Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 11-15 - Laurell K. Hamilton [202]
Zerbrowski moved towards us. “What do you mean, Agent Bradford?”
He held up a slender manila folder. “There’s a store across the street from the club where the two women went to last night. The store got robbed last year and put in a very nice surveillance system.”
All the joking was gone; Zerbrowski was very serious all of a sudden. “And?”
“They caught a picture of a man matching the neighbor’s description with the two women last night. They walked right past the store window.” He opened the folder. “I took the liberty of getting a still made.”
“And passed it to all of your men,” Merlioni said.
“No, detective, this is the only copy, and I brought it here first.”
Merlioni looked like he would have argued, but Zerbrowski cut him off. “I don’t care who solves this, as long as we get this guy.”
“I feel the same way,” Bradley said.
I didn’t exactly believe Bradley. Last time we’d talked, his little division had been in jeopardy of being disbanded, and their cases given back to the Investigative Support—read Serial Killer—Unit. Bradley was one of the good guys, he really did care more about solving crimes than career advancement, but he also cared about his new unit. He felt strongly that the feds needed one. I agreed with him. So why was he handing over the only copy of the picture? Sharing made sense, simply giving it to us didn’t.
“What do you think, Anita?” he asked me.
I glanced down at the photo. It was black and white, pretty good quality actually. Two women were laughing up at the tall man in between them. The brunette on the left matched some of the pictures downstairs. I hadn’t asked the name of the woman who owned the house. I hadn’t wanted to know. Not knowing had made it easier to go into that bathroom and paw through the remains.
The other woman looked vaguely familiar. “Wasn’t the woman in a group picture downstairs? It looked like it was taken at a party.”
“We’ll check,” Zerbrowski said.
“What about the man?” Bradley asked.
I looked at the man in the picture. The man that might be our killer or might be at the bottom of the pile of bones in the bathtub was tall, broad-shouldered. Straight brown hair was pulled back into a long ponytail that one of the women was tugging on, playing with. The face was high cheekboned, handsome. He wasn’t like Richard handsome, but they reminded me oddly of each other, both tall, both broad-shouldered, both classically handsome. But there was something in this man’s face even through the film that creeped me out.
It was probably knowing that the two women were only hours away from being butchered. It was probably my imagination, but I didn’t like the look on the man’s face when he glanced up and spotted the camera. I realized that that was what the look was, why it looked strange.
“He spotted the camera,” I said.
“What do you mean?” Zerbrowski asked.
“Look at his face, he didn’t like being on film.”
“He probably knew what he was going to do to them,” Merlioni said, “don’t want to be seen with the vics before the murder.”
“Maybe, probably.” I kept looking at his face, and I thought it was familiar.
“Do you recognize him?” Bradley asked.
I stared up at him. His face was empty, guileless, but I didn’t believe the innocent look. “Why would I?”
“Well, he is a shape-shifter, if he’s our man, I thought you might have seen him around.”
Bradley was lying, I could feel it. Even I wasn’t tactless enough to accuse him of it to his face, but I was saved from having to come up with something to say by my cell phone ringing. I’d kept it with me today, hooked on the back of my belt, just in case Musette and company didn’t go quietly out of town. Call me silly, but I just didn’t trust them.
“Hello.”
“Is this Anita Blake?” It was a woman. I didn’t recognize the voice.
“Yeah.”
“This is Detective O’Brien.”
Strangely, with all the vampire politics and the new murder I hadn’t given much thought to the internationally wanted terrorist