Deadly Desire (Riley Jenson Guardian 7)

"I think this is one promise Amy would want you to break. You don't want her killer going after someone else, do you?"

Which wasn't fair, but it had the desired effect.

"I guess not," he mumbled, then sniffed. "She was offered some big-paying job. It's how she could afford to move out of home."

What were the odds that the job was offered by a woman wearing an ill-fitting blond wig? "What kind of job?"

He hesitated. "She wasn't a crim or anything. She just needed the money."

"I understand that, Josh, but I need to know what she did."

"A lady paid her eight grand to bang some vampire."

I blinked. That certainly wasn't an answer I'd been expecting. "And did she get paid money often to bang people?"

"Hell, no. She wasn't a whore. This was a onetime job, like."

"I don't suppose you know the name of the vampire she was supposed to be with?" Maybe if we could find him, we might stand a chance of understanding what the hell was going on. And why these kids were being killed.

He shrugged. "It was strange. Arkell? Or something like that?"

Oh my God... "Armel?" I said, and almost held my breath for his answer.

"Yeah, that's it."

Armel. Who liked redheads. Fucking hell, we had a connection. But there was no way on earth any of the murdered teenagers had the magical resources needed to overpower old vampires, so why were they being paid so much money to seduce them? It had to be a part of the plot, but I wasn't yet seeing the connection. "And that's all she had to do? Sleep with him and leave?"

He nodded. "Easy money."

"Do you know how Amy was supposed to meet this vampire?"

"Some club." He shrugged.

Meinhardt's, I thought, remembering what Anna had said about Martin Shore's last conquest. Only Amy wouldn't have been old enough to get into a strip joint like that. So somewhere along the line, club security and/or its owners were involved in these cases. "And she did what she was supposed to?"

"Yeah. No problems."

Except that she never got to spend her earnings, because her life had been ripped apart by the living dead. "So where did Amy meet the woman who gave her the job?"

"At the social security office. Amy was waiting to hand in her form so she could get rent assistance, and the woman just started talking to her." He shrugged. "It went from there, I suppose."

"Did she ever mention what the woman looked like?"

"No." He hesitated. "She did get one of the woman's business cards, though. It was black, with a really cool picture of a staked heart on it."

The same card that Joe had given me. Surprise, surprise. "What happened to it?"

"Amy probably kept it in her purse. Don't know where that is."

Meaning the zombie or the sorcerer had probably removed it after the kill, because otherwise Cole would have mentioned it. "There's nothing else you can remember that might help with our investigation?"

"Don't think so." He hesitated. "Are you going to catch whoever did this?"

"We certainly plan to."

"Good." He hesitated again. "Kick him for me. The bastard deserves that. And make sure some sappy lawyer doesn't get him off easy."

"Oh, trust me, the person behind these murders won't get off easy." Mainly because he or she would be dead. I hesitated then asked, "Tell me, do you know anyone by the name of Kye Murphy?"