Free Red Tide: The Flavel House Horror / Vampires of the Morgue (The Ian McDermott, Ph.D., Paranormal Investigator Series Book 2) by David Reuben Aslin Page B

reasons. We’re not going to get much more out of her that will make much sense until she’s cleaned up and rested.”
    Ned nodded his head in agreement. “I’ll have one of my men take her to the hospital straight away.”
     
     

 
    CHAPTER 5
    Banana Books
     
     
    It was getting to be late afternoon. Ian had stopped thinking about it a few hours ago, but just realized that his stiff neck had worked itself out and now felt fine. He was feeling good about how everything was progressing, especially how he was now “officially/non-officially” on a new case. He felt like he’d accomplished a great deal for his first day.
    Ian decided it was time to head back to Long Beach. But first, he wanted to drive by the former Flavel House Museum.
    Upon arriving, Ian pulled his Jeep over to the curb across the street and just sat staring at it. Ian was intrigued by the size and grandeur of the vintage Victorian mansion; it was surrounded by a seven-foot-high, spear-head tipped, black wrought-iron fence. The front gate was also grand. It boldly displayed an artfully-crafted, ornate black wrought-iron dragon with large, ruby-colored eyes. The beautiful gate hung from tall, brick-and-mortar columns, perched on the columns were large, black, concrete gargoyles.
    What initially caught Ian off-guard were the security cameras mounted around the fence line and sides of the house, but he quickly realized that anything less would be contrary to Salizzar’s role play persona.
    Upon noting the camera’s positioning, Ian realized there would be little chance of anyone getting inside the backyard, let alone inside the house without detection. Ian surmised that the cameras were also video recorders.
    The most obvious anomaly were the windows of the grand house. They were all completely blackened. Ian presumed they’d been painted over, as the windows were darker than any type of window tinting that he’d ever seen or heard of. Upon closer examination, Ian noted two exceptions to the black, painted-over windows. There were two large windows, one located on each side of the house’s front door. Those windows appeared to be covered by identical black curtains, possibly made of velvet.
    At least from where Ian was parked, it was impossible to see into the house. No apparent light of any kind emitted from within. Ian thought intently, Those totally blacked windows and all this security, that’s gonna make any potential stake-out of this place useless and way too dangerous to keep my cover. I’m probably on candid camera right now. But whoever is monitoring them, they no doubt are used to lots of curious people parking and gawking at the place. It figures Salizzar would surround himself with all the stereotypical pseudo-vampiric lifestyle motif bullshit and all the related security that goes with being rich. I wonder how many people he employs to take care of the place. And how many bodyguards he’s got? He’s probably installed a secret passage behind the bookcase that leads down to the basement, down to the torture chamber, or down to where he keeps his coffin. Ha.
    Just then, Ian and Scout spotted two identical, large, black and tan Rottweilers patrolling the grounds. Scout went on instant alert. He began a low, deep growl, somewhat under his breath, and he was becoming more agitated by the second.
    “Steady boy. Steady! Well, we came, we saw, let’s get the hell out of here and head back to camp. We’ll be checking out Salizzar’s warehouse-nightclub soon enough. That’s, I’m sure, where the action is.” Scout halted his low growling and barked once at Ian’s declaration.
    Twenty minutes later, Ian and Scout were driving through downtown Long Beach when Ian blurted out, “Look there! A bookstore. Banana Books; sounds like it could be an interesting place to peek around.”
    Ian pulled his Jeep over and wrangled his way into a parallel parking spot that was right across from the side street that the bookstore was on. “Wait