“You said no human doctors—”
“House Lilith doesn’t just have spies in the hospitals,” Mandy said, finally relenting and turning over the card before she lost her grip on her sandwich. “They’re everywhere—in law enforcement, big business, you name it.”
“How do they get around the daylight issue?” Laura asked. She was asking smarter questions than I had after I’d first found out about my new condition. But, to be fair, she hadn’t just died or lost her partner. Temporary ignorance was a normal part of my grief cycle, apparently.
“The spies are either werewolves or humans,” Mandy said. “Special humans,” she added when I narrowed my eyes at her. “Most of them are half-sired, or in some sort of feeding arrangement with a vamp. They’ve been initiated and are registered, so they’re safe.”
“Half-sired? Feeding arrangement? Registered?” Laura put her face in her hands and shook her head. “I’m having trouble keeping up with all of this.”
“Feel free to forget it.” Mandy snorted. “Or at least don’t repeat it to anyone. If you don’t end up in a mental hospital first, House Lilith will put a price on your head. They don’t mess around when it comes to protecting their own.”
“Where does that leave Jenna?” Laura asked next.
Mandy licked what remained of her sandwich from her fingers and frowned at us. “That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?”
Chapter Eleven
It felt good to share my death with my sister. Though it had been so long since I’d been able to share my life with her, I had to wonder if I’d caved and told her my deadly secret out of sheer desperation. I hated that the knowledge could put her in danger, but just being associated with me was dangerous. At least now, the decision was hers to make. And she was still here. It mended something in my heart that I’d been sure would never be right again.
We stayed up talking until just before dawn, discussing the last decade of our separate lives since the next ten years seemed so uncertain. For both of us. Mandy left us to it, staking claim to my bed in my and Laura’s old room—right after warning Laura that she’d dropkick Duncan if any leg-humping occurred. She was going to be a handful now that she had free rein of the house in her human form.
Laura followed me to my bedroom—to our mother’s previous room. I could tell the nostalgia was a little overwhelming for her. I hadn’t changed much in here either. The green plaid bedspread and matching curtains were as old as we were—though I had changed out the mini-blinds for light-blocking ones back when I worked on night patrol—and the fire hydrant lamp on the bedside table had been a gift we’d purchased together for Mom’s thirtieth birthday. We’d been thirteen years old at the time. I’d had a paper route, and Laura had babysat the next-door neighbor’s obnoxious kids for a few hours every day after school.
Laura lay down on the bed beside me, and we whispered in the dark, just like we had when we were in high school. I didn’t want to upset her with stories about my job, so I let her do most of the talking. She filled me in on all the underground Hollywood gossip, and all the new trends and fad diets everyone was trying.
Right before the sun broke the sky, I felt the tingle of death coil up my spine and fill my skull. I had just enough time to warn Laura.
“Does it hurt?” she whispered, her hands wringing the end of her red ponytail under her chin. I tried to shake my head, but my body wasn’t cooperating any longer. The breath froze in my lungs, and my eyes closed on Laura’s anxious expression.
Fifteen hours later, my eyes opened to that same face. I blinked a few times, wondering if my vision was playing tricks on me again. Laura’s red locks were now platinum blond.
“Finally!” She gasped, excitement chasing away her worry. “I’ve had all day to think about it, and I’ve figured it out!” She clapped her hands together and bounced on the edge of my bed.
“Have you been drinking coffee all day, too?” I rubbed a hand over my face and down my neck to my chest to claw at the tag of my tank top. If I accomplished nothing else tonight, I decided I would at least shower and put on a fresh change of clothes. The mundane thought was quickly replaced by despair. “Alicia and Serena?”
Laura twirled a lock of her newly dyed hair. “I kept the visit short, but I think it was a pretty decent warm-up.”
“Warm-up?” I asked, sitting and pulling myself to the edge of the bed. The achy, stiff feeling that had plagued me since waking at the morgue had let up after the cow blood, but it was slowly coming back.
“I mean, I was no Anastasia van de Velde,” Laura said. She inspected her fingernails with a satisfied grin. “But Detective Laura Skye is a cakewalk in comparison.”
