Love Lost (The Kurtherian Gambit Book 3) Read online

  The cop left them as they pulled into the building Bethany Anne had felt was home not too long ago. She had mixed feelings coming back here.

  It was night time, and Frank was going to meet them with the necessary keys and all of the legal paperwork if anyone showed up and asked questions. Frank had greased their arrival in D.C., and provided an excellent location to land and the police escort.

  She was able to get here in less than 24 hours. The tape was still up from the police investigators on both the location of the body down in the parking garage and his office door.

  The drove down into the parking garage and parked within forty feet of the taped area.

  Her team, plus Pete, got out and checked the area. Pete needed the practice and it was a good time to get him in with the crew on what should be a safe enough exercise.

  Bethany Anne rolled down the window to wait for John’s approval. It came a minute later.

  She, Ecaterina and Dan all got out of the vehicles and Bethany Anne walked over to the taped area. The blood smell was overwhelming to her. She could, however; smell the distinct odor of a vampire still here. She stepped closer and took a bigger inhalation through her nose to see if there was anything else she could smell.

  Bethany Anne, that isn’t a vampire we have encountered before.

  TOM, you’re not telling me something I don’t already know. I’ve only met two. I killed one and saved the other. Stephen wouldn’t have done this to me and frankly he was probably asleep anyway.

  I’m sorry, I wasn’t very clear. What I mean is that this is from a different line of vampires.

  You can smell a vampire’s family relationships?

  Well, not exactly. I could tell that Petre’ and Stephen were related, but until I could use your senses I couldn’t be sure I could tell a completely different line. Now I am. If you smell any other vampire I can probably tell if they are related in some fashion.

  Out-fucking-standing. Good to know.

  Bethany Anne stood up and walked over to where the elevators would be around the corner. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t used it hundreds of times before.

  “Hold Up, Bethany Anne!” John was jogging over to her.

  She turned to look at him, impatience in her eyes.

  He looked down at her, “I get it, you feel safe coming here. You’ve done it a million times. I’m sure Martin felt safe going to his car that night. Don’t let familiarity breed complacency.”

  Shit, he was right. She dipped her head in acknowledgement and John waved Eric to go to the elevators first. It dinged and opened. Eric and Scott jumped on and then John waved Pete to join them.

  Pete looked surprised but hustled to get in just as the doors closed. She figured those guys had to be tight in there.

  A couple of minutes later, Bethany Anne’s toes were tapping on the ground. Stupid Puma’s didn’t make as much noise as her high heels would have, she thought.

  The elevator was coming back down and the door opened. There were two people on the elevator and she only recognized one, Pete.

  The other was an old man. He came out of the elevator and held out his hand, a sad smile on his face. “Bethany Anne, I’m sorry that I had to be the one to inform you that Martin was killed. I wish these weren’t the circumstances to cause us to meet.”

  Bethany Anne held her hand out to Frank Kurns. The elusive man she had started thinking of as ‘Charlie’ in Charlie's Angels. She guessed she couldn’t think that anymore since she had now seen his face.

  “Thank you, Frank. I’m glad you did get hold of me. It allowed me and my team to get here as soon as possible.”

  Frank took a moment to look around at the team. He had met Eric and Scott upstairs. He recognized all of their faces from his files, but pictures could only tell you so much. The presence that Darryl gave off, that could be one scary guy. Scott upstairs was a walking rock. John, a mountain you couldn’t move and Dan, who he had met on multiple occasions but now in the employ of one of the most captivating women this world had.

  Ah, and Ecaterina was on the other side of the SUV. She was standing alert as if she was responsible for outer security, interesting.

  Frank sighed and turned back to Bethany Anne. “Yes, well it was a surprise to me. The Forsaken to attack here in Washington is a new and concerning turn of events. I’ve checked the records and it has never been done before. That is, if it was one of them who did this.”

  “It was, Frank. I can confirm that for you.”

  Frank was a little surprised. She had only been here maybe ten minutes and she already had that nailed down? It didn’t look like she had any equipment, so she must have smelled them or maybe she had a talent he didn’t know about, yet.

  “Do you need to spend any more time down here?”

  Bethany Anne gave him a small smile, “No, I was waiting for the bitches upstairs to give the all clear. You coming down was that sign, I would say.” Over to the side, John had to turn his head aside for a second. He couldn’t stop the small smile that graced his face. Bethany Anne wasn’t healed, but she was obviously coming back to them.

  He got his face back in control and started for the elevator. She was obviously ready to go up.

  Bethany Anne, John and Frank all got on the elevator. Dan, Darryl, Pete and Ecaterina had duty to stay with the vehicles.

  The elevator upstairs dinged and Eric continued watching out as Scott covered the elevator. It should be the team, but these guys knew that strange things actually did go ‘bump in the night’.

  John was first off of the elevator and nodded to Scott who switched back to looking out again.

