He pointed to the chair next to the desk and she sat down, while he leaned against the desk.

She pointed to the USB stick in his hand. “I found this in Hannah’s appointment book. I think she was hiding it in case something happened to her.”

“What is it?”

“A video. It shows her boyfriend arguing with the man who attacked me last night.”

He straightened. “Oh. That’s quite a find. And you recognize the man with one hundred percent certainty?”

“Yes. It’s him. There’s no doubt. But there’s something else. It’s horrible. At first, I couldn’t even believe my own eyes. But there’s no doubt.”

“About what?”

She pointed to the stick. “Watch it for yourself.”

He walked around the desk and inserted the memory stick into a USB port, then concentrated on the screen.

Lilo wrung her hands, waiting eagerly. If she had told Donnelly outright that the video showed two vampires, he would have probably dismissed her as crazy and ushered her out of the police station as quickly as possible. But if he saw it for himself, without her suggesting anything, then he’d have to believe it.

The snapping together of his eyebrows indicated that he’d gotten to the part in the video where both men showed their glaring red eyes and sharp white fangs. Seconds later, he looked away from the screen and met her eyes.

“This is impossible,” he said. “I know what it looks like on the screen, but I think we’re both being tricked here.”

“But you see it, too, don’t you? Those two men are turning into vampires. Right there.”

“I’ll take this into evidence and have our IT experts look at it to see if the file has been doctored or if it’s genuine.”

“But we don’t have time. My friend Hannah is in their hands. They’re hurting her. We can’t waste time.” She pointed to the screen. “And now that you know what my attacker looks like, you have a better chance of finding him. He has Hannah. He and Ronny, they have Hannah.”

“We don’t know that for sure.” When she tried to protest, he lifted his hand. “But I’ll run the picture of both men through our system to see whether we can identify who they are.”

“Thank you.” Then she remembered something. “The one guy, I know who he is. Ronny Clifford. He lives out in the Excelsior district.”

Officer Donnelly raised an eyebrow. “And you know this how?”

“My friend, Mr. Bond, found out,” she said quickly. Then she realized that this might look as if she’d been withholding information from the police. “I was gonna tell you and give you all his information so you could look for him.”

Donnelly’s cell phone pinged and he pulled it from his pocket, typed a few words, then put it back.

“We’ll do everything we can, I can assure you, Miss Schroeder.” She noticed him glancing to the clock on the wall. “But let’s go over all the details once more. I don’t want to miss anything that might help us find your friend.” He underscored his request with a warm smile.

Lilo felt some of the tension ease from her body and sighed.

18

“And you didn’t try to stop her?” Blake growled.

If Wesley had been standing in front of him, he would have had him by the throat. But as it was, Wes was reasonably safe at the other end of the line.

“I tried, but your new girlfriend is pretty determined.”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Blake grunted.

“Oh, my bad. I thought because she’s sleeping at your house… It’s not like you invite every client to stay with you.”

“She had no place to stay. I couldn’t very well let her stay in Hannah’s flat, where the lock’s busted.”

“Course not.”

Blake turned away from the forensics team that was examining Hannah’s car in one of the subterranean levels of Scanguards’ headquarters. “Where is she now?”

“With Donnelly. He’ll stall her until you can get there.”

Blake looked at his watch. “It’s still daylight for over half an hour.”

“He knows that. Text him when you’re outside. It’ll take you a half hour anyway to make your way through traffic.”

He disconnected the call.

Wesley was right, of course, but that didn’t diminish the feeling of helplessness that rose in him. The one thing about being a vampire he didn’t like was how limited he was during daytime.

He hit the elevator button and waited impatiently, slamming his fist against the frame for good measure.

“Come on!”

He couldn’t even imagine what Lilo was thinking right now. Every human reacted differently when confronted with the knowledge that vampires existed. He’d seen both sides of the spectrum, from calm and efficient acceptance to downright I-must-be-hallucinating denial. He had no idea what camp Lilo would be in. But no matter what, he had two options: come clean and explain everything to her, or wipe her memory, so she would never know what she’d seen on the video.

The elevator doors suddenly opened and he nearly collided with John, who was rushing out.

“Blake,” John greeted him, shoving a hand through his hair. “Couldn’t get a hold of Wesley. Line’s busy all the time. So I was looking for you.”

“I just spoke to him. He’s at my place.” Blake darted into the elevator and pressed the button for the level where his car was parked.

“We got the results from the blood tests back.”

“Blood tests?” The doors were already starting to close.

“Yeah, from a human Donnelly transferred over to us. Wes is gonna wanna know right away.”

Blake extended his arm and stopped the elevator doors from closing. “What did you find in his blood?”

John did a one-shouldered shrug. “Some strange herbs. The lab tech said only Wes would know. It had a foreign name. Something German sounding.”

“Höllenkraut?”

John gave him a surprised look. “Yeah. How did you know?”

“Just a gut feeling. Call Wes, you should be able to reach him now. And send Ryder to my house to watch the hybrids. Wes will want to head back to HQ and his lab.”

“Will do.”

Blake removed his hand to allow the doors to close. “Thanks.”