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knowing what went on in her inner sanctum.
Below the master suite, on the second floor, was her kitchen in an open floor plan with a
den/family room and fireplace of its own, and then two smaller bedrooms, one of which had its
own bathroom. The ground floor was mostly devoted to parking; the garage could accommod-
ate two full-size vehicles. There was also an uncovered guest parking space across the drive-
way, and rarely used. Behind the garage was a beach room with a barred and locked sliding
door opening directly onto the sand. There was also a wet bar and a small bathroom. Cyn
knew at least one of her neighbors rented their beach room out as a studio apartment, which
was clearly against the association rules, but Cyn certainly wasn't going to complain and
nobody else had either.
Itching to get started on Raphael's case, she strolled over to her closet, a small room in its
own right, and pulled on some casual clothes underwear, sweats and a t-shirt. Then
grabbing the discs, she headed for her office.
She reviewed the gatehouse video first. There was no audio, but it was obvious what had
happened, with or without sound. The abductors had clearly counted on the human guards
being busy with morning routine, preoccupied with the shift change. The driver showed up in
a typical small business van, claiming a delivery of some sort, pulling the attention of both
gatehouse guards into the argument before his buddies came out of the back, shooting. It
would never have worked with the vamps and their heightened senses, plus they moved too
damn quickly to be caught out that easily. But the humans fell into it, dead before they knew
what was happening. Add the fact that Raphael was out of town, which meant security was
much lighter than usual, and regardless of how much he claimed to treasure Alexandra, his
first rate security types all seemed to travel with him. The abductors knew all of this, of
course; the traitor had seen to it.
But it came back to the same question. Why Alexandra? Why was she so important to
him? Cyn remembered the look on his face when he spoke of her last night. It was almost as
if it hurt him to think about her, as if he felt ... guilty. That was it. He felt guilty somehow about
Alexandra. Was she a former lover, maybe? She tried to remember the words he'd used: I
killed her Sire and made her mine. So, he'd torn her away from her Sire, obsessed with hav-
ing her for his own. But no obsession could last forever, and immortality could probably turn
love to hate after a few decades. But Alexandra still needed protection and Raphael felt re-
sponsible. So he gave her what she'd always wanted, the life of fine French lady.
A sharp beep sounded in Cyn's headphones, jarring her back to reality. Good imagina-
tion, Cyn, she said out loud. Better cut back on those romance novels. But she couldn't
shake the feeling that some part of it was true.
She moved onto the next file, determined to leave fanciful theory behind and stick with the
facts. Regardless of their relationship, whoever took Alexandra clearly planned to use her as
blackmail against Raphael, but Cyn couldn't see that working. Even if Alexandra was eventu-
ally released, Raphael already knew at least some of those involved, and the vampire lord
didn't strike her as a forgiving kind of guy. So, either the captors were incredibly stupid or they
had something else in mind. Since the abduction seemed to indicate at least a minimal level
of intelligence and planning, she ruled out stupidity. A trap, then. Let Raphael search high and
low for his beloved Alexandra, think he'd found her and then kill him when he showed up res-
cue her. Again, everything she'd seen of the vampire lord seemed to rule out the possibility of
him falling for such a ruse. And why not simply kill Alexandra outright? Much easier all
around, and she didn't actually have to be alive for a trap to work. She'd have to ask
someone. Not Raphael; that was a little blunt even for Cyn. But maybe Duncan.
In any event, it had taken arrogance to plan a move this bold against a vampire as power-
ful as Raphael, to invade his private estate and snatch his favorite ... whatever the hell she
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