I took a closer look at her and realized she was wearing one of my tee shirts and a pair of my cut-off shorts. “Please tell me you didn’t…”
“Oh, I totally did.” She gave me a devilish grin. “I’ve still got it, baby. David Steckleman can eat his heart out.”
“Laura! This isn’t some movie set. This is my fucking life!”
“What choice did I have?” She blinked at me. “Face it. You need my help.”
“That wasn’t right. You know that wasn’t right.”
“How well do you think it would have gone over if I’d asked them to come back around eight-thirty?” She popped a fist on her hip. “Sorry, Jenna’s dead to the world right now. Literally. But she’ll be waking up later tonight to venture into gang territory for a pint of cow blood. Would you like to leave a message?” I made a pained face at the accusation, and she lifted both eyebrows before nodding at me. “Yeah. Teenybopper wolf girl spilled the beans.”
“Dead girls gotta eat, too. What choice did I have?” I repeated her excuse with an apologetic shrug. “Speaking of, I’m starving.”
“Oh, hell no.” Laura held up a hand in my face. “You are not going back across the river. I don’t care how indestructible you think you are. We’ll buy some steak and put it in a blender.”
I opened my mouth to protest but stopped when I realized I didn’t actually know if that would work or not. Laura took it as a sign that I agreed with her idea and poked a finger on the side of my head.
“See! If you’d just think these things through, you wouldn’t get yourself in so much trouble,” she said. I gave her a wide-eyed glare and stood to fetch some clean clothes.
“So Alicia and Serena really thought you were me?” I shouted from my closet. Between Mandy and now Laura, it was in total disarray.
“Yes.” Laura blew out a long sigh. “It was hard, though. They were both crying, I mean, inconsolably sobbing. So I ended up crying, and then we were all blubbering.”
I clutched a blouse to my chest and swallowed the lump building in the back of my throat. “Thanks.” It should have been me. Not just bearing the weight of Will’s family’s grief, but lying dead—truly dead—in a cold locker at the morgue. If I weren’t dead already, I would have died from the guilt and shame of my mistake.
“No problem,” Laura answered from the doorway of my closet. I hadn’t heard her sneak up, lost in my miserable thoughts. “I have your appointment with Dr. Townsend covered for tomorrow. And I’m pretty sure I convinced that beefcake FBI agent that you’re a dead-end, too.”
I spun around. “He called again?”
“He stopped by.” Laura smirked and folded her arms. “If he weren’t investigating you for Will’s death, I would have invited him in to frisk me.”
“Am I a suspect now? Did he say that?” Red pulsed at the edges of my vision, and I felt a cold trickle of panic creep up my spine.
“Not in so many words,” Laura said. “But the way he acted—total asshat. He’s clearly suspicious of you. I was cool as a cucumber, though. He really has no reason to question you further.”
“We’ll see.” I waited for her to move out of the doorway and circled around into the bathroom.
“So, we have grocery shopping to do tonight. Oh, and you have a sketch to draw for the captain,” she added with a grimace.
“I don’t think one of my stick figure portraits would be very convincing. Luckily, that task doesn’t require daylight.”
“Yeah, that’s going to be problematic since we don’t want to alert the vampire mob family, or whoever the hell these big bad vamps are that Mandy is so afraid of. I guess I could fabricate a suspect, but I hate having to lie to the captain.” I tugged at the rubber band in my hair and winced when it ripped out several strands with its departure.
Laura clicked her tongue at me and then hovered over my shoulder, inspecting herself in the bathroom mirror as she mimicked my sour expression. Our reflections hadn’t been this identical since graduation. Of course, her eyebrows were better pruned than mine, and she had fewer split ends.
“I told you that rubber band was a bad idea,” she said in my ear as she picked a stray hair off my shoulder. “I’ll do a hot oil treatment on your hair while you’re sleeping tomorrow.”
I crinkled my nose at her. “You’re going to play with me like a freaking doll while I’m out?”
