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The call came in at almost five in the morning and James Bently was close to finishing his shift. The night had been uneventful so far, causing the last couple of hours to drag. He and Dawson were parked outside one of the shopping malls—a well-known place for the local teenagers to hang out—investigating recent reports of underage drinking. So far, there hadn’t been any signs of drinking, but the two cops warned the kids hanging out anyway.
“Report of vandalism at the Hilton Airport,” announced a voice over the radio. “Possible missing persons. Anyone close by who can respond?”
The lights of the high rise hotels serving LAX spattered the night in the not-so-far distance. James glanced at the radio and then at the high rises.
Was he so close to the airport because of Serenity, or simply coincidence?
The call was probably vandalism, nothing more, but the location made him sit up.
The Hilton Airport.
Serenity told him she was staying there.
There was something about the case—or about the woman—he couldn’t get out of his mind. Even her staying at the Hilton didn’t ring true. How could someone like Serenity afford to stay at the Hilton? Something didn’t seem right but he couldn’t put his finger on the problem.
Her husband had left, yet she hadn’t seemed bothered about him attacking another woman. Serenity hadn’t even asked about the other woman’s identity or how she’d met Jackson. Then she acted as though she knew her husband wasn’t coming home. She’d been so quick to start clearing out his office but what made her so sure?
Serenity knew more than she let on. James just needed to figure out what.
Now this call had come in and their vehicle was closest to the scene.
His partner groaned. “Come on,” Dawson said. “We’re close to quitting time. Can’t we ignore this one?”
Normally, James might have been tempted, but he needed to satisfy his curiosity. If the call had nothing to do with the dark-eyed woman on his mind, at least he’d be able to sleep peacefully for the remainder of the night.
James picked up the radio and responded to the call.
Heading out onto the freeway, they drove the ten minutes to the hotel and pulled up outside the grand, front entrance. The valet stepped forward, eyes darting from side to side, his face portraying the same guilt everyone seemed to get when a cop-car pulled up next to them, even when they’d done nothing wrong.
James climbed out of the car and the young valet hesitated.
“Don’t touch the vehicle,” James warned.
The two officers made their way through the foyer to the front desk. A pretty receptionist smiled as they approached.
“We’ve received a report of vandalism,” James said.
The girl nodded. “Sure, that’s on the eighth floor, suite eight-six-two. The manager is already waiting for you in the room.” She pointed to their right. “The elevators are over there.”
As the officers took one of the six elevators, James questioned Serenity’s choice of residence again. He’d seen her house and she wasn’t particularly wealthy. Not only that, she also didn’t come across as the type of person who liked big, pretentious hotels. Her choice of refuge surprised him.
The elevator doors slid open and they walked down the corridor, the gold sign attached to the wall telling them which direction to head in.
Room 862.
James stepped into the hotel room and shivered from the cold air racing through the suite. The hotel manager, a smartly dressed woman in her fifties, approached and held out her hand.
“Officers, thank you for coming so quickly. I’m Michelle Price, the manager. I don’t know how to explain this other than to assume vandalism.” She gave a shrill, slightly nervous laugh. “But, I guess it’s your job to figure these things out.”
“Of course.”
“The incident took place in the bedroom.”
James followed the manager through the adjoining door. The gap where the window had once been took up the whole of the front wall. Only a scarily long drop down to the city below was on the other side.
He walked across the room to the missing window. The sheer drop on the other side was dizzying, the city stretching out in front of him. James felt a strange rush of vertigo and put his hand on the wall, steadying himself. Night had started to fade to day and the dawning light made the drop even worse.
Glass crunched beneath foot, but when he looked down he only saw a few shards. He didn’t need to check the street below to know the rest of the window would be scattered across the sidewalk. Whoever broke this window had done so from the inside.
“The room next door reported an explosion,” the manager told him.
He couldn’t see any signs of explosives; no powder residue or burn marks on the walls or thick carpeting. The noise the neighbors heard must have been the force of the glass bursting outward.
James went back into the living room and rapped his knuckles against the intact window. The glass was thick, double glazed, designed to keep out the sound of the nearby airport and prevent any accidents from happening. The last thing a high profile hotel needed was people committing suicide from its top floors.
“I assume the same glass is used throughout the hotel?” he asked the manager.
“Yes, of course. The exact same.”
