I laughed out loud. Eli did his soft chuckle. “I just know I’m going to regret this, but I like it. But I don’t think we’re exactly going into business together.”
“Sure we are. The three of us.” He looked back and forth between us, suddenly confused at our reactions. “We make a great team,” he insisted. He pointed at me. “You can’t construct an extensive security system all by yourself. You’d have to hire help. Me. You need someone to handle the recon and work with extra security personnel, someone who can do everything from general construction to electrical work, to defusing a bomb. There he is. You’ve got the cash and connections we need to get started, only my brother’s too ethical to steal your business out from under you. You’re also more than human and are reported to heal fast, move fast, and fight like a demon. Perfect team.
“Oh. All that research on your security team and vamps is printed out, collated, and stacked at your door, as well as e-mailed.” As if dismissing us, the kid bent over and started moving the electronic thingamajig boxes around on the old table. Eli watched, his lips pursed, mild confusion on his face.
Alex looked up at us again. “Hey. That company, Greyson Labs? I found a tie-in to vamps. It’s not a huge tie-in, but it’s there.”
I couldn’t help my smile. The kid was good. Arguably better than Reach, and even paying the outrageous fees Eli was charging me, he was cheaper than Reach. “Yeah?”
Alex stepped over and dropped to my feet, which I did not expect, and started talking. “There’s this boutique pharmaceutical company called DeAli. It, in turn, is wholly owned by a company called Allyon Enterprises, which is wholly owned by Vazquez International. Vazquez Int. also owns Greyson Labs.” His grin grew. “Greyson is the company that employed Ramondo Pitri. Greyson is also the owner of Blood-Call Inc. I traced the money up in a line, then across, and down to find it.”
I dropped slowly to the floor, bringing my face even with the Kid’s. “Blood-Call was the name on the business cards in Seattle.”
“Bingo. And Blood-Call? It’s like a—” He shot a look at his brother and changed whatever he was about to say into “Like, you know, an escort service for vamps.” At my expression, he ducked his head to hide his gratified smile. He’d discovered something important and he knew it.
“Escort service. Meaning blood-meals and dates,” I said. That seemed important, and I tried to put it all together, but there was too much going on in my brain to isolate it.
“Dates. Yeah. Riiight,” the Kid said.
“How did you figure all that out?” I asked.
“Financial market info is pretty easy to come by on publicly held companies. I’m doing a search to see if any board members in any of the companies are suckheads.”
“Publicly held companies?” Eli barked. “Government companies?”
Kid rolled his eyes. “I’m not hacking. ‘Publicly held companies’ means the general public invests in them and owns stock. They’re traded on the stock exchange and stuff. Like that. A lot of info on publicly held companies has to be freely available, if you know where and how to look.”
“And Ramondo Pitri is now tied in to Blood-Call, which caters to vamps,” I said, “and to Greyson Labs, which has something to do with medicine. And disease.”
Yeah. That was it. It was tenuous, but it felt right, the way a puzzle piece feels when you slide it into a hole shaped just for it. “If someone wanted to infect a vamp, giving him a disease through sex and dinner would be a good way, but I don’t see how a company that makes cancer drugs would also develop a disease.” I thought about that for a moment, seeing if the puzzle piece still felt right, and oddly it did.
“There are Blood-Call businesses in Seattle and Sedona and Boston,” I guessed.
“Yes, ma’am, there are. Of course there are Blood-Calls in lots of cities in the U.S., and there haven’t been takeovers in them. Yet. So I haven’t proved a tie-in.”
“Huh. I don’t know how or if it ties in either, but as a pal of mine says, I stopped believing in coincidences when I stopped believing in Santa. Not bad work, kid. Not bad at all,” I said.
I went to my room, picking up the pages as I went. Business partners? Not gonna happen. But temporary contract employees this good, I could live with.
I stepped into my room and stopped. Someone had been in here. I smelled a male and a female, raw fish, tea, powdered sugar, and perfume, something expensive and light. I sniffed, parsing the scent-signatures. Deon, Katie’s three-star chef, a friend of sorts, and gayer than an entire line of chorus dancers, had been in my bedroom? Yeah, he had. With him was Christie, one of the girls who worked at Katie’s Ladies. I did not want Christie, with her piercings and chains and tats and general air of disdain, in my room. But—