“You want the good news or the bad news first, chère?” Rene asked Lina. It was shortly after six in the morning; the sun was only a rosy hint outlining the mountains along the horizon. Lina had answered her motel room door wearing only a thin T-shirt that fell to her hips and a pair of leopard-print panties, her long legs bare beneath. Lina ran more than ten miles every day, come rain, snow, sleet or hail. He loved her like a sister, but he had to admit, the girl had a hell of a set of gams.
“Rene?” She blinked at him, scowling groggily, then tucked her hair behind her ears. He could see goose bumps that had raised almost immediately on her arms, the bullet points of her nipples pushing out from beneath her T-shirt. “Jesus Christ, it’s cold. Get in here.”
She sidestepped and shut the door behind him as he walked into the room. It was deliciously warm inside, a toasty contrast to the crisp morning air. He shuddered slightly like a dog shaking off a splash of water, adjusting to the sudden, dramatic difference. Brandon lay on his stomach, asleep on the bed, his head turned away from the door.
“Sorry to come so early, chère,” Rene said, unzipping the front of his ski jacket.
“What time is it anyway?” Lina growled, squinting at the digital bedside clock. When she made note of the hour, she groaned. “Rene, what the hell do you want? I’m sorry about last night, but please don’t tell me you’ve been up all this time stewing over it.”
“I haven’t been, no. And your apology is accepted.” He gave her a smacking, playful kiss on the lips, leaving her to sputter while he unfolded his laptop computer on a nearby table. “The good news, chère, is that between you, Brandon, me and Tessa, we’ve got about fifteen thousand dollars cash in our hands we can use to live on.”
“Yeah?” Lina said somewhat suspiciously. When he sat down in a chair facing the table, she plopped down opposite him, drawing her knees together to sit in a clumsy, tomboyish posture he found amusing and sort of cute. “What’s the bad news?”
“We’re going to have to make that last awhile, I’m afraid,” he replied, cuing his wi-fi internet connection. He spared her a glance. “My bank accounts have been frozen.”
Lina’s eyes flew wide. “What?”
He nodded once, grim. “Oui. I was online this morning checking on some investments and found out. All of my primary accounts—checking, savings, CDs, IRAs, my stock portfolios—everything I have in my name is on hold.”
“On hold? By who?”
He typed something into the Google search bar, hit a couple of links, and spun the computer around to face her. “By our dear old Uncle Sam, chère. Seems like you and me, we’re now officially les gens d’intérêt in the murder investigation for Jude Hannam and his girlfriend.”
Her eyes widened all the more. “What?” She leaned forward, incredulous, pulling the laptop closer. “Let me see that.”
It was an online copy of an article that had run in the Metropolitan Courier two days earlier. As startled as he’d been to discover he’d been locked out of his own bank accounts, he hadn’t needed to call his accounting firm to find out why. The news piece had explained it all.
FORMER POLICE PARTNERS SOUGHT IN GRISLY SLAYINGS, the headline declared.
Two former police partners are being sought for questioning in the ritualistic murder of local personal-injury attorney Jude Hannam and his girlfriend earlier this month. Angelina Jones and Rene Morin served on the Metropolitan Police Force together and were assigned as partners until last year, when Morin was left hospitalized and Jones on paid administrative leave following a shootout with a suspected drug dealer and gang member.
Jude Hannam’s body was one of two found following a bizarre, late-night incident aboard the river-barge nightclub complex, Apathy, in which patrons reported an attack by a flock of birds. More than two dozen people were injured in that incident. In the aftermath, Hannam was discovered in the Catacombs, a gothic-themed bar at Apathy that is reportedly popular among the city’s growing “vampire” subculture.
Hannam’s girlfriend, Ashlee Ferris, was found slain in the Victorian-district apartment the two shared. Both had suffered massive injuries to their upper torsos and throats and the state medical examiner has ruled that both died from blood loss as a result of this trauma. Police would not speculate as to whether or not the manners of death were related to the alternative lifestyle practiced by many patrons of the Catacombs, including the wearing of vampirelike dental prosthetics and the recreational consumption of animal and human blood.
According to the ongoing police investigation into Hannam’s death, he and Officer Jones had dated until recently. Days before the killing, witnesses reported seeing Hannam and Jones arguing loudly during a wedding reception both had attended. Jones was on duty on the night of Hannam’s murder and had entered the Apathy nightclub complex, but police officials now say she was not on any documented police business.
