Kiss of the Vampire(79)
“Thanks,” Nix said with a soft smile.
A blush fired up Charlie’s freckles as he stuttered a response.
Tobias shook his head and walked toward the blonde scientist, fishing out his ID as he went. “Dr. Busham?”
She looked up, her ponytail bouncing against her nape. “Yes?”
He showed her his ID and introduced himself and then Nix and MacMillan. He saw interest flare in her eyes when she looked at the detective. “Dr. Busham?” he said, drawing her attention back to him. “We’d like to talk to you about Dr. Sahir.”
Her lips thinned and blue eyes flared with anger. “Before you ask, I don’t have any clue where he is. We have a report due to NASA in a week, and he up and disappears?” She gave a derisive snort. “Bastard. I should have known he’d leave me to finish up the work.”
“Why is that?” Nix jotted down a few notes.
“Because he’s not a serious scientist. He’s in it for the glamour of working in conjunction with NASA, with getting his face in the news.” Dr. Busham huffed. “And it looks like he took off with some of our equipment, too, which will slow our progress even more. Damn it!”
“What kind of equipment?” Tobias asked.
“A couple of laptops, a radio transceiver and transmitter, and our only broad-bandwidth videotape recorder.” She shook her head. “I can’t imagine why he would want them, but since they disappeared at the same time he did, I can only presume he took them.”
Tobias shared a look with Nix. They needed to find Sahir. He would lead them to the one behind the transmissions.
Natchook.
“Thank you,” he murmured to Dr. Busham. To Nix and MacMillan he said, “You two go talk to the other staff we missed the last time we were here. I’m going to call my PI friend.” Knowing they would do their jobs, Tobias walked back outside, his phone in hand. He hit the speed dial. While he waited for Percival to pick up, he sniffed the air to make sure there wasn’t anyone around. The only things he smelled were natural animals and trees. No prets or humans were near enough for him to smell, and, therefore, they weren’t near enough to listen in on his conversation.
The PI answered on the fourth ring. “What the hell kind of weird shit did you get me into here, Caine?”
“What’re you talking about?” Tobias walked toward the edge of the drive, head up as he scanned his surroundings.
“I left you a voice mail. Didn’t you get it?” Percival’s voice sounded strained. “Your scientist met up with a couple of vamps last night, which, okay, is not that big a deal. Humans hook up with vamps all the time, right? Afterwards he made a call to a prepaid cell in Scottsdale. The person he called paid in cash, I already checked. No way to trace who the phone belongs to.” His voice dropped a notch. “Early this morning, around dawn, your guy comes out of the house and throws a couple of suitcases in the trunk of his car. Before he can take off, though, these same vamps jump him.” The PI paused and then said, “Sahir’s dead, Caine.”
“Damn it.” Tobias scrubbed the back of his neck with his hand. He hadn’t gotten the voice mail. Sometimes he hated modern technology. “Did they know you were there?”
“I don’t think so.” Percival sighed. “I had the windows up and stayed real still. Didn’t move until I knew for sure they were gone.”
“What did they do with the body?”
“Tossed it in the trunk with the suitcases and drove off in his car.” Tobias heard the rasp of whiskers and pictured the grizzled PI rubbing his fingers against his chin, a habitual move he did when he was thinking. Percival said, “By now he’s out in the desert somewhere getting picked over by coyotes. Since he’d packed those suitcases, law enforcement will assume he just took off of his own volition.”
“And it’s fine to let them keep assuming that for now. This is big, Perce.” And the less the PI knew, the safer it was for him. Tobias warned, “You keep your head down.”
“No kidding. Those vamps were some scary freaks, man. No way I’m letting them know I saw what I saw.” He cleared his throat. “Consider us even now, Caine. I don’t owe you any more favors.” It took a lot to shake Percival, but it was obvious seeing a bunch of vamps kill a human was more than enough to do the job.
Tobias agreed and ended the call. He stood for a moment, listening to the birds and the wind blowing through the evergreens. The air up here was crisp and clean, chilling his already cool skin. He didn’t feel the discomfort of it, but he could sense the coldness of the temperature.