Breisi primly crossed her legs as she took notes. “We’ve already speculated that when the Guards kidnapped Marla that night, they made sure she wouldn’t come back with memories of anything relating to them.”
Dawn could still picture the horror of Marla being whisked away by the red-eyes. The team hadn’t seen the older woman again until a few days later, during the press conference. There, she’d insisted that her son’s weird appearance in a film after he’d been dead for twenty-three years—the catalyst for Limpet and Associates to take her case—had been nothing more than a cruel joke perpetuated by a few special effects artists having fun at the Pennybakers’ expense.
Without warning, the TV screen zoomed in on someone in the conference’s audience, a stately man with gray-tinged hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and a natty suit. This was something they hadn’t noticed before; The Voice must’ve been scanning the images closely.
“Who’s that?” Kiko asked.
Dawn knew. “Milton Crockett. He’s a lawyer, a ‘fixer’ around town. Basically, if you’re a celebrity who murdered your mistress or an actor who’s been caught with your pants around your ankles in front of an elementary school, he’s your man. I recognize him because he took some meetings on the Blades of Spain set. He was helping Leland Richards when he got into trouble with some gigolo who was accusing our manly star of liking other manly men.”
Kiko raised a brow. “Was it true?”
Dawn shrugged. “I guess we’ll never know. Crockett did his job and the accuser never said another word in public.”
Breisi’s pen stopped moving over her clipboard. “I wonder if Milton Crockett could be the reason Marla would not talk to us after she reappeared.”
Interesting. Upon attempting to contact her, Limpet and Associates had been threatened with a restraining order from Marla’s new “personal assistant,” so they’d never been able to interview her. Once, when Breisi had attempted to wheedle her way around the red tape by intercepting Marla during a shopping trip at The Grove, the assistant/bodyguard had intervened. He definitely could’ve been hired by Milton Crockett’s firm.
Now, the TV whisked over to another newscast: Lee Tomlinson in handcuffs. The screen focused in on a man following in the shadow of the accused murderer.
Hello. “There he is again. Milton Crockett. I assume this is leading up to a big reveal, Voi…?” Dawn stopped herself from saying the old nickname she’d given him. But she couldn’t call him Jonah, even if he’d told her to during one of their more…intimate moments.
The TV blinked off, and Dawn’s belly clutched into itself, anticipating The Voice. She despised her weakness in wanting to hear him so badly.
“There’s been another murder,” he said, tone melding with the high-quality speakers until it sounded as if he actually might be in the same room. “A cocktail waitress named Jessica Reese.”
His words, etched with a foreign undertow, scraped over her skin, digging, biting into her with nips of suggestion. Dawn stirred, restless.
“When you say ‘another murder,’” Kiko asked, “are you referring to a second victim, after Klara Monaghan? Is that why you showed us Lee Tomlinson, the guy who did her?”
Dawn thought about the reason The Voice had shown them the Marla Pennybaker clip, too.
Frank. Would the murders somehow lead to her dad and…
“You think this new killing might have something to do with the Underground?” she asked.
“And Klara’s murder, too,” Breisi added. “Crockett is a link between Klara and Marla and, by extension, Lee Tomlinson, the Servant, and Robby Pennybaker, the vampire. Boss, are you insinuating that Crockett is a vampire Servant like Lee?”
“That would certainly be something to go on,” The Voice said.
Kiko came to sit on the edge of the settee. “So—”
“What’re the details?” Dawn blurted, unable to wait.
Breisi glanced over at her, and Dawn knew exactly what she was thinking. Patience.
Knowing the woman was right, Dawn settled her ass down. But who could blame her for urging answers out of a man who rarely gave them? Could anyone fault her for doubting The Voice when he was so damned cryptic?
And when he’d betrayed her before?
A man named Matt Lonigan had told her something similar once: answers. Demand some answers about The Voice.
Sinking lower into her seat, she put thoughts of Matt, a possible vampire hunter and rival PI, on the back burner, where they still simmered no matter how hard she tried to turn them down.
The TV now showcased a grisly picture of Klara Monaghan, a glorified extra whom the team suspected had been murdered because she’d given Limpet too much information about Robby. On the screen, the blood leaked from her torn throat.
Dawn swallowed, going ill at the sight of red plastered over her mind’s eye. Her mother’s own crime-scene photos. Images she couldn’t shake.
“Dawn,” The Voice said gently.
“I’m okay.” Liar.