Page 69 of Red Rooster

15

New York City

“Keep an ear out,” Lanny had said earlier, “and if things go south, then you step in.”

Jamie had been breathing harder than he was proud to admit. “Things go south? Step in?”

“They’re expressions.”

“I know they’re expressions. That whole sentence was nothing but expressions. What do you mean by them?”

Lanny had sighed like he couldn’t believe he had to put up with this. “It means you need to sit at the table behind theirs, listen, and if Dr. Fowler tries to pull some shit, you hit him over the back of the head with a napkin dispenser. Got it? I’d give you a gun, but I think you’d just shoot yourself in the foot, and we don’t have time for that.”

So, deeply insulted, a little bit scared out of his mind, Jamie sat at a window table in the agreed-upon coffeeshop, right behind Dr. Fowler, waiting for Trina to arrive. He’d never been anyone’s backup before, and he didn’t much feel like it now.

You’re a vampire, he reminded himself.You aren’t helpless.

Small comfort.

He nursed his cappuccino and tried not to think about how much the man sitting behind him smelled of chemicals.

~*~

Trina wasn’t nervous. Well, shewas, but she’d suppressed it. She had a task, and no amount of nerves would keep her from it. She wondered, faintly, if this was the way Katya had felt, taking a steamer to Stalingrad, a rifle slung over her shoulder. On her way to kill Nazis.

She clocked Dr. Fowler through the window of the coffeeshop and walked past him without turning her head, shoulders back, gaze forward, strides brisk. She made it inside, down the aisle of tables, and managed not to acknowledge him at all until she was sitting across from him. Then she pushed her sunglasses up into her hair and said, “Thank you for meeting me,” in the chilliest voice she could conjure.

He seemed properly off-kilter. “Yes, well. Of course. Thank you for – I think we can both help one another.”

“Hmm. Maybe.” She pulled her phone from her pocket, a photo already pulled up on the screen. It was a close-up Harvey had sent her of the teeth marks in the abdomen of one of their vics. She set the phone down on the table and slid it just close enough for him to see, keeping her hand on it. “Take a look at that, Dr. Fowler, and tell me what you see.”

He made a face, clearly taken aback. “This is…this is a crime scene photo–”

“Autopsy, actually, but close enough. These right here?” She pointed. “They’re teeth marks.Fangmarks, as in, not human teeth.” She pocketed the phone and sat back. “When were you going to tell me that your escaped patients are werewolves, doctor?”

He stared at her a moment, gaping, sufficiently shocked. He blinked, and shook his head. Some of the coyness crept back into his voice. “Detective Baskin, I’m surprised.”

She lifted her brows.

“That you would even entertain an idea like that. Werewolves? Oh, is this a joke?” He looked relieved, and then stern, a transparent attempt at acting. “I didn’t take you for someone who would use murder victims to play pranks, but clearly–”

“You know who I am,” she said, and he stilled. “The Ingraham Institute was founded in 1942 in Stalingrad. The first person they studied was a nineteen-year-old from Siberia named Sasha Kashnikov. If you work there, then you know that. Just like you also know that you’ve seen my last name on some paperwork somewhere. Let’s not play the monsters-don’t-exist game, because you’re obsessed with them.”

He stared at her, jaw clenching.

“You’re in charge of the wolves that killed that family, which makes you my number one suspect at the moment.”

He smiled, thinly. “Do you think that will hold up in a court of law?”

“Crazier stuff has.”

His smile widened. “You’re out of your mind.”

“No. I’m impatient – there’s a big difference. Where’s Sasha, Dr. Fowler?”

Now his smile curled up at the corners, Grinch-like and smug. “I’m sorry. Who?”

“Where’s Sasha?” she repeated, and this time the question was punctuated with a softclick.