Chapter 18

Intrigue

Intro Song: Watching the Detectives, Elvis Costello

Author's note: The mystery is deepening: Who killed Sara Whitley… and why? Who is attaching vampires…and why? Not being a true crime follower, I've tried to put myself in the minds of these 2 excellent investigators – Mick and Gabrielle – to think about how I would figure this out. It's definitely not taking me where I thought it might & I suspect the same is true for our investigative duo. I'd love to hear from you readers on how you think the mystery is developing so far!

What I do know is that there is real danger coming for them…

With a broad smile, Gabrielle Sinclair answered her phone, genuinely delighted to be talking with Mick St. John again. Her pleasure was reflected in her voice, as she answered his questions about Victoria's condition.

"She's completely recovered and back to her usual feisty self. In fact, she's so well, you should probably thank your lucky stars that you are back in L.A., where you won't provoke her into pestering you." This last was said in a teasing voice. Gabrielle knew that Mick had done nothing to invite Victoria's advances. Nothing except be the hottest thing on two legs, that is.

"Funny! You and Josef are really enjoying yourselves over all this, aren't you? Tell me, Gabby - is she always like this?" Mick frowned into his rear view mirror as he spoke, expertly maneuvering through the late afternoon L.A. traffic.

"Actually, yes, I am kind of enjoying this, now that you mention it. And as for Victoria, she's... often like this." But not usually this bad. It's your fault for being so damn hot, Mick St. John. Gabrielle kept that particular thought to herself. "I do appreciate your calls to check on her, though. I'm a little surprised that neither of us has heard from Josef directly."

"Yeah, me too." After an awkward pause, he resumed. "How are you doing?" He thought back to the mess Gabrielle had inherited when he and Josef left New York. He still felt badly that they had left the way they did, not that it had been his doing.

"I'm okay - better now that Victoria's back to normal. Normal for her, that is. I have no desire to assume the mantle of leadership anytime soon, let me tell you."

"I hear you. Anyway, Gabby..."

"Anyway, Mick..." Gabrielle interrupted, teasing him, "what can I do for you?"

He quickly filled her in on the results of Logan and Ryder's search through the Renaissance system. "Could you check the address for us? I need someone to see if it is an actual residence because we couldn't tell from Google Earth or on-line records. Assuming it is – and that's a big assumption – we need to know if she left anything behind that might help us. I'm not optimistic that you will find anything useful, but I think we need to cover all our bases."

"Sure, I can do that this afternoon. I was just sitting here not drinking coffee!" She laughed, her bright eyes scrutinizing the bohemian SoHo coffee shop she found herself in. Ever since the stop she and Mick made at a local coffee shop after interviewing John Giles about the botched oxygen tanks' delivery, she had found herself drawn to their atmosphere. They were warm and welcoming, with lots of customers who just seemed to hang out - and most of them in New York were open late into the night. A perfect atmosphere for a vampire. A trip to a coffee shop to soak up the ambiance - and not drink the coffee - was fast becoming a regular part of her routine.

"There's something else..."

"Of course there is, Mick. There's always something else." The beautiful Asian woman laughed as she stirred the latte in front of her, swirling the carefully-crafted heart design on its surface.

"I'm going to need to ask you to go back to Renaissance and talk to Judy Albert again. There's something going on there, Gabby. My guys had a hell of a time hacking into their files - and I'm talking about geeks who can get into the Pentagon system. Their security is way outside the norm for what you would expect to encounter with a company like that."

"Renaissance? Judy Albert?! No way, Mick! One of us would have picked up on something!"

"Yeah, that's what I would have thought. I was a lot more suspicious of John Giles than I was of her. But add this to the fact that they had a nurse on their payroll with a bogus application. A nurse who went to great lengths to change her shift so that she was not working at the time of a fatal explosion as she was scheduled to be - and who, by the way, has since disappeared under very suspicious circumstances." He pulled into the parking garage underneath the building housing his penthouse as he spoke. "If..."

She sighed into the phone. "I know. If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck..."

"Well, just watch out for the duck crap, Gabby." Mick broke the connection and sat in his car for a moment, his mind whirling. He was missing something... But what?

Shaking his head, he climbed out of the car and headed for the elevator. Beth would be home in a few hours and he could use some more freezer time first. The rest of this is gonna have to wait, Josef or no Josef.

Gabrielle finished packing up her laptop and rose to leave. A barista passing by her table glanced at her still-full cup and stopped.

"Was anything wrong with your drink, miss?" When the young woman looked up, startled, he tried to explain himself. "I've been working here the last couple of days and I noticed that you don't usually drink your coffee. Is there something we're doing wrong?" His earnest blue eyes peered down at the diminutive girl.

