If I surprised him he didn’t indicate it. “Yes. We have a team on the way.”
“It’s me and Rick LaFleur. Tell them not to shoot us if they get here before we leave. And tell them the rogue did a lot of damage to the St. Martin and Mearkanis crypts last night. I think he spent some time in St. Martin’s, which means either he bypassed the security system, or he has access to it.”
Bruiser cursed once, eloquently, and his voice dropped into a near snarl when he asked, “You have any more news for me?”
“No. I’m done. Wait. There’s a cross on the chapel steps. Sabina dropped it, fighting off the rogue. Tell your guys how you want them to handle it.”
“How do you know she dropped it? And how do you know about Sabina?” His tone was suspicious, the way a murder investigator’s voice is suspicious when he finds a body and a bloody suspect standing over it. Holding the murder weapon.
I grinned and straddled my bike. “I’m psychic.” I closed the phone and geared up, ignoring Rick as he followed my lead. I got the feeling that he didn’t like playing follow the leader, but wasn’t sure what to do about it. I also had the feeling that he was more than he let on. And I wasn’t sure what I should do about that. Which made us even, in some strange kinda way.
I kick-started the bike, set my sunglasses in place, leaving the face shield up, out of the way, and wheeled down the drive. It was time to see the house the rogue dived into last night.
CHAPTER 20
Crap. I’m starting to like vamps
The house was at the end of Old Man’s Beard Street. I smelled the blood and death through the open window from halfway down the road and it got stronger as I neared the house. The rogue-liver-eater had indeed killed here. I gunned the engine up the drive, next to the house, stopped, yanked off my helmet, and dialed Katie’s pet NOPD investigator, Jodi Richoux. Rick pulled up next to me and killed his bike too.
“Jodi,” I said when she answered. “This is Jane Yellowrock. I was following the rogue’s tracks last night, and I got a house with open windows, one with damage consistent with a B and E. Place smells like dead meat.”
“Hang on,” she said, and I heard muffled conversation for a moment before she said, “Okay. Gimme the address.”
“It’s on Old Man’s Beard Street, out Highway 90 not far from the Lapalco Boulevard exit, at the end of the cul-de-sac. You might want to send a team. And bring your psy-meter. I’d like to see what it reads.”
“The team is on its way, and so am I. But give me one reason why I should share confidential information with you.”
“Because the next time I find something interesting, you want me to call you and not the New Orleans Times-Picayune .” I snapped the phone shut. I did so love toying with cops. Jodi would hate my guts, but she’d share. Of course, if she found the slightest reason to charge me with anything, no matter how minuscule, she would, just to get me back. Tit for tat. I wheeled the bike off the drive and beneath a shade tree.
“You’re nuts, you know that?” Rick said. “Stark raving crazy, you are.”
I unzipped my leather jacket, peeled it off, and draped it over the handlebars. “I may be here for a while. You staying or going?”
“I’m outta here.” He paused, torn by two distinctly different needs. “How do you know the rogue vamp came through here last night?”
I decided on the truth, as far as it went. I had to practice it on somebody before I tried it out on Jodi. “I followed him partway. Saw him come through here but never saw him leave.”
“You told the cops the place smells like dead meat. All I smell is fresh cut grass. And lady, I got a good nose.”
The fragrance of the newly mown lawn across the street did permeate the air, but I had automatically filtered out every scent but the one I was looking for. Not smart. I should have walked around the house first. I really had to work on my lying. Going for surprised and innocent, I asked, “You don’t smell that?”
Rick’s eyebrows suggested I hadn’t been entirely successful. He dug into his jacket’s inner pocket and held out some folded sheets, paper-clipped together. “The property owners you asked for,” he said.
I palmed the small wad, tucking it into my shirt. “Thanks.”
“I’d like to stick around but . . .”
“But you have issues with cops?”
“Something like that. I’ll see you later.”