Warrior (Relentless #4)(190)
I hung up and joined the others on the jet. Chris had saved me a seat beside him in the front row, and I sank down into it.
“Did you just invite Desmund to visit?” he asked, looking at me as if I’d lost it.
I shrugged. “Sara likes him, and he’ll be good company for her.”
He studied my face. “On a scale of one to ten, how angry is she?”
I buckled my seat belt. “I think she’s more upset than angry.”
“Maybe seeing Madeline will make her forget she’s upset with you. She’s got years of anger built up for her mother.”
I leaned back and closed my eyes. “We can hope.”
Two hours later, we touched down in Vancouver. An hour after that, we arrived at the address David had given us. We parked our Suburban three houses away, and Chris and I approached the front of a well-maintained, gray, two-story house. Brock and Tyrelle went around to the back. Will and Calvin stayed with the SUV.
I knocked on the door and waited a minute. There was a light on in the living room, but I could pick up no sounds inside, even when I engaged my demon hearing.
After my second knock went unanswered, as well as the doorbell, we quietly picked the deadbolt and let ourselves in. The interior was clean and tidy, and it looked as if someone had been there within the last twenty-four hours, based on the empty restaurant takeout containers in the trash can. Lipstick smears on a napkin told us at least one woman had been there.
“Looks like we missed them,” Brock observed. He looked at me. “What do you want to do?”
I looked around. “See if they left anything behind that will tell us who they are. We’ll watch the place for tonight and see if anyone shows.”
We left the house as we’d found it, and took shifts watching the place that night. The next morning, we met up at the Vancouver safe house and talked to the local team about the reason for our visit. They had a few suggestions for places we could check out so it wouldn’t be a waste of a trip. I wasn’t that familiar with the city, and it surprised me to hear they didn’t have a big vampire problem like we were facing farther south.
Around mid-morning, Raoul called to pass along another address Sara had gotten from David. We went to check it out and found a stately white house at the end of an older neighborhood lined with tall trees.
Chris went in to scope it out, and he came back a few minutes later to tell us someone was staying there. He believed it could be the woman from the previous address because he found takeout containers from the same Thai restaurant. It was enough to convince me, and I decided to watch the place to see if anyone showed up.
We divided into pairs, with Brock and Will taking the first shift. If Madeline was staying here, the sight of a dark SUV might tip her off that something was going on. So they parked the vehicle on a side street and watched the house from the cover of a small stand of trees.
Chris and I were grabbing a quick dinner nearby when Brock called to tell us there was activity at the house.
“What do you see?” I asked him.
“Silver Audi pulled into the garage. Tinted windows so we couldn’t see the driver.” He paused. “Light just came on downstairs.”
“We’re on our way. Call in Calvin and Tyrelle and anyone else who is available. If this is Madeline, I don’t want to take any chances of her slipping past us.”
Brock was standing at the bottom of the street when we pulled up a few minutes later. I didn’t bother hiding the SUV since the person we sought was already in the house. We would soon find out whether or not it was Madeline.
The others joined us, and I told them I’d take the front door while Chris took the back. The rest of them would take up positions around the exterior to make sure no one slipped past us.
They nodded, and we moved in.
I waited until everyone was in position before I walked up to the front door and rang the doorbell. If the person inside wasn’t Madeline, I didn’t want to scare some unsuspecting human half to death by having armed warriors invade their home.
Focusing my hearing, I picked up faint movement inside. Someone was there, and they were moving around quietly. The thing with older houses is that no matter how well they are kept, they begin to creak after a while, especially the floorboards. I rang again. This time there was no mistaking the sound of a footstep on a noisy stair.
I signaled Brock, who stood at the front corner of the house, to let him know I was going in. Making short work of the lock, I opened the door and went inside.
A small foyer opened into a great room with heavy dark furniture, oriental rugs, and fine art on the walls. Not exactly Madeline’s taste – at least not the Madeline I used to know, who had preferred modern styles over traditional. But then, I hadn’t seen her in five decades.
Chris entered quietly through the back door. I pointed at the ceiling to let him know I was going upstairs. He nodded and began doing a sweep of the first floor. We’d worked together so much in the last two years that no other communication was needed.
Several of the stairs creaked under my feet, but it wasn’t as if the person I sought didn’t know I was there. There were five bedrooms, and I searched them all without any luck. A narrow set of stairs led to an open attic, but a quick search of that turned up nothing as well.
I walked back to the top of the stairs and texted Brock, who assured me no one had left the house since we’d entered. So where was the person I’d heard inside?