Outlaw Alpha

by Dakota Cassidy

  Spencer refused to be ruffled, so she stared back. “Is this the good cop, bad cop thing? Where you make me confess to something just by virtue of your best scary staring technique?”

  His immobile features cracked a bit, just enough to let her see he was clearly amused. “Yeah. Is it working?”

  Wow, he was solid. If she was human and she could suddenly read minds, the mind of a vampire, no less, she’d curl up in a corner and rock herself. You had to admire his core strength.

  “So,” he probed. “Is it working? Or should I tighten up the part where I demand you damn well tell me what you know?”

  Tucking her bathrobe under her thigh, she smiled at him. “Um, no. Maybe you should find a new profession.”

  “Like what? Embalming?”

  That’s it, pick on the embalmer. It wasn’t a glamorous job, but someone had to do it.

  “I’m not picking on you. You were good with Adelaide tonight.”

  Spencer softened a bit at the mention of Adelaide’s name. “Is she okay? She was so torn up.”

  Larkin nodded his dark head, his rock-hard stare easing. “She’s fine now. I left her with a neighbor who offered to stay with her tonight. Alan was her only child, so she’s rightfully bereft.”

  And Larkin’s friend. Damn death for leaving behind those who felt they should have gone first. “I’m glad. I feel better knowing she’s with someone.”

  “I know you do.”

  Of course he did. Spencer sat up stiffly. It was time for the good detective to take his leave. Maybe chase a nice glazed donut off into the sunset or something.

  “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on, and I like jelly.” Larkin went to her refrigerator, probably looking for milk for his coffee.

  “No milk?”

  “I like it black. Milk is for sissies.”

  “What about sugar?”

  “Again, another pansy condiment.”

  Larkin poured two mugs of coffee and brought them to the table, setting one in front of her. He pulled out the chair opposite hers and sat down, dwarfing her tiny Formica table. “I can stay here until daylight, you know. Won’t you fry to a crisp by then?”

  Silly, silly detective. A myth that some good SPF and sunglasses cured quite nicely.

  “How high of an SPF do you need for a vampire as fair as you?”

  Spencer rolled her eyes. Good hell. Think empty, Spencer. Vapid and airy. She took a calm sip of her tasteless coffee and ignored his question.

  Larkin leaned forward so his face was mere inches from hers. His lips began to move, but Spencer couldn’t quite make out what they were saying for the sensuous movement of them.

  He sounded like the adults in a Charlie Brown cartoon. Kind of muffled and distorted. She stirred in her chair as something pounded in her ears. It sure as hell couldn’t be her heart, because she didn’t have one. Waves of crashing thunder like the rush of the tide drowned out everything. She wondered if he could hear that, too.

  “Hear what?” he asked, taking a gulp of his coffee, the strong muscles in his bronzed neck working.

  Oy. “You know what, Detective? Here’s something to chew on. Shouldn’t you be really freaked out that you’ve all of a sudden developed bionic mind reading abilities? Is this the calm before your admission to the loony bin storm?”

  Larkin grinned out of nowhere. His teeth were white and set perfectly behind that mouth that actually had dimples bracketing it. Deep crevices she wanted to run her tongue over.

  Eek. Another thought, unbidden and not meant for sharing with smug detectives, flew through her brain. Spencer bit the tongue that wished to betray her. Hard.

  Larkin folded his hands on the table in front of him. “You know what, Spencer Polanski? I should be pretty freaked out, but I’m not. Maybe it’s the cop in me, but I want to investigate the hell out of this phenomenon. I could hear everything you were thinking, from the moment you walked across the room to go fix the flowers that were threatening to fall over, right up until now and it didn’t trouble me one iota. Just made me want to solve the damn puzzle. Now, you’re more like one of those Rubik’s Cubes. Remember those?”

  If he only knew how far back her memory spanned.

  “You know those square things with the colors all over them and you had to match all the colors up? That’s what this is like. I know there’s an answer to this. I just don’t know how to find it. That’s where you come in, Spencer Polanski. You’re going to help me solve the puzzle,” he said definitively, brooking no question about it in her mind.

  Spencer crossed her arms over her chest and lifted her chin. “By matching up all of my colors?”

