Chosen asc-6

by Jeanne C. Stein

  We’ve arrived at Frey’s condo complex. He holds the door open so I can climb out. “Would you like to come in?”

  “Is Layla around?” It’s an automatic response. Layla is his girlfriend. She doesn’t like me. Maybe because she knows Frey and I have had sex. Maybe because I always seem to be calling Frey away from her for one crisis or another. Or maybe (and most likely) it’s because he always comes.

  Frey can’t read my thoughts, but he may as well be able to. “I don’t know what is between you two,” he says, shaking his head as I climb out. “But yes, Layla is most likely home.”

  I give him a peck on the cheek. “Then some other time.” I grab his hand as he turns. “Thank you.”

  He returns the squeeze and lets himself in through the security gate. Lance and I watch until he disappears down the walk.

  I scoot in beside Lance and we head for the cottage. For the first time, it dawns on me that I’ve been gone four days. Four days. That makes today Tuesday.

  Shit.

  I grab for my cell phone, only to discover that the battery is dead.

  Lance glances at me. “What’s up?”

  I’m rummaging in the glove compartment for the charger. “I think David and I had a job yesterday. He’s going to be pissed.”

  I pull out the cord and plug it into the dashboard. When the power comes up, I wince to see I have six messages from my partner. Each message is worse than the one before. David starts out mildly curious that he can’t reach me, veers to concerned when my phone goes right to voice mail, borders on irritated when he goes by the cottage and finds me gone and develops into full-blown anger when Monday comes and I haven’t bothered to get in touch. His last message is a brief, “Goddamn it, Anna. Where the hell are you?”

  “Bad news?” Lance asks.

  “I may be out of a job.”

  Lance grins and puts his own cell phone to his ear. His smile melts away, though, as he listens to his messages. In fact, I’d be willing to bet his expression now mirrors the one on my face a few moments before.

  “Uh-oh,” I say. “What did you forget?”

  He glances at his watch, which makes me do the same thing. It’s a little before nine.

  “Jesus,” he says. “I’m supposed to be in L.A. for a catalog shoot in thirty minutes. How about dropping me off at the airport? I’ll catch a shuttle.” He doesn’t wait for a reply but punches in a number and tells whoever is on the other end that he’s been delayed and will be a couple of hours late. Then he rings off.

  He steers the car onto the road, a frown puckering his brow, until a sudden thought makes him shake his head and sit up straight in the seat. “I’m not going to L.A. What the hell am I thinking? I’m staying here with you.”

  He starts to reach for his cell phone again. I stop him. “Of course you’re going to L.A. I’ll be fine. If something happens, Frey is a phone call away.”

  And nothing is going to happen. After all, Williams and Underwood think I’m working with them now. Of course, Lance doesn’t know that.

  Lance’s expression tells me I haven’t convinced him. “What if there’s another attack? What if Williams tries again? You need someone around to watch your back. I can’t do that from L.A.”

  He can’t do it here, either. Right now, the best thing he can do for me is to get himself out of harm’s way.

  “Lance, trust me. I can take care of anything Williams throws my way. How long will you be gone?”

  “I can be back tomorrow night.”

  “Then it’s settled. I’ll be with David the rest of the day and probably most of tomorrow. No need for you to give up a paying gig to babysit me. Serious groveling takes time.”

  He actually manages a grin at that. “Will you go right to the office?”

  “May as well get the ass chewing over with.”

  We’re pulling into the commuter terminal at Lindbergh Field. Lance’s expression morphs again to pinched and anxious. He stops at the curb but doesn’t jump out. “I think this is a bad idea. I shouldn’t leave you.”

  I give him a little push. “Go. You can’t spend the rest of your life tailing me. Besides, I have to face David. I have more to fear from him right now than either Williams or Underwood. And what’s the worse that can happen? He shoots me? I can handle bullets. Now go.”

