Duh. I couldn’t very well let him rush off to meet his soul mate with the tags still attached to his shirt. Talk about a date killer. Oops. My bad.
“There are security cameras all over the building and no one else was seen going in or out of the apartment.”
“She didn’t kill anyone,” my father insisted. “She might be a little out of the ordinary, but she wouldn’t betray her family by doing anything that would risk exposure.”
I wouldn’t? I mean, of course I wouldn’t. I love my family.
Most of the time, anyway.
“We raised her better than that,” my mother added. “At least we tried.”
“I’m sure you’re right and this is all a mistake,” Remy said. “I know Lil. She wouldn’t do this.”
Maybe I shouldn’t have been so quick to cross Remy off my prospective eternity mate list. Bam! factor aside, you had to love a man who believed in you.
“But the city police think she’s your average killer. Particularly after she resisted arrest and assaulted half the cops on the scene when they tried to take her into custody. She’s in a lot of trouble and it’s a given that you’ll both be pulled in for questioning. It would save a lot of time and trouble if you would come down to the station with me right now and make a statement. Otherwise, you’ll be opening the door to a search warrant.”
“Let me get my purse,” my mother said.
I listened as my parents left with Remy, and then I sank down onto the nearest float and tried not to hyperventilate.
Stop breathing, I told myself. Just stop it. You don’t need to breathe. Breathing leads to hyperventilating and vampires don’t hyperventilate. Or panic. Or cry. They stay calm. And cool. And in complete control. And they plan. They figure out where they’re going and how to get there and then they just do it.
That’s what I told myself, but instead of working on getting myself from point A (hiding out for a murder I didn’t commit) to point B (innocence, major financial success, and a date with Orlando Bloom or Jason Allen), I kept picturing Keith in his new blue shirt getting sliced and diced and—can’t breathe, can’t breathe, can’t breathe.
Maybe my mother was right.
Maybe I had been switched at birth, because vampire or not, I was definitely in the middle of a major panic attack.
Dear Mom and Dad,
I just stopped by to say hi. Sorry I missed you guys. Take care and I’ll see you at the next hunt.
Love, Jack
P.S. Don’t worry about Dad’s Hummer. I’m just borrowing it.
I clipped the note to a refrigerator magnet and grabbed the keys hanging near the back door. After punching in the security code, I let myself out the kitchen door and headed for the massive garage that housed a half dozen vehicles.
After the panic attack and some shallow breathing into an old potato chip bag I’d found in the pool house (the maid/watcher had a thing for sour cream and onion), I’d calmed down enough to formulate a plan. I now had two and a half hours until sunup, which meant I needed a safe place. Somewhere no one would think to look for me. A place that couldn’t be traced back to me. Which meant I had to pay cash. Which meant I needed help.
I could wait for my parents. They would give me cash, and a lecture, and a lot of advice I really didn’t need at the moment.
I could go to one of The Ninas, but they would ask a lot of questions I wasn’t ready to answer at the moment.
I could go to Evie, but she didn’t have any money. On top of that, the cops were probably keeping an eye on her after the fiasco at the office.
I could go to my oldest brother, Max, but he liked to lecture, too. There was my middle brother, Rob, but I really didn’t want to get him involved since he prided himself on staying so uninvolved. Besides, I actually had a relationship with both Max and Rob. We talked on the phone. We shared. Sort of.
Which left my youngest brother, Jack. Jack was a womanizer and a know-it-all and a major pain in the ass. Likewise, he thought I was a pampered, self-centered bitch who squandered money on way too many clothes.
I know.
I should have added clueless to Jack’s résumé.
I’d never squandered a penny in my life. My ward robe was an investment, just like a horde of original GI Joes or a rare book collection or any of the other stuff offered up on eBay. As for the pampered, self-centered bitch part…Okay, so nobody’s perfect. The point?
While we loved each other (hey, family’s family), we weren’t about to win any contests for the closest siblings. Which meant he was the least likely person I would go to for help. If the police didn’t have my parents under surveillance yet, they weren’t likely to have my youngest and most estranged brother in their sights.
At least that’s what I was hoping.
When I reached the garage, I punched in another security code and stepped back as the doors slid up. I stared longingly at my mother’s candy apple red BMW convertible before turning toward the blazing yellow monster that looked like a bee on steroids.
While the BMW was more my style, the Hummer said cocky male vampire eager to prove his virility with an obscenely large phallic symbol, i.e., my brother Jack.
I climbed in, gunned the engine, and backed out.
A half hour later, I was barreling toward the city. I intended to swing by Jack’s, get him to advance me some cash, and leave the Hummer. Then I’d take a taxi to an out-of-the-way hotel with heavy-duty window blinds and get some much-needed sleep.
Jack wasn’t at home.
I stood on his front stoop and pressed the button for the trillionth time. Nothing.
This was so not happening.
I pressed the buzzer again and prayed that he was just tied up with one of his numerous minions (literally) which meant he couldn’t get to the door. Of course, he had super vamp strength which made this whole possibility ridiculous, but a girl could hope.
“Please,” I murmured, pressing the buzzer again.