James frowned. “This isn’t a case of someone throwing a chair against a window. Some serious force would be needed to break this glass. Was the room occupied?”
“Yes, by a couple, but no one saw them leave. The woman came back around five last night, the man an hour or so after.”
“Have you got their details?”
“They checked in as Mr. and Mrs. Lorenzo. We have credit card details and an address, but nothing else. We don’t require anything more for American citizens.”
James checked the rest of the room. The couple who had inhabited the place seemed to have disappeared in-situ. Clothes piled at the bottom of the bed, a half-drunk bottle of coke stood on the dresser. A small bag sat on the chair.
Michelle folded her arms across her chest. “When we let ourselves into the room the shower was running. This whole thing is freaky, if you ask me. All we could think of was that someone had thrown themselves through the window, but its protective glass and we didn’t find any bodies on the ground below.”
James crossed the room, picked up the bag and looked inside. The bag didn’t contain much—a couple of changes of clothing and a toiletries bag. These things told him nothing except a woman owned the luggage. He checked the side pockets and found what he wanted; identification.
He read the name on the birth certificate and his stomach dropped.
Serenity Richards.
Richards must have been her maiden name, but James became certain the owner of the bag was the same woman. How many people had the name ‘Serenity’?
He bent down and picked up a small sliver of glass. Something came off on his fingers and, with a sinking heart, he realized it was blood.
This was more than a case of vandalism. Someone hadn’t smashed the window and left. Someone had been hurt. He desperately wished it wasn’t Serenity, but as the minutes passed, his hopes for her dwindled.
What had she gotten herself mixed up in?
James slipped on a pair of latex gloves and instructed Dawson to do the same. Hotels were impossible for getting prints—so many people, from the previous guests to the cleaners, passed through the rooms—but blood samples could be matched at a later date.
He experienced the same sensation again; the feeling that something wasn’t quite right.
“What name did you say they’d checked in as?” he asked the manager. The chance someone had stolen Serenity’s things and she’d never even seen this room still existed.
“We didn’t get any more than Mrs. Lorenzo. The husband seemed to handle everything.”
The husband?
A man with her would most likely turn out to be her actual husband; the man currently wanted for an alleged rape.
“Can you give me a description?” he said, bending to pick up more pieces of blood soaked glass and bagging them.
The manager frowned. “No, I never thought to check. I can find out though. They ordered room service and the porter who made the delivery is on duty tonight. He’s about to finish his shift.”
“Lucky him,” Dawson muttered, a comment shot down by a glance from James.
The reluctant porter was called up and asked if he remembered what ‘Mrs. Lorenzo’ looked like.
“Long dark hair, dark eyes,” the Hispanic man shrugged, embarrassed. “Pretty, I guess. She seemed nice, though. She tried to tip me even though the tips are already charged to the room.”
Damn it!
The missing woman must be Serenity. Whatever had happened in this room, he was sure she’d been involved.
Where was she now? Had the husband used fake identification and credit card to pay for the room and then attacked her? That the husband had somehow weakened the glass and broken it as a distraction was the only explanation. They wouldn’t be able to jump through without some kind of safety harness or rappelling gear.
Breaking the window would create a diversion, of course, but from what? The couple checked into the hotel using fake names so the police wouldn’t have been able to find them. The husband might have someone else after him; someone far worse than the police and the broken window was an attempt to fake their deaths.
James sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Whichever way he looked at the scenario, things didn’t add up.
What had taken place in this room baffled him but he was also worried for Serenity. Of course, all the signs might be wrong and this wasn’t the room she’d stayed in, but whatever instinct made him become a cop served him well. He hated to think something terrible had happened to her. He’d known something was wrong and he hadn’t followed up on what his guts told him.
If she turned up hurt or dead, he had failed her.
As soon as Sebastian saw the police car parked outside the hotel’s entrance, he knew something was wrong.
How had he missed the scent of panic in the air?
With the fresh blood still roaring around his ears, he’d gone back to the site of his feed in an almost numb, drunken haze. He found the body just as he’d left it and Sebastian went about the routine of disposing of the body. The whole time, he’d been caught up within himself, lost in thoughts of Serenity.
He should have picked up on her anguish in the night. Now, standing in front of the hotel, her fear tainted the air like pollution.
