Dead and Dateless

by Kimberly Raye

  Drive? Ty asked silently. Sugar, we flew.

  “Maybe you could drive,” I told Lloyd. “Women love a man who drives.” He nodded and I smiled. “It’s such a macho thing to sit behind the wheel and have all that power right at your fingertips.”

  “I guess I could borrow Uncle Morty’s station wagon.”

  “Then again, maybe we could rent a car. What do you say, dear?” I turned my most charming smile on Ty.

  “Are you nuts? We’re laying low, remember? Laying low does not include handing over proof of insurance and a driver’s license to rent a car.”

  “But it’s a station wagon. He can’t show up at Viola’s in that. He needs something big and macho. A Hummer maybe. Or a Dualie.”

  Ty shifted his attention to Lloyd. “Borrow the station wagon.” Before I could protest, he slid his arm around me and squeezed tight enough to make me wince. “We’ll give you directions to Connecticut and you can go it alone, buddy. Later.”

  “Thursday,” I called out over my shoulder as Ty steered me around. I was this close to breaking a rib with my elbow, except that I couldn’t manage to get my arm high enough to give him a powerful jab.

  For a made vampire, he was surprisingly strong. That, coupled with the fact that I’d been drinking as little as possible around him to avoid stirring the hunger that lived and breathed inside of me. My senses had dulled. I couldn’t see as clearly or notice every little detail the way I usually did. Likewise, my hearing wasn’t as fine-tuned. Not that I still didn’t have it going on in the vamp department. I hadn’t lost my abilities. I just wasn’t functioning at full capacity.

  I stayed glued to Ty’s side as he ushered me toward the door.

  “Wait a second,” Lloyd’s voice followed. “I thought you said the date was Friday?”

  “Thursday is the predate prep. I’ll meet you here.”

  “You’re a jerk,” I told Ty when we reached the front porch of the store.

  “And you’re going to get us caught again. A Hummer? Please.”

  “Or a Dualie. Can’t you just try to see what I’m up against.”

  “A murder rap.”

  “I meant professionally.”

  “A murder rap.”

  “You have a one-track brain. Do you mind?” I glanced at the hand that clamped around my shoulder.

  Ty’s grip loosened and he winked. “All you had to do was ask.”

  “Lloyd can’t drive a station wagon to Viola’s.”

  “He’ll have to.”

  “Okay, let me make myself clear. Lloyd can’t drive a station wagon to the full moon powwow at Viola’s because it’s totally un-alpha, not to mention I don’t do station wagons.”

  “Then you don’t have to worry because you’re not going. You’re staying right here.”

  I opened my mouth only to clamp it back shut.

  I know. Me? Who would’ve thought?

  But from the stern set of his jaw and the intense glare in his neon blue eyes, I knew he wasn’t about to change his mind at the moment. Besides, I was tired. I didn’t have my usual energy and what I did have I needed to preserve. I had much bigger problems to deal with between now and Friday.

  Hairier problems.

  “Fine,” I huffed. “Can we get out of here?”

  “That’s my girl.”

  I ignored the warmth that spread through me at the comment and followed Ty around the side of the store and into the woods. In a matter of seconds, we’d covered the few miles to the cabin.

  Inside, Ty headed back to his computer and I made a beeline for my cell phone to tackle problem number one.

  “I need you to overnight me a few things,” I told Evie when she finally picked up her phone after several rings. I sank down onto the sofa and propped my feet between the photo album and the antler candleholder. Yikes, I needed a pedicure.

  “Business cards?” she asked.

  “A waxing kit.” I conjured a mental image of Lloyd. “Make that five waxing kits.” We’re talking Lloyd.

  I gave Evie the lowdown on my Alpha Doody progress and the mini-makeover I had planned.

  “Still,” she said when I finally came up for air. “He’s bald. Richie Cunningham was not bald.”

  “Maybe Viola’s friend won’t notice.”

  “Wouldn’t you notice?”

