Blood Lily (Lilith Adams Vampire Series Book 1) (25 page)

“I wanted you to see that Mr. Deveraux is okay. He hasn’t been thrown in a holdin
g cell or mistreated in anyway.” When Lilith was able to tear her eyes away from Chance, she saw Cohen leaning casually against the door with his hands in his pockets. “I’m not the bad guy, Ms. Adams, and I think you know that. I genuinely believe that you are not responsible for the events and that you are in danger.” His face was complete, open honesty. He really believed her, which seemed miraculous.

“I want to help you.” He sighed heavily again and leaned his head back against the door. “Hell, if it wasn’t your cousin, I’d be asking for your help right now, processing the scene.
You are with the Major Crimes Unit after all. We are not prepared at all for something this severe.” When he lowered his head to look at her, there was a familiar frustration in his eyes. “We deal with country hicks that move into the city and think they’re living in the hood so they should be in a gang.” He rolled his eyes before continuing. “Or it’s religious protesters that go too far at the abortion clinics, or domestic abuse cases that turn deadly. That’s what I work with all the time. This…This is beyond evil.” There was something in his voice, something he wasn’t saying, or something he was exaggerating, but what part, she had no clue. Overall, it didn’t seem malicious though. Maybe he was just covering something personal.

His voice suddenly sounded haunted and hollow and she knew why. She felt it to. There comes a certain point where a crime is so horrible, so unthinkable that you lose the ability to comprehend that a person did this. You want to think
it’s some monster or boogey man, not the guy that stands behind you in line at the grocery store. “It sounds pretty awful.” She didn’t have to act, her voice breaking and the tears stinging her eyes came easily enough just remembering Miriah’s body lying unrecognizable on the desk.

Cohen stared at her with a soft edge of sympathy. “I’m sorry. What your cousin endured, no one should ever have to go through that.” His brown eyes were warm and caring, filled with such genuine emotion
that it was a little surprising. Cops that cared this much usually just get eaten alive. Eventually they see one too many victimized children or mutilated corpses and they just burn out. You can only feel so much before you break. It would be a pity. From what she’d seen, Cohen was a great Detective and those were rare.

Lilith turned and stared through the mirror to Chance’s interrogation room. She felt better, safer, just being able to see him. How ridiculous was that? He had no clue where she was. He couldn’t come to her rescue, but somehow just knowing he was close was comforting. Maybe it was all the trauma of the past few days
with Chance being the one familiar thing she could cling to.

The shrewd Detective didn’t miss the expression on her face. “He really is what you say, isn’t he?” When she turned to him with a startled look he continued. “He’s no monster. Whitmore really likes him for this, but I think that’s just because Whitmore is a lazy bigot that will jump at the first convenient suspect.” He released a sigh of pure frustration that almost bordered on a growl. Those
brown eyes rested on her again and there was a keen sharpness in them. “However, you two are not here to visit family, are you?”

“Actually, we are here for precisely that.” It wasn’t a lie. If Lilith wanted to visit her Uncle, she’d simply have to find him first. Cohen seemed like a great guy, a trustworthy type, but he was still
human. She couldn’t reveal things that would endanger her family and most likely just get the Detective killed.

“I can be your ally, Ms. Adams. I want to find your cousin’s killer just as much as you do.” Actually, Lilith didn’t really want to find him as much as kill him, but
semantics.

“I believe you, Detective.” She rested against the glass, staring at the door behind Detective Cohen with sightless eyes. The facts of the case kept swirling in her brain and she fought to piece them together.

“Okay, let’s go at this from a different angle.” She was only half listening, lost in her own thoughts. “How long have you known Duncan’s been missing?” That snapped her head up sharply. How in the hell could he know that? There was no way that Spencer or Miriah would go to the human cops, and besides, Cohen was a Knoxville Detective not a Madisonville Sheriff.

“How do you know Duncan?” She moved away from the glass, all the calm comfort vanishing with the chill sneaking up her spine.

Cohen pushed away from the door with an easy grace that seemed completely effortless. “There is a reason I took you away from the cameras. It wasn’t just to show you that your fiancée is safe. There are things that I need to discuss with you that aren’t safe for certain ears.”

The chill turned ice cold as the little hairs stood on the back of her neck. Without thinking she took a step back and could feel her heart beating a touch faster. “I…I don’t know what you mean.”

