The woman he’d been fantasizing about for months had never stared at him quite this way. Her eyes met his and held them, and he could swear he felt that gaze to his soul. It burned a little, it invaded, and he couldn’t help but squirm.
“The two girls came in together,” she said, her voice smooth and sensual. “As they often do. They had margaritas, two each. They were approached by two men who are not regular customers, young men I would guess to be in their midtwenties, who brought them each another margarita. Around ten in the evening, Marisa left. Alone. Alicia left an hour or so later in the company of one of the gentlemen. The other stayed awhile longer. I’m afraid I didn’t get their names, and they paid cash.”
That wasn’t much more help than Alicia’s story that the guys’ names were Jason and Mike, no last names offered or asked for, and they were simply “traveling through.” Alicia had taken Mike home with her, but where had Jason gone?
“Did you often see Marisa and her friends here so late on a work night?”
“Some times,” she responded in a smooth voice.
“I don’t suppose either of those men is here tonight.” Leo turned on his bar stool to survey the room, knowing what her answer would be. He recognized everyone here.
“No,” Abby said as Leo watched the cocktail waitress Margaret, a blonde who was almost as beautiful as her employer, serve a tray of bottled beers to an appreciative table. Every man there took a moment to study Margaret’s nicely displayed cleavage or long legs, depending on their body part of interest. She didn’t seem to be offended, but then, if you dressed that way it wouldn’t make much sense to be easily offended by open appreciation.
“You seem to have a good memory,” he said to the woman behind the bar. “Think you can provide a description for a sketch artist?”
“I can do better than that.”
He spun around to face Abby once more. “How’s that?”
She cocked her head slightly and it seemed that for a moment there was no one in the room but the two of them. Leo held his breath; he almost forgot why he was there.
“I’m a bit of an artist myself,” Abby said. “After we close up tonight I’ll draw the men as I remember them.”
“Thanks.” He leaned into the bar, wishing he could order a drink and stick around and just look at her for a while longer. She could certainly make a bad day better, if she put her mind to it. But tonight he had work to do. Marisa Blackwell’s was the first murder in Budding Corner in seventeen years, and folks were excited. They were also worried. It hadn’t been your normal robbery murder and it sure didn’t look like your everyday domestic violence. Much as he wanted a drink, he wouldn’t consider himself off duty until this case was solved. “Can I pick the sketches up in the morning?”
Abby smiled at him, but there was no warmth in her expression. The smile, like everything about her, was cool and controlled. Man, how he would love to make her lose control. How he wanted to discover the secrets beyond the cool exterior. “I’ll stick them on the front door of the bar in the morning and you can pick them up at any time.”
“I’d rather collect them from you, in case I have any more questions.”
“That’s not necessary, is it?”
He leaned over the bar. “I really don’t like the idea of the sketches out in the open where anyone could snag them. It’ll be best if I take them straight from your hand. Over lunch?”
Was that a smile? Maybe.
“If you must collect the sketches directly from me you can pick them up tomorrow night. We open at sundown, as you well know.” She gestured to the red-and-gold neon sign behind her. The Sundown Bar. It was fine to have a gimmick, but wasn’t this taking things too far? Her insistence in not opening until after sunset had made the summer days too long, and he was glad autumn had arrived and the nights were now a bit longer.
“We need those sketches as soon as possible. Is there any chance…”
Abby offered a hand over the bar, palm up. The fingers were long and pale and slender, and she wore no jewelry. No ring, no watch or bracelet. He was too old to be tempted this way, especially when he was working, but he had an almost uncontrollable urge to grab that hand and lick the palm. Just once.
“Do you have a card?” she asked, as he ignored the hand she offered. “I’ll call you if I get the drawings finished sooner and wish to meet you earlier in the day.”
“Sure.” He fished a card out of his jacket pocket and laid it in her hand. The tips of his fingers brushed her palm, which seemed oddly cool. She’d been handling ice and cold bottles, he reminded himself as he stood, nodded and reluctantly headed for the door.