Okay, so maybe the buzzer was broken. Maybe he really was inside about to call it a night and climb into his coffin (yep, ya heard me—a coffin—Jack was such a showoff) and he just couldn’t hear me.
I grasped tight to the hope, climbed back into the Hummer, and gunned for the nearest pay phone.
Seconds later, I was standing on a street corner next to a hot dog vendor. The smell of roasted wieners made my stomach jump even before I heard my brother’s familiar voice.
“This is Jack. I’m not home. You know the drill…” Beep.
I hung up, drove back to his apartment, and buzzed him again with the desperate hope that he’d arrived in the three minutes I’d been en route from the pay phone. Crazy, I know. But I didn’t know where else to go or what else to do.
“He isn’t home.” The woman’s voice slid over my shoulder and I turned to see a twenty-something with long brown hair and an olive complexion. Said hair had been pulled back into a loose ponytail. A pair of black Lycra workout pants clung to her short legs. She wore an I LOVE NEW YORK T-shirt that dwarfed her small frame along with worn Reeboks. A styrofoam cup steamed with coffee in her right hand and her left clutched a morning paper.
Uh-oh.
My heart jump-started as I glanced at my watch. Exactly forty-eight minutes and counting.
I was so having the worst night of my life.
My frantic gaze collided with the woman’s and my night got even worse. She wasn’t human. Otherwise, I would have been able to see into her thoughts because, hey, that’s what super vamps did. We could look into any human’s eyes and see the real schmoe inside, the true self that most people tried so desperately to hide. The dark brown eyes that stared back at me now revealed nothing, but I did feel the nearly overwhelming urge to reach out and scratch her behind one ear.
My gaze shifted to her high cheekbones and narrow face, and a sudden image popped into my mind.
“You’re not…” I fought down the smile that tugged at my lips. “You can’t be…”
She stiffened
. “A were-Chihuahua. Yeah. So what?”
“So…” So she had the biggest, brightest brown eyes I’d ever seen. “So…nothing. I’ve just never met an actual were-Chihuahua before.”
“There aren’t too many of us these days. In the past, we were practically annihilated by all the other meat-eating weres who are so much bigger and stronger and nondiscriminating when it comes to a midnight snack. But thanks to modern technology”—she held up her backpack—“we can all live together in peace and harmony. Or at least minimal tolerance.”
“What have you got in there? A can of Werewolf-B-Gone? Mace for Were-Tigers?”
“A Glock and handful of silver bullets.”
“That’ll work, too.” I eyed her. “So you know Jack?”
She gave me the once-over. “Who wants to know?”
“His sister—er, that is, his sister’s cousin’s cousin.”
“Wouldn’t that be his cousin, too?”
“Well, uh, yeah. His cousin. I’m his cousin. I really need to see him. It’s a family emergency.” I glanced at my watch again. Forty-five minutes and counting. “I can’t believe he’s not home by now.”
“He isn’t coming home.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s never home now. He’s with her. They’re practically living together.”
“With who?”
“The human.” Instead of saying the word with distaste, like most of her supernatural brethren, her words were filled with envy. “He’s with her all of the time. They spend the night at her place and then he follows her to work the next day.”
“But he has to sleep.”
“She stashes him someplace safe.”
“And you know this because?”
“I caught them together. I was out picking up a pizza and I saw them. I couldn’t help myself. I followed them to the place where she works. And then I went back the next day to ask questions. She’s a resident at the medical examiner’s office and she’s there from sunup to sundown. She obviously stashed him someplace inside because he went in and didn’t come out until that evening. They both came out.” Her eyes grew bright. “Together.” She blinked. “They did the same thing the next night. And the next. You probably think it’s creepy that I’ve been watching them, don’t you?”
More like pathetic. “Not at all. You were obviously hurt.”
“And worried. Up until I spotted them together, I hadn’t seen him for days. I didn’t know if he’d been taken out by an SOB or if he’d fallen through his glass dining room table and maybe pierced himself to death.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t stand the thought of something happening to him. Jack’s so special. He’s so…”
“Self-centered? Condescending? Shallow?”
“Sweet. Handsome. Sexy. I’ve never met another man like him.”
Her eyes grew even brighter and my chest hitched. I so understood the tears because I felt like bawling myself right about now. Forty minutes and counting.
“I can’t believe he’s seeing someone.” A tear squeezed past her thick, dark lashes and slid down her cheek.
“Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“The crying. I’m not good with people who cry.”
“I’m not crying.” She wiped at her cheek. “You’re the one who’s crying.”
“I’m not crying.” I wiped at my own cheek. Whoa, I was crying. Empathy crying, of course. Crying was useless. A waste of time and precious bodily fluids.
Okay, so that sounded kind of gross, but it was definitely a waste of time.
I sniffed and wiped at the traitorous moisture. “So how long were you and Jack seeing each other?”
“Three years and fourteen days.”
I arched an eyebrow. “No hours?”
She glanced at her watch. “Six hours and thirty-two minutes.”
“That was a joke.”
“Oh.” She sniffled.
“Listen, I know a breakup can be tough. But people survive.”
“I know.”
