Kiss of the Vampire

by Cynthia Garner

  “I’ll do the talking.” Tobias stood beside Nix at the door and waited while she knocked. “Vampire to vampire should go better,” he added.

  A slender man in a crisp black suit showed them into a home office at the front of the house. Before she went into the room, Nix looked down the hallway and saw glass-paned doors open on to a courtyard complete with a large infinity pool and spa. Polished concrete with tile inlay covered the floors of the hallway and the room she now stood in. A large painted portrait of a Native American chief hung above the gas fireplace, next to which were two wingback chairs. A dark wood desk sat near the large window overlooking the front yard. Two leather armchairs perched in front of the desk, a small table with a kachina doll on it nestled between them. “Mr. Loren will be with you in a moment,” the black-suited man told them. “May I offer you some refreshments? Water, perhaps? Or lemonade?” He looked at Tobias. “I can give you a glass from Mr. Loren’s personal stock. It’s fresh.”

  “No, thanks,” Tobias said. “Just let him know we’re here.”

  Nix and Dante also turned down his offer.

  Within a few minutes a short, bald man walked into the room. He wore shorts and a red T-shirt with the words “Kiss me, I’m a vampire” emblazoned across the front. “I’m Carson Loren. My man said you’re from the council?” He seemed soft, more like a mouse than a fearsome predator. Unusual but not unheard of for a vampire. If Nix had to guess, she’d say he’d come through the last Influx, though with his timid manner she was amazed he’d lasted this long.

  Tobias went through the introductions. “We’d like to talk to you about Johnson Pickett.”

  The vampire spread his hands. “We split up the partnership a few months ago, though he still lived here. We led separate lives, so I don’t know what I can tell you.” He sat down in the chair behind the desk and motioned for them to sit.

  “What sort of business did you have?” Tobias asked as he took a seat in front of the desk. Dante glanced at Nix and she waved him toward the other chair. Tobias wanted to do all the talking and she was fine with that. She knew from her notes and from talking to other acquaintances of Pickett’s the day of his murder that he and Loren had owned an import-export company. Tobias probably knew that, too, since he’d read the report, but most likely he wanted to see if Loren would lie about anything.

  “International trade.” Loren shifted his feet. A tic started up beside his left eye. “We would purchase goods, usually from a foreign country, import them into the U.S., and resell them. It was quite lucrative for several years.”

  “And?” Tobias prompted when Loren faltered.

  The other vampire shrugged. “The economy went down the toilet here and in just about every country around the globe. We were having a much harder time making a profit. Some months we lost money. A lot of it. So we closed up shop and disbanded the partnership.” He rubbed one hand over his scalp. His gaze darted from Tobias to Dante to her and back to Tobias. “That’s all. Nothing more sinister than a failing economy.”

  Nix leaned her shoulder against the door frame and watched the exchange. Loren was twitchy, and it was more than the fact he had three investigators sitting in his office. If he were human, he’d be sweating buckets right now.

  “Do you know of any reason someone would want him dead?” Tobias crossed one leg over the other, his demeanor relaxed but Nix knew he watched Loren closely.

  “No. Of course not. Johnson is…was…harmless.” He clasped his hands on top of the desk and started to pick at his cuticles. A nervous habit left over from his days as a human, and one he hadn’t yet gotten rid of.

  “He was a vampire,” Dante said in a dry tone. “Hardly someone I’d call harmless.”

  Loren barely spared him a glance. “I don’t know anything about what Pickett got himself into, or why he was killed.” He rubbed his head again. “I’m sorry.” He abruptly stood. “I just don’t know anything that can help you.”

  “We’re not finished.” Tobias didn’t move physically, but his entire being radiated danger. “Sit.” When Loren remained on his feet, Tobias said, “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

  The other vampire slowly took his seat once more. He kept his eyes glued to Tobias. “You used to work for Maldonado, didn’t you?” The look on his face suggested he’d just made the connection.

  “Yes.” Tobias uncrossed his legs and leaned forward slightly. “Where were you the day before yesterday?”