He laughed and it was a rich, earthy sound that rubbed softly against her skin. “I know Duncan, personally, and I know his sorted family history.” There was a weight in his eyes, a significance that jolted her. He merely smiled at her startled face and leaned against the glass near her. “I’ve been helping him on a few things. So if you truly are his niece, which you certainly seem to be, you can tell me the truth.”

It all seemed to
o convenient, too bizarre. What were the odds that one of the lead Detectives on Miriah’s murder case was actually in Duncan’s pocket? She remembered Richard Coffee at the lab saying he had a man on the force, but that was in forensics. He definitely hadn’t mentioned a detective. Her heart truly started pounding now. She needed to get out of this room. He could be bluffing, trying to startle a reaction out of her. Well it worked. It wouldn’t take much work to find the name of Miriah’s father, but he knew he was missing. There were only two ways he could possibly know that. Either he truly did know Duncan personally and was telling the truth, or he was responsible in at least assisting their unknown tormentor. All the signs pointed to the first, but she couldn’t risk that.

The wal
ls seemed to be closing in, choking the breath from her as panic started to sink in. She had to get out of here, out of this room, away from Detective Cohen. He seemed to sense just how agitated she was.

“I didn’t mean to startle you.” He held out his large hands in a sign of peace. “Take a deep breath before you pass out. Your heart’s racing like a rabbit being chased by a
fox.” How the hell could he know that? She had excellent hearing, but unless she was standing inches from a person, even she couldn’t hear that. From all the way across the room, there was no way he could. Still, his face showed every single marker of concern. She should believe him, trust him, but something about that made her gut scream just the opposite. Vampires tended to have some pretty serious trust issues.

“Are we free to go?” She forced herself to stand up straight, clenching her jaw in determination.

“You are I suppose.” He looked genuinely confused. Everything about him seemed genuine. It just wasn’t natural, it wasn’t right. She stared at a point on his chest so she could avoid looking at his almost handsome face but still watch his movements. “Like I said before, we are holding Mr. Deveraux until we can confirm your story.”

Lilith struggled not to let the anger to the surface. The fear deep in the pit of her stomach was more than enough to deal with.
She nodded solemnly. There was no way he was going to let Chance go until she talked to him about Duncan. She wasn’t going to be sharing stories with the “good” Detective, so Chance would sit in that room or a holding cell for the next twenty-one hours or so.

Maybe she could give Alvarez a call and get him to pull some strings, but for right now, she just needed out of the tiny, dark observation room. “Can I go then?”

Detective Cohen stepped reluctantly to the side, giving her an open path to the door. As she walked past him, he held out his card. “If you change your mind and want an ally, call me. I apologize again if I frightened you. There is a killer out there, and you need my help.”

Lilith stuffed the card in the breast pocket of her
dark green shirt as she reached for the door knob. His last sentence hung in the air like a thick fog, chilling her right to the bone. She was so focused on getting out of that room, away from Detective Cohen, that she almost ran into Whitmore.

His deeply wrinkled and sun-worn face crinkled in a frown. “I wouldn’t suggest leaving that apartment.” His voice was a gruff, deep growl of a southern drawl and his thick
greying moustache wiggled as he talked. He was a few inches shorter but he was intimidating enough to make up for it.

She just nodded and hurried around him, almost running for the police station doors.
When she finally made it outside, she stood in the early fall sun, letting it warm away all the chills. She took a few deep breaths and slowly realized that she had no way to get back to the apartment. In fact, Chance had the keys. Her kit, which held her lock pick gun, was locked in the rental car, which Chance also had the keys to. She stared at the police station doors completely torn. There was no way she wanted to go back in there, but where was she supposed to go? She couldn’t just wait on the stairs until Chance was released and she couldn’t run all over the city, exposed and vulnerable.

Lilith sank down on a park bench outside the station.
She didn’t think Cohen would dare approach her right outside the station. She had no idea what or who he really was, but he definitely wasn’t the simple, young detective he appeared to be. At the very least, he knew more than he should. At worst, well, the thought just chilled her right to the bone. She had no choice but to leave Chance in there with him and a bigot cop that thought he was a murderous monster.

