Keeper of the Dawn

“Then this guy walks up to Digger and tries to kill him—and when you manage to stop him, he kills himself?”

“Yes.”

“And then Digger ran into an alley and got murdered by someone else?” Edwards’s tone was growing increasingly skeptical.

“Yes.”

“So now they’re both dead.”

Mark nodded.

“Who killed Digger?” Edwards asked.

“I don’t know,” Mark admitted.

“Lieutenant, you know as well as we do that it could have been anyone,” Brodie interjected. “Jimmy was obviously acting on behalf of someone else. He came to check up on Digger and found out he’d been selling to Mark—a cop. Whoever is employing him—and we can’t be one hundred percent sure that’s the Hildegards, even though they’re certainly the most likely suspects—had Jimmy’s complete loyalty or abject fear. He chose to die an agonizing death rather than face his employer and admit to failure.”

“Which suggests an Other,” Mark said.

“Maybe not—don’t kid yourself. Human beings could teach the Others a lot about torture and cruelty,” Edwards said softly. He shook his head, looking from Mark to Brodie. “This is getting worse by the minute. With these two deaths on top of the murdered women, the entire area is going to go into a panic any minute.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Brodie said dryly. “Neither of these men was anyone important. Their deaths will likely go unnoticed, especially Digger’s. We just have to hope the Hildegards don’t raise a stink about Jimmy.”

“Do you assume, Detective,” Edwards asked indignantly, “that I care any less about the unknowns in this city than the biggest mogul?”

“No, of course not,” Brodie said.

“He means that he doesn’t think the media will go mad the way they do whenever a celebrity dies,” Mark said quickly.

“Get out of my face right now, you two,” Edwards said. “Get back to the station and get your paperwork filled out. The crime scene unit is on the job, and with luck whoever killed Digger will have left some kind of a clue.” He lowered his voice again. “At least they were both human,” he muttered. “And a human life is as important as the life of an Other, but at least as far as the autopsies go we won’t have to make sure that—”

“No, Lieutenant, think about it,” Mark interrupted. “We know all these deaths are connected. Please, try to make sure that Antony Brandt gets assigned the autopsies.”

Edwards looked as if he was about to implode, explode—or transform involuntarily into a fully massive, growling, snarling werewolf. “I’ll do my best,” he finally said.

“And we need a search warrant,” Mark said.

“For?”

“Come on, Lieutenant. Jimmy worked for the Hildegard family. I’ll bet you cash money that he lived in that mansion, along with working there. That’s enough to get us a warrant.”

“You’d better find something,” Edwards warned.

“We will.”

“Go. Paperwork.”

They left together; by then, the street and the alley were roped off with crime scene tape, and the forensics units were busy examining the area. The medical examiner on duty wasn’t Brandt, but he was a good man who would make all the notes at the scene, file an initial report on cause and time of death, and then see that the bodies were brought to the morgue.

They could still hope that Brandt would get the autopsies.

“You don’t have to deal with the paperwork,” Mark told Brodie. “You weren’t there, really. You can get back to the house if you want.”

“I was first on the scene after you,” Brodie said. “Besides, it will be quicker if I help. Two pencil-pushers are better than one, and we both need to get back to the House of the Rising Sun and figure out where all this puts us.”

“Thanks,” Mark told him.

Brodie was right; between them, they finished everything that had to be written up within twenty minutes. Then they headed for home base.

“Alessande was all right, wasn’t she?” Brodie asked as they drove.

Mark nodded. “It was scary, though.” He looked at Brodie. “Whoever it was took her completely by surprise. They could have killed her, but they didn’t. What do you think that means?”

“Maybe they thought she was dead. Or maybe it was the screenwriter. He’s infatuated with her. Maybe he’s in on what’s happening but he couldn’t bring himself to kill Alessande. Not that I mean to disturb you in any way,” Brodie added, a smile to his voice.

Were his feelings for Alessande so obvious?

Yes, apparently, at least to Brodie. And probably the rest of the group.

“I wish it were that simple,” Mark said.

“So you don’t think that Greg Swayze is part of the plot?” Brodie confirmed.

Mark thought about the question for a minute. “I think he’s just what he seems to be. A screenwriter with a script in production and a crush on a beautiful woman. I don’t think he killed Digger.”

“Then who?”

“Hopefully we’ll know more once we see Declan. He’ll be able to tell us if any of the Hildegards or the film crew left when we did, or if they all stayed. If they left, it’s telling.”

“Even if they didn’t leave, the Hildegards are rich. They might have an army out there ready to do their bidding,” Brodie reminded him.

“I know. But let’s see what we can get. At least we’ll be able to search the Hildegard mansion—and maybe we’ll luck out and find Regina Johnson,” Mark said.

* * *

When they got to the House of the Rising Sun estate, they found that Declan, Sailor and Rhiannon had all come home, and the entire group was gathered around the dining room table of Castle House. Barrie and Mick had their computers out, along with a mass of newspapers and charts.

Mark instantly looked for and found Alessande, who had showered and changed into a casual black knit halter dress that clung to her body in all the right ways. Her hair fell around her face like skeins of molten gold. And her eyes were blue-green and clear when she looked at him and smiled.

“Not even a headache,” she assured him.

Brodie took a seat at the table and immediately turned to Declan and Sailor. “The Hildegards and the film people—when did they leave the Snake Pit?”

“The minute Alessande left, Greg Swayze said something to the others at his table and left,” Sailor said. “And the Hildegards were right behind him.”

“And the film people left a few minutes later,” Declan added.

“If the film people hung out even a little while longer, they probably didn’t have time to get in on the action,” Mark said. “But the Hildegards... And I discounted Swayze earlier, but maybe I shouldn’t have.”

“Hey, we’ve come up with some interesting information here,” Barrie announced.

“We’re all ears,” Mark assured her, smiling.

“Okay, Alan Hildegard really does produce pictures for the cable channel Horrific. He’s incorporated,” Mick Townsend told them. “His parent corporation is called Hildegard Enterprises. But Hildegard has a number of smaller subsidiaries, and one of those is called Dynamic Dough.”

“Dynamic Dough?” Alessande repeated.

“Dough—yes, I assume as in money,” Barrie said. “Dynamic Dough arranges motion picture financing, and through them Alan Hildegard helps finance a lot of films for both the big studios and the small independents.”

“So was he in on the financing when Blue Dove Entertainment decided to do Death in the Bowery?” Alessande asked. “I thought that Blue Dove Entertainment was legitimate.”

“They are, but you know how when you see a movie it says ‘produced by’ several times, or they give credit