“Perhaps not knowingly, but you must have let that vamp into the house. He couldn’t have crossed the threshold uninvited.”
“I let a plumber in—” She paused. “Guess I need to check credentials a little closer, huh?”
“If you’re going to keep playing with pond scum like the sindicati, then, yeah, that might be wise.”
“The sindicati pay in good, clean cash and, for a subcontractor like myself, they’re a viable business option.”
“Except when they believe you have come to the end of your usefulness to them.”
She frowned. “That’s what I don’t understand. This is not the first time I’ve worked for them, and I’m very good at what I do. I cannot understand why they would wish to end my services in such a permanent manner.”
I didn’t really understand it, either, but then, I wasn’t a vampire crime boss. “Did the sindicati order the hit on Professor Wilson?”
We already knew it was the red cloaks who’d killed him, but it never hurt to double-check.
“No. Why would they? They needed him alive to keep working on his research, as he hadn’t pinned down all the enzymes that are apparently responsible for a human becoming a vampire.”
So much for Jackson’s theory that the red-cloaked figure had been nothing but a ruse. “Are you sure? Because another professor who was undertaking research similar to your husband’s was murdered this week, and it seems very likely it was ordered by the sindicati.”
“Perhaps it was, but I do not know or care about the sindicati or their plans for other researchers. My job was to keep tabs on Wilson and his research, and that’s precisely what I did.”
“And ethics be damned?”
She shrugged. “Men and women have been using sex to get what they want for eons. I merely use it to get information for my clients.” Her smile was cool. “And trust me, the men I bed get the better end of the deal. They have me at their beck and call.”
“But afterward, they’re left behind to take the blame.”
“If they live,” she murmured. “Not all of them do.”
Which made me wonder just how many other “husbands” she’d had and how many of them were still alive today. I had a bad feeling there was a whole lot more dirt swept under this woman’s carpet than what we’d already uncovered.
“So how do you get the information? Pillow talk, or by breaking into his computer and copying his files?”
“Nothing so crass. I’m a telepath with a photographic memory. I might not understand what I steal, but I never forget it.”
A handy talent for a thief to have. “How do you get the information to the sindicati?”
She smiled again. A blond-haired shark with perfect white teeth. “You came here wanting information in exchange for saving my life. Why don’t we make a deal?”
“What, saving your life isn’t enough?”
“Well, no, because I need to be alive for you to get your information. Therefore, I have leverage and you do not.”
“And contacting the sindicati isn’t a good enough form of leverage in your eyes?”
“Oh, it’s a great form of leverage, but there is one major problem. You can’t get reception here in the hospital, and the minute you leave, I’m gone. You’d lose not only me, but any additional information I might hold.”
All of which was true, damn it. I eyed her warily. “What sort of deal?”
“In return for answering your questions, I want your help in removing myself from the sindicati’s reach.”
“I’m thinking there’s probably not going to be many areas in Australia that meet that criteria.” And maybe very few overseas.
“I agree, which is why I intend to flee overseas once I’m out of this state. I have passports and clothing at a safe place ready to go. All I need is transport there and then on to the airport.”
“A deal that certainly gives you more than it gives me.”
“Unless, of course, the information I might have also includes a hard drive containing not only every scrap of information I stole from Wilson, but every detail of anyone I ever dealt with in the sindicati.”
I blinked and her shark smile got bigger.
“It always pays to have some form of backup plan.”
“So why don’t you use said backup to exchange for your freedom?”
“Because, as you said, they have obviously—for whatever reason—decided it is safer to be rid of me than use me again. Therefore, they will merely agree to the exchange and then kill me anyway.” She raised an eyebrow. “I am fully aware of what my employers are capable of. Do we have a deal?”
I hesitated, but I had no real choice and we both knew it. Not if I wanted the answers that might well be hidden somewhere in those files. Besides, given Morretti was currently off-limits investigation-wise, it couldn’t hurt to have a secondary option in the sindicati to chase down and question.
“Okay. Deal.”
She held out her hand. “Shake on it.”
I leaned forward and clasped her hands. Electricity buzzed across my senses, and I smiled. “Sorry, but I’m one of those people who can’t be read telepathically.”
“Well, damn.” She didn’t seem too put out, however. She pushed upright in the bed and pressed the buzzer for the nurse. “Let’s get out of here first; then we’ll play twenty questions.”
I raised my eyebrows. “I doubt they’ll release you that quickly.”
“They can’t actually stop me. Besides, we both know that my only chance to escape unscathed is in the next few hours. Once the sindicati realize what has happened to their assassins, more will be unleashed.”
Undoubtedly. The nurse came in, and for the next half hour, Amanda argued her case about being released. Eventually, the hospital staff gave up and brought in an Against Medical Advice form for her to sign. She did so, then, still in her hospital gown and wearing my coat, followed me into the parking lot.
“Right,” I said, starting Jackson’s truck. “Where to?”
“Southern Cross Station.”
I raised my eyebrows. “You hid passports and clothes at a train station?”
“Best place,” she said. “And close to public transport should I need a quick escape.”
At least she wouldn’t be escaping quickly in her current getup. Not when she wanted to avoid notice, anyway.
“Okay,” I said, once we were headed into the city. “Time to start upholding your end of the deal. What have you been told about Wilson’s death?”
She shrugged. “Not much. The police simply said a man in a red-hooded cloak all but sliced him to pieces.”
“And his body? Has it been released by the coroner yet?” If it had been, then maybe Jackson could use his contact again and get us the coroner’s report. It might not help, but it couldn’t hurt, either.
“No, it hasn’t, simply because there was no body.”
I blinked. “What?”
“There was no body.” Her expression was amused. This time, the emotion was real. “The thug in the red cloak took his body with him when he ran off.”
“But that makes no sense.”
Why kill him in broad daylight and then snatch his body? Were the red cloaks making some kind of statement? Or was there something else going on? Something that was far bigger than this investigation—bigger, maybe, than even Sam realized?
I had a bad feeling that might be the case.
And was it possible, I thought with a chill, that they’d snatched Wilson’s body to ensure they had him when he came to?
Sam had said the red plague virus was spread through either cuts or bites, which meant that if Wilson hadn’t been killed, he would have been infected. So what if the virus reacted to death the same way sharing the blood of a vampire reacted in the human body? That is, on death, it put them into a coma while the body made the change from one form to the other?