  “Maybe she’ll be too busy.” While I hadn’t actually seen a pure werewolf up close during the full moon, I’d had a few long-distance peeks through a pair of binoculars at my folks’ house. “Viola’s parties can get a little wild.”

  “We’re talking bald. Sure, it’s ultra sexy to some women, but to others it’s a complete turn-off. Total blah. More effective than a cold shower.”

  “You don’t like bald men, do you?”

  “Can’t stand ’em. My ex was bald and he was the lowest form of life. Just the sight of a smooth head makes my stomach turn.”

  “Maybe you’re the exception.”

  “I say we don’t risk it. Let’s just send twenty-eight regular alphas and hope for the best. How mad can she get? I’m sure she doesn’t really expect us to send her a redheaded one. That’s probably just her ideal. The icing on the cake, so to speak. And who likes icing anyway?”

  While I’d never tasted icing, I knew for a fact that it was the best part. A must-have for any decent dessert.

  “We’ll stick a wig on Lloyd,” I told her.

  “Wig, check. Anything else?”

  My memory stirred and I remembered a glimpse of a very aggressive female werewolf tugging and pulling at her mate’s fur. A wig would never work. “Throw in a few bottles of superglue.” Never say never.

  “Superglue, check, check. If I get this stuff out first thing in the morning, you should have it on Thursday. Where do you want me to send everything?”

  I gave her the address for Morty’s Commissary printed on one of the bags Ty had brought home our first night at the cabin.

  “You’re upstate?” she asked after she’d written the information down.

  “Yeah, right. Like I would even consider going upstate when there’s sun and sand and cute Jamaican guys just a plane ride away.” Guilt niggled at me because I (a) had never ridden a plane in my life and (b) would go up in flames at the first ray of direct sunshine. But Evie didn’t know either of those things, along with the biggie—I was a vamp—and I didn’t want to drag her any further into my mess. Besides, the less I acknowledged my desperate situation, the better. Denial was sometimes a beautiful thing. “I am not upstate.”

  “Just like you’re not with the bounty hunter, right?”

  My gaze slid to Ty, who sat at the kitchen table once again, laptop open in front of him, a bottle of blood in his hand. He took a long swig. His Adam’s apple bobbed. I felt an ache in the pit of my stomach.

  “Exactly,” I managed, despite my suddenly dry throat. “Other than the alpha search, how goes it?” I asked Evie. When denial failed, go for a distraction.

  “Well, Esther went out with my uncle.”

  “And?”

  “They went bowling. He had a ball. He threw ten strikes.”

  “And Esther?”

  “She didn’t throw any.”

  “But did she have fun?”

  “At first.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “That my uncle can’t see very well and he didn’t notice she was standing in the middle of the lane when he went to take his turn. He sort of hit her with the ball.”

  “Sort of?”

  “Actually, he knocked her down with it and then he stepped on her. She didn’t need stitches or anything, just a case of napkins from the concession stand. There was a lot of blood.”

  Duh.

  “But she’s okay now. I talked to her myself just this evening. She said she’s ready to try again. But no bowling this time. And no one with cataracts. Other wise, she’s up for anything. Talk about a real trooper.”

  “Send her some flowers and tell her we’ve got some thing extra sp
ecial planned for date number two.”

  “What do we have planned?”

  “I don’t know yet, but I promise it’ll be extra special. Right now, just do the flowers and stall her until…”

  Until I successfully matched up Viola and her werewolf sisters and found the person trying to frame me and made it through another night in the same room with Ty Bonner.

  I cleared my throat. “Until things get back to nor mal.”

  “I could call another one of my uncles.”

  “No uncles, but if you’ve got a few aunts we just might be in business.”

  “They’re all dead. But I do have a widow lady who lives down the hall from me.”

  “Does she have a friend?”

  “She’s got a twin sister. They just celebrated their eightieth birthdays. Why? You thinking about a ménage à trois for the something special?”

  “Not for Esther. For Morty and Ernest.” I gave her the details on the two old men.

  “They’re interested in our services?”

