“I talked to him on the phone this morning; he was fine then.”
“You haven’t seen him at all since?”
“No.”
“Neither have I,” she said, frowning.
“I’m sure he’s fine. He probably went out sightseeing.” I didn’t sound convincing.
A catalog of possible disasters scrolled through my mind. Some of those protesters may have gotten out of hand and taken direct action. Any supernatural bounty hunters in town may have decided to gun for him. I’d have pointed to the local werewolves if I didn’t know Caleb. Then I thought of the vampires—Mercedes hadn’t been able to get to me. What if she’d decided to go after Tyler? I didn’t even know where to start.
I had to stave off the panic and remind myself: Tyler was ex–Special Forces. Highly trained, very badass. He could take care of himself. Someone would need a huge amount of know-how, not to mention firepower, to take him out.
“He’s a tough guy, Doctor. There’s probably a logical explanation.” But my own instincts were screaming at me.
“He wouldn’t just
“Is something wrong?” Luis asked.
Esperanza groaned. “Yes. I need a shower. Badly.”
“Friend of ours. A werewolf, Joseph Tyler.” I turned to Shumacher. “Can we check his room?”
“Maybe we should.”
Esperanza was ready to move, so we decided to leave our shelter, chaos outside or no. Getting to her feet with Luis’s help, she seemed tired, as if she had actually shape-shifted and run wild rather than merely threatened to. She’d used all her strength to keep that from happening. She looked awful, sticky blood soaked into her clothes, matting her hair, streaking her face. She looked like she’d come out of a war zone.
“You okay?” I asked, not because I thought she was, but I didn’t know what else to say to her.
Wincing, she nodded. “What kind of asshole does something like that? Most people wouldn’t know right off it was cow blood.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “He probably just wanted to shock people.”
“Well, I hope he’s happy,” she said, with a bitter chuckle.
Actually, I hoped he was in jail right now. What were the odds? I took the time to make a call of my own, and held my breath until I got an answer.
“Kitty,” Ben said. Single word, heartfelt greeting. “Where are you? I saw what happened on TV, CNN was broadcasting. Are you okay?”
Oh, so everyone saw that. Great. “I’m fine. Luis and Esperanza are safe. Cormac’s here with us. But there’s another problem. Can you get over to the hotel right now?”
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know.” I sighed, thinking of Tyler, looking at Esperanza. “Maybe everything.”
Chapter 20
THE STREET outside the hotel, visible through the lobby doors, was oddly clear of people. Everyone had fled, or the cops had cleared everyone out. The barricades lay toppled. A car was parked across the way. Trash was scattered, and a dark, wet splash marred the sidewalk—blood from the attack. Here in the lobby, groups of two or three people stayed close together, talking low and nervously. A couple of them glanced at Esperanza, staring. Cormac glared back, and they turned away.
“Essi, we should get out of sight,” Luis said, and she nodded.
“Call me if you need anything,” I said.
Arm in arm, they hurried to the elevators.
Shumacher went to speak with a manager at the front desk.
I waited, scratching at the streaks of blood drying on my skin, staring out at the eerily deserted street. We had to make sure Tyler was okay. Maybe Jan and Mercedes couldn’t target me, but they could target him.
Then Ben appeared, stepping out of Ned’s car, which had just pulled up to the curb. I wanted to rush to meet him, but I waited. I could be calm. But my hands itched until he was standing in front of me, and I could grab his hand. He squeezed back, and glanced at Cormac as if checking him for damage.
“We can’t get ahold of Tyler,” I said.
“You think something’s happened?” he asked. I shook my head to say I didn’t know.
Shumacher turned away from the counter. “They’ll let us into his room with someone from security.”
A woman in a nicely pressed suit with a hotel name tag pinned to the jacket lapel came through an office door behind the main desk, joined by a man in a security uniform.
Together, we went to the elevators.
Tyler’s room was on the third floor—second floor, in British-speak. Probably the lowest floor he could possibly get a room, which would have appealed to his werewolf side—closer to the ground meant easier escape routes. The elevator ride up was claustrophobic, anxiety-ridden, and thankfully short. We spilled out, and I looked back and forth down a long corridor—two possible routes.
The hotel manager took the lead and guided us to the farthest room on the left. She swiped a key card three times without being able to open the door. I almost shoved her out of the way to try it myself, but on the fourth try the lock clicked and the door opened inward.
Dr. Shumacher was about to push past her and enter the room when the security guard suggested they both step back, so he could enter first. “Mr. Tyler, sir?” he called in.
No one answered.
The officer entered, then Shumacher. I’d have crammed in right after, if the officer hadn’t turned around and ushered us both straight out again.
“What?” I said, trying to look past him, to see into the room.
“I need to call the police,” the guard said. “We’ve got a crime scene here.”
“Oh my God, he’s not—”
Shumacher shook her head. “No, he’s not there. But there’s obviously been a struggle.”
“He was kidnapped?”
She didn’t answer, but she’d gone pale and clasped her hands. The officer was speaking on a phone, Ben was at my shoulder. The hotel manager hovered, looking lost and worried. I leaned on the door frame, to see as much as I could without stepping inside. The room was dark, the curtains drawn. The bedspread lay in a heap on the floor at the foot of the bed. The TV had fallen off the dresser, and the mirror on the wall was cracked.
Closing my eyes, I took a deep, slow breath.
Tyler had been living in the room for a week, and his scent—his distinctive imprint of fur, skin, and wild—lay thick on the air. On top of that, I caught the barest hint of blood. Not a lot—the trace from a cut, that was all. And then, on top of
“Can you smell that?” I murmured to Ben.
“Like someone spilled a medicine cabinet?”
The odor was even fainter than the blood, but nonetheless distinctive—antiseptic with a sickly floral overlay. “Did they drug him?” I said, trying to be still, letting my nose work to take in as much air as possible.
“Maybe. Whoever it was was human,” he said.
He was right—not another werewolf, and not a vampire. The invaders had made an effort to cover their scents, probably wearing gloves, boots, and masks and the like. There’d been more than one of them, but the individual marks were a tangle, too faint to make out.
“We have to find him,” I said.
“The police should arrive soon,” the security guard said. “They’ll want to talk to you all, if you wouldn’t mind waiting.”
We didn’t have time to wait. Someone had taken Tyler—when had it happened? Where had they gone? We had to track him down, as soon as we could—