  Frank was talking, “…So we figure they had been watching Martin for at least three weeks. This was the first time that he was the last one working in the building in that many weeks. Mary says that Martin mentioned some strangers in the parking lot about that long ago. He noticed them when he came out with two other agents who had worked through the previous night. We think they were watching who went in and who came out and missed that the two agents never left, but had slept in their offices.”

  Bethany Anne was listening, but she was also taking a trip through her memories. Her old office was down this hallway and then to the right. There were a bunch of cubicles. It used to annoy her to walk through here and notice the guy’s heads come up like prairie dogs trying to catch a look at her ass. If she ever caught them, there was always hell to pay in martial arts practice. The male agents starting wearing cups to practice in the off chance they got caught and didn’t know it.

  She had decided in the elevator to not go through any other part of the floor. The woman that worked here died in Europe. Bethany Anne took her place. She was beginning to understand Michael’s rules and perhaps why he put them in place. Maybe a thousand years of living provided a unique perspective for those that came after you.

  She walked unerringly to Martins office. She thought she was prepared to see it again, and she almost was. She opened the door, the glass slightly loose. She remembered the last conversation they had when she got shipped out to meet Michael. She had thought he was behind her orders somehow, divulging her health secret. She took in his desk and chairs that he had been sitting in just 24 hours before. She looked around the room and then noticed the single shoe up on his ‘trophy shelf’.

  She walked over to the shelf and reached up, pulling it off. The matching shoe was with her father. Shit! “Frank, I’ve got to warn my dad!”

  “I’ve already left a message for him to stay on base for the next couple of nights. I told him it was related to you, and that if he would do that much for me, I would give him information about you. I’m sorry if I broke some rules, but I felt you would want this to happen. I wasn’t sure it was Forsaken at that time and I didn’t know what else to bribe him with. The General can be a real ass-munch.”

  Bethany Anne had a tear in her eye and a smile on her lips. “Frank, are you listening to the team radios too much? I’m pretty sure ‘ass-munch’ isn�
�t a word from your century.” She turned to look him in the face.

  He was smiling, “You know how long I’ve been saving that word? I laughed out loud the first time you cussed your team out. ‘Ass-munch’ is one of my favorites. I plan on living another hundred years and writing the exhaustive story of ‘Bethany Anne’ as my memoirs. I’ll be famous after I’m dead.”

  Bethany Anne looked harder at Frank. His body was certainly old, but he seemed to be spry mentally. Every time she talked with him, he delved more and more into not only her plans, but what was going on around her. She could believe he was taking notes to write just that kind of book.

  “You know, you might have to market it as fiction.”

  “By that time, you will probably be famous or infamous depending on who you talk to. The people, or the politicians.”

  She just nodded her head. Considering what she had to do, he was probably right.

  “Frank, what’s the chance my father will come to D.C.? I’m not wild about going back on that base. I’m different, but not so different that people won’t question their eyes. Also, my team goes everywhere with me and that will just cause friction on my Dad’s base. I’m sure you will have to pull rank somehow and he also hates that.”

  Frank thought about it. There was a significant meeting of some military minds going on starting Monday. Many of the high ranking officers were arriving tomorrow. General Lance Reynolds had been invited, but his attendance wasn’t mandatory. Ever since Bethany Anne had left he had done his job at the base, but he hadn’t made any effort towards his career. Most now believed that he was biding his time before his next jump in rank and then he would retire.

  “He doesn’t like to leave the base. I can cut some very official orders to attend a meeting that is here in town starting Monday, but I can’t get anything but a commercial flight for him before Tuesday probably. Everything else is already tasked to the existing officers for the last couple of weeks.”

  “That’s not a problem. If you can get permission for my team and I, we will pick him up tomorrow by lunch time. We will finish out the night with you and then I can have that reunion with the General in the plane. We have to pick up Nathan before we lift off.”

  “I can do that. He will probably arrive pretty grumpy I suspect.”

  “Nothing I don’t know how to handle, and if he doesn’t, I’ll just put him over my knee and spank him.”

  Frank had no response to that.

  She put the shoe back on the shelf. She could double guess herself about sending it to Martin and her father, but that wouldn’t get her anywhere. She would find out when she asked the vampire that killed him.

  “Let’s go. The vampire wasn’t in here, so he either got what he wanted from Martin, or he didn’t. His laptop is missing, so we can presume they have that and are trying to break the encryption. If they didn’t think about that, it will be a bitch for them to crack. Let’s hope they were in a hurry.”

  Frank had seen the coroner’s reports. It didn’t look like they were in too much of a hurry. He had nothing to confirm so he just stayed quiet on the subject.

  “Frank, let’s go to your office. You Dan and I need to talk some more and finalize a few plans.” She ushered John and Frank out before closing the door. Not only to Martin’s office, but to that part of her life forever.

