Cursed: Brides of the Kindred 13 Read Free Page A

back seat of her unmarked sedan. Folding was the right word, too—the big bastard was accordioned in like a piece of origami by the time she finally got him into the back but finally the deed was done and she was able to shut the door.
    Then, leaning against the side of the closed driver’s side door, she got out her cell and called her immediate superior, Agent Purvis. He answered on the tenth ring.
    “Damn it, Sayers, do you know what time it is?” he muttered sleepily into the phone.
    “One fifteen AM exactly,” Charlie answered crisply. “I wouldn’t bother you at this hour without a good reason, Sir. My suspicion that a Kindred was in hiding somewhere in the vicinity of Old Pevito Road was correct. I have caught and apprehended the suspect and he is currently in custody in the back of my car.”
    “What?” There was a flurry of sounds on the other side and Charlie pictured Agent Purvis sitting up suddenly in bed and knocking his balding head against the headboard. “You what?” he demanded.
    Charlie repeated herself.
    “By yourself?” Purvis demanded. “You went after a Kindred by yourself? Where’s Jenkins? He’d better be with you, Sayers! ”
    Charlie cleared her throat. “Jenkins went home at the end of our shift. I wasn’t intending to apprehend the suspect on my own but when I saw him, I followed him. He wound up engaged in a fight outside of the bar Bad Decisions, off of Curlew and I had no choice but to take him down.”
    “He was in a fight? Great, just great!” Purvis snapped. “It’ll be all over the news by morning! Hell, it’ll be all over the news in an hour if the wrong person gets hold of it. And they’re going to twist it too—make it look like we were too late to stop him attacking ordinary citizens.”
    “How it looks in the news wasn’t my prime consideration when I arrested him, Sir,” Charlie said stolidly. Purvis with his constant attention to the media and concern about his personal image bugged the hell out of her. Sometimes it seemed he was more interested in preening for the cameras than doing his job. “I was more interested in making sure no one was hurt,” she continued. “Should I bring the Kindred suspect in to headquarters for processing?”
    “Into headquarters—you mean at the PD? No—no, of course not!,” Purvis sputtered. “Why the hell would you do that? The media vultures would be on us even quicker.”
    “Well what am I supposed to do with him?” Charlie demanded, thoroughly pissed off. “Just let him go? We’re the EPB for God’s sake—taking down any remaining Kindred is our job. Or so you told me when you recruited me!”
    “Take him to a safe house,” Purvis said quickly. “You do have safe houses here in Ashville, right?” Purvis was from the DC area and had come to town to start the Asheville branch of the EPB so he wasn’t familiar with the area. Still, his question struck Charlie as more than a little asinine.
    “No Sir, we do not have a safe house set up and just waiting for anyone who needs to use it,” she said acidly. “It’s the Asheville PD, not the Witness Protection Agency.”
    “Well you can’t take him to the precinct.” Purvis was sounding belligerent now.
    “I can’t leave him cuffed in the back of my car all night either,” Charlie countered. “He’s got to go somewhere secure.”
    “Somewhere secure…somewhere secure…” There was a clicking sound at the other end of the phone and this time Charlie pictured Purvis tapping a plastic Bic pen cap against his yellowing top teeth. It was an annoying and slightly disgusting habit he had while thinking—if what went on in his balding head could be called thinking, that was.
    Not for the first time she wondered why she’d allowed herself to be recruited away from the PD for this job. She had just made detective—one of the youngest in the Asheville PD history—and she’d had her own office and everything.
    But Purvis hadn’t seemed like nearly such