  “You’re a funny lady, Spencer,” he said, as though his word was the deciding factor.

  The beginnings of sunrise caught her by surprise as she glimpsed a ray of orange sun when it hit the top of her table. She needed to sleep—feed and then sleep some more so she could prepare to do battle with the detective.

  Spencer had a funny feeling he wasn’t going to let this go. She pushed her chair back and stood, tightening the silky tie of her robe around her waist. “Well, Detective, this has been a real gas. Loads of fun, but I’m a working girl and I have to get back up in a few hours. Oh, and look,” she pointed toward the window, “the sun is coming up. Are you going to stay and watch me turn into chicken-fried vampire or leave me to my dignity so that I can run a wooden stake through my chest and end it all?”

  Larkin laughed out loud, low and with a resonant rumble that skittered along her spine in a not so unpleasant way. Spencer’s nipples seemed to like that—they waved hello from the top of her bathrobe. She crossed her arms over her breasts self-consciously.

  “I’ll let you get some sleep, but we’re not through. But before I go, tell me something, Spencer?” he asked as he returned to the probing stare phase of their fledgling relationship.

  She cocked an eyebrow and feigned a yawn.

  “Is there a radius on this mind reading thing? I mean, can I go like ten miles down the road and still hear your thoughts?”

  Now Spencer laughed because she was tired and this was utterly absurd, and she needed him to leave before she fell over in vampire sleep right at his feet. “I think that’s a skill you hone over time, grasshopper.”

  Larkin pushed back his chair, too, and left her standing in the kitchen, but not before he made one last parting shot. “I’m gonna go do that. Hone my mind reading skills. You get some sleep. I’ll be back, Spencer Polanski. Don’t get too comfortable without me.”

  Somehow Spencer didn’t think she would. But then, she wasn’t supposed to think anything, now was she?

  * * * *

  Spencer brushed a strand of her hair from her face and leaned back in her office chair, staring off into space. Her mind was on anything but preparation to embalm her next patient.

  She couldn’t stop thinking about Alan.

  Her cousin Cathy had dropped by earlier to fill her in on the latest development where he was concerned. Apparently, Alan Perkins didn’t kill himself. At least that’s what his mother told the police and they seemed to think enough evidence pointed to the notion that he, in fact, might not have.

  Spencer had looked back over his file again—examined the information she had with an eagle eye. She’d covered the scars on his wrists herself. Nothing out of the ordinary popped out at her then and nothing was popping out at her now. Of course she was no detective.

  But Larkin McBride was.

  Asshole, asshole, asshole.

  Spencer let her mind run free with expletives starting with the letter “A” and was busy working her way down to “C” when she realized Larkin might be able to hear her from wherever he was. She cringed, pressing the palms of her hands into the cool of her desk to ease the hot flush Larkin’s memory evoked.

  The radius thing he’d mentioned bothered her. The whole damn thing bothered her—frightened her to her core. It took a strong mind to truly believe you weren’t losing it w
hen you heard voices in your head. It took a sound mind—one steeped in confidence and a buttload of arrogance—to blame someone else for your nutbaggery. Trying to convince Larkin he was batshit had done nothing but encourage him to prove her wrong.

  Damn you, Larkine McBride.

  Then, because she’d wished him ill in her mind, her body tensed in preparation for the phone to ring or for Larkin to appear at her office door unexpectedly, bringing with him his intense gaze and gorgeous body.

  Spencer sagged back against her office chair in relief when silence prevailed.

  What the hell was she going to do? How could she protect her family if he kept poking around in her head?

  He was a detective, for shit’s sake. He’d dig and dig until he found out she really was a vampire and then, she and her family were as good as baked in the midday sun. Should she tell her parents? If she did that they’d pack up and leave rather than risk harm.

  And did he have to be so sexy while he was being such a prying pain in the ass? Larkin McBride was downright hot as pains in the ass went and that left her more than a little uncomfortable. It was like admiring the enemy. She wasn’t sure what scared her more. Her hormone patrol on full alert for the detective or her fear that she might be caught.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  A knock on her office door jarred her out of her misery. “Come in,” she said, clearing her throat and shuffling the files on her desk.