  * * *

  In spite of what I told Lance, I don’t go right to the office. I need to change clothes. I do take the precaution of parking on Mission, though, instead of pulling into my driveway. No sense taking the chance that Williams hasn’t planned another surprise. It would be just like him—a “don’t fuck with me” gesture.

  But I don’t see or sense anything out of the ordinary when I approach the cottage. In thirty minutes, I’m back on the road.

  Now, during the drive to the office, all I can think about is the reception I’m likely to get from David. We’ve been partners for several years, but it’s only been the last year, since I became vampire, that our relationship has been tested. I disappear for days at a time (this weekend a case in point), can’t do many of the things we used to do like eating out (can’t ingest food) or going to the gym (large mirrors everywhere) and can’t seem to tolerate any female he’s attracted to (is it my fault that I am a better judge of character than he is?)

  We’ve almost called it quits before, and truth is, maybe we should now. It’s not fair to him. But the other truth is, I like him. I like the job we do. A lot. And I need the money. I don’t have a trust fund to fall back on. I refuse to tap into Avery’s legacy.

  The other logical alternative for me would be to go back to teaching. Frey teaches. And it works for him.

  Just the thought of being back in a classroom turns my cold blood even colder. Criminals, otherworldly villains, monsters. I can handle them with one hand tied behind my back. Hormonal teenagers, though, are something else.

  No. As self-serving as it is, I need to ease David over this latest bump. I can do it. I’ve had practice.

  Still, anxiety tightens my shoulders as I approach the office. David’s Hummer squats like an obscene yellow beetle in its designated parking space so I know he’s inside. The irony is not lost on me that here I am, a vampire, nervous about facing a mere mortal.

  I blow out a breath, run my hands through my hair, tug at the bottom of my sweater and peek into the office.

  David is at the desk. He doesn’t notice me at the door. He doesn’t notice me because he’s focused on the woman sitting in my chair opposite him. He doesn’t notice me because he’s thrown his head back and is laughing.

  Laughing.

  It pisses me off. He’s supposed to be brooding. He’s supposed to be concerned. He’s supposed to be on the telephone trying to reach me again.

  He is not supposed to be laughing.

  I shove through the door, startling him. He recovers and beams a smile at me. The woman turns, smiling, too.

  “Hey, Anna,” David says. “I’d like you to meet our new partner.”

  Partner?

  My back stiffens. What the fuck does that mean?

  I can’t think of anything to say to that startling revelation. So I stare—at them both.

  She’s gotten to her feet. She’s wearing jeans and a white cotton shirt tucked and cinched with a broad leather belt. She’s taller than me—probably five-nine or so—and sinewy thin. She has auburn hair drawn straight back from her face in a ponytail. She’s one of the lucky females who can pull that off. Probably because of those big green eyes and a full-lipped smile that show off a set of too-perfect teeth. She has come away from the chair to stand in front of me, hand outstretched.

  “Hi, Anna. I’m Tracey Banker. Pleased to meet you.”

  I take her hand, give it a perfunctory shake. Let it drop. She’s wearing perfume—too much of it—something woodsy with undertones of burned sugar and bitter almonds. It makes my nose twitch.

  Tracey glances back at David. “Well, I’m sure you two have things to discuss. I’ll leave yo
u to it. I’ll check with you tomorrow morning?”

  David nods, and she brushes past me. He watches her as she leaves, then turns his gaze on me. “Well? Aren’t you going to yell at me? Ask me what the fuck I was thinking? Tell me I had no right to take on a new partner without your okay?”

  He’s glaring, muscles tense, jaw tight, ready to launch a counterattack.

  “No.”

  The answer startles me as much as it does David. I ignore the comically puzzled expression on his face and sink into my chair. “Where did you find her?”

  He looks at me out of the corners of his eyes, as if he can’t trust my reaction, and takes his own seat across from me. “Remember the kickboxing classes we used to take?”

  His emphasis is on the “we used to take.” I don’t comment, just nod.