“I wish someone would primp me while I slept. Think of all the time that would save?” Her eyes lit up with hopeful cheer. “Maybe I ought to suggest that to the spa I frequent.”
A squeal ripped through the house, and then Mandy was in the doorway of the bathroom, her hands on her hips and murder on her face. “That rodent of yours crapped on the kitchen floor, and I stepped in it.” She lifted up her foot to show us the smudge of green between her toes.
I couldn’t contain my grin. “Don’t worry. Zee new maid will take care of it.”
“Grrrr.” Her lips curled back, and I half expected her to bark at me. “I’m done sitting around here waiting for you to get your shit together. I’m going to look for the Scarlett Inn tonight, with or without you.”
I nodded and held up the clean shirt. “I just need a shower first.”
“And food,” Laura added, pointing her finger at me and then Mandy. “I’m going to call a cab and make a quick dash to the grocery store.”
“You can take the Bronco if you want,” I offered.
Laura made a horrified face. “I’ll pass. I haven’t driven a real car in years, let alone that tin can.”
“Could you clean up the dog shit first?” Mandy pinched her nose. “If I go back in that kitchen, I’m going to yack.”
“Oh, grief. You big baby.” Laura groaned and pushed past her and out of the bathroom.
Mandy took her place beside me and propped her foot up on the edge of the sink before ripping several tissues from a box on the counter. She grumbled under her breath as she wiped her toes clean, and then grabbed my hairbrush and began grooming herself.
“A little privacy?” I blinked at her and held up the shirt again.
Mandy grunted and swiped my curling iron before exiting the bathroom. I closed the door behind her and hung my blouse on the hook behind it. And then it occurred to me that I’d forgotten the rest of my outfit. I’d been too distracted by Laura’s makeover and what it meant—what it could mean. It was still weighing on my mind, ping-ponging between guilt and hope. A queasy feeling stirred deep in my gut, and I couldn’t decide if it was more from the jumble of conflicting emotions, or the cow blood disagreeing with me.
I ducked out of the bathroom long enough to grab some underwear and a pair of jeans and then jumped into the shower, cranking the water up as hot as I could stand. There was a chill in my bones that I couldn’t seem to shake. It had improved after my first postmortem meal, but it was coming back, along with the stiffness. Was this normal for a vampire? Did it only improve with blood? I hated that I had so many questions and not nearly enough answers.
As I breathed in the steam from the shower, my thoughts returned to Laura and her doppelganger act. I had to admit, it was pretty brilliant. And Laura seemed rejuvenated by the new role, even if it didn’t pay as much as playing Judge Henry’s saucy court reporter. I guess we all like to feel needed. But how long would it last? How long before someone figured out that we’d pulled the ol’ switcheroo? How long before Laura tired of my boring, Midwestern lifestyle and yearned for the glamour and fame she’d left behind? I was betting one Missouri winter would be all it took.
Allowing myself to look at this as if it were a permanent solution would be foolish, but hope bubbled up anyway. Maybe a better plan would emerge in time, but for now, I could appreciate Laura’s efforts and make the most of an otherwise sucky situation.
The doorbell rang as I turned off the shower, and I wrapped myself in a towel before Mandy barged in.
“That ugly green car that stopped by last night is back,” she announced. “And some shmuck is on the front porch with flowers.”
Vin. Ugh. He just didn’t know when to quit. “Maybe he’ll go away?” I suggested. The doorbell rang twice more, and I felt the corners of my mouth instinctively sag down my face. “Shit.”
“The FBI guy drove an SUV,” Mandy said, folding her arms and narrowing her eyes at me. “Who’s this joker?”
“The morgue doctor.”
She made a face. “Creepy.”
“You have no idea.” I groaned and shooed her out of the bathroom. “Let me throw on my clothes real quick, and I’ll take care of it.”
I towel-dried my hair and dressed in a rush while Vin abused the doorbell some more. By the time I finally answered, I was ready to strangle him.
“What?” I said, biting the word off like an expletive as I ripped the door open. To Vin’s credit, he didn’t fall backward down the front steps this time.