“You’ll get through this. A breakup, however messy or unexpected, isn’t the end of anything. It’s just the beginning.”
She sniffled and wiped at her eyes. “We, um, didn’t actually break up. I mean, we did, but we didn’t.”
“I’m not following you.”
“We weren’t really together together. I just liked him.”
“And he didn’t like you?” I know I sounded shocked, but we’re talking Jack. His only requirement when it came to females was a vagina. And my oldest brother, Rob, and I had seriously debated that after seeing him last year with a Broadway dancer named Nick. Short for Nicole, or so Jack said. But judging from the size of her pecs, I’d had my doubts.
“He doesn’t actually know me. I mean, he knows who I am and that I live in the apartment below him. I think. But he doesn’t really know me. In the sexual sense, that is. Come to think of it, he doesn’t know me in the friend sense, either. We’ve never actually had a conversation. There was this one time that he was coming in and I was going out and we ran into each other and sort of had a moment.”
“A moment?”
“You know, one of those times when you stare into someone’s eyes and it’s like hello? This is Mr. Right.”
Ty Bonner’s image popped into my head before I could push it back out and certain parts of my anatomy tingled. I knew, all right. Boy, did I ever.
Not that Ty was Mr. Right. More like Mr. Right Now. As in temporary. As in it ain’t gonna happen, sistah.
I glanced at my watch again. “The medical examiner’s office, you say? You wouldn’t happen to know where that is?” She nodded and I smiled. “Thanks.”
She disappeared inside and came back a full two minutes later with an address scribbled on a piece of paper. “Here you go.”
“Thanks.” I snatched the paper from her hands and bolted down the steps.
“I hope everything turns out okay.” Her voice followed me and I stopped. “With your emergency,” she added when I turned and caught her sad puppy dog stare.
“Thanks.” Before I could stop myself, I’d ripped off a blank portion of the paper she’d given me. I begged a pen and then scribbled the phone number for Dead End Dating. “What did you say your name was?”
“I didn’t, but it’s Rachel. Rachel Sanchez.”
“Here, Rachel.”
“What’s this?”
“The new beginning. It’s the contact info for this great new dating service I just started—er, that is I’m just starting to hear about. Phenomenal things. The owner is this totally hip vampire with fab taste in clothes. She knows everything when it comes to hooking up singles.”
“A vampire matchmaker? You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Hey, if the fangs fit…”
“Vampires don’t date.”
“Not usually, but we’ve evolved. I date all the time.” I wish. “Anyhow, you really should give it a try. You won’t be sorry.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. What could a vampire know about hooking up a were?”
“I happen to know for a fact that the owner, the totally fab vampire, is in the process of hooking up the entire chapter of the Connecticut NUNS.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’ve got a friend who works for her.” Hey, Evie and I were friends.
She seemed to think for a second. “A werewolf is a lot easier to match up than a were-Chihuahua.”
A girl could only hope.
“I wouldn’t worry about the details. They give a money back guarantee.”
“It’s not the money.”
Be still my beatless heart.
“I just don’t know if I’m ready,” she added.
“I know it seems really soon, but it’s better not to waste any time before jumping back into the dating scene.”
“It’s been a really long time since I’ve been out with anyone.”
“How long is really long?”
“About
ten.”
“That’s nothing. Why, I’ve had—I mean, they’ve had clients who’ve been dateless much longer than a measly ten years.”
“That’s ten dog years.”
“Oh.”
“And it’s been even longer since I’ve actually had sex.”
I fought down a wave of panic and smiled. “So what? There’s more to life than sex.” What was I saying? Sex defined my race. Born vampires stopped aging when they lost their virginity. Their search for an eternity mate hinged on fertility ratings and orgasm quotients. I didn’t know if it was the same for were-Chihuahuas, but from my limited dealings with Viola I was willing to bet that sex figured pretty hefty in there somewhere.
“More than sex?”
“Sure. There’s mutual interests and companionship.”
She seemed to think again. “Well, it would be sort of nice to have someone to share a pizza with.”
“There you go. So give Dead End Dating a call and ask for Evie. She practically runs the place.” At least while I was this close to Death Row. “She’ll be glad to help you.”
“Thanks.” She gave me a grateful smile. “I owe you.”
“No, I owe you.” Or I would if Rachel’s surveillance panned out and I caught up with Jack.
Dead bodies don’t normally creep me out. I mean, I am a fearless, bloodsucking vampire.
All right, already. So I don’t really do death and destruction all that well and I haven’t been to a funeral in…well, I’ve never actually been to one (add immortal to the fearless, bloodsucking definition above), so I might have been a little creeped out.
I stared into the square window cut into the massive metal door and my hand stalled. Large metal drawers lined the walls from floor to ceiling. A row of stretchers sported large, black zippered bags. The smell of disinfectant burned my nostrils.
“Are you sure she’s in there?” I asked the orderly who’d led me down the hallway.
“Saw her check in for her shift myself.” He peered over my shoulder. “There she is.” He signaled to the only upright human in the entire room. She was a small redhead wearing a white lab coat and an ID badge that read MANDY DUPREE, M.D., RESIDENT/FORENSIC PATHOLOGY.
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