“Wanna fry?” Nolan asked, his eyes red and his smile sheepish.
I guess not all of the men in my life could be gifted in the kitchen.
“Let those cool before you throw them out. I’ll call for delivery, and then we can talk about this file you’re working on.”
In Keaty’s office, I was digging around for a phonebook when my cell phone started trilling at me. At first I didn’t recognize it, because my usual ring tone was Tom Petty, but my phone was currently singing “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”. Leave it to my sneaky diurnal boyfriend to change my ring tone while I was asleep for the day.
In my haste to answer, I didn’t check caller ID so I opened with a questioning, “Hello?”
“Hey, Secret, it’s Cedes.”
“Hey, lady, what can I do for you? You find Sharon Stone yet?”
There was a long pause, then she cleared her throat. “Keats made you get your PI license, right?”
“Yes,” I replied warily.
“I’m going to need you to come down to the precinct.”
My whole body tensed. When a homicide detective asked you to come in, it usually wasn’t for anything good. “Is something looking less stabby and more vampy? ’Cause I haven’t been on active duty for months, so it wasn’t m—”
“It’s not a vampire I’m worried about.” Her voice was hushed, so she must have been around other officers. Humans, by and large, weren’t big believers in vampires.
“What’s going on?”
“Can you just come, please?”
“Sure.”
The NYPD’s seventy-sixth precinct looked like a high school that might burst into a West Side Story-type gang war at any moment. It was a squat concrete building with no color and no life. I dragged myself up the steps, trying to imagine what might make Mercedes call me in like this.
Behind the front desk was a pretty young receptionist whom I’d had the displeasure of meeting on several previous visits.
“Barbie,” I greeted. No, I wasn’t kidding. And this girl gave me attitude for being named…
“Secret.” Her smile was forced and her voice barely masked her contempt. “Castilla and Novak are expecting you in the conference room.”
Novak? Oh sweet, honorable crap. Detective Tyler Nowakowski was the last person I was prepared to see tonight. For some stupid reason my hands flew up to check my hair, and I was thankful I’d at least done something with it. As for my new personal uniform of tight black leather pants and knee-high boots, I had made a valiant effort to girlie them up by wearing a lilac cardigan over a butter-yellow tank. Still, it’s hard not to look like you’re a member of a biker gang when you’re wearing leather pants. I’d gotten sick of ruining all my best jeans with bloodstains, and leather was easier to keep clean.
I let out a sigh and took the stairs behind Barbie’s desk up to the main work floor. Along the far wall was a room with more windows than walls, and I could see Mercedes and Tyler sitting next to each other at a table. I weaved my way through the sea of metal desks until I was in the open doorway, tapping at the frame to announce my presence.
“Secret,” Mercedes said with a small smile. “Thanks for coming.”
She and Tyler rose, and both shook my hand. As always, I flushed with pleasure from Tyler’s firm grip.
We’d had an ill-fated blind date. It had gone perfectly until a group of vampire wardens had been forced to wipe his memory so he’d forget how I’d ginsued a trio of rogue vampires on a subway platform.
And you thought your dating life was hard.
Now he thought I’d bailed on our date without rhyme or reason. I was that girl. I gave him my best smile, but he only stared back with detached indifference. I wished I could explain things to him, but now that I was one third of the vampire Tribunal, it was extra impossible to defy the rules.
I took off my cropped motorcycle jacket and eased into the chair across from them. The three of us sat in silence, and I had no intention of being the one to break first. I was part vampire, after all, and I could stay quiet for an irritating length of time.
Tyler cleared his throat and placed a manila folder in the middle of the desk.
“Do you have a queasy stomach, Miss McQueen?”
“It’s Secret. And no.” My werewolf half had a bad habit of needing to win staring contests, and I didn’t look away until he did.
He nudged the folder towards me, but I didn’t bite. Curiosity killed the cat, but I was a wolf. I leaned back in my chair and kept watching them. If they thought I was guilty of something, being too eager to see the evidence would only make me look worse. And since I didn’t know if I actually was guilty or not, I didn’t want to be too rash. I’d killed plenty of people—or at least monsters that looked like people—but none without reason. Try explaining that to the human police, though, and you come across like a psychopath. They didn’t tend to love the they had it coming logic.