  “Well, no. Not yet.” But once I talked to them when I went to pick up the care package Evie was going to send, I was certain they would want to add their names to the ever growing list of Dead End Dating clients.

  At least that’s what I was hoping.

  With both Evie and me so focused on fulfilling Viola’s request, we’d sort of forgotten about any continued advertising efforts. Sure, we had clients now, but when all was said and done?

  I wasn’t going to worry over that now. I couldn’t. As far as I was concerned, my world didn’t extend beyond Friday and the numerous things I had to do to get ready for Viola and the NUNS.

  I went over the alpha list with Evie and instructed her to double-check with each of the men to make sure they knew when and where to go on Friday.

  I was this close to hanging up and avoiding any and all distractions when I heard myself blurt, “Did my mother call?”

  Oy, what the hell was wrong with me?

  Guilt, that’s what. I hadn’t checked my voice mail since I’d called Max and asked him to make my excuses for missing the tea/intervention.

  “Eight times,” Evie informed me.

  “That’s not too bad.” I’d expected at least a dozen.

  “That’s eight times today. She called fifteen times yesterday. She said you can’t be having that much sex and that you should call her.” I could hear the smile in Evie’s voice. “Did you tell her about the bounty hunter?”

  “I’m not with the bounty hunter. I had to miss a family function for obvious reasons and I told her I had a new boyfriend so that she would forgive the absence.”

  “She didn’t sound forgiving. Then again, she didn’t sound mad, either. Just upset. She kept going on and on about someone named Mandy who was ruining your brother’s life.”

  Obviously the intervention hadn’t worked and Jack and Mandy had announced the news about the wed ding.

  “That was yesterday,” Evie went on. “Today she sounded more medicated.”

  “She drinks when she’s upset.”

  “That explains why she kept mumbling something about burning Mandy at the stake.”

  Obviously, the wedding hadn’t been the only news.

  “Either that, or she was hungry for a steak and she wanted to take Mandy along.”

  I voted for the first one.

  “Anyway, she wants you to call her. I told her you might not be able to because of being wanted by the police.”

  “What did she say to that?”

  “That she’s sacrificed years of her life to nurture and raise you. The least you can do is spare her a measly five minutes.”

  Jacqueline Marchette hadn’t been named the CEO of Guilt for nothing.

  I finished my call with Evie and then turned my attention to the pen and paper in front of me to outline a makeover plan for Lloyd.

  I’d barely managed to write my mission statement when I felt Ty’s gaze.

  I glanced up and met his neon blue stare. “What?”

  “I’ve finished checking out the suspects on your list.”

  “And?”

  “And other than a half dozen fellow shoppers who’d like to see you tarred and feathered and hanging from the Empire State building, I’ve got zilch.”

  “A half dozen doesn’t sound like zilch.”

  “They all have solid alibis, sugar. Which means we’re back to square one. We need someone with a real motive.” He pushed to his feet and paced toward the window. “Whoever’s doing this has it in for you in the worst way. We’re talking intense hatred. On top of that, they obviously know you well enough to know just how to get to you.” His gaze zeroed in on me again. “To hurt you.” A light fired his eyes a bright blue. “You have to think, Lil. I need someone else. Otherwise…”

  Otherwise I wasn’t going to get out of this mess.

  I would be on the run for the rest of my life. Forget Viola and the NUNS. I wouldn’t need them because I wouldn’t be a matchmaker. I would be a fugitive.

  I swallowed as the truth weighed down on me. My gaze fell to the outline I’d just started and I read the first sentence: Make Lloyd as attractive as possible to the werewolf with the Alpha Doody fetish.

  My gaze lingered on the werewolf.

  “There has to be someone.”

  Or something.

  “The jealous werewolf,” I blurted, my mind racing back to the night of the annual Midnight Soirée sponsored by my mother’s huntress club. “Remember the night I unveiled the new Francis to the rest of born vamp society? That was the night I ran the little experiment with Wilson and Nina to see if they liked each other. Namely, I set them each up with someone else to make the other jealous. And it worked. Not that that’s the point. The point is, the setup also made someone else jealous. Ayala’s ex-werewolf lover. He showed up ready to take Wilson out. That’s when I got staked.” That would explain the DNA evidence. I bled all over the place.