WHEN THE DOOR had closed behind Leo, Abby dropped the card he’d given her in the trash can at her feet. She’d have to wait until 2:00 a.m., when the human customers would be forced to leave, and then she’d interrogate her vampire friends and patrons. Surely none of them would be so foolish as to not only feed upon but also kill one of her customers, but she’d plucked a vision from Leo’s head and she knew Marisa had been attacked at her throat. A human might’ve attacked her there, but the wound he had remembered so vividly indicated a vampire, a vicious one—and if a vamp had done the deed it was likely he or she had been here. Like called to like, and besides, after two in the morning she served blood. This was the only place for two hundred miles or more that a vamp could order a pint. She served pigs’ blood for the most part, which tasted like crap if it wasn’t warmed properly. She had become an expert at preparing a safe, easy meal. Pigs’ blood wouldn’t entirely satisfy a vamp forever, but oftentimes it was enough.
Killing the customers was against Abby’s rules, and though she was not the biggest or the physically strongest vampire in the world, or even in the country, she was the oldest and most powerful for hundreds of miles. At more than four hundred years old, she had powers those who flocked to her had not yet developed. The other vamps were drawn to her; they respected her; they obeyed her. Many newer vampires came here to learn from her, either sent by their makers or drawn by instincts they had not yet perfected and yet could not reject. She helped guide them to control, to hone what ever powers they’d been given. It was only through control and strength that a vampire could survive. The weak were lucky to last a year.
Her undead customers and students would tell her the truth of what had happened to Marisa, and then she could help Leo with those portraits.
But not before sundown tomorrow. She could very easily get the sketches done before dawn and leave them at the bar door, but if he insisted on taking them from her hand he would have to wait. She’d only told him she’d consider meeting earlier to get him off her back.
The hours after Leo left passed quickly, and Abby busied herself cleaning up behind the bar. She might’ve spent some of that time in her office, taking care of the tedious pa per work that went along with owning a business. But she remained behind the bar, keeping an eye on her customers, wondering if one of them was a murderer. As the hour grew late the human patrons left, one or two at a time. The vampires watched those remaining humans very closely, willing them to leave, waiting for the moment when they could have the bar to them selves. Those few lagging customers began to instinctively realize that they were not wanted. They squirmed. Now and then they glanced with trepidation to the silent and too-still group that remained. Remy’s repertoire changed from country tunes to pure jazz, his fingers flying over the keys with inhuman speed. By one-thirty there wasn’t a human left in the place.
Margaret locked the main entrance after the last mortal patron departed, and then she turned to blatantly admire the piano player. The sole barmaid in this establishment was a young vamp who listened intently to Abby’s lessons. She did her job well, but had an annoyingly obvious crush on Remy, a crush she didn’t even attempt to hide. The piano man continued to play, but the tune he switched to after the last of the humans had gone was softer. Gentler. The notes drifted through Abby’s blood, and if she was not so angry she’d take great ple
asure in the tune.
The vampires who remained looked at Abby expectantly, waiting for her to fetch the blood and warm it properly. This was what they’d been waiting for, after all. A safe feeding. Nourishment. The blood they craved.
Instead of going to the back room for the pigs’ blood, she walked around the bar and con fronted them all. She lifted a single hand and Remy instantly stopped playing. The sound of the last note hung in the air for a moment, reverberating.
“One of my clientele has been killed,” Abby said, her voice even and cold. She looked from one face to the next, searching for a clue. She couldn’t see visions from the minds of those like her, only from humans, so the thoughts of her vampire customers were black to her. She searched for signs that one or more of them had recently fed well on human blood, but they all looked hungry. They were all anxious for the pigs’ blood, twitching with need, in some cases. If one among them had drained a woman last night that would not be the case. Unless he or she was a very good actor.
