* * *

"Sir, here's the taped footage," Hafer's assistant, Lieutenant Simpson handed a flash drive to the Admiral.

"Let's see this," Admiral Hafer handed it back. Lieutenant Simpson loaded it into his computer, pulling up the images.

"Senator Duff has already reviewed the footage and verified the image," Simpson said. "See, here she is, walking out of the hotel with Hancock." They had a view of the female agent leaving through the hotel's sliding glass doors and climbing into a waiting car outside in full daylight.

"Well, that destroys my theory," Hafer muttered.

"What theory, sir?" Simpson gave his superior a sharp glance.

"Nothing. We were wrong, anyway," Hafer sighed. "I still want her services; I just don't have enough clout to demand them."

"What might she do for you?"

"Son, I saw something that I still find hard to believe," Hafer said. "And if she can do shit like that, everybody might come knocking."

* * *

Tony was aggravated. Well, aggravated might be too mild a term. Lissa had been right to want to stay away from the Senator. Duff had demanded a copy of the security recording from the hotel, sending it straight to Hafer. Fortunately, Hafer and Duff had both fallen for the disguised agent. Lissa's wig was now securely returned to her head and she'd walked inside the hotel with Tony after nightfall. Tony was thankful the Senator had spent most of the day inside his suite, doing business from there before flying out that evening to Oklahoma. Tony, Lissa and Bill would be on the same flight. It would be a relief to leave the Senator behind when he, Bill and Lissa flew back to Washington in three days.

* * *

"Is there anything you want to do while you're in your home state?" Tony smiled down at me. He wanted to put an arm around me but that wasn't professional behavior so he held back.

"The things I might like to do probably aren't such a good idea," I said, thinking about Don's grave. I'd like to put flowers out since I'd be close but that could be dangerous. I wouldn't put it past the Senator to have me followed. I hadn't had a chance to take my laptop with me the previous evening and my cell had died; I didn't have the charger for it, either. Therefore, it was poetic justice that I had several emails from different people, including Franklin and Charles plus an angry voicemail from Gavin. I called Gavin first.

"Honey, there was a bit of a snafu; my phone ran down and I didn't have my charger," I said.

"Lissa, you are going to have to learn to be better than this," he said. His voice was only raised a little so I have to give him credit for that. Honestly, I was getting a little homesick again and I wished I were anywhere except where I was.

"I know." Tears were threatening again. If it were someone else or if Gavin would only be content to chat, I might have told him that my hair was now a little more than half an inch in length—it was growing back fairly quickly and my eyebrows and eyelashes were almost normal. Another inch or so on my hair and I'd go wig free most of the time. Instead, I listened while he lectured me. Before he hung up, however, he told me that the Council had a new prisoner. They'd discussed it at the meeting they had two nights earlier. It was unusual for him to give out information on when the Council met and that surprised me a little. He also said that Wlodek wanted to wait until my return to do anything with the prisoner. I understood that—he wanted to know if the captive was Saxom's get before the trial. Gavin knew I'd figure it out. What he didn't know was that I'd gotten other information from him as well. Inadvertently, of course.

My next call was to Charles, who sounded as if he were walking around and working while he talked. We exchanged pleasantries for a little while before I asked him what I truly wanted to know. "Charles, I know this is likely none of my business and you don't have to answer if you don't want to, but just bear with me for a few minutes. You probably don't have any interest in those children that are disappearing in Great Britain, but it's bothering me. What I want to know is whether the disappearances have coincided with any Council meetings in the past."

Charles didn't say anything for a few seconds. "Lissa, I'll look into that but I don't think I'll find anything," he said.

"Well, it was just a thought," I said. "I don't know why I was thinking it anyway." We talked for a minute or two more before he said he had to take some papers in to Wlodek and hung up.

* * *

"Honored One, I may have something here and you may not like it," Charles walked in with several papers in his hand, some of which he'd only printed off the computer in the past few minutes.

"What do you have, young Charles?" Wlodek looked up at his assistant expectantly.

"Look, sir." Charles placed two stacks of paper in front of the Head of the Vampire Council. "Each disappearance occurred on the same night as a regular Council meeting. We've had many unscheduled meetings between, but those notices don't go out until a few days ahead of time."

"What does this mean, Charles?" Wlodek frowned at the younger vampire.

"It means that these children disappeared when every Enforcer in England would be inside the cave that same night," Charles said.

"But that information is only known to the Council Members, the Enforcers and the Assassins," Wlodek said and then knocked his chair over, he stood so quickly. "Get Gavin on the phone and quickly," Wlodek ordered. Charles pulled out his cell and dialed.

Chapter 9

I sat in the back of the plane and pretended to be asleep so the Senator wouldn't be tempted to talk. He sat toward the front, his two guards nearby, while Tony and Bill sat somewhere between. Tony did his usual emails. That held the Senator off him, while Bill was the quintessential agent and put everybody off. We were now in the downside of April and I scented trees budding out and new grass when we landed in Oklahoma City. Our destination was an upscale hotel with a bookstore nearby, which might have spelled heaven any other time. I was still concerned about the Senator and couldn't enjoy the fact that printed pages were within walking distance.

Tony received phone calls the moment he hit the ground and took most of them away from the rest of us, making sure we couldn't hear. He knew how good my hearing was and seemed determined that I not be privy to his conversations. No big surprise, the man was who he was, after all. When I checked my laptop for messages after we got into our room, I found one from Winkler. He was still on my shit list but I opened it up anyway instead of deleting it like I first thought.




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