My heart jumped into my throat. I smiled back, took the envelope, and found a seat in the lobby. Mostly because my knees were shaking.
I slid a nail under the flap and opened it, to see a piece of hotel paper and a room card key. The handwriting was Molly’s. She had written two very short lines.
I’m safe.
Tell Evan I’ll be in touch soon.
Mol
“Holy crap,” I whispered. And then I closed my eyes. Molly is safe. Tears pooled under my lids and I squeezed them tight to keep the emotion and the waterworks under control. When I thought I could read without bursting into tears, I reread the letter.
And then I sniffed it. And I smelled blood. Molly’s blood.
It was faint and fresh. And it made my heart stand still. Blood is composed of proteins, and as it ages it breaks down. Like with any other biological product, unless it’s preserved, it starts to stink. Old blood has a sickly sweet smell. This was fresh blood. Maybe as little as four hours old. And mixed with the faint trace of blood were pheromones, the kind humans exude when they are blood-drunk, when they’ve been bitten and drained and the vamp was compelling them to become happy and docile and addicted.
I also smelled a vamp I almost recognized. I closed my eyes and sniffed. Slow and steady, then in little bursts of breath that I pulled over my tongue with a small scree of sound. Almost familiar. But not quite. As if maybe this vamp and some other vamp I’d been in contact with over the years had been kissing cousins. Or had been made by the same sire. Not enough to go on. The tears that had gathered when I first smelled Molly trickled down my cheeks. I slashed them away with the back of my hand, yanking brutally on my flesh. I would not cry. I had too much to do. I took three deep breaths and pulled out my fancy-schmancy cell phone.
I didn’t want to call Big Evan. Not with this. But I had to. I dialed his number. “What?” he answered.
“Molly’s alive,” I said. “Or she was a few hours ago. Someone claiming to be her dropped off a letter at the hotel. If it really was her, then she’s in the city.” I steadied myself, a hand on the chair where I sat. “But you need to know that she’s been fed on by a vamp. So nothing in the letter is necessarily real or true.”
I read him the letter and listened to a prolonged silence as he digested the meager words.
“So where is she?” he asked. His voice sounded hoarse, as if he forced the words out through strangling emotion.
“Don’t know yet.”
“Who has her? What did she come here for?” he asked.
“Again, I don’t know yet. I’ll call back when I know more.” Big Evan swore and ended the connection. I headed for the elevators, stuffing the letter back in its envelope.
On the way up, I pulled the envelope to sniff it again, confirming that she had been coerced to write the note. Molly had handled the paper. Her scent was fresh, though weak on the page. There were hints of fear on the note as well as . . . desire. And an undertang of vamp. I sniffed it again and remembered where I’d smelled it before. This vamp had been in her room the first time I went in. A vamp had Molly, was feeding on her. Anger was a low hum deep in my bones, but I breathed deeply, controlling it.
The card key worked and I stepped inside, noting on the way in that repairs had been made to the door. Inside, her scent was fresh. Molly had been back, and had left only a few hours ago. She was unharmed, if the scent signature was anything to go by. The underlying reek of blood was no more than would be left after a vamp-feeding. I detected only a faint trace of anguish, or fear, and far more blood-drunk pheromones. I stood in the entryway, breathing, scenting, studying the room with all my senses before I went farther, then quartering the room, starting with the bath. She had showered, and recently, if the damp, cream-colored towel and washcloth were indications. I sniffed the towel, and determined that she was okay. Healthy. Not stressed by a beating or some other horrible . . . indignity was the only word I could think of, and my mind sheared away from rape, settling on Molly not being freshly wounded. Her toiletries bag was missing. Her toiletries, including the birth control pills that I still hadn’t mentioned to anyone.