She dug her phone out of her pocket and the blinking message light caught her attention, knocking her out of the heavy melancholy.
With one press of the unlock button, the bright screen showed five missed calls and one voicemail, all from the same number. It was a Knoxville number, but not one she recognized. She jabbed the voicemail symbol and a nasally, thin voice rattled through the speaker.

“Miss Adams, this is Dr.
Nichols at Goditha Labs. I need you to call or come by as soon as you get this!” There was an unrestrained excitement that made his voice annoyingly bright. It was the complete opposite of her mood, but the thought that there might be something, any sort of lead, reluctantly lifted some of the weight from her shoulders.

Not only was the message bizarrely interesting, it also gave her something to do in relative safety. If Richard Coffee was on duty, she wouldn’t have to worry about anything bothering her.
That man could pass as Andre the Giants’ bodyguard. There wasn’t a safer place in the whole city. Not to mention that it actually wouldn’t be weird for her to take a cab there during the day.

Lilith dug in her pocket and found a twenty plus the change from breakfast that morning. Good thing she’d tucked money into her jeans since her wallet was in her forensics case, locked in the rental car.
It was a tiny ray of light in her dark day. She was hoping that maybe, just maybe it would turn the tables. Right now she felt like she was trying to build a puzzle, blindfolded, with half the pieces missing or maybe the pieces were from five different puzzles.

Chapter 12

A
fter dialing a cab, she leaned back against the bench, completely lost in her thoughts. They were all whirling around so fast in her head that she couldn’t seem to grab one long enough to focus on it. She just let her mind go and watched her surroundings. The birds were chirping in the warm, sunny day. Cars were cruising by at an easy pace, probably due to the police station more than anything else. People were laughing and strolling down the street with friends, family and loved ones, enjoying the Indian summer. Halloween was in a couple weeks and store fronts were already making room for Christmas decorations.

They were all so oblivious to the world and
, right now, she envied them. What would it be like to just walk down the quaint, downtown streets without looking over your shoulder? No thoughts of corpses, blood evidence, relatives being slaughtered, just enjoying the warm sunshine on your skin and nothing else. What would it be like not having to worry about people finding out who and what you are? Not having to worry about blood supplements or overhearing conversations you aren’t meant to hear? What would it be like to be blissfully ignorant and normal? What she would give right now to just be concerned with finding a costume for some party and completing a long Christmas list.

Even before this trip, life wasn’t like that for her. She examined dead bodies every day and spent most of her time dealing with the
darkest emotions of humanity, all the while, existing with the paranoia that her and her family would be found out. If their existence came to light in the wrong way, everyone she was close to would end up dead or worse.  She knew why Gregor wanted to carefully engineer their exposure to humans. It wouldn’t be easy, of course. The first decade or so would be very rough, even with the best set of circumstances. Eventually, it would bring a sense of peace to her people that they have never known.  No hiding, no paranoia, just living. She couldn’t even imagine that.

Sure there were plenty of TV shows and books that painted a picture of Vampires being out of the closet, but those were Hollywood vampires. Lilith and her kind were nowhere near as threatening as those mythical creatures, but humanity tended to turn against the unknown. There were plenty of ignorant people and religious fanatics that wouldn’t stop to understand the facts. They would just call them the spawn of Satan and demand blood. Vampires were so prevalent in popular culture that people would have a hard time adjusting to the extreme differences. It wouldn’t matter what was true and what was pure myth.

Lilith noticed a couple walking hand in hand past the multicolored trees lining the street. They’d share shy smiles, and every so often he would tug her back to crash into him. The girl giggled and squealed with such a shining smile of bliss. It was the exact opposite of how her insides felt, isolated, terrified, cold, and desperate. With a sigh she wondered if Chance felt the same way right now. He may have been sent to protect her, but right now all she wanted to do was protect him. He was safe for the most part, but he hated confining spaces almost as much as he hated redneck, asshole cops. Just this once she didn’t disagree with him. She could only hope that Detective Cohen, whoever he was, would keep his word and release Chance once he spoke with Alvarez and Gregor.

