I went to the window, which was unlatched, opened it, and leaned out, seeing the lattice on either side of the opening. They looked like lattices for vines and flowers to climb, but they were made of sturdy metal painted dark green to match the hurricane shutters. The two vamps had climbed up and inside instead of coming through the house. Weird.
Back in the hallway, I looked into each room and counted, evaluating the mattresses. If the vamps had double bunked and pulled out sleep couches, more than twenty could have stayed on the second story. Nearly thirty had certainly died there. Leo had won the vamp war. I didn’t like him very much right then.
I went through the place again, taking the time to look at the paintings, which were stacked on long, narrow shelves on the walls, made of molding turned upside down, to make deep nooks. The paintings were propped in the nooks, some two and three deep, but set in place so you could tell the subject matter. One room had portraits, and I went through them until I found a gilt-framed one that had to be Santana. He was heart-stoppingly gorgeous. And he was wearing a bracelet on one wrist, made of overlapping gold leaves. No stones showed, but it looked like the bracelet I had seen when he escaped HQ. In the crook of his arm was Adrianna. She stared at him with a look on her face that was . . . passionate, avaricious, jealous, claiming, afraid, and victorious all at once. The artist had been a master to paint all that into her expression. It was terrifying. And it explained everything.
A third story was under the low pitched roof, and Eli and Derek were there, standing in the entrance, not speaking, each seeming lost in his own thoughts, except that Derek was watching Eli from the corners of his eyes. I pushed between them and through the opening. It was hot, decorated for low-level blood-servants or blood-slaves, and had been trashed. Or the humans who had lived there were trashy. Either way. Pizza boxes, beer cans, dirty laundry, unmade beds, and personal belongings were scattered everywhere. But at least no one had died under the eaves. No bloodstains.
Silent, we took the back stairs to the kitchen, where the guys went through the cabinets and refrigerator, which was growing something black and slimy and smelled of rancid meat and soured blue cheese. Sotto voce, Eli asked me, “Anything?”
I shook my head no and waffled my hand. “Adrianna and a vamp who smells vaguely like Dominique slept here for several nights in the last week. No papers in her room. No one died there.”
Derek said, “Leo wants this place usable. Suggestions?”
I frowned at Derek, and Eli said, “From what I see, you need a forensic cleaning crew in here, new wallpaper or an artist to restore the painted wallpaper if it’s worth keeping. New rugs where any old ones can’t be cleaned.”
“And,” Derek said, sounding perfectly sincere, “a good smudging to get rid of the dead people hanging around.”
My social skills were such that I didn’t know if Derek was being serious or not. He looked serious, and he smelled serious, but . . . Dead people? Ghosts? I looked around the kitchen again, seeing the bloodstains. Creepy, yes. But ghosts?
“We’re going,” I said. “Sunset is close and we still have no idea where Santana is.” I pivoted on a heel and headed back to the front, the guys following more slowly.
Behind me, Eli said, “If Leo wants it usable for vamps and not to sell, the place needs a tech update. From what I’ve seen, Clan Mearkanis’ tech was stuck in the late nineties.” He nodded to a small desk near more plants. There was an old PC on it, with a tower, a fat monitor, and a stack of discs.
“And a total security overhaul,” Derek added, “with full attention to motion sensors inside and out, and alarm upgrades on windows and doors. We can sub this out or do it ourselves. How much and how long would it take?” he asked Eli.
I answered, sounding cross, “Yellowrock Securities doesn’t care. We have a job: to find Santana. Nothing more.”
His tone placid, Eli said, “If Leo pulls some of his own team off of the HQ updates and off his clan home, the security part could be done in a month. But other than that, what Janie said. We’re busy.”
A tone sounded and Derek pulled his cell. “I gotta take this.” Turning for the front door at a jog and leaving us behind, he said, “Lee here. Go ahead.”
The door closed behind him and the quiet of the old house closed around us, the icy air pressing against my skin. “Eerie,” I said. Eli was frowning and looked puzzled, but not about the temp. I asked, “What’s wrong?”
My partner gave a minuscule shrug, a closed-off gesture that didn’t invite conversation, as his eyes followed the high ceilings and traversed the walls, moving from blood spatter to blood spatter, and along the floors from splatter to splatter. Though patience wasn’t my strong suit, I figured Eli would get around to talking when he knew what he wanted to say, so I wandered into the foyer, waiting.
Finally Eli followed me to the entrance, his boots as silent as mine. He said, “You know, most women would have pestered me for answers to their questions.” I shrugged. We had already established that I wasn’t most women. “So, yeah,” he said. “Something’s wrong, but I can’t put my finger on it. I understand why Leo wanted us to check this place out, but why send Derek too?”
“He said security evaluations, remember?”
“Derek could do that alone,” he said. “Why are we all here together?”
Something did feel wrong about that, but I hadn’t been able to tell what. Now the strange feeling in the room seemed to press in on me more firmly, my body shivering once from the cold. “Yeah. He could.” I moved so I could see Leo’s new Enforcer out the windows. He was facing the side street and he looked angry, but his position was such that I couldn’t read his lips, even if I’d known how. I moved to another window to check on Derek’s driver, but the SUV’s tinted windows didn’t let me see in. Derek looked back at the house and I stepped away from the windows, though I knew the light was such that he couldn’t see in. Derek reached inside the SUV and pulled a weapon, readied it for firing. I didn’t like this. I unsnapped the holsters on my nine mils, freeing them for drawing. Eli was staring out the windows, watching Derek, his face expressionless.
I turned in a circle, once again taking in the lower floor. “Did Derek seem surprised at the number of”—I rolled my hand from one blood splatter to another and then another—“deaths that took place here?”