Hair of the Wolf (13 page)

***

My name is Ian Stone. I am a Private Detective—a P.I. I work hard to cultivate a certain
film noir
image of the hard-boiled, tough-guy gumshoe, with my black fedora, Burberry trench coat, and rugged good looks. I also wear matching emerald green Converse plus an emerald silk tie.

It was a gorgeous morning, which just goes to show you that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, or a day by its weather. Normally, I’d do putzing around stuff. I’m a slow starter when I have the luxury to be, the kind of guy that slowly works through some coffee while making sure all my business for the day is set up, you know? But today, something was under my skin, and I wanted to get out and about to take advantage of the day. So I decided to go ahead and start off with a work errand.

I had gotten hired a few days ago by a Stepford wife who was afraid she had a cheating husband. I grabbed the stack of photos from their resting spot on my desk. Sadly for her, she was right, and he had been unfaithful. Normally, I’d just pop these bad boy shots in the mail and be done, but since I was feeling good that day, I decided to hand deliver the photos.

I swept up my trench coat and threw it over my shoulders. I know, nice day, why the coat right? It’s an image thing, so stop hassling me. Where was I? Oh, yeah. So the moment I’m ready to head out, right as I’m reaching towards the door of my office, the handle turns and my door swings open.

In walked the most gorgeous bombshell I’ve ever seen. She was in her mid-twenties with silky long black hair, the type of sensual curves that a 1950s model could only dream of, and deep brown eyes that a man could lose himself in for a lifetime. Her lips slowly and sensually curved up into a smile as she saw me standing in front of her, and that smile … just wow. Girls this classy never walk into your life without bringing a world of trouble with them, though. And even if it is a bit cliché, I swear I could smell the trouble on her.

She flashed that smile again, reminding me of nothing so much as a mix of Marilyn Monroe and some woodland predator that knew it had just caught you alone. Being the manly man that I am, I managed to find control of my legs and back up, allowing her the space to walk into my office.

“Mr. Stone, I presume?” Her voice was rich and heady, and, man, did it make me want to hear it more.

She hip-swayed into the office, and brother, that sway would have foundered the
Titanic!
It was just too much. Did this woman never stop? Was there anything about that wasn’t going to scream ‘come hither’ at me?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a post-pubescent sex-crazed kid or anything. My lifestyle just doesn’t allow me to maintain relationships all that well … it had been a couple of years since there had been a woman in my life. So imagine a starving man stumbling into a five-star restaurant. It’s kind of like that when I find a masterpiece of a woman who so obviously knows what she is, and uses it to her advantage, staring me down.

“Yes?” I know, so pithy. Master of eloquence, that’s me. At least I managed to back up another couple of steps and slide out the client chair on the business end of my desk.

She smiled and stepped towards the chair, flicking that silky black hair over her shoulder with an absentminded gesture as she took the seat. The act of sitting down accentuated her LBD (little black dress for those of you that are less familiar with the deadly array of fashion weaponry that some women choose to wield). It slid up her thigh as she sat, exposing the perfect amount of leg.

I think that was what broke me out of the glamour she was casting over me. It was just way too calculated of a gesture. See, a woman hits you with a full dose of come hither, and she wants something—which was a safe bet as she had come to my office.

But the show I was getting wasn’t standard for someone who just wanted to hire me. And since this gal didn’t know me other than as a name listed under Private Detectives in the phone book, it had to mean that whatever she wanted wasn’t good for me.

So, I managed to get over my raging hormones. In their place I found myself more than a little suspicious of her. But a case was a case, and even though I had just wrapped one up, P.I.’s are always short on cash, so what could it hurt to hear her out, right?

Ha. I should have known better.

Get your head in the game, Stone. “How can I help you, Ms. …?” I left a bit of a questioning tone in my voice, prompting her to give me her name and start her story.

She drew a deep breath and glanced down, smoothing out her dress. “Amber, Mr. Stone. You can just call me Amber. I am here because two weeks ago my cousin Travis Blake was out partying and he vanished. I would like you to find him.”

