Chapter 29
We checked into a hotel in the human district for privacy. My social circle in Cognito never included trackers or Regulators, so I didn’t have any contacts who could help us. My primary job at the moment was to keep Krys from going ballistic.
I put the phone on speaker. “Hey, Lucian. Did you find anything on that number?”
“No. Can’t trace it,” he replied.
Krys emerged from the bathroom. “Who’s that?”
I slid the phone across the small table when he sat across from me. “Lucian. He couldn’t trace the number.”
Krys locked his fingers behind his head.
“Are you gonna tell me what this is about?” Lucian asked.
“Only if you keep it between us,” Krys answered. “For now.”
“You have my word.”
“Cleo’s mother sold her on the black market.”
A snarl sounded over the phone. “What?”
“Vamps, most likely,” I added. “Her mother doesn’t remember the details, so it looks like she got a partial memory scrub. I don’t see why they didn’t erase everything so they wouldn’t have to pay her.”
“Nothing is foolproof,” Lucian pointed out.
“People take notes and make videos. I knew a guy who found out a Vampire ripped him off after he found a secret video he’d taken of their negotiation.
He hired someone to stake the guy and bury him beneath a new construction site for a pet store.
He’ll be down there a long time.” A stretch of silence followed. “Why would any female sell her young?”
Krys folded his arms on the table. “You can’t find anything on that number?”
“I’ll keep trying. It’s inactive, so probably from a burner phone.”
“What about calling the higher authorities?” I asked.
Lucian scoffed. “Good luck getting someone out there today. They devote their resources to murders, treason, and twiddling their thumbs. I’ll send this number to a friend. He might have ideas. If you find out anything else, call me.”
Krys ended the call and put his head down.
Unable to sit still any longer, I got up and wrung my hands. The worst thoughts imaginable floated through my mind. Was this another lab? That would actually be the best-case scenario. I sat on the bed and pulled Cleo’s camera out of the bag to look at it.
“She was proud of this thing,” I said, admiring the dials and buttons.
“Do me a favor: Don’t talk about her in the past tense.”
The top of the camera revealed pictures had been taken. “How did she plan to develop these?”
He raised his head. “Huh?”
“This isn’t digital. I haven’t seen a Fotomat in decades. Those are as obsolete as my cassette-tape collection.”
“I don’t know. We never got that far.”
I stuffed the camera in her bag. “Come on. Let’s grab a bite to eat. My wolf is starting to pace.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Mine too.”
“There’s a pizza place next door. Let’s refuel and reassess while Lucian’s friend looks into it.”
“Or I could go back to that woman’s house and wring her neck.”
I stood with the camera. “You know what we should do? Develop her film. We’ll pick out the good ones and frame them.”
“For what?”
“To surprise Cleo… when we get her back.”
The art of one-hour photos was a thing of the past. A few chain stores still developed film, but I didn’t trust leaving the roll with humans without knowing what was on it.
For all we knew, Cleo might’ve snapped one of us shifting.
I asked around in the Breed district and was given the address of a Vampire whose side hustle was developing film.
She promised them back in an hour, so to kill time, we stopped at a pizza place for a quiet meal.
Lucian hadn’t called. We stared at the phone throughout dinner, hoping his contact might give us something.
After entering the motel room, I put my arms around Krys from behind and walked us to the bed. “She’ll be fine. You know Cleo. She’s a smart girl.”
He sat on the bed and flopped onto his back. “Why didn’t we check on her before we left town? If we had popped in one last time, we might’ve noticed something was wrong.”
“Or not.” I lay beside him on my stomach. “For a man who doesn’t like to live in the past, you’re spending a lot of time dwelling on it.” I placed my hand over his heart. “Nobody could’ve seen this coming. Stop blaming yourself.”
He gripped my hand and sighed. “Let’s go back to that narcissistic bitch’s house.”
“Let’s not. I don’t want to see her again.”
“We can check out the neighborhood and see if anyone has surveillance cameras.”
“In the Breed district? Think again.”
Darcy sat on the table. “You two are absolutely disgusting. Who puts pineapple and anchovies on their pizza?”
“The pineapple was my half,” I told her.
Krys cursed under his breath. “That’s an obscenity.”
I opened the photo envelope. “This coming from a man who puts little fishies on his pizza.”
He scratched his neck. “The worker said anchovies was his favorite. You always order the chef’s favorite.”
I snorted. “Chef? I bet the food inspectors would disagree. Never trust a restaurant with an empty dining room.”
“You picked it out.”
I removed Cleo’s photos from the envelope while thinking over our predicament. “What if we hire a bounty hunter? We can use the money you stole from Faye.”
He gave me a black look. “That’s Cleo’s money.”
Bounty hunters were expensive, and we didn’t have enough cash on us. I also didn’t know which ones were trustworthy.
