Page 78 of John’s Yearning

“He didn’t give one. And we didn’t ask.”

“What did he look like?”

The man in John’s grip tried to shrug, but John’s painful claws stopped him. “Like a businessman, you know, suit, nice-looking, blond, maybe around fifty. That’s all, I swear. I don’t know who he was.”

“What else?”

The man hesitated. Then he seemed to remember something. “Yeah, he had an accent. Not sure, but it sounded Eastern European, maybe Russian, or Slavic. I don’t know, I’m not good with accents.”

“Another thing: when you kidnapped the little girl, were you supposed to kidnap her mother too?”

The man chanced a look at Savannah, then lowered his lids in shame. “Yes. But she wasn’t there. So we took only the girl.”

“Your boss ordered you to try it again, didn’t he?”

Again, the man nodded.

“God, you guys aren’t just evil, you’re stupid too, aren’t you?” John let go of the man and tossed him back on his cot. “You can rot in here for all I care.”

John turned and took Savannah’s elbow. “We’re done here.” Again he used his keycard to open the cell door and ushered her outside.

In the corridor, he looked at her. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. “What did you mean by them being stupid?”

John sighed. “They’re too stupid to see it, but it’s evident: the man who picked up Buffy was their boss.”

“What?” Her breath hitched. “How do you know?”

“The man behind this operation has been extremely careful that nobody working for him knows too much. But then he sends a client to pick up a child from the kidnappers he employs? Exposing the location where he keeps the girls captive until they can be put on a ship? A location he presumably wants to continue using? He’s not that stupid. But he counted on his henchmen to be too stupid to put two and two together. He took Buffy for himself; she was never meant for a client in Russia. And he tried to have you kidnapped after the ship had already left for Russia. He wants you and Buffy for himself.”

“Oh John, how are we gonna find him? From the description the kidnapper gave, it can’t be Alexi. He’s blond, and he has a heavy accent, yes, but he’s too young by at least twenty years. And if it’s not Alexi, who then?”

“We’ll know what he looks like soon. And then we’ll hunt him down.”

32

On his way to his office, John’s cell phone pinged with a text message from reception.

Detective Donnelly here to see you.

Coming, John texted back.

He put his hand on the small of Savannah’s back and ushered her down the corridor. “Donnelly is here. Let’s see what he’s got.”

“Do you think he’ll be able to help? I mean, he sent me to you in the first place,” she said doubtfully.

“There’s something you need to know about our relationship with the police.”

“Yes?”

“Donnelly knows that we’re vampires, and whenever the police suspect that a case might involve preternatural creatures like vampires and the like, he sends the case to us. So when he couldn’t find any leads in the real world, he asked me to evaluate the situation and see if I could find any connection to vampires. If we don’t find anything, we send the case back to them.”

“Are you saying that vampires are behind this?”

“No. The fact that many of the children were kidnapped during daytime hours led me to believe that no vampires were involved. I still believe that, now even more so. None of the thugs we’ve encountered so far were vampires.”

“But if there are no vampires involved, why didn’t you send this back to Donnelly to deal with?”