Sebastian picked up his pace, moving through the lobby with a speed that made him all but invisible to the people he passed. Using the stairs would be faster than waiting for the elevator, and he raced up the flights, taking them two at a time.
Sebastian reached the hotel room to find the door standing open, people’s muttered voices drifting out to him from inside.
What had happened?
Sick with fear, Sebastian slipped inside the room, his body shadowing the walls, silent and stealth-like. The living room showed no sign of disturbance.
Wind lifted his hair, ruffling his clothes, and he realized both the voices and cold air came from the bedroom.
Two police officers had their backs to him; one crouching down, picking something off the floor. A tall blonde woman stood behind them, her hand hiding her mouth. The bed was still rumpled, the sheets hanging off the end, almost on the floor. But the main thing screaming for attention was the wide, gaping hole where a large pane of thick glass had once been.
He didn’t need to think about what happened: Madeline had been here and by the look of things, she’d taken Serenity with her.
Sebastian backed out of the room, his presence unnoticed. Furious, he lashed out, catching a wall-mounted fire-extinguisher with his fist, sending it flying across the corridor, to smash into the opposite wall. The extinguisher fell to the floor, leaving a deep dent in the plaster.
In the bedroom, James spun around at the crash and ran for the corridor. A fire extinguisher rolled on the ground; a huge hole in the wall above. He bent down beside the extinguisher and ran his fingers over a dent in the metal. Whoever had thrown the extinguisher did so with extreme force.
James frowned. He picked up the extinguisher, testing the weight. The object felt heavy. For someone to throw it with such force would take some strength.
Strength enough to break thick glass?
“They can’t have gone far,” he told Dawson, referring to whoever had committed this new act of vandalism. “You take the elevator and I’ll take the stairwell.”
He swung open the door leading to the stairs and ran down. Part of him knew this chase was futile. Whoever had thrown the extinguisher might have stopped on any floor, hiding in any one of the rooms, but James would put money on them leaving the hotel. Something about the rage that action contained left him thinking; whoever threw the extinguisher wouldn’t be hiding.
Gasping for breath, the officer burst out onto the ground floor. A porter pushed a trolley full of luggage and James stopped him.
“Did anyone run past you?”
The porter frowned and shook his head.
“Shit!”
James pushed past the trolley and headed for the front doors.
Damn Madeline!
Sebastian didn’t know where she would take Serenity. He only hoped Madeline hadn’t caused her harm.
Standing outside the hotel, he realized he didn’t even know which direction to turn.
To think Serenity was out there somewhere, probably scared, possibly hurt, cut him deep inside. Rage burned like an incinerator, charring all other emotions. He clenched his fists, certain when he got his hands on the other vampire, he would tear her limb from limb.
For a moment, he allowed himself to believe such a thing was possible.
How stupid to leave Serenity alone. If he’d taken her with him, she would be safe.
He was always making mistakes, so many mistakes.
“Serenity!” he roared into the night.
Where should he start looking? Madeline liked fine things. She liked to be treated as though she were someone special; wanted those around her to know she had money and wasn’t afraid to spend it. He’d only known her in Europe, never in America, and it had been many, many years since they spent any time together. She could be anywhere in this huge city—even outside of it—and he had no idea where to start.
Madeline was spiteful enough to kill Serenity just to hurt him. But Madeline was also tenacious and to kill Serenity without first using her to threaten him would be a waste to her.
He could only hope Madeline would bring Serenity to him, alive.
Above him, the black sky lightened to a deep, indigo blue and slowly the stars went out, one by one. Day was coming and he had no choice but to head back to his house.
Fury and frustration filled him. Consumed with rage, he brought his palm down on the windshield of the car beside him, shattering the glass. Moving through the car lot, he smashed windshield after windshield, his rage blinding him. A variety of car alarms sounded in the night, like howler monkeys calling their troops in a rainforest.
How could he search for her when he would be bound to his house like a prisoner? At least Madeline would be forced to do the same thing—find a place of refuge during the day—and leave Serenity in peace.
There was nothing left for him to do except leave the hotel and go home.
James stood in the middle of the parking garage and stared around in amazement. Vandalized vehicles surrounded him, each car with its windshield shattered, the glass burst in over the driver and passenger seats. He put his hands over his ears against the cacophony of alarms filling the night.
What the hell was going on?