“I want a do-over.” He lifted his chin and thrust a new bouquet of blood-red roses at me. He was in a pair of charcoal slacks and a green dress shirt tonight, and the glasses were gone. “You caught me off-guard last night, but I came prepared this time.”
“Prepared?” I ignored the outstretched flowers and ran a hand through my wet hair. “Vin, you’re being ridiculous.”
“Really? Am I?” He lifted an eyebrow and then pulled a bag of blood out of his pants pocket.
A gasp escaped me before I could contain the euphoric sensation that shot through my core. I blinked, and the world turned red. Vin gave me a satisfied grin, but it disappeared when I grabbed the front of his shirt and jerked him inside, shoving the door closed behind us.
The living room was dark, the only light coming from the porch light slipping through the curtains over the front window. The red lens of my hunger didn’t seem to care one way or another. I could see the outlines of the furniture and the walls clear as day. I could see Vin, blindly groping for something to anchor himself in the sea of darkness.
I snatched the flowers and the blood from him, crushing them against my chest. The roses felt off. Rubbery. “These are fake,” I hissed, forcing the conversation in the first random direction I could come up with, anything to steer it away from the fact that I’d responded so viscerally to the bag of blood.
“They’ll never die,” he whispered, his eyes following the sound of my voice. “Just like you.”
“Are you calling me fake?”
“I think you know exactly what I’m calling you.” Vin’s voice slithered dangerously through the dark, and I could feel all the things hidden in his words. The dare. The threat. The invitation. “You didn’t have a pulse, Jenna. I haven’t seen you in daylight since you woke up on my table Friday night. Just after sunset, if I remember correctly.”
My body reacted without warning. I dropped the flowers and the blood, and then I was pressed against Vin, pinning his back to the wall. He grunted, but I couldn’t tell if it was in pain or surprise. Maybe both.
“What do you want from me?” The words felt raw in my throat. I was caught somewhere between begging and maiming. The galloping pulse in his throat was inches away, and my eyes locked onto it as the tips of my canines grazed my bottom lip. My breath rushed in and out, moving the little hairs trailing around the side of Vin’s neck, and he shuddered.
“What do you want from me?” he asked.
I licked my li
ps and swallowed, trying to talk myself out of what I really wanted, and pulled Vin away from the wall. I bent over and collected the fake roses, slapping them against Vin’s chest as I stood. He made a dejected noise as if he’d actually wanted me to bite him. The weirdo. I yanked the front door open and unceremoniously shoved him out onto the porch.
“Wait! Jenna—” He stumbled backward and caught himself on the railing alongside the steps before springing right back up. I slammed the door in his face so hard that the picture of my mother and Maggie fell off the wall, the glass shattering as it hit the floor.
I stood perfectly still, my hands balled into fists against my chest, and held my breath until I thought I might pass out. Which felt like forever. Did vampires need to breathe? Just one more answerless question falling like invisible confetti around my head.
When the kitchen light clicked on, I jumped in surprise. Mandy’s long shadow dissected the living room. She stood with her hands on her hips, modeling a pair of my cropped yoga pants and a workout tank top.
“What is that?” She made a disgusted face and pointed at the abandoned blood bag on the floor. I’d conveniently forgotten to throw it out with Vin and the fake flowers.
“Dinner,” I answered, picking it up and inspecting the label. O negative. Vin had gone all out.
Mandy’s mouth dropped open, and she sucked in a slow gasp. “He knows?” she whisper-screamed at me. “Of course, he knows! Maybe you should just hang a fucking neon sign in the window.”
“I didn’t tell him,” I whisper-screamed back at her, worried that Vin might still be loitering on the porch. “He guessed, okay? This is so not my fault.”
“You suck at being a bloodsucker.” Mandy scowled at me as I sniffed the blood bag, and then she turned on her heel and stormed into the kitchen. “I’m going to eat something before we leave.”
The doorbell rang again. I ground my teeth together and decided that if Vin couldn’t take a hint, maybe I would take a bite out of him. Either that or uninstall the doorbell. I threw the door open with an unrestrained snarl.
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