“Because I saw you this morning. Drunk or not, you were leaving the scene of a crime. If I tell the cops . . .”
Still grinning. “Having another cigarette?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re smoking again.”
I felt my brow furrow and put my hands on my hips, feeling indignant. “I’m smoking? I’m not smoking anything, Pike. I saw you well and fine.”
“No,” he said, striding toward me, pointing. “You’re actually smoking.”
I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see a plume of gray-black smoke rise up from my shoulder blade and the cotton strap of my tank top engulfed by a tiny flame.
“Son of a bitch!”
Pike had me in his arms in a split second and was wrapping me in one of Emerson’s discarded muslin swatches. He spun me as he wrapped and before I knew it, I was fairly well mummified.
“Thanks. I think it’s out.” I tried to wiggle my arms but they were clamped to my sides. “A little help?”
Pike pulled a chair out from Emerson’s drafting table and plopped himself down. He kicked up his feet and crossed his own arms in front of his chest. “No.”
“No?”
He wagged his head. “No. I’m not going to help you get out of that until you answer some questions for me.”
I tried to take a step, but my legs were clamped too. I considered a Hulk-like show of vampire prowess, but then I’d have some explaining to do.
“What kind of girl catches on fire and doesn’t know it?”
I bit down hard, feeling the edge of my fangs slicing into my gums.
Looks like I would have some explaining to do, after all.
“Why do you care?” I asked, chin hitched.
“Because I just walked in on a woman snooping around a dead woman’s place, and said woman—the first one—caught on fire.”
I tried to shrug nonchalantly. “So?”
“So there is no fire around. And I had to tell you that you were on fire. Who does that?”
“Spontaneous combustion happens, Pike. Look it up on Wikipedia.”
He cocked a disbelieving eyebrow.
“Can you help me sit down at least?”
I started to take a series of minuscule steps while Pike pulled a chair out for me. He put his large hands over my shoulder and that same spark shot through me, making every hair on my swaddled arms stand on end. But I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
“Get off me,” I said, maneuvering myself into the chair. I sat down hard, feeling Emerson’s cheap chair selection ringing up my tailbone. “This is rather uncomfortable.”
Pike sat across from me and narrowed his eyes into what I figured he supposed was an intimidating glare. I rubbed the tip of my tongue over one fang and felt my stomach growl when my eyes fell to the thick vein in his neck, pumping fresh blood.
“I’m here.” I tried to shrug. “What the hell do you want to ask me?”
Now Pike leaned back and kicked one ankle over his knee. I told myself that the constant salivation was a result of skipping my breakfast pouch and had nothing to do with the way his jeans rode up at the thighs or the way he pursed his red, full lips.
I bit mine.
“Apart from this whole thing,” he said, gesturing to the apartment. “How do you know Emerson?”
I rolled my eyes. Why were the pretty ones always so dumb?
“We’re both fashion designers. We meet up at events and she’s a two-faced design stealer.” Pike’s eyebrows rose and I hurriedly tacked on, “God rest her soul.”
“So you and she weren’t friends?”
“What gave you that impression, Colombo?”
Pike blew out a sigh. “So before you,” he cleared his throat, “caught fire, what were you doing here? Stealing?”
“Stealing my own designs? Hardly. I was looking for clues.”
“Clues?”
I was getting frustrated and the muslin was starting to chafe. “About who killed Emerson!”
“If you hated her, why would you care?”
“Because I’m a good fucking person, okay?” I stopped trying to hide my annoyance, and that seemed to make Pike crack a self-appreciative grin. “I’m not so sure about that. Good fucking people don’t burst into flames.”
“Look it up!” I snapped.
Pike popped out of his chair. “Can I take a picture of you?”
“So you can sell it to some bondage website? Hell no.”
“Okay, I’ll cut you free.” He produced a pocketknife and flicked it open. He didn’t look menacing nor did he brandish the weapon in any way other than to show me he had it, but my hackles went up.
This guy wanted something.
“What do you want?” I asked, suspicion shading my voice.