I blinked. I took a deep breath. Missing persons cases were rare as all get out, at least the usual types were. Most ‘missing’ people I had gotten as cases were just skip traces—meaning that a bail bondsman or credit company was looking for someone who didn’t want to be found. Most skip tracing is done on the computer, just sifting through data and refining it until you have a good idea where the person is.

I stared across my desk for a moment, thinking about how I wanted to handle this. First things first. “Well, Amber, it’s very unusual for me to be handling a missing persons case. Normally that is something the police would deal with. You are well past the forty-eight hour rule. Has your family filed a missing persons report?”

“Yes, we have. I’m well aware that this should be a police matter, Mr. Stone. We filed the report two weeks ago when he went missing. His truck was found three days later on Thirteenth and Logan. We had to tow it back to his mother’s house in Aurora. My family believes that he was abducted from a dance club.”

Something about this didn’t feel right to me. “Okay, Amber. And you don’t feel the police are doing a good job of trying to track him down and find him for you?” This is a trick question, by the way. I was probing for information I normally wouldn’t ask for unless I had already agreed to take the case.

She sighed, flicking a stray lock of her hair back over her shoulder in that same unconscious gesture I had noticed a moment ago. “No, frankly we don’t. It’s been two weeks and no one knows where he is.”

“They haven’t made any progress?” Of course, I knew the answer to that.

Thirteenth and Logan was in District 6 of the Denver Police Department. District 6 is known as being a living Hell on Earth. See, its right on the junction between the capitol building and lower downtown. Probably the heaviest trafficked pedestrian area in all of Denver, with plenty of cars, too.

Throw in an actual jail right off downtown, and yeah, the officers in that area tend to be just a tad overworked. So no, they wouldn’t have really had any breakthroughs on the case. But I was still pushing for information before I made a decision.

More information is exactly what I got, too. “Look. Travis is …” she trailed of, obviously trying to choose her words carefully “Travis is twenty three years old. He does a lot of partying, and has a record of substance abuse. He’s been in rehab before, and has a couple of arrests. We … we think that the detective in charge of the case is biased against him. He seems to believe that Travis is just on a bender and will show back up. But he never vanishes for more than a day or two. At least, he hasn’t before.”

Talk about alarm bells ringing. There was an insincere tone to what she was saying, which naturally put me on my guard. Not to mention the case itself making me even more wary.

Can you blame me though? Look at it like this. Junkie kid vanishes, I try to find him. Who knows where a trail like that could lead? Odds are I’d be snooping around a drug dealer’s turf while trying to track this kid, and they don’t play nice when an outsider starts asking around.

But I’m a P.I. Who is going to help this family find one of their own if not me? It’s all part of the job I have to do. So here I am, trapped between a rock and hard place, with a case that has a high likelihood of getting me a one-way ticket to the morgue.

I looked at the distressed woman sitting in front of me and sighed. “I charge two fifty a day plus expenses. Anything beyond daily expenses, like distance travel, I will call you for approval on. I would need a two day retainer to get started for you.”

She flashed that winning smile again, and this time I got the sense that it was the real deal, instead of a show. Then she reached forward and dropped a stack of cash on my desk. “Here is a thousand. Four days, Mr. Stone. Will that be sufficient for you to prioritize this case?”

I leaned back, not touching the cash yet. “Yes. But before I accept that there are a couple things you need to hear, so I can make sure we are clear on them.”

She nodded in response. “Okay.”

“First,” I drew a deep breath. “Considering that the police are already on it, I’m not sure I’ll be able to make a lot of headway on the case. I will also probably have to duplicate a lot of the investigating they have already done, okay?”

She nodded again. “I understand. What else?

“Alright, the second thing. Considering the circles he associates with, again, I might not be able to make a lot of headway. Social groups that do illegal things tend to be very secretive when outsiders start poking around in their business. While they are far more likely to open up to me than a police officer, it still doesn’t guarantee anything.”

“That also makes sense.”

I nodded this time. “Lastly. It’s been two weeks. Assuming that he was actually abducted, not that he just split town, then there’s a very small chance that he is still alive.” This was the hard one.

