1. Alaric
ALARIC
Ican always tell when I'm about to get stiffed.
Maybe it's the way the mark holds his mouth—tight, as though the truth wants out but his jaw's got it on lockdown.
Or maybe it's the shoes. Guys in cheap shoes always try to haggle.
Guys wearing calfskin with a spit-shine you could check your hair in don't bother pretending it's a negotiation.
They throw around "money is no object" like confetti at a mobster's christening and expect respect to stick to them like wet toilet paper.
My job is to play along.
Leland Brooks is wearing the kind of suit that makes a man either a senator or an undertaker, and I'd bet my last bottle of Vlaska he's both.
He sits across from me in a Thistlebrook coffeehouse that spent a million bucks trying to look like it was falling apart. Exposed beams. Edison bulbs. High ceilings that make even the pre-teens at the next table feel important.
Leland folds his hands like he's waiting for a verdict.
I glance around the room while early evening pours copper through the bay windows.
Three other customers occupy the café. Two are together—one pretty girl and her friend wearing a Daria T-shirt.
Or maybe that's just her face. The third sits in the corner with a laptop bright enough to tan everyone facing him.
He's not watching our table, which probably means he's with Leland.
The barista, a grad student with a watercolor squid tattoo curling around her bicep, catches my eye and winks.
"So," Leland says, "you're the one they call the Bloodhound."
He means it as a compliment.
It lands like an accusation.
I smile anyway. I pay good money for my canines.
"You got a missing pet, Mr. Brooks?"
His grin is polished enough to belong in a trophy case.
"My fiancée."
A beat.
"Birdie Longfellow."
Another beat.
"Birdie disappeared six days ago. Morning of our wedding."
The scent of cinnamon, steamed milk, and expensive aftershave mingles between us. I swirl the espresso in my demitasse, watching the crema cling to the porcelain.
"Six days is an odd window to hire a private investigator."
He snorts.
"You specialize in odd windows, Mr. Grimhaven."
Fair.
Blackthorn Bay may be home, but Thistlebrook pays the bills. Humans always think monsters are the problem until they need one to solve theirs.
Out here there's cargo to move, scandals to bury, spouses to trail, and enough secrets to keep me comfortably employed until the sun burns out.
Thistlebrook tastes like brine and regret.
Business has never been better.
Leland leans forward.
"She's alive."
Interesting.
"But she doesn't want to be found."
More interesting.
"One of her friends told me she made it somewhere safe, but Birdie refuses to tell anyone where she is."
He removes his sunglasses.
His eyes are cold enough to invoice me.
"I think she's hiding somewhere in Blackthorn Bay. I can't send my own men."
"Why not?"
"They already tried."
I raise an eyebrow.
"They're superstitious?"
"They're alive."
Fair enough.
"I am not ignorant to..." He gestures vaguely toward me. "...your community."
Meaning the ones with fangs.
I finish my espresso.
"You got a picture?"
He slides a thick envelope across the table.
I catch it before it finishes sliding, pop the seal with my thumb, and pull out a photograph.
Birdie Longfellow.
Pale enough to make moonlight jealous.
Freckles scattered across her nose.
Wide hazel eyes that look permanently prepared to bolt.
Her hair is twisted into a practical bun that suggests either impressive self-discipline or a complete surrender to circumstance.
She's holding an overweight dachshund whose tongue hangs out like a pink party streamer, and despite whatever she's thinking, there's a tiny dimple in her left cheek trying its best to win the argument.
"She's pretty."
Silence settles between us.
Finally, Leland says quietly,
"She had a lot to run from."
Another beat.
"Not just me."
I study him.
Not the words.
The man.
No twitch.
No hesitation.
No tightening around the eyes.
If it was a lie, he'd rehearsed it.
Which somehow made me trust him even less.
"I'll need her last known location," I say. "Friends. Family. Places she'd go."
He nods.
"I'll have my assistant send everything."
Then he hesitates.
"If she's happier hiding in the forest..."
His gaze drifts toward the window.
"...leave her there."
Nobody hires a vampire detective to not find somebody.
Especially not after offering triple my usual fee.
Everything I'd read about Leland Brooks suggested a man who collected victories the way other people collected wine—expensive, public, and carefully displayed.
Men like that didn't surrender.
Not quietly.
Not after six days.
Not after paying me to look.
Either Birdie Longfellow was the first woman he'd ever truly loved...
...or the first one he'd ever truly lost.
I hadn't decided which possibility worried me more.
"I'll be in touch."
I pocket the photograph, leave enough cash to insult the coffee, and step outside.
My Crown Victoria waits at the curb like a stray dog parked outside a horse show.
Its paint is a mottled patchwork of faded charcoal, primer gray, and oxidized regret—the color of a bruise that's been healing wrong for the better part of a decade.
Beautiful.
I angle the rearview mirror just in time to watch Leland leave the café.
The laptop guy joins him.
A third man appears from around the corner.
They climb into three identical black SUVs, and for one brief moment the parking lot looks like the mouth of a very expensive carnivorous insect.
I follow them just long enough to confirm they aren't doubling back before peeling off toward Blackthorn Bay.
The sun bleeds into the harbor behind me, turning the water copper before surrendering to blue. Under the ferry dock, teenagers light cigarettes they swear their parents will never smell, and somewhere overhead a gull screams like it has money riding on the outcome.
I should be thinking about routes.
Witnesses.
Where to start.
Instead, I find myself pulling Birdie's photograph from the envelope one more time.
She looks back at me with wary hazel eyes and one stubborn little dimple.
Most people spend their lives running away from something.
I have a feeling Birdie Longfellow ran toward something.
I intend to find out what.