A thought nagged at her again, Richard Coffee calling Gregor with no answer last night. Why? There were perfectly plausible reasons why he might not have answered. The same reasons
why anyone wouldn’t answer a phone, but it still knotted her stomach. Malachi was tortured and killed in New York City. What if the same monster got to Gregor? With a sudden little bubble of panic she tried Gregor’s cell phone. It went straight to voicemail. The cab pulled up just as she punched the number for Alvarez’s precinct, hoping he was working today. If Alvarez was at home, she’d have to call his home number since his cell phone considered his house the black hole of cellular reception. That meant talking to Gloria, which seemed like a bad idea right now. Gloria would hear everything in her voice and wouldn’t politely ignore it like Alvarez would.

She slid into the back seat of the cab and gave the driver the address as the phone rang. Someone finally answered as the car pulled away from the c
urb and sped away from the police station.

“13
th
Precinct Police Department. How can I direct your call?”

“Homicide
, please.”

A few clicks and some crackly elevator music later, she was talking to Detective Boyd. He was one of the younger Homicide Detectives, but thankfully, one of the few that not only knew her but actually appreciated her work. “Lilith Adams.” She could hear the smile in
his smooth voice. “I thought you were on vacation?”

“Oh I am. I’m actually looking for Alvarez, is he there?”

“No. Actually he turned in some personal days last night. Said he’s having some trouble at home that needs to be dealt with.”

The timing was just impossibly weird. She didn’t believe in coincidences for a damn good reason. Ignoring the facts can get you killed. “Okay.
If you hear from him will you tell him that I really need his advice on something down here?”

“Helping out some local cops, huh? I had a call from one not long ago in Knoxville. He was rooting around about you, asking all kinds of questions.” Then there was a notable pause, perhaps for dramatic effect. “You aren’t in trouble are you?”

“No but a friend of mine might be.” Her nerves were about as frayed as her patience. Normally she loved chit chatting with Boyd, but today just wasn’t the day. She knew her voice was clipped and irritated, but she couldn’t help it.

“
Well, I hope it works out. I’ll pass on the message if I hear from him.” His voice did sound a little wounded, but she didn’t have time to deal with bruised egos. She’d feel bad about hurting his feelings later. Now wasn’t the time. Her chest was tightening more and more as she dialed the home phone.

Gloria’s brightly accented voice almost made her smile. Her Spanish accent was thick but absolutely beautiful.
It reminded her of home, a bright spot in her inner darkness. “Hello,
Bonita
.”

“Gloria
. I’m trying to get a hold of your husband and the Precinct said he was at home on personal leave?”

“No, I’m afraid not,
Bonita
. He was all out of vacation days, so he had to take personal days. Philippe had to go out of town.”

A cold, heavy weight landed in the pit of her stomach. She just wanted to scream ‘what the hell next?’ and punch something. “Do you know where he went or why?”

“Well... He said he couldn’t be specific, for our own safety.” She could just hear Gloria rolling her eyes. “I swear if he’s after some
bonita punta
…” She dissolved completely into Spanish for a few minutes and it managed to pull a smile to Lilith’s lips. Gloria seemed too distracted by her husband’s mystery trip to notice the haunted sound in Lilith’s voice. “So no, he didn’t say. Sorry, Lily.”

“It’s all right Gloria. I’ll track him down and m
ake sure he gets home safe and sound.”

Gloria’s bubble of laughter was infectious.

“What about you? How is your vacation? Philippe mentioned that you have a travel partner, a tall, handsome travel partner.” Lilith could hear the hopeful smile in Gloria’s voice. She wanted to tell Gloria everything despite the horrible timing, but there were more pressing matters and this would be a long conversation.

“He’s quite charismatic, but then I’ve known him since I was 15. He works for my father. I promise I’ll fill you in later
though.” They shared a few laughs over Alvarez’s cheesy ‘don Juan’ lines and Gloria made her promise to eat some real food. As soon as she hung up, the car pulled up to the lab. Just talking to Gloria about normal, everyday things made her feel better, more connected.

That was the worst part of this life, feeling cut off, alone. You can’t get too close to people because it’s dangerous, so no one really truly knows you. No one really knew her except her father, Alvarez, Gloria, and to some degree
now, Chance. Even they didn’t know all of her, just facets. Living this guarded life, it made it hard to let down your walls to anyone. You get used to having them there, you get used to the comfort of being anonymous. If Gregor was successful in bringing them out to the public, how would the older vampires react? Hell, how would she react?