  It wasn’t like I’d been able to stand idly by and let a crazed Other stake my best friend’s intended. I’d intervened, of course, and I’d gotten it in the shoulder.

  “My brothers took him out,” I told Ty. “After I fainted, they attacked him.”

  “Which means he can’t be out to get you.”

  “No, but his family might be. I know that if something happened to me, my family would be really pissed.” Then again, at the rate I was going…“Maybe they’re mad enough to want to punish me.”

  “Did he have any family?”

  “I’m sure he does. Everybody has family.” Except made vampires.

  I saw the strange look that passed over his face and I had the sudden urge to reach out. Thankfully, the look passed as quickly as it had come, and I stayed rooted to the couch.

  He seemed to think. “It’s possible.”

  “It’s more than possible. That’s it. It has to be it.” I smiled. “It’s his family. They have it in for me. That explains everything.”

  “Maybe” was all he said as he walked back to his laptop.

  “A little enthusiasm wouldn’t hurt, you know? Maybe a ‘Gee, Lil, that’s totally Einstein of you.’”

  “You should have mentioned it in the first place.”

  “I didn’t remember.” In fact, I did my best not to remember getting staked. Not only had it hurt, but now I was forever linked to a made vampire who was so not my type.

  I watched as he punched in some information and sent a few e-mails before pushing to his feet.

  “I’ve got some things to do. I’ll be back.”

  I ignored the strange emptiness that settled around me whenever he walked out the door. Namely be cause I was not empty. And I wanted him to walk out the door.

  It made working and falling asleep easier when he wasn’t a strip and a pounce away.

  Much easier, I told myself, basking in the newfound information and turning my attention back to my makeover outline.

  One problem down, one to go.

  “It feels r
eally warm,” Lloyd said on Thursday night as I spread the warm wax onto his right shoulder.

  I’d set up a chair in the storeroom of Morty’s Commissary when I’d arrived just after sunset. After clearing some space on one of the wall-to-wall shelves, between the Pringles and the Cheez Whiz, I’d unpacked the care package from Evie which had included not only the requested items, but a pair of latex gloves.

  Yep, Evie and I were soul sisters, all right.

  “It’s sort of soothing,” Lloyd said as I smoothed.

  “Glad to hear you say that.” I scooped more of the wax I’d just nuked in the small microwave that sat next to a Mr. Coffee on one of the shelves, and slathered it onto Lloyd’s skin. “It’s always best to focus on the positive in these kinds of situations.”

  As if the thought had just struck, he stiffened. “It’s not going to hurt, is it?”

  “Maybe a little.”

  “How little?”

  “Relax. Women do it all the time. It can’t be that bad, right?”

  “True.”

  I rubbed a piece of cloth over the wax, gripped the edge and rrrrrrip!

  Lloyd screamed.

  Then again, women gave birth all the time, too, and it was common knowledge that that hurt like a sonofabitch.

  “There, there.” I patted his opposite shoulder with my gloved hand. “It can’t be that bad.”

  “You…” He panted. “It…” More panting. “I can’t…” Inandoutandinandout.

  “Easy, big guy. The first time is always the worst.”

  “R-really?” he finally managed after more panting interspersed with a little wheezing.

  “Sure. From here on out, it’s smooth sailing. See, your body is buzzing with intense pain which keeps it from noticing less intense pain.” I smoothed more wax onto the next hairy patch and rubbed the cloth strip on top. “Just count to five, brace yourself, and I’ll pull. Okay?”

  His head bobbed and he rasped, “One, two, three—ffffuck!”

  “I guess that one hurt, too?” He called me several choice names. “So much for the element of surprise.” I smoothed more wax onto his ultra hairy skin. “If it’s any consolation, you’re starting to look mega hunky.”