Adrian Phoenix - In the Blood

Jon’s heart hurtled into his throat. He bolted upright on the bed and jabbed his fingers through his hair, trying to think. Cortini. He pictured her: shoulder-length coffee-dark hair, hazel eyes, elfin face, slender. Good-looking. Rumored to be vampire. Or a vampire’s beloved.

He’d learned about the existence of vampires when he’d joined the cleanup crew. Amazing how quickly he’d adjusted to that reality once the fact had been twisted into his face like a grapefruit half.

But, vampire or not, that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that Caterina Cortini tied up loose ends. And he was a major loose end. How did the saying go? If you see God, you’re already in heaven; if you see the devil, you’re already in hell; if you see Cortini, you’re already dead.

The doorknob rattled again. “Bronlee, we really need to talk.”

“Just a minute,” he croaked. “Gotta find my pants.”

Jon stood and padded to the bathroom, eased the door shut. Stood on the toilet and forced open the window. Grabbing the slick, tiled sill, he hauled himself up and through the window.

Even though twilight glimmered on the horizon, the heat of the sun-baked parking lot slapped him in the face. He gasped, sucking in the smells of hot concrete, sand, and diesel exhaust. He dropped onto the pavement.

“Looks like you found your pants.”

Jon whirled around. Cortini stood on the blacktop, one hip cocked, her gloved hands loose at her sides. His heart renewed its assault on his ribcage. His vision grayed and his knees buckled. A hand locked around his biceps. Kept him up on his feet.

“Breathe,” she said. “Slow, deep breaths.”

Not having much choice, Jon did as Cortini suggested. Gradually his vision cleared and his galloping heart slowed to a canter. He straightened, but Cortini didn’t release him. Her fingers felt as hard as steel around his arm. He spotted a holster bulge beneath her light suit jacket.

“Do you know why I’m here?” she asked.

Jon considered lying. Considered feigning innocence. But, looking into Cortini’s eyes, he realized there was no point. “Does it matter why I took it?”

“No. Not really.”

Jon nodded. Swallowed hard.

Cortini slipped a hand inside her jacket. “But I think it does matter that the rest of your team is dead because you took it.”

Cortini’s words hit him like a hard right to the jaw. He closed his eyes. Nodded again. “I’m sorry for that.”

“Be sure to tell them that when you see them again.”

Something in her voice opened Jon’s eyes; something weary and sad and exasperated. Her fingers slid away from his arm. She pulled out a silencer-lengthened pistol from inside her jacket.

“Let’s go inside and chat,” she said.

Figuring he had nothing left to lose, Jon bolted, his Keds slapping the blacktop as he ran across the parking lot. He stumbled as he hit the hard-packed dirt, sand, and scrub beside the highway. Blood pounded in his ears. His breath rasped in his throat.

The diesel-powered sound of a semi hauling ass down the highway thundered through the deepening night. Headlights lit up the road like twin suns, growing brighter with each step Jon took. No hands grabbed him to pull him back. Cortini didn’t shout his name. He dashed onto the highway and in front of those huge, glowing lights.

Squealing brakes and stuttering tires weren’t loud enough to blot out the wet sound of the scream still looping through his memory, Johanna Moore’s last breath.

Would he face the same fate?

The smell of burning rubber clogged his nostrils. His vision filled with light. Jon staggered to a stop, turned to face the rig, and closed his eyes.

CATERINA WATCHED AS THE rig, black smoke rolling off its locked-up tires, smashed into Bronlee. He splattered against the front grille like a low-flying june bug. Then his body bounced under the truck, the tires smearing what was left of him across the highway as the semi shuddered to a stop. The stink of burning rubber and scorched blood drifted into the air.

Caterina tucked the Glock back into its holster, then turned and walked back through the weeds and sagebrush to the front of the motel. Doors stood open. People clustered at the motel’s edge, staring at the highway and the semi jackknifed across the road. A grim-faced man spoke into his cell phone.

Using an electronic pick, Caterina unlocked the door to Bronlee’s room. She unhooked the door chain with a slender, steel pick, and slipped inside. She shouldered the door closed and glanced around the room. Open suitcase on the dresser, rumpled bedspread, a laptop on the table beside the curtained window.

The room smelled stale. Like Lysol and old tobacco. Like lost hope.

The rig’s headlights illuminate Bronlee as he swivels to face it .

Caterina blinked the image away. Who the hell opts for a messy roadkill suicide instead of a well-placed bullet into the skull?

She crossed to the laptop and folded it shut. Then she went to the suitcase and rummaged through the wrinkled tees and jeans and boxers. Blank postcards. A few photos. She picked one up. A pudgy little girl of about ten or eleven, her grin framed by brown curls, sat on a swing. The fingers of her right hand flashed a peace-sign vee.

Sorry about your daddy, sweetie .

Slipping the photo back in with the others, Caterina continued searching the suitcase. No sign of the security disk. But a mailer bearing a BUSH CENTER FOR PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH return address caught her eye. She pulled the envelope free, then closed and latched the suitcase.

The MAIL TO name, neatly written in black felt-tip pen, was DANTE PREJEAN. Caterina recognized the flowing penmanship—a dying art in the twenty-first century—as belonging to Dr. Johanna Moore. The Bureau’s missing ADIC of Special Ops and leading behavioral scientist.

Caterina frowned. Wasn’t Prejean part of Bad Seed? One of the study subjects?

She didn’t know a lot about the project because she didn’t need to; her job didn’t require it. All the same, she knew it involved the development and study of sociopaths, a decades-long study that had ended abruptly a couple of weeks ago with a big, messy bang and clusters of bodies in two cities—New Orleans and D.C.

So what would the missing Dr. Johanna Moore be mailing one of her study subjects? Peering into the torn-open mailer, Caterina caught the silver gleam of a CD.

Interesting .

Caterina tossed the room for anything else Bronlee might’ve stolen, but found nothing. Returning to the dresser, she picked up the suitcase. She tucked the laptop under her arm and walked out of the stale, empty room.

She crossed the parking lot in quick strides, while sirens banshee-wailed through the heated desert night. Blue, white, and red lights whirled and strobed across the crowd gathered at the highway’s edge.

Caterina dumped the suitcase inside her rented Charger’s trunk. Sliding behind the wheel, she placed the laptop and the envelope in the passenger seat. She drove out of the motel parking lot and headed east toward the interstate.

The rig’s headlights illuminate Bronlee as he swivels to face it .

Something besides Caterina had scared him out onto the highway and in front of the semi—something unknown, and that disturbed her.

Bronlee hadn’t tried to bluff his way out, hadn’t tried to bargain, not even for the safety of the grinning little girl in the swing. And even though that meant he’d already dumped or sold the security disk, it didn’t explain his final action.

As Caterina steered the Charger from the dark highway onto the I-15 on-ramp and hit the gas, why kept circling through her brain. Why wasn’t a part of her job. Wasn’t supposed to be a part of her vocabulary. And that had never been a problem.