Most people can’t deal with the idea that a missing person could be dead. They tend to break down, emotionally. And I learned from the first case I had—which ended up with me tracking a corpse—that you tell them ahead of time. If you don’t … well, that first case they blamed me. They thought if I’d been faster it wouldn’t have happened. And then they tried to sue me.

She flashed that winning smile at me again. A bit odd considering what I had last said. “Don’t worry, Mr. Stone. We believe you will do your best, and that is good enough for me.” She pulled a small manila envelope out of her purse and slid it across to me. “Here are photos and all the information I could think of that might help.”

I picked it up, ripping the seal, and slid out a fairly comprehensive file. Photos, phone and DMV information, and a list of hangouts and friends were included. I raised an eyebrow. Impressive. And a little odd. Seven years as a P.I. and this was the first time a client had a file fully prepared that was actually useful. Hmm.

Despite my gut reaction that there was a lot more that this woman wasn’t telling me, I went ahead and pulled out my standard contract, scribbled in a couple of specifics about her case, and held it out for her to read and sign. Finally, she left.

I stood up and thoughtfully walked over to the mini-fridge in my office. Popping it open, I grabbed the ice tray and the pitcher of water I keep hidden behind the two bottles of whiskey. I’m actually not all that big of a drinker, but I do have that hard-boiled image thing to think about. You know how it is.

Anyway, I poured myself a large glass of ice water and walked back over to my desk. I mentioned before that it had been a couple years since there was a woman in my life, right? But I also mentioned that I valiantly won the battle with my hormones. Well, I lied. I lost.

So, since I’m not a saint, and a beautiful woman can still have a profound effect on me, I went ahead and poured the glass of ice water over my head. The ice cold water washed over me, shocking my system. Much better. I could think rationally again.

The first rational thought that came to me was something Amber had said. “We believe you will do your best.” That implied a lot of research on me, or someone else being involved. Just who had she meant when she said ‘we.’ And I hadn’t pushed further to dig into that little gem. Well, crapsticks. I’d just have to be very careful.

***

Amber the Werewolf

Amber frowned as she left the investigator’s office. It was strange that Tabitha would want a mortal investigator tied into this vampire hunt. Amber wasn’t yet anywhere near making the decisions a pack leader made though.

Warmth washed over her as she left the building and stepped into the sunny afternoon. Tabitha and the rest of the pack were waiting for her at a coffee shop six blocks down. Despite the waiting pack, she took her time, kicking off her shoes and opting to walk barefoot through the grass next to the sidewalk. Between the sun and grass, she was in a little nirvana world of her own.

Ten minutes later she reached the shop and spotted her pack sitting around a table outside. Grinning, she strolled up to them. “Nice day. What are you lot doing at a two bit java joint like this?”

Andrew, the eldest of them aside from their pack mother Tabitha, looked at her expectantly. The others were playing cards and ignored her. “Well, Amber? Did you hire him?”

“I did.” She nodded. “Five hundred bucks for two days. I gave him a grand for four.”

“Ow.” Josh looked over from the game of cribbage. “Suckage.”

Tabitha cleared her throat and played a card. “Now, now, cubs. It is the right decision. We need help and Robert said that this is our guy.”

Drew looked frustrated. “But he is a mortal.”

“Mortal or not, as I said, Robert says he is the one who will find him for us.” Tabitha glanced at Drew. “And I trust my contact.”

Amber plopped into a seat and sniped a sip of Jenna’s Frappuccino. “You mean that spooky Crowley guy?”

Tabitha nodded.

Josh shrugged, focused more on the cards than the conversation. “I just hope we aren’t wasting our money on this private eye guy.”

Amber cocked her head to the side. “I dunno … He seems pretty sharp.”

Tabitha smiled enigmatically. “We will just have to see what he does, now wont we?”

***

Elizabeth Bathory

Elizabeth sipped from a champagne flute filled with blood. She sprawled on the sofa, wearing only a terrycloth bathrobe. The penthouse was luxurious. Whoever had invented blackout curtains should have been awarded with a life immortal. The outside world may be a vicious pit of instant day-death, but in here she was safe and comfortable.