  “You want an accounting of my whole day?”

  “Since you were unavailable for questioning at the time, yes, I want an accounting of your whole day.” Tobias tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair. “Starting with the morning and going through till midnight when your former partner was killed.”

  Loren sputtered and stammered, but he finally trotted out his itinerary.

  Dante pulled out his phone and started playing with it. Nix saw his eyebrows shoot up and he looked like he was suppressing a grin.

  After a few minutes, Loren petered to a stop. “I had nothing to do with any of it, I swear.”

  “We’ll see about that.” Tobias got to his feet. He pulled out a business card and jotted something down on it. “That’s my cell number,” he said. “In case you think of something.”

  Loren’s eyes flickered but he took the card Tobias handed him. “I don’t know anything,” he repeated. When Tobias merely stood there, staring at him, Loren lifted the card and with a trembling smile tucked it into the front pocket of his shorts. “If I think of anything, I’ll call you.” His tone was largely unconvincing.

  A minute later, they left the home of the late Mr. Pickett’s business partner and walked back to their cars.

  “Well, that was fun.” Dante tucked his notebook away. “And unproductive. What happened to ‘vampire to vampire should go better’?”

  Tobias frowned. “He’s scared.”

  “Yeah, obviously.” Nix stopped behind her car and looked at her colleagues. Both men had slipped on sunglasses, both wore jeans with suit coats, both had on button-down shirts with no ties. Both were tall, dark, and handsome. And while she had no doubt that Dante was formidable in a fight, Tobias was dangerous. You could feel it, perhaps partly from the pheromones that all vampires released to help subdue their prey. Whatever it was, Tobias had mastered it.

  “I don’t think he knew a thing,” Dante murmured. “He was too nervous to lie convincingly.” He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I got online while we were in there and was able to verify his alibi at the time of Pickett’s death, though. Loren was at a party that got kind of wild. It was caught on tape and posted online. I saw him. It wasn’t pretty.” He pulled his phone out and punched a few buttons, then turned the phone around to show them the video. When it ended he sighed and shook his head. “Chances are he wasn’t involved with Amarinda’s death, either.”

  Pickett’s business partner hadn’t turned his back on them once, and, if he’d been human, he’d have been sweating like a horse. Nix agreed with Dante. The vamp hadn’t known anything, and maybe that was what scared him the most because for all he knew he could be next.

  “From a purely materialistic point of view, it sure pays to be a vampire,” Dante added dryly as he replaced his phone in its holder on his belt.

  Nix glanced back at the multimillion-dollar home they’d just exited. The house had to be at least ten thousand square feet, with lots of glass. “You can accumulate a lot of wealth over several centuries. It’s easy to save money when you don’t have to buy food, right, Tobias?”

  He shrugged. Nix could see the lines fanning out from the corners of his eyes and knew he was squinting behind the sunglasses. Like most vamps his age, Tobias could spend time outside during daylight hours without any damage, but his eyes were still very sensitive to bright light. “Don’t look at me,” he said as he pressed the remote to unlock his Jag. “I’m not into material things.”

  “Uh-huh.” Nix opened her car door. “Just how many cars do you have?”
/>
  His brows dipped. “Just this one and the SUV.”

  She shared a wry glance with Dante. Leaving it alone for the moment, she asked, “So, where do we go from here?”

  “There’s a woman who went to school with Amarinda, a fellow astronomical sciences student…” Dante skimmed through his notes, his index finger tracking along his writing. “Samantha Smith.” He looked up, his gaze going from Nix to Tobias. “She’s up from Tucson for a long weekend with her family in Chandler.”

  “All right, let’s do this.” Tobias opened his car door and rested one arm along the roof of the low-slung auto. “Nix, you go on home. I’ll stop at my house and get the SUV, and then we’ll swing by and pick you up. It doesn’t make sense for us to be driving different vehicles.”