  “She’s the new instructor at the gym now. Ex-cop, wounded in the line of duty. Took an early retirement and has been looking for something to occupy her time besides teaching. We went for coffee after a class last week, I told her what we do. She said she’d be interested in filling in if we needed it. Yesterday, I needed it. You weren’t around. I called her. She came. We made the collar.”

  He says it matter-of-factly, no subtle undertones, no recrimination, no opening for rebuttal.

  Makes me feel guiltier.

  “What business arrangement have you made with her?”

  “Fifty-fifty split if it’s just her and me. If the three of us work a job, she gets twenty-five percent, you and I split the rest. She ponies up twenty percent of the monthly office expenses regardless of the number of jobs she works. We cover her insurance, reimburse car expenses.”

  “You got that in writing?”

  He picks up a contract from the middle of his desk. “Just needs your signature.”

  He holds it out, still looking as if he expects me to start ranting. No one is more surprised than me that I’m not. I pick up a pen, take the paper from his hand and sign my name on the dotted line.

  David slips the signed contract into a folder on his desk. “So. Do you want to tell me where you were yesterday?”

  Battling monsters.

  “Lance and I went to Palm Springs for the weekend. He got—sick. I stayed to take care of him. I am sorry. Really.”

  “You lost your cell phone?”

  I wince, smile deprecatingly. “Battery went dead. I forgot to pack the charger.”

  He’s weighing my words, assessing my expression, calculating the sincerity of my apology. I don’t blame him. He’s heard the same story more than once. Only the circumstances of why I let him down ever change.

  I expect him to respond the way I would—with something snarky. I knew we had a job on Monday so where were we that I couldn’t get to a phone? The dark side of the moon?

  Instead, he surprises me by asking, “Is Lance all right?”

  “Yeah. Thanks for asking.”

  He pushes away from the desk, folder in hand, and crosses the room to a filing cabinet against the far wall. He places the folder in a drawer and closes it. When he comes back to the desk, he slips a jacket off the back of his chair and drapes it over his arm.

  “Well, we don’t have anything on the docket for the next few days. Think you can cover the office? I’m going to San Francisco to look at some property with Miranda.”

  Miranda is a real estate developer who has become more than an investment advisor to David. They are lovers. The lover he sometimes cheats on with that booking clerk at the jail. Which leads me to think it’s not a serious relationship, not that he’s shared any details with me. I don’t have such a good track record with his girlfriends.

  “Sure,” I respond quickly. “It will give me a chance to get to know our new partner.”

  He shakes his head. His expression says he’s still suspicious, still skeptical of how easily I accepted Tracey into our fold. “You aren’t going to scare her off while I’m gone are you?”

  I hope my laugh doesn’t sound as forced as it feels. “Of course not. Have fun in San Francisco.”

  He looks not at all reassured by my words. But he does leave.

  Which is good.

  As soon as he’s gone, I put in a call to Warren Williams.

  I know he said he’d be in touch with me, but I want to get the ball rolling. Show him I’m serious about our agreement.

  The phone rings five times, then goes to voice mail.

  Voice mail? Where is he? He’s supposed to be sitting by the phone waiting for my call.

  Abruptly, I click off.

  Damn it. The expression “revenge is a dish best served cold” has never been a favorite of mine. I don’t want to wait for the rage to cool. What he and Underwood did to Lance—did to me—is unforgivable, and I want to strike while my blood still boils.

  CHAPTER 22

  Waiting has never been easy for me.

  Waiting makes me peckish.

  Waiting reduces me to finding ways to distract myself, reduces me to tackling distasteful chores.

  So, when I’ve caught up on email, balanced my checkbook, filed an accumulation of piled-up shit (mea culpa to David), read through the stack of law enforcement bulletins on top of the filing cabinet and drained the last bottle of beer in the fridge and Williams still hasn’t called, I’m irritated and antsy enough to bite the head off a chicken.

  Tossing the last empty bottle into the trash, I trudge on out to the deck that borders the back of our office. It’s a still, clear and quiet afternoon, the skyline mirror-imaged on the water. I watch sailboats play motor tag on the bay while they wait for the wind. When I was human, it was the kind of afternoon David and I would spend at the Green Flash, a bar down the street from my cottage, drinking beer and eating nachos and watching humanity parade past on the boardwalk.