It was Charles who looked expectantly from face to face. “We’re all here, so you must be talking about a human. What’s the big deal? They don’t exactly have a long shelf life.”
Charles could see snippets of the near future, when he put forth the effort. Usually he misused his gift to choose the mortal women who could give him what he wanted—easy sex and nourishment. He hadn’t killed, though, at least not to her knowledge. Charles, with his long, fair hair and pretty face, had been handsome as a human and was even more so as an immortal. The life agreed with him; he embraced it.
And he was annoying her. “Short shelf life or not, it is against the rules to kill my customers.”
He lifted his hands in easy surrender. “Just saying, boss.”
“It couldn’t have been one of us,” Margaret argued. “I mean, why? We have food aplenty, thanks to you.”
Remy nodded his head in agreement. “No one here would dare, Abigail.” With his Cajun accent he made the statement sound easy, nonchalant. But there was a fire behind his eyes. Did he believe what he said? His eyes met hers, but she couldn’t decipher any alternate meaning there.
But they had a point. It was a relief to be able to believe that whatever had happened to Marisa had not originated here, in her place. As Charles had pointed out, all of her regulars were present tonight, each and every one of them, and they were anxious to be fed. Remy, Margaret, Charles, Gina, Dalton—a dozen more. So, had a rogue vampire killed Marisa or had a human done the deed?
Humans could be as deadly and merciless as any monster.
She knew that all too well.
CHAPTER TWO
AFTER THE VAMPIRES had been fed they peeled away from the place, one by one, or two by two. Abby cleaned, allowing Margaret to help for a little while before she sent the blonde on her way. When the bar was in good shape, ready for the next day’s business, Abby left by the rear door. A very short walk from that back door sat a small, eight-unit apartment building that wasn’t much to look at. It was boxy and faded, as plain as any structure could be. She owned it. For now, that sad-looking beige building was home. Upstairs she’d knocked out a couple of walls and had converted the entire second floor into a very nice place. The building might not look like much on the outside, but beyond those walls the rooms were not at all ordinary. Margaret and Remy each leased an apartment down stairs, and the other two units were usually rented out to a vamp passing through. A couple of times she’d leased to humans, but they never stayed very long. They didn’t know what was wrong with their new home, but their instincts warned them to get out. And they did.
She hadn’t taken three steps away from the back door when an unexpected voice startled her.
“I don’t suppose you have those sketches yet.”
Abby spun around. Leo Stryker stood in shadow, but she should’ve sensed him there the moment she’d opened the door. The news of Marisa’s murder had her rattled. She never got rattled these days. The fact that a human could surprise and even unnerve her was annoying.
“No, I don’t.” She gathered her composure. “I believe I told you I’d have them for you tomorrow.”
The detective stepped out of the shadows. “You did. I just thought I’d take a chance. It never hurts to ask.”
“Have you been waiting all this time?” she asked, realizing as she voiced her question that if he’d been here for hours, so close, she would’ve known it. She would’ve felt his presence.
Leo shrugged his shoulders. “After I left here I went to the office for a while. I did a bit of research online, read the medical examiner’s report for the umpteenth time, and studied crime scene photographs I’ll never be able to get out of my head. I was on my way home, passing by the Sundown Bar, and something just…pulled me in.”
Marisa’s murder was indeed important to Leo, but when he’d turned into Abby’s parking lot he had not had murder on his mind. Murder was his business; he’d come here for the purpose of for get ting that nasty business for a while.
They were alone in the dark, without Remy’s music, without the rumbling conversation and laughter of a room full of people—and vampires. It was easy to reach into Leo’s mind and see what he really wanted, what he always wanted. Her.
“Why me?” she asked.
“Those sketches…”
“You’re not here to ask me about the sketches,” she interrupted. “You’re not here to investigate Marisa’s murder at all.”