  Nix didn’t want to spend any time cooped up with Tobias, even if Dante were going to be there. She was already feeling jittery and knew it was just going to get worse the longer she was exposed to him. And those damned pheromones he just kept spewing her way. She opened her mouth to argue but Dante cut her off with “Good idea. My truck will be fine at the restaurant.”

  She’d just look silly arguing the point, so she mumbled, “Whatever,” and got into her car. She started it up and pulled away from the curb, making a U-turn to head back the way she’d come. Stopping next to Tobias, she rolled down her window. Figuring it would take him ten minutes to get back to his house, and at least another ten to get to hers once he switched cars, she said, “I’ll see you in about twenty minutes.” Without waiting for him to respond, she drove away. Maybe if she got home quickly enough she could take a few minutes to do an abbreviated tai chi workout. It certainly wouldn’t hurt, anyway.

  Eight minutes and probably at least one land speed record later, she screeched into her parking spot and jumped out of the car. If she went inside Rufus would demand to be taken out and she didn’t have time for that. But she didn’t want Tobias or Dante catching her doing a workout, either. As a compromise, she went around the corner of the building and stood on a patch of grass in the landscaped portion in the middle of the apartment complex. She brought her hands slowly down and to the side, waving them back and forth and focusing on her breathing. Inhale. Exhale. Slow, steady. In, out. Even movements, even breaths.

  She transitioned into a slow lunge to the left, then to the right, always moving her arms. The jittery feeling dissipated, leaving her once more feeling if not exactly serene, at least calm enough to continue dealing with Tobias and the emotions she’d thought long gone.

  Nix heard a car engine then two doors slammed. She headed back to the parking lot, rounding the corner of the building in time to see Tobias and Dante heading her way. “You didn’t need to get out,” she said.

  “It’s no trouble,” Tobias replied. He sent her a look, his expression a little bemused. He probably could sense she was calmer than she had been and wondered how she’d gotten control of herself so quickly. Well, she wasn’t the same girl he’d known before. A lot had changed in the last five years.

  She unlocked her car and grabbed her purse, then joined the two men at the SUV. “It’s a Porsche,” she stated, staring at the dark blue vehicle.

  “So?” Tobias’s dark brows drew down in a frown.

  “I thought you weren’t into material things.” At his confused look, she rolled her eyes. “Never mind.” She opened the back passenger door of his expensive SUV and hopped in.

  Dante wrapped a broad hand around the edge of the door before she could close it. “Why don’t you sit up front? You can ride shotgun.”

  “That’s all right.” Nix pulled her notebook out of her bag and tapped it. “I can add to my notes and review them better back here.” Plus she wouldn’t be as close to Tobias. Sitting in the front seat with him would feel too intimate even with Dante in the vehicle with them. Being with him in the Jag had been bad enough. She didn’t want to do it again.

  Dante didn’t appear to buy her explanation, but he closed her door without another word. Both men got in the front of the vehicle, buckling their seat belts with moves that mirrored each other exactly.

  “You two should try out for synchronized swimming,” she quipped.

  “I don’t think I’d look good in one of those flowered swim caps.” Dante sent her a look from the corner of his eye, one side of his mouth twitching.

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Tobias started the car but didn’t take it out of park. Without looking at Dante, he mused, “Get a blue-and-white one. You’d look fabulous.”

  Nix rolled her eyes. She didn’t get how men could go from being rivals to acting like best buds in a heartbeat. Making good on her excuse, she flipped open her notebook. She read through the notes she’d taken inside the house, then jotted a few more thoughts. Sticking the capped end of the pen in her mouth, she chewed on it and then said, “I don’t think Pickett’s former business partner had anything to do with either of their deaths based on his alibi. It was pretty solid.” She looked at the men in the front seat. “And there’s a lack of motive, on the surface anyway.”

  Dante thumbed through his own small notebook. “The sooner we talk to this friend of the second vic the better.”

  “Her name is Amarinda.” Tobias’s tone was biting.

  “Sorry?” Dante’s brows quirked as he glanced at the other man.

  “The second vic. Her name is Amarinda.” He turned his head to look at the detective.

