Lost Embrace (Immortals of New Orleans #6.5) by Kym Grosso Read Free Book Online

set his carry-on luggage next to the door. “Where’s Syd?”
    “Yeah, about that. She’s still sleeping. Come into the kitchen and I’ll get you some coffee.” Kade gestured toward the hallway, talking as he went. “I really need to talk to you about what happened…she isn’t herself.”
    “I need to see her,” Anthony pressed.
    “I’ve been thinking about this ever since you told me. When you tell her about the prison escape, you do know she’s going to want to go after him? She’s not feeling well, but that won’t stop her. But she shouldn’t. It’s just not wise given her condition. How did this guy get out anyway?”
    “How did he get out? Your guess is as good as mine. Can you believe they’re still trying to figure out how the hell this happened?”
    “Go ahead, have a seat.” Kade turned on the coffee machine, and rummaged through the cabinet for mugs. He pointed to a chair at the kitchen bar. “Tell me more about him.”
    “Thanks, it was a helluva flight. Someone behind me lost his cookies on the landing. I hate flyin’.” Anthony rubbed his eyes and shook his head. “The name of the perp is Pat Scurlock. He’s a real piece of work. We caught him holdin’ a woman in a dungeon as a sex slave.”
    “What else?” Kade suspected there had to be more to the story.
    “The vic we found in his house was alive. But the others…” Tony accepted a cup from Kade.
    “Others?”
    “Yeah, thirty-three others to be specific. They were dead. Found ‘em all buried on his property.”
    “How exactly does something like that go unnoticed in the city?”
    “He lived with his mother. We tracked him to a secondary location in the boonies. The property was under an alias name. Hundreds of acres with plenty of woods gives a serial killer a nice playground.”
    “So he goes it alone?”
    “That’s what we thought at first. But we found unknown secondary DNA on the bodies. Soon it was up to five.”
    “Accomplices?”
    “Yes. His mother for one. She’s behind bars. The rest have gone underground. All were into the occult in some form or another.”
    “What exactly were they into?”
    “The women dealt mostly in psychic hotline sort of shit. They were busted a few times on shoplifting charges before all this went down with Scurlock. We’re not likin’ them for the actual killings, though. Most of the cases were brute strength; strangulation, beatings, things like that. More than a few had died of exsanguination. Two of them were decapitated. We’re thinkin’ they killed them and the women helped dispose of the bodies.”
    “If you caught this, uh, Pat, what about the other guy?”
    “We got him on tape at a couple of local vampire clubs, but he’s still out there, too. No offense, man, but you know that some of your, uh, vamp friends aren’t exactly riding on the right side of the road. We’ve had some bad shit goin’ on up in Philly, you know that?”
    “Indeed,” Kade agreed. Alexandra, a vicious vampire in Philadelphia, had a reputation for torture.
    “I’m just sayin’. Things at home aren’t as under control as they are down here. It’s pretty ironic considering this is New Orleans, huh?” he laughed. “Anyhow, let’s just say ole Patty has contacts in the supernatural community. We suspect he may have been involved in human trafficking.”
    “How’s that?”
    “Takin’ victims, selling them to well-off vamps who need blood. There’s been rumors of blood slaves, not kept individually, but in some kind of caged community.”
    “Jesus Christ, Anthony. Do they have evidence?” Long ago, it had been commonplace for vampires to capture and enslave humans. Sex, blood, it was stolen from the innocents against their will. But in the past century, their community had evolved and it was no longer acceptable or legal.
    “Honestly, we’ve got nothin’ except the one victim we rescued from Pat’s house. But she was delirious at the time and once she started her recovery, she