“Idiot,” she remarked.
“Me?”
“No. Sam. He’s such a kid.”
“Lucky him.” Vadim had already assembled his half of the room into something that would feature on the front cover of
“Not much. You?”
He checked his watch. “It’s almost eleven. There’s no point in repeating myself when we’re just about to step into a meeting.”
“Even for me?”
He held the door open for her. “This time there’s only one version to tell.”
Sam and Liz were laughing and comparing notes about the last wolf-pack party they’d both attended. Rich sipped his coffee and Feehan looked up as they entered.
“Good, let’s get on, shall we?”
He added a couple of photos of Brad Dailey to the board. The pictures had obviously been taken after his death.
“Dude, that’s weird.” Sam sat up straighter. “His face is, like, beautiful. Like a mask.”
“Which is exactly what it is.” Ella agreed. “Even though he ripped it up before he died, Morosov and I reckoned, as it doesn’t really belong to him, it didn’t suffer the physical trauma of his death and reverted back to being perfect.”
“That’s creepy.” Liz shivered. “It reminds me of that story with the guy with the picture in the attic that aged while he stayed young.”
“
“That’s the one.”
“It makes you wonder what’s happening to Brad’s real face right now, doesn’t it?” Feehan mused. “Or if that face even exists anymore. What else do we have?”
Ella held up her hand. “I’ve been attempting to trace Adam through the various conference-registration sites and hotels, but so far no luck.”
“That’s hardly surprising. How about you, Vadim?”
“Nothing here, either. I doubt our killer attended anything in the city at all this week.”
Feehan’s face fell. “Darn it. What else do we have?’
“Well, we have the security tape of ‘Doctor Vadim’ bespelling Delia and then going into Brad’s room.” Liz said. “By the way, how are we going to stop the hospital authorities from seeing that and immediately assuming he is the killer?”
“Simple, we just don’t give them the tape back until we’ve found the real murderer.” Ella snapped.
Liz blinked at her. “There’s no need to be so defensive. I’m not accusing your partner of anything.”
Aware that everyone was staring at her, Ella subsided into her chair.
“I do have some more evidence for us to look at.” Liz glanced at Sam. “We got the before-and-after pictures of the last three victims from Otherworld.”
She opened a large brown envelope and spread the pictures out on the conference table.
“They all ended up with fair hair, which is the opposite of what we’ve seen with Brad.”
Sam put his finger on the closest picture. “And they all retain perfect features, even after killing themselves.”
Ella contemplated the horrific differences between the happy faces of the “before” pictures and the death masks of the “after” ones. It was damned unsettling.
“Should we assume Adam is going for three blonds this time?”
“Seems likely.”
Everyone looked at Liz and Ella.
Liz tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “It’s okay, we’ll be careful.”
“You’ll need to be,” Vadim said. “Even though you’re half-Fae, you still need to be protected. I’m sure Doug and the wolf pack can take care of that for you.”
“They will, but I’ll be extra vigilant, I promise you.”
“I’m all human,” Ella noted.
“But I’m your partner, Ms. Walsh, and I don’t intend to let you out of my sight.”
The sincerity and purpose in his eyes was intense. Damn, he might as well be down on his knees proposing to her. No one would believe there wasn’t something going on between them now.
“Um, thanks.” She dropped her gaze and fiddled with her pen.
“We can’t exactly protect all of the blonds in the San Francisco Bay Area from one man when we have no description of him, can we?” Feehan’s shoulders slumped.
“He’ll choose someone close.”
Feehan turned to Vadim. “You sound very sure of that.”
“The last three victims lived within ten miles of each other. I should imagine Adam has already decided on his next victim.”
“I think you know more than you are letting on, Vadim.” Liz turned to face him. “I sense a connection between you and this Adam in my Fae-Web.”
A muscle flicked in Vadim’s cheek. “I suspect Adam is connected to one of my family bloodlines. Unfortunately, I can’t help that.”
“You could if you asked your Otherworld family for more information.”
“I’m not friends with anyone in my family. I left Otherworld on extremely bad terms.”
Ella held her breath as Liz continued to stare at her partner. What was her friend seeing, and how would it affect the rest of the team’s ability to trust Vadim? She didn’t dare say anything else in case she put her big foot in it and made things worse. A thought occurred to her.
“
“
Fine, he wasn’t interested in listening to her. She folded her arms across her chest and pretended to concentrate on the photos. There were two men and one woman. Was that significant too?
“What’s the plan now, Mr. Feehan? Sit and wait for another crazy patient to show up saying he’s lost his face?”
Feehan looked at her as if she was the most insensitive person he’d ever met. As long as it got everyone’s attention away from Vadim and Liz, she didn’t care.
“Unless we get more information, I suppose there isn’t a lot we can do.” He turned to Vadim. “I really would appreciate it if you could get some help from Otherworld as to what exactly we are dealing with. If you can’t, I’ll have to take the matter up with the SBLE head and his Otherworld counterpart, and that never goes well.”
“I’ll do my best.” Vadim said. “After our last experience with Drew Spencer, I’m sure we’d all rather avoid him if we can.”
Everyone agreed and filed out. Vadim followed Ella back to their office. She closed the door and leaned against it.
“You have to do something to stop Feehan going to Spencer. He’s a dick. Last time he waltzed in here, he was quite happy to use me as bait to capture a serial killer. And he doesn’t like you at all, does he?”
“Spencer doesn’t like anyone in my family, apart from my father. I have to stop Feehan taking this
“Without mentioning the cult, sect thing?”
“Exactly.”
“
“That’s going to be difficult.”
“Why?”
He exhaled. “Because I thought he was already dead.”
“