  Nostalgia sweeps over me. I took those days for granted. It’s a stupid human flaw—not appreciating the simple pleasures because they are simple and routine and will always be a part of your life.

  Or so you believe.

  I plop down in a deck chair and tip it back, hoisting my feet to rest on the railing. So much has happened in the last year. So much has changed. You hear the cliché “not the person she once was” all the time. In my case, it’s not an exaggeration. Last July my biggest concern was when I’d next see my DEA boyfriend, Max. I wasn’t in love with him, but the sex was great and our casual relationship suited us.

  Next thing you know, I’m attacked and turned by a vampire. Even though the sex was even better, Max couldn’t get away fast enough when he learned the truth. I saved his life—hell, I’ve saved a lot of lives in the last twelve months—but to the world at large, I’m still a bloodsucker. A monster.

  I can’t reveal myself to my family, to David, to any mortal outside of the few who know and safeguard the secret . . . that there are supernatural creatures living side by side with them. It’s the reason I sent my family halfway around the world. I couldn’t bear to see the horror in their eyes should they discover my secret. It’s also the reason I’m glad they have my niece, Trish, to care for. She will fill the void when circumstances force me to move on.

  Perhaps subconsciously I’ve already accepted Tracey because she might be the one to fill the void for David, too.

  A breeze springs up over the bay. The sailboats hoist their sails to capture it, cutting engines as they forge straight, sure paths out to sea.

  I wish my path was as clear.

  I hold up my right hand. The palm looks the same. The skin on the back of my hand is smooth and cold as alabaster. I let it drop back into my lap. Three days ago I was a walking charcoal briquette. Today, there isn’t a trace of damage.

  I close my eyes. Listen. I can hear and feel everything going on inside my body. Blood pulsing, heart pumping. Muscles, sinew and bone flex and contract on command. Nerves vibrate with energy.

  I’m dead.

  Yet I’ve never felt more alive.

  CHAPTER 23

  I’m still in a fugue state whe
n the office door opens.

  I don’t have to turn from my perch to know who’s come in. Her perfume precedes her. If we’re going to work together on a regular basis, David better tell Tracey to go easy on the stuff.

  She’s his recruit, after all.

  She walks straight through the office and joins me on the deck, pointing to a second deck chair. “Mind if I join you?”

  I scoot around so I’m upwind and nod my head. “Have a seat.”

  I notice then that she has a brown grocery bag in her hand. She sits down, opens the bag and pulls a couple of bottles of Corona from inside. She offers me one.

  I take it.

  She might work out after all.

  We open our beers and drink.

  Tracey wipes foam off her lips with the back of her hand. A simple, unaffected gesture. For some reason, it tips the scales from finding reasons not to like her to reserving judgment. Maybe even being willing to give her a chance.

  She did come bearing beer.

  We drink in silence for a few minutes before she says, “Detective Harris sends his regards.”

  I choke on that. “Really? He sent his regards?”

  A grin. “Well, not so much regards as a word of caution. To me. To be on my guard. He thinks you’re . . . How shall I put this?”

  At the pause, I jump in. “A lunatic? Crazy?”

  She laughs. Nods. “Pretty much.” She eyes me over the bottle. “He thinks you had something to do with Warren Williams being run out of the police chief’s job. Care to comment?”

  “You sound like a reporter.”

  “Just a curious ex-cop who thought Williams did a good job. And I don’t believe you were responsible for his troubles, by the way. As I understand it, he used you as bait to catch the hit man who shot David. You did nothing wrong.”

  I look away from her. No. I did nothing wrong. Did I? A cop lost his life, David got shot, and a father and daughter were put in danger because I got into a fight with my partner. I was mad at David so I reacted like a spoiled teenager—ran away and got drunk. Set a chain of events in motion that . . .

  Ancient history.