The house mirrored every other one on the block. Quiet neighborhood, lower middle class, clapboard, starting to become just a little shabby around the edges. Trimmed lawn, no flowers, no trees, no fence, neat driveway, closed garage, and nobody home.

People who lived here worked during the day and earned a living in nearby cities where their children would be at school.

The police, clad in their body armor, their squad cars parked to block off the street and protect the houses across, not only looked out of place, but not even a curtain moved to surveil their presence.

It reminded her of a movie set, and the whole place looked like a mockup of a city neighborhood. Robert Andrew Miles had to be at home today—he never arrived at work this morning, and it was the first time he missed a day in twenty years.

Gillian stared at that quiet street. Despite the early hour, the sun baked down on them, and sweat trickled down their bodies as everyone got into place. Apart from being at work during the day, something just felt off.

The far-off sounds of a lawnmower somewhere caught her ear, cars on the nearby highway and a dog barking down the block. Someone in the house across the street finally peered from behind a curtain. An elderly woman, more curious than concerned, yet nothing stirred inside the home they were surrounding.

"Are we ready?" Boss asked.

"Yes, sir," Colt answered.

They found out Robert's name the evening before. They were issued a warrant to search his house this morning, and it was odd that he didn't show up for work the very day they were due to arrive on his doorstep.

The briefing last night flickered through her brain. Colt told them Andrew's parents had disappeared during the previous two weeks, having missed their weekly meetings with their parole officer twice. They were housed in a community-funded home, and both of their rooms were broken into—small personal items were stolen, and nothing else.

The hidden camera out at the back of the facility in the staff parking area caught his profile just for a few seconds. Just long enough for the police to establish that Andrew was there and to give them grounds to investigate his parents' disappearance while also placing him as the main suspect.

There was a slim chance that they would find proof inside his house, but sometimes killers were too smart and too smug for their own good, and it was all they could hope for.

Someone knocked and stood back, but nothing happened.

"This is the police, and we have a warrant to search this property. Open the door or stand clear; we are coming in," an officer warned, waving the warrant in clear sight but standing beside the door to avoid being shot if the suspect had a gun, but still nothing.

Boss nodded, and two officers rammed the door in. Police streamed into the house like some scene out of a cheap movie, and within minutes the all-clear rang out.

There was nobody home.

Gillian followed Colt inside as the rest moved out and the forensic guys came in. She walked the house with Colt until Colt started giving orders, and she went off on her own.

Something teased at her sense of smell, and she followed it. She could almost taste it near the kitchen but not in the room itself, and she kept losing it.

The house was neat, the furnishings clean, sensible, and starting to wear. The carpets were dusty but not dirty yet, getting that scuffed aesthetic.

There were no family portraits, just a few framed reproductions of the city. Odd knickknacks here and there, a few baseball memorabilia.

Something crunched underneath her foot, and as she squatted to investigate the small glass bead, her mouth filled with saliva. The overly familiar scent mixed with the fragrance of damp and underground.

She lifted her eyes and tracked the scent trail to the closet underneath the stairs. The door stood slightly ajar, probably left like that in the search. Her body followed of its own accord as she allowed her vampire to rise just a little.

The well-oiled door didn't squeak when she opened it. The handle was worn, even though there was nothing inside the little hidey space—not even a hanger for coats.

No dust streaked the floor, and the odor of damp earth was much more pungent, but so was the other smell. She stepped forward, and the floor creaked, but it was not the same sound as the outside the door but hollower and deeper. She stepped back before lowering herself onto her haunches.

It only took a few moments for her to notice the mark against a wall where something banged against it regularly. She measured the opposite distance with her gaze. There was no way to reach there and lift the floor—there had to be some kind of mechanism, Gillian deduced.

She searched the nearest wall, near the switch, noticing the slight grime around the button that accumulated from constant contact, and once she knew what she was looking for, it was easy to find.

Her fingers followed the little bits of grime to the right of the door while she kept her feet on the outside of the doorjamb, and there it was. A switch the size of a pinkie nail on the other side of a thin wooden slat that hid the wiring to the overhead light.

The piece of floor lifted soundlessly on a well-constructed ratchet system built in underneath the wooden floor. The aroma was overpowering, and it was time to call for help. She tucked her phone from her pocket and texted Colt. Within seconds, both Colt and Boss arrived at her side.

"Did I leave you unsupervised again?" Colt asked.

"I only touched the lever," Gillian said, and they frowned at her.

"How the hell did you find the lever?" Boss asked.

"Too much Nancy Drew?" she suggested, and his blank expression made Colt grin.

"He has no idea what you're talking about; he's not into detective stories. He's a National Geographic and True Crime type of guy," she mocked, and he glared at her.

"I read Tom Clancy and James Patterson," he defended, but he was already reaching for his gun as he and Colt prepared to go downstairs.

"I need backup," Colt said, using her phone as a walkie-talkie. "You stay here," she ordered Gillian.

"She has to learn, Colt. She can follow behind me," Boss decided.

They moved down the wooden staircase, and she didn't expect the space underneath the house to be so large. It was not just a basement but a bunker—the house was constructed on top of some kind of old underground bomb shelter.

The damp had seeped into everything. The space was clean and uncluttered, but no one could have foreseen the horror awaiting them. It took Gillian more than a minute to get control of her inner vampire before she dared examine her surroundings.