  Dante gave a nod. “Sorry. I’d forgotten she was a friend of yours.”

  “We hadn’t seen each other in a while.” Tobias’s head turned slightly and Nix knew he was looking at her in the rearview mirror, though she couldn’t see his eyes through the reflective lenses of his sunglasses. “I have no idea what she was mixed up in or if that might have had anything to do with her murder. It’s possible that she was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  Dante murmured, “Hopefully some of her other friends can shed some light on that.” When Tobias shot him a glance, Dante held up one hand. “Didn’t mean anything by it, chief. It was just a comment.”

  Nix glanced back down at her notes. “So let’s go talk to Samantha Smith.” She looked up, her gaze going from one man to the other.

  “Yes, let’s.” Tobias backed out of the parking space and stopped at the roadway. When traffic cleared he pulled out onto the road. He put the vehicle in drive and pulled out into traffic. “Where does she live?”

  Nix gave him the address and the main crossroads, then sat back in her seat.

  “So, Amarinda was a student?” Dante twisted in his seat to look at Nix over his shoulder.

  She nodded. “A perpetual student. She loved to learn.” Nix rested her arm along the edge of the car door and stared out at the houses going by. “That’s one reason she was so happy when prets were outed. She could go to school without trying to hide what she was.”

  Tobias stopped the car at a traffic light. “Rinda has…” He shook his head. “Had. She had six undergrad degrees. This program in astronomical sciences would have been her third master’s degree.” Sadness colored his voice. The light turned green and he drove through the intersection.

  “She loved to learn,” Nix whispered again, mostly to herself. She hadn’t really allowed herself to think of her friend as a friend, only as a victim. She’d been too focused on fighting her resurging feelings for Tobias to let herself feel her own loss. As tears welled, she bit the inside of her cheek and stared blindly out the window, trying to get control. She didn’t want to break down now. Not on the job. Not in front of Dante and especially not in front of Tobias.

  The SUV turned onto a narrower side street and slowed. Then it stopped in front of a ranch-style brick house, and Tobias shoved the gear lever into park. “We’re here.”

  Nix climbed out of the backseat and stared at the house as she shut the door. It was a nice, normal-looking house with a nice, normal-looking minivan parked in the driveway. It looked the same as all the other nice, normal-looking houses on the
street.

  Perfect for the nice, normal human family that no doubt lived inside. Part of her wondered what that was like. Being normal. She’d never known that, simply because of the demon twisted in her DNA. She’d given up on the idea a long time ago, but every once in a while she felt a twinge of envy for everyday people who only had to worry about being embarrassed by their relatives at the family reunion, not about Uncle Harry trying to eat them for dinner.

  For the first two years of her life, most of which she had no memory of, Nix had lived a somewhat normal life. She’d had a loving father who had spoiled her rotten even while his addiction to her mother was draining his life away. And once he was gone, her mother, who’d at best been indifferent to the child she’d birthed, had walked away, leaving her little girl with a woman who’d resented her, even hated her, though duty had dictated she care for her granddaughter.

  And she’d never let Nix forget she was demon-spawn. Never let her be more than her genetics. After a while, Nix had decided to prove her grandmother right and started living down to the old woman’s expectations. As a young teenager she ran with the wrong crowd, learning how to pick pockets, escalating to breaking and entering. By her fourteenth birthday her demon tendencies had begun to manifest. When she was fifteen her grandmother’s health had begun to deteriorate, and, by the time Nix turned sixteen, the old lady was dead.

  Nix had wanted to feel sad, but really all she’d felt was relief. No more haranguing, no more being told she was worthless. No more feeling like she didn’t deserve to live.

  The day of her grandmother’s funeral, Nix took what little belongings she could carry with her and went into the foster care system. Being around people who loved their children, people who had tried to love her, had been more than she could bear. At that age she hadn’t felt lovable. After all, her mother hadn’t wanted her, her grandmother hadn’t wanted her. So she’d run. She lied about her age, took what paying jobs she could get, and stole or scrounged for whatever else she needed.

  “Nix?”