Page 47 of Soul Sucker

She shuddered. “My parents wouldn’t be any help. I’d rather go back to work.”

He surveyed the parking lot. “I guess Alexei and Liz didn’t wait for me. Are you okay if I come with you?”

“I should make you take BART.” She went toward her car. “Did Feehan ask you to babysit me or something?”

“No, I decided to do that all by myself.” He held up his hand. “And I’m not babysitting you. I just know how it feels to see someone you love murdered.”

“Who?”

His mouth twisted. “My brother.”

He yanked open the door and disappeared inside the car. Ella followed him in, yelping as the volcanic heat stored in the seats and the steering wheel burned her hands and the back of her knees. She fitted the key into the ignition. The pathetic air conditioning came on and promptly died.Shit. With another curse she wound down the window and Vadim did the same.

“I don’t suppose you can fix air conditioning?” Ella asked as she released the handbrake, and guided the car out onto the street.

“I wish I could.” Vadim wiped his face with a folded handkerchief. “It certainly gets hot out here.”

“It’ll get better when we cross over the bridge. It’s always cooler on the other side.”

Part of her couldn’t believe she was having a conversation about the weather when all she wanted was to tear her hair out, beat at her breast and scream for Laney. But Vadim was right. It was such a cliché, but Laney was gone, and the best thing Ella could do for her now was find her killer. When she’d done that, maybe she’d have time to grieve. She’d learned quite young that sometimes in order to survive, you just had to make the best of a bad situation. Her mother said she was cold and unfeeling but how else was she supposed to be? She had to compartmentalize to survive.

As it was the weekend, the journey back into San Francisco wasn’t too bad and apart from the usual bands of roving tourists the city center was almost deserted. Feehan’s car was in the parking garage and she chose a spot well clear of him. Peach wasn’t at her station at the reception desk either, but there were always a couple of guys hanging out at the office just in case anything bad happened. With Otherworld there was always something that needed taking care of.

Vadim walked beside her, wrapped in his own thoughts. He’d been pretty quiet on the journey back, only rousing himself to ask the odd question about a landmark or the name of a place they were passing through.

The lights were on in the big conference room so she headed there, her steps slowing as she neared the door. Rich and Andrew were talking quietly to Liz. Only Vadim’s hand at the small of her back propelled her forward.

Feehan came toward her. “Ella, I’m so sorry.”

She nodded, then avoided him by slipping into the nearest chair. Vadim shook Feehan’s hand and then sat beside her. Ella raised her gaze to the whiteboard and immediately saw a picture of Laney. She looked away, but not before she remembered when the picture had been taken. Laney had insisted on having a new picture for her driver’s license renewal and had spent the whole day making herself look beautiful for it.

What a fucking waste.

Feehan resumed his seat at the head of the table. “I’m sorry to drag you all in this weekend, but, as I think you all know, we’ve had another empath murder.”

“From our initial observations, and the fast response of Ella and Vadim to the scene, we can almost certainly say that we are dealing with the same killer who murdered Christa Morehouse and the Russian victims.” Feehan paused to look around the table. “Obviously we’ll wait to have the findings confirmed by the police department and our lab, but we’ll move forward with the assumption that we are dealing with the same man.”

“He’s even given us his name,” Vadim said. “He sent a text message from Laney’s phone to Ella calling himself ‘The Siren’. The caps are his.”

“The Siren?” Feehan looked at Liz and Alexei. “Do either of you have any prior knowledge of this individual?”

“Only of the original Greek variety,” Alexei said. “The Sirens were dangerous creatures portrayed as femme fatales who lured sailors with their enchanting voices and music to shipwreck their vessels on the rocky coast of their island.”

“So what does that have to do with our current-day killer?”

“Well, he lures empaths into letting him into their apartments, and they don’t seem to struggle, do they?”

“That’s true,” Feehan said.

“It might also explain the feeling of relief both Natasha and Ella said they noticed in the empaths’ final thoughts.”

“Interesting.” Feehan wrote something on his notepad. “Good input, Alexei, thank you. Anyone else?”

Ella looked up. “Only that we have to catch this sick bastard and string him up by the balls.”

Feehan and Alexei winced.

“We’ll certainly do our best, Ella.” Feehan smiled encouragingly at her. “Do you have anything more constructive you’d like to add?”

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