Gabby smiled up at him prettily, thinking fast, and shook her head. "No, it's fine! My stomach just can't handle coffee right now - but I still want it, so I order it and just let it sit." Damn! Now I'll have to change coffee shops. "Silly, I know."

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Miss..."

"Sinclair, Gabrielle Sinclair." She reached out her hand and shook his offered one. He really is cute - and he looks a lot more mature than the average barista...She shook herself mentally. Gabby, what are you thinking?!

"Well, I hope you feel better soon, Miss Sinclair. I think I'd die if I couldn't have my coffee every day." He smiled, displaying twin dimples.

No, you wouldn't - not if you were undead... She came back to the present with a start, suddenly aware that she was still holding his hand. Releasing it with an embarrassed grimace, she said, "I'm sorry. What did you say?"

"Oh, just that I hope you'll keep coming in anyway - and you don't have to order coffee to sit here. Come back anytime. I'm Matt, by the way. Matt Cassidy."

"Matt Cassidy. Irish, huh?"

"The name's a dead giveaway, I know."

"Well that...and your coloring... Please, call me Gabrielle." Irish heritage explained the devastating combination of blue eyes, black hair and charm. How long had it been since she'd been in a relationship with a human? "Not long enough, Gabby!" she scolded herself. "You know what happens with human relationships!"

"Gabrielle is a beautiful name. Did you know that was Coco Chanel's real first name?" the young man blurted out,then blushed furiously.

Gabby laughed out loud, dark eyes sparkling mischievously. What would he think if he found out my father had an affair with Coco and that's where the name came from? "Yes, I did know that - but how did you? It's a pretty esoteric fact - especially for a guy."

"Well, let's just say it was a combination of a bad hangover, a rainy day...and Lifetime TV." He shifted from foot to foot, smiling shyly. "Never thought it would come in handy."

"Well, Matthew - Matt - I really have to get going, but it was nice meeting you. Nice talking to you too." Gabby was sincere. Her interactions with humans had become too few and far between.

"I'm here every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evening... Coco." He flashed his killer grin again and opened the door for her.

Too bad I'll never see you again.

She stepped out on the street and sailed away without a backward glance, her stiletto heels clicking purposefully on the sidewalk as she hurried toward an available taxi. Had she looked back, she would have seen the young man hanging out the door, one hand holding onto the door jam as he wistfully watched her walk away.

Gabby's cab fought the Friday afternoon traffic toward the address listed on the documents Mick had e-mailed her. She shoved her encounter with the handsome barista to the back of her mind and pulled out her phone. Victoria would want an update on her conversation with Mick St. John.

"Oh, and he asked about you - again - Victoria," she told the vampire leader after filling her in on Mick's investigation and her tasks.

"Really! Well, perhaps we shall meet up with the elusive Mr. St. John again in the near future." Her leader's voice was all sex and lust.

"Victoria, I haven't brought this up before…and I shouldn't now… but I think you need to back off Mick. He has a human girlfriend - and I spent enough time with him to know that he really loves her."

"Well, I could always just wait until she gets old - it's not like I haven't done that before. But, I'm sure I won't have to. Human relationships never work out."

We'll just see about this, Victoria. I'm not going to let you fuck up Mick's life...

Before Gabby could respond, Victoria added sweetly, "Oh and Gabrielle, darling?"

"Yes, Victoria?" Gabby braced herself for what she knew was coming.

"When I want your opinion... I'll be sure to ask for it."

The line went dead. "Crap!" Gabrielle exclaimed, shoving the phone back into the pocket of her crisp linen jacket. "Well, you knew what to expect!"

The cab driver glanced up into his rear-view mirror, meeting her gaze. "Sorry, miss. Did you say something?"

"Just get me to that address as quickly as possible. When we get there, I'm going to have you wait on me, then take me on to Brooklyn. I'll pay you for your time. You okay with that?"

He nodded his affirmative, then dropped his gaze back to the crowded street.

It took the vampire only a few minutes to establish that the address listed on the Renaissance job application for Sara Whitley's 'nurse' was yet another dead end. While the facade looked like a brownstone, behind the front door was a dusty Chinese spice shop. When Gabby spoke to the owner in his native dialect, the shriveled Chinese shopkeeper occupying the address was only too happy to fill her in on the arrangement he had made with the "crazy American woman".

"So, she paid you to have her mail delivered here."

"Handsomely, yes, Miss Sinclair. She paid me one hundred dollars every week. Crazy American woman!" he added again.

"What did she look like, Mr. Chen? Please tell me everything you can remember about her - it's very important."

