Page 42 of Girl Betrayed

Meredith’s eyes lit up. “He records all his sessions. Ask him to see his footage of Claire. Then you can see for yourself. There’s a darkness inside her, and we should all be afraid of what happens if it’s found a way out.”

29

Jake satat Dana’s kitchen island, watching Claire through tendrils of steam from his coffee. She was perched on the barstool next to him, her fingers swiftly dancing over the keyboard. A curtain of black hair surrounded the boney shoulders protruding from the wide neck of the oversized black sweater she wore, and every few minutes her staccato of typing was interrupted just long enough for her to push her cat eye glasses back up her button nose.

All wide-eyes and lanky limbs hunched over a keyboard—Claire was a scene straight out of an anime comic, but Jake couldn’t help thinking this was the most alive he’d seen the girl he’d affectionately nicknamed Elvira.

He also couldn’t help thinking that Dana was wrong for buying into Dr. Dvita’s assessment.

Claire wasn’t the damaged, fragile girl Dvita was peddling. If anything, Jake thought she was doing remarkably well after all she’d gone through. He’d seen cases like this before, where doctors prolonged treatment just to keep collecting a check. But he’d be damned if he’d let that happen to Claire.

“So, what else do you need from me?” Jake asked.

Claire gave him a sideways glance. “Um, patience would be nice. We just started looking, and since you don’t have anything besides a name and birthdate it’s not exactly a lot to go on, but you knew that already. I mean, finding people is like your thing, right?”

He huffed a laugh. “Yeah, in the middle of a war zone maybe, but this isn’t like tracking a terrorist. I’m looking for a civilian. Besides, you’re the research genius. I thought you might have some tricks up your sleeve.”

“What do you think I’ve been doing? Playing D & D?”

He arched a brow. “I’m not even going to pretend I know what that means.”

Claire smirked. “Some Secret Agent Man.” She turned her attention back to the laptop to continue typing.

“Do you think Dana’d be into helping us with this project?” Jake asked.

“Are you kidding? She’s a professional researcher. She lives for this stuff. Plus, it’s for you. Putting you first is her favorite hobby.”

Before Jake could ask what Claire meant by that, she was turning the laptop toward him. “This website is probably your best bet for tracking someone down who doesn’t want to be found.”

Jake blinked at the dark web portal staring back at him. “How do you know about a site like this?”

“Research genius, remember?” she teased.

Jake took a sip of his coffee and skimmed the website. Everything and anything was available for purchase. In his line of work he knew black market hubs like this existed, but it was alarming how easily Claire had been able to gain access.

“Do you use sites like this often at the Smithsonian?”

“How do you think Dr. Gray and I satisfy our taste for vampire blood?” Claire mocked.

“Very funny, Elvira.”

She grinned. “Occult artifacts aren’t exactly lining the shelves of an Amazon warehouse. Sites like these are the best resource for tracking down things that shouldn’t exist. Spell kits, sacred bones, moon stones, ritualistic tools. Most of them are hoaxes, but every once in a while, we find a genuine artifact.”

“Like that mask I broke?” Jake asked. “Think we could find another one on here?”

Claire laughed. “No, that was a one of a kind artifact from the African Kazanzi. It was worn during voodoo funerals to keep death away from the living. It was on loan from a museum in New Orleans.”

Jake cringed. “What was it doing in Dana’s house?”

“Her work on tracing the origin of vampirism is highly sought after. She’d just managed to link the original Venetian vampiric cult to one that appeared in early eighteenth-century New Orleans when I started working for her. The museum loaned her the mask to help prove her research along with a grant to continue researching her theory in New Orleans, but she never went.”

“What stopped her?”

Claire’s clear blue eyes bore straight into him before she answered. “You did.”

“What?”

“You barged into her office with a case folder and dragged us into a world with different kinds of monsters than the ones we study.”