Samson nodded. “Gabriel and I spoke earlier tonight. The late evening news will break the story. We have to be ready to do damage control. Tomorrow the papers will be shredding us to bits. Nobody will shrug this off as a coincidence. And we’re pretty sure it isn’t.”

“Some vampires gone into bloodlust?” Thomas asked.

Amaury listened up. Bloodlust—they all feared it, the uncontrollable urge to take more blood than they needed which ultimately led to murder and madness.

Gabriel shook his head. “No. Both bodyguards were humans.”

“Any connection between the two?” Amaury interjected.

“Negative,” Samson answered quickly, “at least nothing we could determine this quickly. Apart from the fact that they were both hired here in San Francisco, they have nothing obvious in common.”

“I knew Edmund Martens. I hired him,” Ricky said. While he fancied himself a California Beach Boy and had adopted many habits of his new country, he couldn’t really be mistaken for anything else but the lad he was: his red hair, freckled face, and decidedly Irish last name, O’Leary, gave him away. “God, Eddie showed such promise. But when he killed that client last month, I thought he’d gone off the deep end and reverted back to his old ways.”

“What ways?” Amaury asked.

“Bad childhood, ran away from his foster family, turned to crime—the usual. Never thought he’d go so far and kill someone. He didn’t seem the violent kind. But then, sometimes it doesn’t take much for somebody to slide deeper. I just thought he’d finally pulled himself out of all this.”

“Maybe he did.” Samson’s concerned look spoke volumes and told them he didn’t believe that the two human bodyguards were at fault.

“Who’s the second guy?” Ricky wanted to know.

“Kent Larkin.”

Ricky’s jaw slackened. “He was just a kid. He can’t have been working for us for longer than six months.”

“A little over five months,” Gabriel confirmed.

“What evidence do we have that Edmund and Kent actually killed their clients?” Amaury needed facts. He didn’t want to jump to conclusions.

“An eyewitness in Edmund’s case and the smoking gun in Kent’s.”

“Do we have anybody on the inside with the police?” Delilah suddenly asked. Everybody’s gaze settled on her. “Well, we’d better make sure we know what they know before it becomes public knowledge.”

Ever since Delilah had blood-bonded with Samson, she had started taking an active interest in the company. As a blood-bonded mate, she was entitled to everything Samson owned, and the fact that she’d started sharing in important decisions didn’t seem to disturb her man in the slightest. After all, she was his equal.

Amaury was surprised at the change he’d seen in his old friend. After two hundred years of solitude, Samson had had no problems adjusting to marriage to a strong woman. Amaury doubted that he himself would adjust as easily as Samson had, not that this question was anything else but academic. Amaury knew he would never bond, because he could never truly love anybody.

“I’ll talk to G,” Samson said, referring to the mayor. “I’ll make sure he’ll keep us in the loop.” He looked back at the screen. “What time are you landing?”

“Everybody’s on their way to the airport now. We’ll touch down about an hour before sunrise.”

“Don’t you think that’s cutting it a little close?” Ricky asked.

“It couldn’t be avoided. I had to mobilize the troops first and get ready myself.”

“You’re coming out here yourself?” Amaury asked in surprise. Gabriel rarely ever left New York for anything. If he was leaving the East Coast for this, he clearly expected these events to turn into a major problem. And if he was risking being out in the open so close to sunrise, Gabriel’s assessment of the situation had to border on catastrophic.

“We can’t trust anybody in the San Francisco branch. I’m bringing three of my best people with me: Quinn, Zane and Yvette. We’ll conduct the investigation our way. Outside of this group, nobody can be trusted. Nobody.”

“Gabriel is right,” Samson confirmed. “If two of our human guards killed their clients, somebody has their hand in this. And until we know who and why, we have to be tight-lipped about it. The employees will want an explanation. Ricky, you’ll call a staff meeting once Gabriel and his people are here. Everybody at Scanguards is under suspicion—humans and vampires alike. Carl, pick them up from the airport.”