When she really thought about it, she didn’t want peop
le to know everything about her. She didn’t want people to know she was different. She may only be 27 years old, but she’d never learned how to just be. Life was all about figuring out which facet of her personality to display to which people. It was an endless line of masks. Hell, maybe there wasn’t anything cohesive behind them at all.

She blindly handed the cabbie a twenty and scrambled out of the back seat. The cab squealed out of the parking lot and she jogged for the front entrance
, still mulling over her internal battles. Finally, she managed to shove all of it to the background and focus on the building in front of her. There’d be plenty of time for self-realization and brooding later. Lilith wrinkled her nose and sighed. Dammit. Her inner monologue was quickly starting to resemble those damn whiny vampires in the movies. Poor me. Nobody really knows me. Blah, blah, blah. She shook her head and reminded herself to kick her own ass later. Next thing you know, she’d be sparkling in the sunlight like some anorexic disco ball.

Five missed calls seemed to indicate that there was at least one doctor here. When she reached the call box she jammed the button for Sector 2, which she recalled being Blood Analysis.

The voice that sounded so excited on her voicemail droned out his rehearsed lines impatiently across the crackly speaker. “Goditha Labs. We are closed to the general public without an appointment.”

“Dr.
Nichols? This is Lilith Adams. Could you buzz me in?”

The high pitched buzz of the door sounded without a word. She snatched the handle and slipped inside as fast as she could. As soon as the door clicked closed, she felt an immense amount of relief, even safety.
She briskly walked down the empty hallway, straight to Mr. Coffee’s security desk. The huge mountain of a man looked up as she approached, and his wide mouth cracked into a smile. Her smile of relief was automatic.

“Ms. Adams.
A pleasure to see you again.” His voice was like the roll of thunder, impossibly low. Richard’s dark eyes searched the hall behind her for a moment. “And Mr. Deveraux?” He certainly had an excellent memory. Of course, now that she thought about it, she didn’t suspect they got that many visitors.

“Detained.
We’ve hit a few complications.” It sounded positively boring compared to ‘He’s been thrown in jail cause the dumbass cops think he hit me and butchered my cousin’. It sounded like an extreme episode of Jerry Springer. For that, of course, they’d have to throw in some sex and incest. Apparently, murder wasn’t shocking enough on its own. She almost laughed to herself, but not quite.

Mr. Coffee was just pushing away from the desk, rising to his enormous seven feet of
dark muscle when the door to Section 2 burst open. Lilith recognized the frazzled man running down the hallway from last night. He was one of the scientists she’d talked to about the blood samples she needed testing on. He definitely looked worse for wear now. His blondish brown hair was a messy mop on his head like he’d been trying to pull it all out over the last thirteen hours. His slate grey eyes were completely bloodshot and the dark circles definitely didn’t help. Now that she was really looking, she noticed his nose was a little too thin and pointy, like a small beak on his face, and his lips were pressed together in a line so thin you could barely see them.

His rail thin body came to a sliding stop at the security desk and he leaned against it gulping in large breaths. Richard stood a good two feet taller than him and about four times as wide. It was almost comical to see them standing next to each other.
Coffee just stared down at him like someone would look at their pet poodle that did something amusing. Finally, the good doctor smoothed out his rumpled lab coat and flashed a smile of crooked teeth that made her cringe just a tiny bit. Not everyone’s smile is pretty, or friendly, for that matter, even when they mean it to be.

“Ms. Adams… I’ve been trying to reach you… for hours.” He was still panting pretty heavy. Obviously he wasn’t used to the cardinal rule of cardio.
He’d definitely be the first to go in a zombie apocalypse. Of course, if she spent all day in a lab protected by a giant linebacker on radioactive steroids, she probably wouldn’t spare much time for cardio workouts either. “You have got to see this!” He snatched her hand and started pulling her down the hall. Social etiquette was completely lost in the wake of his excitement. He couldn’t have really pulled her down the hall if she hadn’t wanted to go. The doctor was about as muscular as a newborn puppy, but she was eager to see what he’d found, so she went along with it.

They burst into the lab and Dr.
Nichols tugged her over to a high work space and an enormous microscope. He flopped down onto a stool, grey eyes holding a manic shine of enthusiasm that bordered on terrifying. “Where did you get it?” He almost sounded like some high school girl begging to know where she bought her shoes. The high pitched tone was definitely right. God it was almost a squeal that left her ears ringing a little. “I have to know!”