"Blond. She was blond, miss. And tall."

"Taller than me?"

The shopkeeper looked up at her. "Oh no, miss. No taller than you."

Gabby suppressed a smile. With her stiletto heels, she measured a whopping 5 foot, 3 inches.

"And, she came by in person to pick it up?"

"Yes, Miss Sinclair. Every Saturday. She picked up her mail and paid me."

"Alone?"

"Yes, yes. Always alone."

Gabby chewed on a knuckle thoughtfully. "Did she ever say anything to you? Anything at all?"

"Yes, miss. She said 'thank you'." The little man bowed to signify that the conversation was over and disappeared into the rear of his shop.

Damn it! Well, this certainly confirmed that their mystery nurse was the prime suspect in the the slaying of Sara Whitley and her caretaker - but didn't give them much else to go on. Hopefully, her next stop - Renaissance Home Health Care and Judy Albert - would be more productive. She hurried out to the waiting cab, prying her phone out of her pocket as she went. "Mick? Okay, let me fill you in on what I've found out..."

Mick lay down in his freezer with a sigh, his mind spinning in a hundred different directions after the update from Gabrielle Sinclair. This case was growing more and more complicated, and he felt no closer to unraveling the mystery of Sara's murder than he had when he first arrived in New York on Monday. He mentally reviewed the facts, trying to sort them out and arrange them in an order that made sense, but there were just too many questions - and too few answers.

Well, you've got Logan, Ryder and Gabby all working on this, he told himself. That was part of the problem - he was used to handling his cases by himself. Hadn't he told Beth he worked alone when she first tried to collaborate with him on the 'vampire' campus killings? Yeah, and look how that worked out... He was just going to have to be patient and trust them to uncover something that would help make sense of this mess.

He closed his eyes, determined not to dream of New York.

Pulling up in front of the Renaissance building for the second time in a week, Gabrielle wondered briefly if it was a good idea to be going into what could be the lion's den...alone. Well, that's one way to find out whether or not they are involved..

She turned to her cab driver - who was now her new best friend, courtesy of the hefty fare she had built up - and gave him his instructions.

"Okay, Leo, here's the deal. If I'm not out of this building in an hour, I want you to call the number on this card. Ask for Victoria Silver and talk only to her. Tell her what happened and then wait for her. She'll take care of your fare and the tip amount I'm writing on this card right now." She scrawled a number and handed the card to him, hoping that the amount was sufficient to get him to follow her directions.

The chubby black man squinted at the card, then up at her. "You serious?"

"Yup. So, do we have a deal?"

"Damn, honey. For this kind of tip, I'd marry you!"

She laughed. "I don't think you'll have to go that far, Leo. Not sure I'm the marrying kind anyway. Just do what I asked and it's yours." Gabby started off, then turned back. "And if I do come back out? I'll double it!" She flashed him a quick grin. Squaring her shoulders, she marched into the building.

50 minutes later, Gabrielle Sinclair was sitting in Judy Albert's office, impatiently waiting for her to return. She'd been cooling her heels in the administrator's office for almost an hour, but she had no right to complain. Without an appointment, she'd had to bully her way into the director's office and, under other circumstances, she might have felt guilty over the way she'd treated the sweet-faced older woman manning the reception desk. She was increasingly uneasy, however, about the possibility of Renaissance involvement in the murder of Sara Whitley. And maybe the attack on Victoria. Her concern left her with little patience for niceties.

While she waited, she mulled over the plan she and Victoria had concocted to capture Crucis members. We've got to get that proof. She had the uneasy sensation of time was running out for them...Lost in her thoughts, she jumped in her chair when the office door suddenly opened, admitting a rushing Judy Albert.

Tossing the folder she was carrying onto her desk, Judy turned to face her uninvited guest. "So. It's very late on Friday afternoon in what has been an extremely long week. I'd like to get home to my family. To what do I owe the honor of this unannounced repeat visit, Ms. Sinclair?"

"First of all, thank you for seeing me without an appointment, Ms. Albert. My associate, Mr. St. John, and I, have uncovered some information that I would like to review with you. It shouldn't take long, but it is very important for our investigation into the death of Paula Bridges."

At the mention of her former employee's name, Judy Albert seated herself behind her desk without a word and gestured to Gabrielle to continue. Gabby couldn't help but be struck by the difference in her demeanor compared to her last visit there with Mick, when the director had been an extremely cordial host.

She took a deep breath and launched into a discussion of the discrepancies they had uncovered in the Renaissance nurse's application and background. "Ms. Albert, were you aware that there are...inconsistencies...in Rebecca Bledsoe's application with Renaissance?"