In the darkness she could see Leo much more clearly than he could see her. His eyes were lively. His face was friendly and determined at the same time, if that were possible. Had she unknowingly done something to draw him to her? She could and had mesmerized human males in order to get what she wanted and needed from them, but she had not used her influence on this man. If only she could use her sway to make him disappear, to repulse him…and then the truth hit her. She could do just that, could’ve done it at any time over the past three months, and yet she hadn’t. She didn’t now.
“I want to know why you won’t go out with me,” he said. “There’s not another man, I know that.”
“How could you possibly know there’s no other man in my life?”
“You live alone, and there’s never any guy hanging possessively around you at the bar. I thought for a while maybe you and Remy had a thing going, but I’ve seen you two together and you don’t act like a couple. You’re good friends, I suspect, but there’s not a hint of jealousy from either one of you and you rarely touch. Besides,” he confessed, smiling gently, “I asked Margaret.”
The last thing she needed was a cop taking an interest in her. If he started asking questions, if he got too curious, she’d have to move from this place long before she was prepared to. She liked it here in Budding Corner; she liked her home and her business, and while there was always another home and another bar down the road, she liked this one and wanted it to last. How was she going to get rid of Leo? The truth was disturbing; she didn’t want to hurt him. She would not hurt him.
But if he learned what she was…
“Lunch,” he said. “That’s easy enough and really can’t be considered romantic.”
“No.”
“A picnic by the lake,” he suggested, un daunted. “More romantic, I suppose, but totally innocent.”
Abby took a step toward Leo, drawn by his scent and his throat and his heart beat and the arousing images in his mind. She was a vampire, but she was also a woman, and occasion ally she was beset with a woman’s needs and desires. It was a weakness to crave more than blood from a man, and yet she did crave. Humans were food, they were occasion ally suitable for entertainment, they were pets, at best. What she was experiencing at this moment went against everything she taught, everything she believed. To become too closely involved with humans meant the very real possibility of exposure. Knowing that didn’t make her want Leo any less.
“Innocent?” she said. “I do not think you want innocent from me.”
His heart rate i
n creased. She heard and felt it. He blushed, a little, the blood rushing into his face. And lower.
“Tell me what you really want,” she whispered as she stopped directly before him. Her hand rose and rested lightly on his chest. Beneath the jacket and shirt and tie she felt his lovely heart beat. She leaned into him, rested her cheek on his shoulder, moved her lips toward the throb in his throat, testing her own control. “You don’t want lunch.” A need she had not experienced in a long time sprang to life in an unexpectedly strong way. There was no bar between her and Leo now, no audience of humans and vamps watching. Her own body never throbbed, not in the way it once had, but so close, so very close, she felt a growing and urgent need to take what she should not from this man who was so eager to give it. “You don’t want to take me on a picnic. You don’t want lunch. This is what you want, isn’t it?”
Abby kissed Leo’s throat gently. She could almost taste the blood that raced beneath his skin, and she craved it. She had not yearned so desperately for the warmth of human blood on her tongue in a very long time; she took a taste when she could and she enjoyed it, but she did not yearn. And now she was overcome with excitement and craving and desire. She was being swept away; she was losing control. This was like being new and desperately hungry, but she did have control and she exercised it now.
Leo wrapped his arms around her and moved her—danced her—into the deeper shadows at the back of the bar. He took her head in his hands and kissed her, and she let him. It had been a long time since Abby had been kissed, and she liked it. She’d missed this sort of touch, the loss of control, the soaring passion. The kiss was more powerful than she remembered any kiss being, more moving and arousing as their lips moved in a magnificent rhythm.
She tasted Leo’s tongue as it speared into her mouth. He was so warm he felt hot to her, and she knew that to him she would feel cool. Did he like her cool skin or did it repulse him? Did he think it odd or was he already beyond rational thought? He did not kiss like a man who was repulsed. Whatever restraint he’d been exercising was gone, and the images in his mind came fast and furious. They were chaotic and powerful and primitive, and she knew without question what he wanted.
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