right away, or tossed in the trash, and hop into the shower. That smell sticks."

Kyle grumbled at the thought of that man being a hostage and forced to make feral vampires before he realized Carter completely changed the subject. "You know I'm staying at Jackie's apartment? I only got there tonight."

Carter didn't so much as crack a friendly grin. "That doesn't matter right now. I need to get back to work, just wanted you here to take a look. It’s great you’re observant an’ all, but your theory has a lot of holes in it."

The man completely changed the subject again. But he was still right. There were so many possibilities and not all of them would lead anywhere. "You said yourself the owner had nothing to do with the fire or what happened to Clayton. He couldn't have been the one to bash Clayton upside the head."

"I also said his thoughts were excited, making them scattered, blurry, and I don't come with a hundred per cent guarantee on me. It
is
possible to be wrong."

"But not very often." It wasn't a question.

Carter was the one to grumble. "No, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't look at every angle."

Kyle accepted his answer, reminding himself of the struggles of a man of the law. "Alright, but I'm not done talking to you about Jackie."

Carter all but stabbed the elevator button and refused to look at him. "I am."

Kyle stood beside him and, also, decided to stare straight ahead until the elevator showed up. "Her mother seemed to think you two were something special."

"Her mother's prone to exaggeration and gossip. I hate to say it, much as I like her, but it's true." Carter looked at him as the doors opened. "In fact, you might have gotten Jackie in a bit of trouble for getting her to call me against her sister."

He got in the elevator and Kyle followed. He didn't know what had brought about Carter's sudden need to talk but he’d exploit the Hell out of it.

He hoped the comment about getting Jackie in trouble with her mother was just that, a comment. Then he recalled the heart stopping pain in his chest as he got to the crime scene, and knew otherwise. "Why do you say that?"

Again, Carter was the one the press the circular button that would lift them to ground floor. "We're not together, but we're still friends. She tells me things, and the other things I see, accidentally."

Kyle knew what he meant. "You read her mind?"

He watched Carter's jaw clench. "Accidentally."

"Was that the reason you and her never hit it off?"

"Not your business."

Kyle took that as his hint to not say anymore. He decided he was lucky to get what he did out of the man and didn't mention their nonexistent relationship again. But the urge to keep poking to be sure Carter had no intentions with Jackie was amazingly huge.

He kept it on a leash.

There was one more thing that couldn't be left unsaid though. "Why did you only ask me to come here? Why not bring Jackie, too?

The elevator dinged and the doors opened. While walking through the bright halls of the hospital, with the staff and patients walking about, Carter spoke as though they were still alone. "I'm thinkin’ maybe the killer wasn't after Jackie at all at this point. The attack might have been directed at the store, and consequently her and Evey simply because they were there."

"Why is that?"

"Both stores were small businesses, not franchised or important in any real way, easy to destroy unlike if he went after the big guys."

"Big guys?"

"Wal-Mart, for example, doesn't sell blood in most of its other chains but here and in a few other select stores it does, under the table, of course. Burning down one of their stores wouldn't be doing more than sticking a pin in a sleeping giant."