Wha-?" Judy Albert's head jerked up in surprise. "What are you talking about? What inconsistencies?"

"Well, for starters - her address, her phone numbers, her references, her degree - and possibly her nurse's license..."

"That isn't possible!" Judy Albert jumped up out of her chair as if she had been shocked, coming around in front of her desk to confront the young woman. "Ms. Sinclair, I can assure you that the references of ALL employees - and potential employees - are thoroughly checked. That includes Rebecca Bledsoe. We always call all personal and professional references. Always!" Her scowl was both angry...and scared.

Gabby held up her hand. What is she so frightened about? "I'm sorry, Ms. Albert. I'm not insinuating that you and your staff didn't do your jobs. We think that this woman arranged to have her credentials falsified - and she was very clever. There would have been no way for anyone to know that they were fake."

"Please explain yourself, Ms. Sinclair. I need to know how this would be possible." Judy Albert's blue eyes were suddenly cold and hard, glittering with hostility.

Gabby noted this change uneasily as she recited the information compiled on Bledsoe. Stay alert, Gabrielle. "The contact phone numbers for all of her references were activated shortly before she applied with Renaissance - and deactivated as soon as she started working for you, when they would no longer be needed. Her listed address was a mail drop – a small business. She had paid the owner to accept her mail and hold it for her. Her transcripts were, in all likelihood, falsified. The only thing we aren't sure about is her New York nursing license, but if her transcripts were forged, then it stands to reason that the license probably was as well." She watched the older woman closely to gauge her reaction to this news.

The director appeared staggered for a moment by this information, her anger deflating. She shook her head slowly from side to side. "This just isn't possible, Ms. Sinclair. This would mean that we - that I - am responsible for what happened. That just can't be."

"I'll have to check the file to see who initialed them - that's our procedure." She seemed lost in thought for a moment, then, abruptly, she frowned, her eyes narrowing as a thought occurred to her. "Tell me something, Ms. Sinclair. Exactly how did you obtain this information on Rebecca Bledsoe to check in the first place? I know I didn't give you access to her files!"

Oh hell! Well, I may as well see what happens. "Well, Ms. Albert, we have some IT experts we work with and they were able to, um, extract the information from your system."

"You mean hack into our system, don't you?!" The elegant woman's face was flushed and her eyes flashed with sudden anger.

"No - if we had hacked into your system, we would have all of your information - which we don't," Gabrielle shot back. "We simply wanted to pluck out what was pertinent to this woman."

Gabby knew she was treading on thin ice, but decided to put everything out on the table. "And, while we're on this topic, our experts said they had not encountered such a rigorous security system outside the Pentagon and CIA. Why would you have that kind of security for a home health care agency? Can you tell me that, Ms. Albert?!"

"We have nothing unusual or extraordinary in our intranet security, Ms. Sinclair. I don't like what you are insinuating - especially coming from someone who has just admitted to cyber crime!" Judy Albert's fists clenched. "I'm going to report you to the authorities - you and your friend, Mr. St. John!"

Okay, well, I guess I saw what happened… Gabrielle rose. "You do what you have to do. But if you do, I will be forced to tell the police about this woman who came on board with Renaissance - with false credentials that were supposedly vetted by your company. A woman who disappears mysteriously after an employee and patient are killed under very suspicious circumstances. I think they would be very interested!" She stood toe-to-toe with the furious woman, trying to sense whether she was lying.

Judy Albert lost her last semblance of control. "GET OUT!" she shouted. "NOW!"

Gabby wheeled and left the office, frustrated that she hadn't been able to tell whether the director was lying - or just appropriately angry at the violation of their systems. Dammit, now what? She sighed as she left the building and ran for her waiting taxi, phone in hand. I hope you have a plan, Mick, because I'm fresh out of ideas.

Out of his freezer for the evening, Mick gave up trying to make sense of all the puzzle pieces Gabby was sending his way. He was determined to push the deepening mystery about Sara's murder out of his mind for the evening. One night. Is it too much to ask to have one night to enjoy together? He was just finishing the vampire's peculiar form of refreshment as Beth arrived from work, fumbling with the electronic door opener as she half-walked, half-fell through the front door.

"Dammit! Why don't you have a key like normal people?!"

He paused a beat, then answered. "Well... perhaps because I'm not normal people?"

Beth looked up from her purse in time to catch the mischievous glint in his eye and smiled. "Okay, you got me there." She dropped the purse, key and mail haphazardly on the floor and walked straight into his arms. "So, how about a 'not normal' kiss?"

Mick was only too happy to oblige.

