Playing Their Parts

But somehow Stone doubted that bonding has been on the perp’s mind when he did this to the female victim.

“At least he was nice enough to leave us lots of DNA,” Cassandra remarked. “We can get some answers after the crime scene guys get a sample.” She cocked her head. “Listen—Amelia is letting them in now. Let’s go brief them on what we need and then sit down with her and find out what she saw.”

Stone nodded. “I want extra samples—some to send to the Mother Ship just in case…”

“In case the perp does turn out to be Kindred?” his partner asked gently.

Stone didn’t trust his voice—he only nodded. He cleared his throat.

“Let’s go.”

He had seen enough of this crime scene to last him a lifetime.

Seven

“Go back to the very beginning when you met this, uh—” Cassie raised her eyebrows and began tapping notes on her phone.

“Beast—The Kindred Beast. But he just went by The Beast for short,” Amelia said helpfully, leaning forward. They were in the kitchen of the mansion, which was bigger than Cassie’s entire house. It was set up for a professional home chef with a huge marble island in the center and expensive-looking copper pots hanging from racks all around.

“Where did you meet him?” Cassie asked again. Stone was just standing there, silently. He hadn’t said much of anything while they were examining the crime scene—but he hadn’t had to. Cassie could see how upset her partner was—she could tell by the tense set of his broad shoulders and the tightness of his mouth.

“I met him in a club in Ybor,” Amelia said. Ybor was Tampa’s historic district with lots of old buildings that used to be cigar rolling factories where Cuban immigrants had lived and worked. Now it was a tourist trap, home to trendy restaurants, tattoo parlors, novelty shops, and of course, plenty of bars and clubs.

“What club?” Cassie asked.

“I dunno.” Amelia squinted, furrowing her brow. “The Velvet Noose? Yeah, I think that was the one.”

“That’s a pretty dark place,” Cassie pointed out. It was also where a lot of the Kink community of Tampa Bay came to play. “What were you doing in a club like that?”

“I dunno,” Amelia said again, shrugging but her cheeks were definitely pink. “Just curious, I guess. Anyway, I was standing at the bar when I saw him—The Beast I mean. I had never seen a real live Kindred before up close, so I asked him if I could take a selfie with him, ya know?”

“You have a picture of the perpetrator?” Stone demanded, glaring at the girl. “Do you not think you could have told us this at once?”

“Oh, uh…” Amelia shrank back from him, her eyes going wide with fright. “Sorry. I…I didn’t think.”

“It’s all right.” Cassie put a hand on her partner’s arm. Ease down, the gesture said. Their witness was much more likely to talk if she wasn’t frightened half out of her mind, and Stone’s huge size and piercing gaze could be really intimidating. Cassie had seen him extract a confession from an assailant without even saying a word—all he had to do was turn that laser beam stare on people and they were suddenly babbling out all their secrets.

Still, that wasn’t the approach they wanted to take with Amelia. Cassie had the feeling the girl would tell them everything they wanted if they just let her talk.

“Let’s see the selfie,” she said to Amelia. “You still have it on your phone?”

“Oh, uh, yeah. Here…” The girl reached for her cell phone and tapped it a few times before displaying the screen.

Well, he certainly looks Kindred, Cassie thought, though she didn’t say it aloud to spare her partner’s feelings.

The man on the screen with Amelia had a heavy black beard, wild black hair, and the vivid golden eyes of a true Beast Kindred. He was wearing a black wife-beater t-shirt that showed his muscular arms and there was a strange-looking tattoo on his right arm. It looked like it might be some kind of a dragon but it was hard to tell because it was blurry—out of focus with the rest of the picture.

“What’s that?” she asked, tapping the screen with her nail to indicate the tattoo.

“Oh, that was one of the coolest things about him!” Amelia exclaimed. “He had a living tattoo—at least, that was what he called it. ‘My live ink’ was what he said. It doesn’t just stay on his arm—it goes all over his body—all over his skin, ya know?”

This was sounding stranger and stranger. Cassie looked up at Stone and raised one eyebrow.

“Live ink?”

“That’s a technique they use on Rigelis Four.” His deep voice was grimmer than ever. “The ink is actually a living creature that is injected under the skin. It feeds off the host’s sweat and can assume any form and appear anywhere on his or her body.”