She disappeared after the bird attack and local cab driver Abdul Aziz ben Malik reported that he drove her and an as-yet unidentified white male later that same night to an address listed as the residence of Rene Morin, Jones’s former police partner. According to Ben Malik, both Jones and her male companion had blood on them and appeared to have been in some kind of physical altercation.
Morin retired from his duties following an incident in which he was shot in the knee. His leg was subsequently amputated. The suspect in that case, Reginald White, was killed at the scene when Jones returned fire. Morin is also a stockholder for Artois Oil, one of the largest independent drillers and producers of crude oil in the United States. Police have been unable to contact him for questioning related to the whereabouts of Jones and her male companion.
A second victim at Apathy was discovered beaten and shot to death on the night Hannam’s body was found. Forensic tests have yet to conclude whether or not those shots came from Jones’s service pistol.
Although Hannam and Ferris’s deaths are being linked, along with the shooting victim who has yet to be identified, at this time, neither Jones nor Morin are considered suspects. Because neither can be reached by police, they are considered persons of interest, and anyone with information on their whereabouts are asked to contact the Homicide Division of the Metropolitan police.
“This is bullshit,” Lina said, after she’d finished reading.
“Hey, it gets better,” Rene said. “The story was picked up online by Fark. We got a ‘weird’ label.”
“This isn’t funny, Rene,” Lina said with a frown. “We’re in some serious shit here.”
“It gets better,” he assured. “I saw a piece on CNN last night. I thought it was just a filler thing until this morning, but no. And I doubt this is the last we’re going to hear about it.”
“Terrific,” Lina said, her expression clearly imparting she considered the news anything but. She folded her arms across her chest and leaned back in her chair, pressing her lips together in a thin line. She glanced at Brandon, then back to Rene. “What are we going to do?”
He shrugged, mimicking her posture. “Not much we can do, chère. At least not for the moment, other than keep a low profile and try not to burn our way through our operating capital too quickly.”
He reached over and squeezed her shoulder gently. “I’ve got that place out by Emerald Bay where we’ve stashed Monsieur Davenant. It’s not much, but it’s a roof over our heads. Nobody’s going to think to look for us there, at least not for a while. It’s not high on my dossier of real estate, if anyone thinks to try and look. We can stick with my original plan—use Martin to try and call off the Elders for good. And in the meantime, you and I can try to throw anyone else off our tails a bit more.”
“How?” Lina asked.
He nodded toward the window, the parking lot beyond. “I had to rent that Jeep out there on a credit card. If my bank accounts are frozen, they’re looking at shit like that, too, so they’ll see I used it here.”
Lina’s brows narrowed, but before she could say anything, he cut her off. “How the hell was I supposed to know the police would put everything together like this? Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I can take the Jeep this morning and drive it out to San Francisco, drop it off at the airport there. You can follow along in the Mercedes and give me a lift back. Hopefully that will throw the police off our scents for a while until I can iron out at least part of this mess, get our cash flow restored.”
“Oh, really?” Lina raised her brow. “How are you going to do that?”
“I haven’t thought it out that far yet.” Rene smiled wanly at her and dropped a wink. “But don’t worry. I’m rich, chère. And I retain a lot of very good lawyers and accountants who help keep me that way.”
He disconnected from the Internet and folded the laptop. “We need to get moving if we’re going to do this,” he said. “I’m just going to leave Tessa a note. No sense in waking her only to argue about whether or not she can come. You want to do the same for Brandon? We can tell them to just lay low, that we’ll be back sometime later this afternoon.”
“All right,” she said after an uncertain moment.
“Good. Can you be ready to leave in about fifteen minutes? I’ll meet you out in the parking lot.” He winked again. “It’ll be just like old times, no? You and me against the world.”
She watched him rise to his feet and looked up at him. “Rene,” she said, her voice and expression uncharacteristically abashed and meek. When he glanced down, she reached out and hooked her fingertips against his. “I’m sorry about last night. I didn’t mean to hurt you. You’ve done so much to help me and Brandon…” She cut her gaze down to her lap, her dark eyes glossy with sudden tears, her voice growing strained. “It’s my fault you’re in this mess to begin with, and I…the last thing I ever want is to hurt you.”
He caressed her cheek with the cuff of his fingers. “Il est bien, chère,” he said, leaning over to kiss her nose. It’s all right. “I told you, apology accepted.”
Lina smiled, stroking her hand against his face as he pulled away. “Thanks, Rene.”
“Anytime, chère,” he replied with a smile. “Wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”