“Lakota might know someone who lives in the area,” I suggested.
“That’s a thought.”
I laughed at the first photo. “Look at this.”
He took the picture and held it above his face. “What is that?”
“Eden’s tiger. That’s a close-up of her nose.”
“That kid is crazier than a hornet’s nest.” He rolled onto his stomach to look at the photos with me.
There were shots of our property at dusk, a silhouette of a dandelion, and one of Bear from behind while he was cooking at the stove. She’d taken a great shot of Tak’s wolf, his nose raised in the breeze, the background blurred.
“Look.” I handed him another shot. “That’s your wolf.”
He studied it closely. “I’ve never seen a clear shot of him before. Are those the marks everyone talks about?”
“Now you know why we say it looks like claw marks.”
“I saw a few images on Lucian’s surveillance recordings, but you can’t see shit on that black-and-white video.”
Cleo had captured Hope studiously crafting a design at her desk. Another of Archer chopping wood. We both laughed at the one she took of Tak and Jasper sleeping in the recliner, drool coming out of both of their mouths.
My eyes glistened at the next photo, and I looked away.
He took the picture from my hand. It was a selfie she had taken of her sitting beside his wolf, her tongue sticking out, his wolf smiling as if he’d never seen a happier day.
I put my arm over his shoulder as we admired the photo. “She’s good. Not a single blurry picture.”
He chuckled at the next one. “That little sneak.”
It was during our road trip. She’d captured a close-up of our hands on the console, my pinky hooked furtively over his.
“Do you think she knew?” I wondered aloud.
“I want to see!” Darcy jumped on the bed next to Krys and craned her neck to look at the pile of photographs.
“Ho-ly shit.” Krys showed me the next picture. “Does this answer your question?”
I snatched the photo and sat up. It was taken in the back hall of the Rabbit Lounge when Krys and I were talking alone. Krys’s hand was anchored on the wall over my head. She could’ve zoomed in, but the dim lighting and distance perfectly framed an intimate moment.
The remaining pictures were taken on the trip.
Several flowers at sunset and a blurry shot of a bumblebee.
One was of Krys and me talking in the cargo area of the vehicle when we had pulled over by the flowers.
In a single snapshot, she’d captured the love between us.
The adoration shining in my eyes, the timid smile as I listened to whatever he was talking about.
Krys had his head hung low during our deep conversation, and golden rays engulfed us.
Her perspective of the world moved me. She didn’t just capture a moment; she immortalized an emotion.
“She’s a little spy in the making.” I showed him the photograph.
He rolled onto his back and smiled. “I like this one.”
There was a shot of her apartment, and it felt blunt with the garbage lid leaning haphazardly against the brick, the steel bars on the windows resembling a jail cell.
I stared at one of her mother stirring a pot in the kitchen, steam clouding her face.
Something about the crooked angle and harsh lighting made it cold and detached.
Even the picture she took of herself in the mirror, holding the camera up to her face, was depressingly void of the warmth and happiness in her other shots.
Krys admired that one for a spell before shielding his eyes with his arm.
When I pulled out the last picture, I twisted around and held it beneath the lamp.
“What is it?” he asked.
I stared at a distant shot of a man in Faye’s dark living room. The kitchen appliances were visible on the left, so she must’ve poked her head around the corner wall to snap the picture.
Krys sat next to me and took the photo. “Motherfucker. That’s him. I bet a million dollars that’s the guy we’re looking for.”
“I bet the lady who developed these could blow it up to a larger size.”
Krys took out his camera and angled it over the picture before snapping a few photos.
Then he paced the room and made a call. “Lucian. Look at what I just sent. Yeah, I’ll hold.
” He peered through the curtains and then faced the bed.
“We have the negatives, but is that good enough? Yeah, smart-ass, I know how the zoom feature works.”
I picked up the photo and studied it. The man’s eyes were dark. They could’ve been black, but it wasn’t the best lighting. It was perfectly in focus, and I could make out his pointed mustache, shaved cheeks, and pointy beard with a patch below his bottom lip—without question a Vandyke beard.
“Krys, he’s got a tattoo on his hand. See if Lucian can clean it up.”
“Did you see the tattoo?” Krys asked. “Okay. As soon as you hear something.” He hung up the phone. “He’s sending it to his friend.”
“What about the negatives? Will that help?”
“Let’s wait first.” Krys stared at the image on his phone while pacing.
I put my arms around him. It wasn’t much, but at least we had a lead.
He rested his head on my shoulder. “She’s so fucking smart taking that picture.”
“She got her street smarts from you.”
Krys embraced me and heaved a woeful sigh. “Thanks for calming me down.”
“If anyone can find her, it’s you.” I squeezed him tight so he could feel nothing but my love.
“You bet your ass. And when I find that motherfucker… heads. Will. Roll.”