Blake's Pursuit (Scanguards Vampires, #11)(24)

13


Wesley dropped the crystal pendant on the map of Northern California and sighed in frustration. He’d gone to Hannah’s flat, but he hadn’t found much. It turned out that Hannah was pretty neat and tidy. He’d taken her toothbrush in the hopes enough of her DNA was on the bristles, as well as her hairbrush, which only contained a few strands of her hair. Using those two things he’d scried for her, but come up empty.

“Fuck!” he grunted.

Scrying was one of the most basic magical skills, and he was more accomplished than most. He was aware that scrying didn’t work on vampires, but Hannah was human, so he should have found her by now. There were two reasons why he wouldn’t—the first was that the amount of DNA on the toothbrush and the hairbrush weren’t sufficient, the second that she was dead. And the latter reason he wasn’t ready to accept. Because Blake wouldn’t accept it.

So he clung to the first reason. After all, the toothbrush had looked rather new and clean, and he’d found only a half dozen hairs in Hannah’s brush. Probably not enough to get a reading on her, particularly not if she was far away.

His phone rang, interrupting him.

“Yes?”

“Wes, it’s Matt. I’ve got the results for you.”

“Coming down now.”

He needed to clear his head anyway. Maybe he’d come up with something later.

Wesley marched down the hallway of one of the basement floors of Scanguards’ Mission headquarters, heading for the IT lab. Both Thomas and Eddie had left shortly after Wesley had brought the suspect’s laptop to the office, so the task of hacking into it and examining the information on it had been given to Matt, one of their trusted human employees.

It was quiet as he walked down the corridor. Mostly humans and hybrids manned the offices during the day. Few vampires were around, most of them having gone home to sleep. It was midday. As soon as the winter sun set, headquarters would be buzzing like a beehive again. But during the day, this was his domain: he was the highest-ranking Scanguards employee on site. And he liked it that way.

Without knocking, Wes entered the IT lab.

Only a few people were sitting in front of the many computer workstations dotted around the large room. Including one person he hadn’t been expecting.

“Isabelle? What are you doing here?”

Samson’s twenty-two-year-old hybrid daughter looked up from the computer and smiled. “Hi, Wes.” She jerked her thumb at the man next to her. “Clark is teaching me programming and stuff.”

Wes raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t know you were interested in IT.”

She shrugged, tossing a strand of her long dark hair over her shoulder. She was as beautiful as her mother, and as smart as her father. “I’m not. But I figured if I want to run the company one day I should know as much as possible about how everything works.”

Wesley couldn’t help but chuckle. “You wouldn’t by any chance be competing with your brother again?”

“Which one?” she shot back.

“Both, actually,” Wes said.

Though Grayson, one year Isabelle’s junior, was the more ambitious of her brothers. Patrick, who’d only just turned nineteen was a little more laid back and wasn’t yet thinking of how to position himself to take over his father’s company, should Samson ever decide to retire. Which, considering how much Samson loved his job, would probably never happen.

“All Grayson wants to do is go on patrol.” She scoffed. “If that’s how he plans to prove to Dad that he’s a grown-up, then let him. It takes more than brawn to run Scanguards.” She tipped her finger to her temple. “It takes what’s up here.”

Wes shook his head. “You should be out having fun like other young women your age, and instead you sit in here and work. When I was your age, I had fun.”

Isabelle laughed. “Oh I’ve heard all about the fun you had when you were younger. Haven is quite a storyteller.”

“My brother likes to distort the truth.”

She winked mischievously. “Your brother is standing right behind you.”

“Really, Isa? You think I’d fall for such an old trick?”

A heavy hand landed on his shoulder, making him whirl around. His heart nearly stopped.

“Shit, Hav! Why the f*ck do you have to sneak up on me like that? You’re not even supposed to be here.”

His vampire brother grinned from one ear to the other. “You know you should never talk bad about me behind my back.”

“I wasn’t. If you want, I can talk bad about you right in front of you.”

He wasn’t afraid of his older brother. Hadn’t been since his brother had saved him and their sister from certain death. Ever since then he’d idolized Haven, though he would never tell him that. Too much admiration was bad for a man’s character.

“That’s my brother,” Haven said.

Wes tipped up his chin. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping in the arms of your beautiful wife?”

“I would be if John hadn’t called me to come in and take a look at this guy they brought in.”

“What guy?”

“A suspect in one of the recent robberies. Donnelly transferred him over to us.”

“So he’s a vampire.”