After a long, passionate kiss, she came up for air briefly to announce, "I am so happy it's finally Friday!" She collected her mess from the floor, piling everything on the island before pulling him over to the soft couch with her. Pushing him down onto it, she plopped on the soft cushion next to him.

"You're home early - I didn't expect you for a couple more hours. Get fired?" he teased.

"I wish! Actually, that's not true - I really am enjoying working there. It's just that Talbot can be such a..."

"Prick?" Mick offered helpfully.

She burst out laughing. "That wasn't quite the word I was searching for - but it'll work!"

"Well! You certainly seem happy! Is it the thought of more time together or more sleep that has you in such a good mood?" He loved seeing her like this - happy and carefree. They had had precious little of that of late.

"Both!" Her blue eyes sparkled as she stretched her arms up over her head. "Talbot let us go early... For once, no responsibilities, nothing hanging over our heads..." She abruptly sat up straight, turned and planted her hands on his chest. "There isn't anything hanging over our heads, is there, Mick?"

Thinking of Gabby's call, and the visit to Renaissance she still had to make, Mick did the only decent thing - he lied. "Nope. Nothing. We are free and clear for the whole weekend."

"And... the bed is being delivered tomorrow, right?" Beth relaxed back into the cushions and leaned her head on his shoulder, smiling at the thought.

"Yup. Tomorrow afternoon. And, if you think that will help you get more sleep... I have other plans." The arm that had wrapped around her when she snuggled closer, hugged her tightly to him as he kissed the top of her head.

"Well, I'm planning on getting sleep in that bed, Mick St. John. We'll have to negotiate anything else." His sideways look and sly smile said 'we'll see about that'. It was reminiscent of the night when she had teasingly suggested that sex between them "might not be any good". Of course, that was before they slept together for the first time, proving definitively that nothing could be further from the truth. Beth had known that it was an absurd comment when she made it; the sexual tension between the two of them had, by then, grown thick enough to cut with a knife. At the time, however, she had been trying to derail a serious conversation Mick was having with her about vampires' inability to father children - and it had worked.

This time, she chose to ignore the obvious challenge - for the moment. "So, do you have any other plans for the weekend besides depriving me of sleep? Any vampire business?" I can't believe I'm saying that. The week they were just completing had been such a marathon race that there had been no opportunity to discuss the weekend ahead.

"You mean, do we have any plans for the weekend, right?" His forefinger under her chin tilted her head up to meet her gaze with his green-blue eyes. "It's 'we', not 'me', Beth. Did I hear you say that you are going out to lunch tomorrow?"

"Oh my god, that's right! I'd have completely forgotten if you hadn't said something."

Groaning, she hoisted herself up and hurried over to her purse, still dumped unceremoniously on the floor by the front door. Fishing around for her iPhone, she quickly tapped in a reminder for lunch with Alison Lin and Marissa Giacoletto. How could she have forgotten she was having lunch with Marissa?! She would definitely need a good night's sleep to be ready for that - thank goodness they weren't meeting until later in the afternoon. Still carrying her phone, she walked back over to the couch.

"Save me," she muttered into Mick's ear, wrapping her arms around his neck from behind. In response to his quizzical look, she held up her phone to display the calendar page. "Lunch with Alison - and Marissa - tomorrow. I must have blocked it out of my mind. Some kind of coping mechanism, I guess."

He laughed at the grim look on her face. "I thought you liked Marissa."

"I do, I do. I love Marissa! She's one of my oldest friends. It's just that it's been a long week and she can be very... tiring."

"I think you'll be up to the challenge. Does that mean you want to stay in tonight?"

Beth could tell by his tone that he had other ideas and leaned over his shoulder to look at his face, her long blond hair brushing his chest. Her curiosity was piqued. "No! I'm up for anything... as long as it doesn't involve dead bodies! What did you have in mind?"

"It's a surprise." He smiled mysteriously. "Get ready and I'll even take you out for coffee first, to help get you jump-started." He found Beth's extreme addiction to the caffeine-laden beverage a constant source of amusement.

"But - I don't know what I'm getting ready for!" she protested weakly.

"You dress in whatever you feel like wearing. Where we're going, you can be as dressy or casual as you want. I'd say that the only thing that's out is, sadly, a bikini." His eyes glowed with the pleasure of teasing her and keeping her agile mind guessing.

"OK, I'll put the bikini away for another day then. Give me a half-hour?" Without waiting for a reply, Beth ran upstairs for a quick shower, re-energized by the intrigue of trying to anticipate where they would end up.

Mick watched her run up the stairs, enjoying her excitement – and praying that nothing happened to interrupt his plans for them. One night. That's all I ask.

End Song: Building a Mystery, Sarah McLachlan

(with actual reference to vampires roaming…)