“Would you two fill me in here? What happened Saturday?”
Saber shifted away from the evidence tech, and Jackson dismissed her with a nod.
“Cesca is picking up an odor that’s out of place. She smelled it last week when we served the warrant, and again Saturday when we were here to see a comic perform. Specifically, she smelled the scent on Laurel.”
“Citrus? That’s common enough.”
“I know,” I said, nodding. “It’s in everything from perfume to bathroom cleaners. The morning you served the warrant, I thought it came from an air freshener system.”
“Did you ask if Ike had one?”
I looked at Saber, then shrugged. “With all that’s happened, we forgot.”
“Okay, so, go on. Why does this matter?”
“We’re not sure it does,” Saber admitted. “Look, if a normal vampire smells at all, it’s of only two things. Blood and sex. They don’t bother to cover up either one.”
“Which means,” I added, “that unless someone is making artificial blood in a Florida orange flavor, the citrus smell is out of place.”
Jackson almost cracked a grin. “You say Laurel had this scent on her on Saturday?”
“Yes, but Ike had been making her clean the residence. I figured the smell was from a cleaning product on her skin. But why would it be on this knife?”
“Could it be in the blood instead?”
I frowned and thought about that. When Normand had served dinner, had I ever smelled what the servant du jour had eaten the day before? Probably not, since I’d buried my nose in the servants’ skin as I drank. That way I blocked the smell of blood, which blocked a smidge of the taste.
“I doubt the scent is coming from Ike’s blood. Even if he ate food, I don’t see Ike being the orange juice type.”
Jackson shrugged. “It was worth asking. Now, here’s another question. If you’re right about the silver content, does that narrow the field to a human killer?”
Again, Saber and I exchanged a glance.
“Ten days ago, I would have answered an unqualified yes,” Saber said. “Since then, we’ve learned about one vampire who appears to be immune to silver.”
“I take it that vamp isn’t in the club?”
“He’s in Atlanta. Or we’re reasonably certain he’s still there, but I’ll have to check it out.”
“In the meantime, we need to question the vamps inside.” Jackson ran a hand over his military short hair and eyed me. “How about taking a whiff of the vampires while we question them? You can smell for blood and this citrus odor.”
“Not the most appealing offer I’ve had all night, but I’ll do it on one condition.”
“Which is?”
I looked at Saber. “Will you shoot first and ask questions later if Laurel gets in my face again?”
“Hell, I won’t even ask questions later, but I have a condition, too. If you pull Laurel’s aura, you drain her into submission. Clear?”
“Crystal.”
“Good.” He took my elbow. “Let’s go see what we can get out of Donita before we go in.”
Saber and Jackson let me approach first, and I spotted Pandora under the ambulance.
“Donita, it’s Cesca,” I said as I sat beside her. “Can you hear me?”
A full minute passed before she blinked and slowly turned her head to look at me.
“Donita, what happened?”
“I’m going on a trip today,” she said, her voice soft and scratchy. “To meet my girlfriends. We do this every year.”
I nodded. “Go on.”
“I-I went to his office. To tell him I was leaving. He wasn’t there.”
Her hands clenched into trembling fists, and I laid my hand over hers. I meant the touch to be only comforting, not to get sucked into an instant mind connection, not to see Ike through her eyes, not to feel her pain. When the vision rose like a rogue wave, I could do nothing but ride it to the end.
“I unlocked my car. I got in. I saw him.”
Through her mind’s eye and emotions, I saw him, too. Propped with his back to the passenger door. Blood spatter on the windshield and dashboard, and a trickle on his white shirt. His head tilted back to expose the obscene wound. Brown eyes open, staring. Surprise, disbelief, then stark terror ripped through me, and I found myself in Donita tumbling out of the car and onto the pavement, keening in horror.
A fierce squeeze of my hand jerked me back to the moment. Donita’s nails dug into my skin.
“Francesca,” she whispered. “I didn’t get to say good-bye.”
Tears tracked down her face then, and Saber hunkered down to ease her hands from mine.
“Donita, did you see or hear anything when you came outside? Was anyone near your car?”
“Nothing.”
“Do you know who could have done this?”
“Laurel was always angry, always pushing.”
“Yes, you told me Saturday you were worried that she was out of control. Did she argue with Ike again?”
“She wanted him to fire me. To stop seeing me.”
“And what did Ike say?”
Her lips tightened. “He told her to mind her own business, not his. I was ready to quit just to have some peace.”