Midnight Poison (The Paranormal Poisons Saga #1)(3)

"Good evening, Frankie," Leontes said evenly.

With a fierce glare on her face, Frankie tugged a hot pink cardigan over her small shoulders and smoothed her hands over the slim skirt of her black dress. She wore bright green, cat's-eye glasses on a face full of rounded features, her thin lips currently set in a frown. She tucked back a few blonde strands of hair that had dared to escape the tightly wrapped bun at the nape of her head.

Normally, Leontes was happy to see her. Normally, she was not shooting him dirty looks. So he was grateful when her ferocious fawn-brown eyes turned on the detective. Leontes may have intimidated him, but the detective visibly withered as he stared down the wrath of the tiny woman's bespectacled glare.

"This is brutal, yes," Frankie snapped in a voice that tremored with a vague accent of old European. She stepped close to the detective and craned her neck up to address him, continuing her rant, but then scowled and looked around.

Without a word, Leontes righted a folding chair and offered his hand. She took it and let him help her step onto the seat, then gave him a stiff nod of irritated gratitude.

Using her newly found loft, Frankie glared at Cage eye to eye. "But other than flowers any idiot could plant, I see no indication that this was Oleander."

Leontes glanced at the black oleanders blooming out of the chandeliers above. He would not say any idiot.

"He also left the calling card," Cage said.

"Oh," Frankie said, clearly disappointed. "We still must investigate to be sure." She jumped off the chair, then put her hands on her hips and faced Leontes.

He turned away on the pretense of studying the scene once again.

"You son of a bitch," she said.

Leontes refrained from comment, but a sudden thought tightened his chest. "Where is Kiara?"

"At the mansion, locked up under the evil queen's watchful eye. Not that you'd know or care."

"Good." Leontes breathed easier, a soft sigh escaping his lips. Frankie had certainly gotten more dramatic over the last few hundred years. He knelt on one knee and removed a glove to inspect another corpse.

Frankie's booted foot connected squarely with his backside. To keep from falling, he squished a hand into the intestines of some poor bastard who had only been counting on champagne and caviar. Not evisceration.

"I'm not being dramatic," Frankie said.

Leontes flicked his hand, flinging off chunks of clotted blood and mutilated flesh. "I never said you were."

"Sure you didn't. You haven't called in over a month." She kicked him again.

The detective snorted. At Leontes' harsh look, the man quickly busied himself with a notebook and took a step back.

"I have been overseas working the Oleander case," Leontes said mildly.

"Rubbish," Frankie said.

That it was, but he would never admit it. Leontes avoided her gaze and removed a handkerchief from his pocket to clean the carnage off his hand. "I have uncovered some disturbing news regarding Kiara," he said. "We must retain a closer watch upon her. And it is imperative that we keep her confined. Why are you not at the mansion?"

"Mass murder at a party for the undead elite which our queen and you were supposed to attend?" Frankie sniffed. "She sent all her best."



       
         
       
        

"Where is she, by the way? Is she safe?" Leontes asked.

"She had Elliot call. That's her new limo driver, which you would know if you had bothered to keep in touch," Frankie said in a scolding tone. "They had a flat tire and now, of course, she isn't coming."

"A lucky coincidence," Leontes said, looking around. "Another vampire master died tonight."

"With the two killed last month in the Middle East and Asia, we're losing them fast," Frankie said. "Maybe the killer was planning to take the queen out as well."

"Perhaps," Leontes said. "Whoever is responsible for these killings is escalating. They hit the sorcerers hard last week in Europe. I was too late. I am always too late."

"I don't care that you didn't call me," Frankie said. "But Kiara? She asked about you every day, you know. Now it's every hour. She's unraveling without you."

Leontes gritted his teeth. "I am sure she is fine."

The detective glanced at them both. "Is that the crazy girl the queen keeps locked in the tower?"

Leontes stifled a growl. "Why are you still here?"

At Frankie's nod of confirmation, Cage continued, "Yeah, that girl is so not fine."

"See?" Frankie said.