“I d—d—don’t know.” Where did the stutter suddenly come from? At the same time he observed a trembling in the man’s legs which travelled up his torso.
Samson searched his eyes. “You’re lying.”
Billy shook like a leaf, then his eyes started drifting. “Stop!” he screamed. “Make it stop!” His hands balled into fists as he tried to raise them, but came up against the restraints. “No!” A second later his head rolled forward. He’d passed out.
Samson spun around to his friends. “Did any of you do that?” He’d be pissed if someone had used mind control to scare Billy before he could get all necessary information out of him.
Milo and Thomas both lifted their hands in confusion, while Ricky shook his head.
“Scan the vicinity to make sure no other vampires are here and are interfering.” Samson looked back at Thomas and Milo. “Then go out to the Sunset and pick up this John Reardon. This one stays here until we’ve got his brother-in-law. Make sure he stays here; I haven’t decided yet what to do with him. Call me when you have his brother-in-law: I want to talk to him personally.”
“I’m outta here. I’ve things to do,” Milo protested.
Samson raised an eyebrow, but let it go. Milo didn’t work for him. “Ricky, you go with Thomas. I’ll take your car back to the house.”
Ricky threw the keys in Samson’s direction, and he caught them without even looking. As soon as he was in Ricky’s car and switched on the engine, he saw Milo exit the building. His cell phone pressed to his ear, he headed for his motorcycle.
ELEVEN
“You said ‘Clay Hall’?” Amaury looked at Carl with surprise. They stood facing each other across the kitchen island.
“Yes, down near Taylor, it’s a large condo building. I picked up all her stuff. She didn’t have much, just some clothes, her computer, and those files.”
“That’s a strange coincidence,” Amaury mumbled, talking to himself. He didn’t believe in things happening at random.
“What coincidence?”
“You don’t know, do you?”
Carl shook his head, confused. “Know what?”
“That Scanguards owns a couple of condos in Clay Hall. I should know. I bought them for the company.”
Amaury’s main job working for Samson was to take care of all his real estate investments, both his private ones as well as the company’s. He held a real estate license in California and acted as his own broker. Luckily, the medieval rumor that vampires had to be invited into a home was entirely unfounded, which made it possible for a vampire to work as a real estate agent.
“It doesn’t have to mean anything. She said she’s from New York and on a business trip.”
“This’ll be easy to check. What was the unit number?”
Carl stared blankly. “Well, it was high up.” It looked like he was trying to remember walking down the corridor of the floor he’d been on and finding the right door. “Eight Twelve.”
“Voilà. It’s ours. The only way she could have access to that condo is if she worked for us. Samson said Oliver was with her all day.”
Carl nodded in agreement.
“Get him on the phone. Let’s see where he took her.”
Carl punched in Oliver’s number, then put the phone on speaker mode. “Hey Oliver, it’s me.”
“Carl, this better be important. I’m dead tired,” Oliver’s sleepy voice came through the phone. Amaury glanced at the clock on the oven. It was barely past nine o’clock. He shook his head in disbelief. Humans!
“Hey Oliver, Amaury here. Sorry about the disturbance. Hope we didn’t wake you.”
“No problem, Amaury.” It sounded like Oliver straightened up. “What can I do for you?”
“You were with Delilah all day?”
“Yes; Mr. Woodford asked me to protect her.”
“Where did you take her?”
“Downtown, to Scanguards’ offices.”
Carl and Amaury looked at each other. Amaury whistled through his teeth. “You wouldn’t happen to know what she did there, would you?”
“She worked.”
“She worked?”
“Yes, she worked. She’s some sort of, I don’t know, accountant or auditor, or something like that, I think.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. They knew her and were expecting her. Even had a computer set up for her and all.”