Blood Ties –
Calm before the Storm
-JLC
Disclaimer: I do not claim to own the rights to any of the characters or ideas of Blood Ties.
People are mysteriously dropping dead, and this time Vicki Nelson is solving the cases on her own. Is she ready for what she will have to face?
Takes place after "Deep Dark".
Chapter One:
After a few hours of silence, Vicki finally left Henry's loft and headed back to her office. She was not surprised to find the place trashed and a note written on the walls in blood warning her that "HE" was waiting for her. Coreen stepped in.
"Wow." She said. She looked up at Vicki.
"Coreen. I really don't have time right now."
Coreen shook her head.
"I know, I understand. But I thought you would want to know. I was just at Underground, and I heard that Astaroth is raising an army." Coreen said.
"Coreen, I can't fight an army!"
"I know." Coreen said. She sighed. "But maybe this time we should call them."
Vicki looked up at her.
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about the actual army, you know, guys with big guns?" She smiled.
Vicki shook her head.
"There's nothing that the army can do."
"You don't know for sure. I mean, they probably have special task force just for this stuff."
"Now you're talking non sense again."
Vicki shook her head. An older looking woman with a worried expression stepped into her office. Vicki watched the woman as she looked over the office and then turned to her.
"I'm sorry." She said in a shaky voice. "Are you Vicki Nelson?" She asked.
"I am." Vicki looked around her office, sighed and then turned back to the woman. She smiled. "How can I help you?"
"It's my son." The woman reached over her shoulder and into her deep bag and pulled out a large photo and handed it to Vicki. "Christopher."
Vicki nervously took the photo and then looked up at the woman.
"What's wrong with him?"
The woman shook her head.
"It's rather difficult to explain." She said.
"Let me see if I can get you a cup of tea." Coreen said. "Please take a seat." She motioned for the chair and dug it out from the pile of rubble before the woman sat down. The woman closed her eyes and sighed.
"I last heard from him a couple of days ago." She shook her head. Tears were swelling in her eyes. "It sounded like he was fine. He was working his way up in the company he was at, and he had just landed an impossible deal."
Vicki raised a brow. She knew that there was probably something in that 'Impossible deal', but let the woman continue.
"He was just fine, and then…I don't know. He dropped dead, right after landing the big the deal." She looked up at Vicki. "I would like it if you could look into his death, I might sleep better if I knew exactly what happened."
"Did your son have any health problems?" Vicki asked. She handed the photograph back to the woman. The woman shook her head and put the photo back in her bag.
"No. He was perfectly healthy." She said. She looked off with somberness.
"I will try to do what I can. My fee is five hundred a day plus expenses."
The woman nodded. She reached into her bag and pulled out her check book.
"I can write you a check for half right now."
Vicki nodded.
"That will be fine, Mrs.?"
"Townsend." The woman said with a smile.
Vick smiled.
"Mrs. Townsend."
Mrs. Townsend left and Vicki had Coreen run the check to the bank and place it in the company account. Vicki spent several hours trying to clean up the office, and place the files back in their right places. Coreen came back with a bag of food. She sat it on Vicki's desk.
"I've been thinking about Mrs. Townsend's son." She said. She sat down and didn't bother to look up to see if Vicki was actually listening to her or not. "What if he made some kind of Faustian deal?"
"Faustian deal?" Vicki gave her an 'are you serious' kind of look and then frowned.
Coreen sighed.
"Did you call Mike?"
Vicki looked off.
"He won't answer his phone, and I don't think it's a good time to just run into the station."
Coreen frowned.
"You should have gone with Henry."
"Coreen," Vicki said with a cold glare.
"Well, you should have. Even if it was just for a while, you know."
"Running wouldn't be good for anyone."
"Right…"
Vicki pulled up her e-mail on the computer and sunk when she saw that it was empty. She wanted badly to hear something from Henry or Mike, but neither of them wanted to talk to her. She logged off the e-mail and turned back to Coreen.
"The first place we're going to have to check out his work, we can interview his co-workers and maybe try to figure what happened to him."
"So we're just on our own with this?" Coreen asked.
Vicki was silent for a moment and then let out a sigh.
"It looks that way. Let's get to work."
She shut the screen to the laptop and moved out from behind her desk. Vicki was ready for anything, eve if she had to do it alone.