Pike leaned toward me and gingerly edged the tip of the knife into a piece of muslin, directly between my breasts. “Nothing, Nina. Just a nice, normal, honest-to-goodness photo of you.”
I glanced down at the tip of the blade resting an inch from my chest. He could plunge the thing in with all his might and nothing would happen. I’d keep (not) breathing, blinking, and looking very much alive.
But the blood-free wound would be a little bit more difficult to explain than my completely plausible spontaneous combustion explanation.
“What are you?” Pike asked, his voice slow, his eyes wickedly alive with something that looked only vaguely human.
“A San Franciscan,” I tried.
The blade came a hair closer, and I heard the distinctive sound of muslin starting to split. “What. Are. You.” Every word was its own sentence, each punctuated by Pike’s wild eyes.
I considered letting him stab me, then breaking out of my mummy costume and ripping his idiot throat out. But UDA law strictly forbade that kind of thing, even if your local breather was a nosy asshat.
Or so fiercely handsome that this completely unfortunate situation left a fire between my legs while I tried to lean into his blade. There was something sexy, something so undeniably hot about Pike’s hard-set eyes, about the danger of that slick blade resting between my breasts.
I locked Pike’s eyes, hoping my coal-black ones were as hard or as deep as his. I ran my tongue over my teeth and my mouth dropped open as Pike leaned into me. I could hear his heartbeat speed up. I could hear the blood as it pulsed through his veins. Could feel the hot moisture from his lips as he breathed.
“I—”
“Apartment sixty-one A, right here on the right.” It was the landlord, his voice a combination of asthma and Jersey—and he wasn’t alone. Another voice—low, gruff.
“Detective Moyer,” I whispered to Pike.
His face paled when the doorknob rattled and before I knew it, I was staring at Emerson’s ugly carpet while Pike carried me over his shoulder and shoved me—and then himself—into the bedroom closet.
“What the hell are you—” I started to hiss but he stopped me with a scathing look and a finger pressed to his lips as we heard the landlord, the detective, and, I figured, one or two of the pup cops, filing into Emerson’s living room.
“Shut up or they’re hauling us both off to jail,” Pike said with a low hiss.
There was something about his sudden slip into alpha male that was sexy and, growing slightly more comfortable in my muslin shackles, I leaned back into Emerson’s patchouli-scented clothes until my shoulder blades went flush with the back wall. Pike ducked and joined me in the black depths of the closet, our bodies hidden by the shapeless black clothing. I would have commented on the horror of it, but Pike had to press up against me to stay hidden. His back was to the door, his front pressed against mine, his outstretched arms essentially caging me in.
Something inside me started to flutter.
Something inside him started to harden.
“I guess we know what turns you on,” I said slyly.
Pike rolled his eyes, edged over, and fished his knife from his pocket. I hoped he couldn’t see my face fall in the darknes
s and went back to my pissed-off girl expression. “How are we supposed to—”
But Pike clapped a hand over my mouth and pressed himself against me yet again. I trained my eyes to focus on the ceiling, suddenly glad my arms were bound to my sides because they were aching to wrap around him even as I tried to ignore how perfectly our bodies seemed to fit together.
“Looks clear in here, boss,” one of the pup cops was saying. I could hear him turning fabric swatches in his hands, then I chanced a glance at Pike. His eyes were hard and round, drawing me in, his lips a half-inch from mine. I watched him purse them into a small pucker and for a fleeting second I weighed the idea of mauling this man right here in a dead girl’s apartment. It seemed like the wrong thing to do, but I found myself pulling toward him, a stripe of desire running like razor wire down my spine.
“Gibbs,” Moyer barked, “this way.”
When Pike pressed a single finger against his puckered lips, I thought my innards would explode—with embarrassment, rage, or unquenched desire, I couldn’t be sure—but held myself statue-still when I heard the closet door open, a yellow orb of light penetrating the closet’s darkness.