It was Mercedes who broke the silence. “Secret, we’ve asked you here because we know you and Mr. Keats specialize in more…unusual cases than most PIs in the city. What we’ve got on our hands right now definitely qualifies as unusual.”
“You want my help?” Considering just last night Cedes had rebuffed the offer, I was interested in what had happened to bring on such an official change of heart.
“Did you think we brought you in for something more sinister?” Tyler’s tone was sarcastic but maintained a note of genuine curiosity. I caught his eye and frowned.
“The invitation was a little mysterious.”
“I thought you liked to be cloaked in mystery,” he countered.
I snorted. “Am I here to offer a professional opinion, or am I here so you can get in a few long-awaited jabs at my expense, Nowakowski?” I felt bad for being so harsh, but I wasn’t willing to be dragged through the mud for something I didn’t deserve. He frowned and drummed his fingers on the table but said nothing.
“We’ve been trying to keep this case quiet for as long as possible,” Mercedes confessed. “But tomorrow the Times and Post are going live with a vengeance.”
She flipped open the folder, and a dozen glossy photos fluttered out across the table towards me. At first I couldn’t make sense of them, but when I picked one up to get a better look, my stomach clenched.
“Is that…?”
“That one was found on the desk of the Times editor.” She handed me another. “This one at the Post. And this one…” She put a third photo in my hands. “This one was delivered to my desk this afternoon.”
Each photo was of a cheery Christmas stocking, red boot with a fuzzy white trim, crammed full of body parts. And judging by the red-hued, ragged edges of the pieces, they wouldn’t fit back together all too cleanly. I shoved the photos into the folder and slapped it shut.
“Who delivered the packages?” I asked, trying to drive the images from my mind.
“That’s part of what’s so weird. There were no deliveries. The boxes weren’t mailed or dropped off. They just showed up,” Mercedes explained.
Tyler exhaled loudly through his nose.
“Is there any way to hold the press off?” This kind of story would create a frenzy in the city. People were already frantic this time of year. Throw in a serial killer who ripped people apart and shit would hit the fan.
Tyler spoke up at last. “The Post is shitting themselves. Can you imagine how long they’ve been waiting to use the headline Ho-Ho-Homicide? The Times won’t be scooped by the Post on a story this big. Especially when Ellen Klein has blood all over her editorial desk. No, we can’t hold the press off.”
I played with the edge of the folder, nervous energy rattling through my body. “What do you think I can do to help?”
“We know you and Keats have dealt with some strange customers…” Mercedes was trying to phrase things as delicately as possible with Tyler around. My guess was he’d insisted on sitting in on the meeting, not wanting her to commandeer lead detective on what might be the biggest case of their careers. I couldn’t blame him, but it made it difficult for Cedes to tell me what she needed.
“We’ve seen our share of mixed nuts, yeah.”
“With your experience, we hoped you might look through your old cases and see if any red flags popped up.”
“Check the records for someone who thinks they’re Santa?” I grumbled.
“At this point we’re willing to follow up on every lead. There’s more.” She placed another folder on the table next to the one we’d just closed, and I was hoping it wasn’t going to be worse. “We’ve been looking at this as a missing-persons issue until now, but today that all changed. Since we’re now dealing with one of the scariest mass homicides this city has seen in thirty years, we have to be prepared for the two things to be connected.”
“What missing-persons issue?”
“Three youths are missing, all under fifteen. And with this development, especially the stocking angle and the age of some of the other victims, there’s a chance this freak has taken them.”
“God.” I now regretted my Santa remark. “I’ll take a look at our case files. Keaty…Keats is out of town, but I’ll see if I can get in touch with him. He knows our past cases better than anyone. But don’t get your hopes too high. I can’t remember anything we’ve dealt with remotely like that.” I tapped the first file.
It was true I’d never known of a monster who delivered body parts in stockings before. But I knew there were monsters out there who targeted the young. Monsters the NYPD had no business dealing with. Which was probably the real reason Cedes had called me.
“Every little bit counts,” Tyler admitted. It must have pained him to be a party to asking for my help. Wounded male pride runs deep, and even a smart guy like him was no exception to that rule.
“What else can you tell me? Any connections between the kids and the other victims? Were any of the adult victims reported as MIA before their bodies showed up?” In another life, I might have made one heck of a detective. As it was, I had more than enough mysteries to solve.