A small sound made me straighten and turn to the kitchen where Beth stood with a coffee cup halfway to her mouth. She wore a camisole and sleep shorts, and her hair was still messy from sleep. I’d seen her all dressed up to go out, but this was by far my favorite of her outfits.
“Morning.”
She blinked, and her eyes lifted from where they had been staring somewhere below my chin.
“Hi.”
Fighting back the smirk tugging at my lips, I donned the shirt in my hand and walked into the kitchen.
“Coffee smells great. You make enough for two?”
“Yeah, um…help yourself.”
She stepped back to let me through and then walked around to sit on one of the barstools at the breakfast bar.
I hid my smile as I poured a cup for myself and turned to her. Suddenly, I had an image of the two of us living together and doing this every day. I’d never considered myself a domestic person, having spent most of my adult life on the road, but I’d never known a woman I wanted to make a home with. Until now.
“Did you sleep well on the couch?” she asked shyly.
“Like a rock,” I lied.
I’d gone to bed late, weary after a long call with Tristan and the rest of the Council. Instead of falling asleep, I’d lain awake thinking about Beth sleeping in the other room. It was a good thing I was used to functioning on a few hours of sleep, because I had a feeling I was going to suffer from insomnia for the foreseeable future.
She fidgeted with the handle of her cup. “Good.”
I took a sip of the rich brew and set my cup on the counter. “Sara’s friend Kelvan gave her the names of some local vrell demons who might know something about the Lilin’s whereabouts. I’m planning to visit them today, and I’d like you to come along.”
“Okay.” She gave me a small smile, looking relieved to be discussing work. “What time do you want to go?”
“We’ll leave at ten and –”
A ringing cut me off, and I went to the living room to find my phone beneath one of the couch cushions. Nikolas’s name flashed on the screen.
“What’s up?”
“We just got word on two missing girls in San Francisco. Eighteen-year-old twins. The parents were out of town for three days and got back yesterday to discover them gone. We don’t know yet how long the girls have been missing, but they match the profile of the other missing girls.”
I swore softly. “If this is him then he’s gone statewide. Going to be a lot harder to find him.”
“I know,” Nikolas said. “One of us needs to go to San Francisco.”
“You deal with the Council. I’ll take a team and check it out.”
“Thanks. Keep me posted.”
I ended the call and looked up to find Beth standing a few feet away, watching me with a worried frown.
“He took another girl, didn’t he?”
I shook my head. “We don’t know yet if it was him. That’s what we need to find out.” I glanced at the time on my phone. “Get ready to leave in an hour.”
“Where are we going?”
“San Francisco.”
Less than three hours later, Beth, Mason, Brock, and I left a private hangar at the San Francisco airport and drove to the home of Natalie and Nicole Thomas. The front yard of the upscale suburban house was crowded with people who looked like they were planning a search for the missing girls. The police had already come and gone, making it easy for us to enter the place without arousing suspicion.
I parked the SUV in the closest spot on the street and turned in my seat to look at Beth and Mason, who had never worked a scene like this before. Both wore expressions of barely-concealed excitement.
“Brock, you and Mason stay outside and question the people out here. Beth, you’re with me. Just follow my lead.”
“Okay.”
We entered the house, which was just as crowded inside, and found Mr. and Mrs. Thomas in the kitchen with an older black man who resembled the girls’ mother. I introduced Beth and myself as detectives, and we showed them our fake badges and IDs.
The older man gave us a wary look. “You two don’t look old enough to be detectives.”
I smiled. “We get that a lot.
“Dad, not now,” Mrs. Thomas said hoarsely, her eyes red-rimmed.
“How can we help you?” her husband asked me.
“We know someone’s been here already, but we’d like to ask you a few questions and take another look around.”
Mrs. Thomas gave us a hopeful look. “What do you need to know?”
“Tell us what you told the other officers you spoke to,” I said. I’d studied the police report on the plane, but it was always better to get a firsthand account.
The couple took turns telling about how they’d gone to a bed and breakfast in Monterey to celebrate their anniversary, and the last time they’d spoken to their daughters was the day they’d gotten there.”
“I called them to let them know we’d arrived,” their mother said between sniffles. “They told me to have a great time and not to worry about them. I tried calling them again before we left to drive back, but no one answered.”
“And when you arrived home?” I asked calmly.
Mr. Thomas put an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “The back door was unlocked and no one was home. Natalie and Nicole are responsible girls. They’d never leave the house unlocked or go off without telling us.”
“Was anything disturbed?”
“Not that we can see.” He ran a shaky hand through his hair. “Where could they be?”
“Mrs. Thomas, may I see the girls’ bedrooms?” Beth asked.
The woman nodded jerkily. “Of course. I’ll show you where they are.”
The two of them left the kitchen, and I heard their steps on the stairs. I stayed with Mr. Thomas, asking him questions about his daughters’ friends and whether or not they had boyfriends. I wanted to rule out the possibility that the girls might be off with someone they knew.
Ten minutes later, when Beth and Mrs. Thomas still hadn’t returned, I went upstairs to look for them. I found Beth in one of the girls’ bedrooms, studying photos of the Thomas twins. Tall and slender with creamy dark skin, hazel eyes, and long braided hair, they were a stunning pair, and exactly what a Lilin would find appealing.
“Find anything?”
“Yes.” She plucked something from the mirror and turned to face me, holding a piece of paper.
“What is it?”
She passed it to me, and I turned it over. It was a ticket stub for a nightclub, and when I saw the name, my eyes lifted to meet hers.
“Luna,” I said.
She nodded. “It looks like the pass I had to the club in Los Angeles. Only this club is in San Francisco.” She held up her other hand, revealing a second stub. “I found this in Natalie’s room. They’re both from two nights ago.”
I exhaled harshly. I’d held out a small hope that the Lilin hadn’t taken the sisters. But to discover he’d set up a second club here to draw in prospects told me this was bigger than we’d feared. A lot of money went into this kind of setup, and it had to have been planned months in advance, maybe longer. The most troubling fact was that this demon wasn’t keeping to one city, which didn’t match the behavior for a breeding Lilin. What else was he doing that we hadn’t accounted for?
“Good work, Beth.” I stuck the club pass in my back pocket. “Let’s go check this out.”
The address on the pass took us to SoMa, which was the perfect location to set up a trendy underground nightclub. The building was small and nondescript with no signage to indicate what type of business it housed.
My first instinct was to tell Beth to stay outside, but I stopped myself before I opened my mouth. I had no good reason to exclude her except for my strong need to protect her. Singling her out would only anger her.
I picked the lock, and the four of us entered what had obviously been a nightclub, but it looked like it had been deserted in a hurry. The furniture remained, but the bar area was empty, and there were passes and plastic cups littering the floor. The smell of stale alcohol was no more than a few days old.