Through a drooping lapel and a circa 1982 butterflied collar I could see Detective Moyer’s bloodshot eyes, his meat-hook hand directing the flashlight over Emerson’s clothes. Pike held his breath but his heart kept thumping against my chest.
“I don’t know,” Detective Morris said to the clothes. “I’m not convinced it’s the same guy.”
“MO was the same. Woman, twenty-three to twenty-seven, killed in her workplace with a weapon of opportunity. I’d say that’s our guy.” I could see Gibbs behind the detective, shrugging, just before Moyer closed the door on us.
“That guy’s a serial, and this Hawk girl isn’t his type.”
“So what do you think?”
I heard Moyer suck on his teeth. “You know what? I like that LaShay girl for this one.”
Pike looked down at me, and my eyes widened.
“The one with the black hair who found her? She’s a tiny little thing. She may have done in the second one, but you think she could have gotten Fairfield, too? She couldn’t have gotten him up there,” Gibbs said.
“She could have a partner. I don’t know; maybe this competition was that important to her. Important enough to kill. It’s supposed to be on TV, you know. That could have stressed her to the point of popping off her competitors. Between you and me, she seems a few slices short of a grilled cheese.”
I bristled while Pike clapped a hand over his mouth, stifling a laugh. I glared at him, hoping to convey serial murderer seriousness, but he kept looking over my head.
Finally, I felt him let out a slow, shallow breath, as we heard the men move away from the closet.
“Yeah, a partner maybe,” the cop continued. “When are we interviewing the sister? She lives here, too, right?”
“She was hysterical. Guess the two were real close.”
I felt my brow furrow and Pike blinked at me. I shook my head and mouthed the word “no” as I had had the supreme displeasure of running into Emerson numerous times, but Nicolette only showed up this once.
“Medics took her to City General. Hilburn went with her, but I don’t think the girl has said anything yet.”
Pike started breathing again as Moyer and Gibbs left the bedroom, their footsteps getting lighter as they walked toward the door. I felt my shoulders slump and for the first time noticed sweat beading along my hairline. We started to loosen ourselves from each other but stopped when we heard Gibbs addressing the unknown cop in the living room.
“What do you think of the designer? The one who found her?”
“I don’t know,” the cop said slowly. “I’m not really into fashion.”
“As our murderer,” Moyer retorted, exasperation evident. “You saw the shears, right?”
“Heard about the engraving. And she certainly had motive.”
Pike looked down at me, his expression a combination of interest and suspicion. I did my best to meet his gaze with a menacing glare.
“She’s number one on the suspect list,” Moyer said.
“How do we feel about the photographer? I heard he and the vic used to date.”
Even in the darkness, I could see the blush washing over Pike’s face, could see the fear in his eyes.
“I can’t see why he’d do Fairfield in,” Moyer said.
“Maybe he offed the competition for his lady friend. She didn’t appreciate it so he whacked her, too.”
We heard Moyer cluck his tongue and then chuckle. “Interesting theory. Remind me to make you my deputy.”
Once the door clicked shut and the lock tumbled, Pike produced his pocket knife/rock-hard member again, silently slicing me out of the muslin. I left it in a heap in the depths of the closet, stepping over Emerson’s collection of thick-soled sensible shoes.
“So, you don’t know when you’re on fire and you’re a murder suspect.”
I put my hands on my hips, the heat that was roiling in my panties moving to an angry flame in my gut. “So are you.”
“Yeah, but I’m not guilty.”
“Neither am I.”
Pike took me in from head to toe, his eyes so sharp and hard it made my own body go on high alert. Finally he turned, leaving me behind as he went for the living room. “I’m not sure I believe you,” he said.
“Well, I’m not sure I believe you,” I fumed. “Besides, why would I kill Emerson? I would have beaten her in the competition anyway. And it’s not like she was even—hey.” I clenched my hands, kicked my feet apart, and glared at Pike, who had turned to face me, slight interest on his face. “I don’t have to defend myself to you.”
He shrugged. “The guilty always overcompensate.” He went back to work gathering his things.