  The team exited the building, pulling everyone into the SUV’s. At the street, Bethany Anne, Frank, Dan, with John driving headed towards Franks office. Eric drove the others back to the airport. Ecaterina had a text from Nathan and she was anxious to see him. The police tape had given her a jolt of reality that life could be so much shorter than you planned or expected.

  Darryl and Scott were in the front seats, with Ecaterina in between Pete and Eric. They pulled through a fast food joint real quick to get some food. While the others had been a little hungry, keeping Pete full was becoming a logistics challenge all of its own

  CHAPTER SIX

  Washington D.C. - USA

  Frank took them into the sub-basement. There was one area in the parking garage he kept unmonitored for the rare occasions that Michael might have need to see him.

  Parking in that location, John got out and opened Bethany Anne’s door after looking around first. Frank got out and went to a door that had seen better days twenty years before. However; when he unlocked it, it swung open on oiled hinges and didn’t make a sound. John went through first with Dan and Bethany Anne following him. Frank locked it up behind them.

  It didn’t take long to get to Franks office. He went through the biometric security and opened the door to let Dan and Bethany Anne in. John took one look at the smaller room and just turned around and stood guard at the door.

  Frank let it close behind them. “Sorry there isn’t more furniture in here. I can count the times anyone has been in here on one hand. For the last four decades.” He laughed at his own joke.

  Bethany Anne let Dan start the discussion. “Frank, you know that we are starting our own strike group. You also know that our plans are to bring in the Wechselbalg and grow the group bigger. Bethany Anne is going to take the fight to the Forsaken and anyone else who is against her. However; there is one other piece of information that you don’t have.”

  While Frank had originally wanted action when he signed up in the military back in World War II, he had become an information junkie and it consumed him when there was unique and precious information that he could acquire. If you could place a value on any of Bethany Anne’s plans, it would rank up there with the super-powers. If not today, probably within five years.

  “I’m listening.”

  Dan continued, “Look, you might be listening, but if you aren’t going to be a part of the team then there isn’t a reason to share.” As Frank’s unruly eyebrows started to cross, Dan continued quickly. “I’m not talking about working with us; I’m talking about being here long enough that it matters.” Dan stopped to see how Frank would take this.

  “Well, that’s the kicker, isn’t it?” Frank turned his chair around and sat in it. “Michael changed me once and I woke up younger. I’ve still not figured out how that happened. When it was Bill, Carl and myself that was a good run but it was a little rote, you know? I’ve spent time thinking about our work, and it was almost like we were calling in our actions. We were the best, we had never been beaten for decades and we had our tactics down.”

  He continued on, lost in his own absolution. “We all made some mistakes that night. Bill walked right up to them, right into the blast radius. I don’t know what he was thinking but he got sloppy. Carl put up all of his spy cameras and technical tools, but he didn’t know that he was looking for something that hadn’t been seen in seventy years. Finally, I hadn’t done a good job with background research. I could have found something to let me know those guys were different and maybe forewarned Bill. So, long story short, I’m not sure I deserve more time. I am just as much to blame as the other two.”

  Bethany Anne spoke for the first time, “Do you have a replacement? How would you pass this off if you could? What would happen if you were to die tomorrow?”

  Frank looked, staring into the distance. There was no need to bring up Bethany Anne had been his replacement choice. Nothing that wouldn’t sound like him just kissing her ass. “No. It was on my things to do, but the last year has been a bitch, oh no offense intended.” Frank just looked up at Bethany Anne, a little smile on his face.

  “I think that would be ‘Queen Bitch’ if you are using it for me, so no offense taken. Frank, who knows about you, down on this level anymore? If you did die, what would happen?”

  Frank was a little taken aback with the question. He really hadn’t been afraid around Bethany Anne, but he was suddenly acutely aware that he was in his sanctum with two killers. He thought he had led a full life and he had, but he certainly wanted to live a little while longer. At least long enough to die in his sleep.

  Trying to sound as calm as he could, he answered her quest
ion. “Well, most of my job has to do with the backdoors I have into any of the government’s databases and information streams. With my knowledge of almost all of the skeletons, it usually doesn’t take too much to get priority tasking.” He looked at Dan with a smile, “As a favor, of course.” Dan smiled back. The favor was that Frank wouldn’t air some dirty laundry if Frank’s request was greased through the queue.

  “So, the short answer is probably not a damn thing. My requests wouldn’t show up and in a few months maybe a couple of guys are having a beer, wondering why I haven’t called them in a while.”

  “Do you like working here?”

  “In this building?”

  “Yes, down here, in the ground.”

  Frank looked around. “No. Not really. It was left over from the war. My boss was actually up a few levels. Back then, the government worked more closely with Michael due to his connections in Europe. It helped our boys over there quite a bit. When the war was over, a lot of agencies got cut. My boss retired and this is what I’ve been left with. It has a couple of ways to meet with those who are, let’s say, sun-phobic so I never really considered moving.”