“No,” I said, yanking on his shoulder until he faced me. “The guilty always act nonchalant. They always point the finger of accusation.”
We both looked down at my index finger, extended, my hot-pink fingernail pressed up against Pike’s chest, slice of red sticker across it. I quickly withdrew, crossing my arms in front of my chest.
“Look, I don’t know about you, but going to jail for a crime I didn’t commit is really not on my bucket list. So if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to head out.”
“And do what? Hide out? Oh, no you’re not. I’ll tell them you were here.”
Pike glared at me and cocked his head. “You were here, too.” I blinked, realizing for the first time that I had just spent the last twenty minutes tied up and trapped in a closet by and with a possible murderer. A cold shiver washed over me and I squinted, trying to pick up the slightest twitch in Pike’s eyes—something that said he was hiding a secret, something that said he was guilty.
“What? You trying to read my mind?”
“That would be a short story.”
“Why would I kill Emerson?” Pike huffed.
“Because she was your ex-girlfriend.”
Pike opened the door. “She wasn’t my ex-girlfriend and I hardly ever saw her.”
“Maybe that cop was right and you killed Reginald, too. For Emerson. Or maybe you wanted her to be your girlfriend, but she scorned you—although I can’t see Emerson scorning anyone, that whole beggars-can’t-be-choosers thing, but whatever. That’s it, huh? You loved her. It was one of those ‘if-I-can’t-have-her-then-nobody-can’ things, huh?” I bit my lip. “No, that’s preposterous. Emerson was an awful person.” A tiny niggle of guilt touched the back of my mind and I sighed. “But she didn’t deserve to be shish-kabobed by a pair of designer shears.”
A sympathetic look flashed over Pike’s face. “You should go home, Nina. Lock your doors. Don’t go anywhere alone.”
I frowned. “What are you going to do?”
Pike sighed, his chest rising mightily. “I’m going to go track a killer.”
The air in the room seemed to drop twenty degrees once Pike slipped out. I stood in Emerson’s em
pty living room, listening to the silence for a full minute before I took off like a shot down the hall, nearly pummeling Pike in the apartment vestibule.
“You can’t hunt down a killer,” I said, my voice sounding breathless and desperate. “You can’t do it alone. You need backup.”
Pike paused, listening, and I moistened my suddenly dry lips. “You need me.”
A hint of exhausted smile pushed at the corner of Pike’s lips. “And you’re credible backup?”
I pressed my teeth together, feeling the familiar push of my razor-sharp fangs. “You’d be surprised,” I muttered.
If this were a movie, our vestibule exchange would be followed by a musical montage of Pike and me with heads bent as we studied files and photo books over greasy takeout boxes of congealing Chinese food. The music would speed up as the scenes sped up to show the change of seasons, the stubble growing on Pike’s chin as we grew more and more disillusioned. But this isn’t a movie.
“How do we start?” I said after what seemed like an hour had passed.
Pike rested a hand on my shoulder, his eyes intense as he looked directly at me. “I meant what I said, Nina. Go upstairs. Lock your doors. Don’t go anywhere alone.” He spoke slowly, like a father explaining dating rules to his daughter and though I should have been offended and indignant, all I could muster up was a cold fist of fear gripping the bottom of my stomach. As Pike turned to go, I knew with every fiber of my being that he was about to fall into something grittier, dirtier, and far more dangerous than even he expected.
“Do you want to know why I couldn’t feel the fire?” I said to the back of his head.
He stopped, his hand on the door, back still toward me. I swallowed heavily when I saw his hand close over the door handle, the muscles at the back of his arms flicking as he went to push it open.
“Do you want to know why you can’t take my picture?”
Pike stopped. His shoulders straightened and he turned to me, his face open, eyes soft. I saw a sliver of pink tongue dart out of his mouth, moistening his lips. “Why?”
I took a step down, unsure of how—or why—I had bartered my biggest secret to find the murderer of a woman I couldn’t stand and a man I barely knew.
“Upstairs.”
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