  “Hey, Spence.” Her cousin Andrew’s face was grim as he flopped down on the chair in front of her desk. “Did you hear? The cops are taking Alan Perkins’ body in for further investigation into his death.”

  And they’d ruin a perfectly good stitch job while they were at it. “How is it that the coroner’s office didn’t think to do that before he was released and I gussied him up?”

  Andrew laughed derisively, his distaste for small-town was no secret amongst them. “Because this is Podunk-ville and it’s not like someone is murdered here every day. The last murder was in seventy-two. Some woman clocked her husband over the head because she caught him screwing the school nurse. Murder wasn’t even on her mind, apparently. She just threw the nearest thing she could get her hands on, which happened to be some old football trophy.”

  Spencer shook her head, and frowned her disapproval. “What can they possibly hope to find if the body is flushed with embalming fluid? They had Alan for three goddamn weeks and they didn’t once think to look for anything suspicious? Who runs the coroner’s office anyway?”

  Andrew shrugged his thick shoulders and pulled at the strings on his black hoodie. “I guess it wasn’t that important to them until that guy Larkin somebody suggested it should be.”

  Ahh, the ever-vigilant detective, of course. Perfect. “Mrs. Perkins told him last night she didn’t believe he’d killed himself, but I saw his wrists, Andrew. Signs of suicide seemed pretty evident to me.”

  “What are you, CSI?” Andrew grinned as he teased her. He thought she cared too much about the people who came to her table—asked too many questions—fretted more than was necessary.

  Spencer crumpled up a wad of paper and threw it at him and his mocking reference to one of her favorite forensic shows. “Smart ass. Look, I’m just saying it looked pretty clear to me. The guy whacked himself and maybe it’s just too hard for Mrs. Perkins to fathom. No one wants to believe their child took their own life.”

  Andrew shrugged again and ran his hands over his thighs. “Well, the cops think he didn’t now and so does that Larkin guy you were hanging around with last night. So they’re going to take possession of his body again.”

  A spiky thread of anger scurried along her spine, much of it directed at Larkin McBride. “And hack him all up all over because they’re too Small-ville to get it right the first time.” It wasn’t only a disservice to her work as an embalmer, but to Alan who couldn’t rest in peace if his body kept playing rounds of the game Operation. “When are they coming to pick him up?”

  “Three o’clock.”

  Spencer glanced at the clock on her cell phone. Good. That gave her an hour or so to poke around. “Well, I’ve got another body on the table to deal with and if I don’t get moving he won’t be ready in time for the wake tomorrow.”

  Andrew’s eyes searched hers from across her desk. “You look tired, Spencer.”

  Spencer rolled her head on her neck. “Yeah, I’m tired. Last night was grueling and it bothers me that Mrs. Perkins’ suffering is only just beginning because of those freaks at the coroner’s office.”

  “Did you feed?”

  Spencer waved Andrew off as she got up and began gathering her newest patient’s stats from her desk. “Yes, I fed, cousin. I may be younger than you, but I’m almost five hundred years old and plenty able to feed myself. So go dig a grave and leave me alone. I have a date with a man who awaits me on my table.”

  “Far be it for me to make you late for that. It’s probably the only date you’ve had in over a century.” Andrew chuckled maniacally at his own joke, his taunt echoing in her ears as she popped open the door of her office.

  Spencer rolled her eyes at her cousin’s wisecrack because it wasn’t entirely a lie.

  Yes. The only dates she’d had in the last century were with dead men. Cold, glassy-eyed, stiff, dead men.

  But they beat the alternative. Like waiting around for this life mate her mother and the women of her clan talked about. Who, by the way, had been playing a pretty serious game of hide and seek with her.

  She didn’t need a damn date. She had friends, and her family, and a job to pay the bills.

  What she did need was to know what happened to Alan Perkins, and maybe if she snooped around with her limited forensic knowledge, she could figure it out.

  Then maybe Detective Larkin McBride would take his nosy ass elsewhere.

  Because if he didn’t, all hell was likely to break loose.

  Chapter 3

  Spencer stood at Alan Perkins’ casket and raised his arm, now stiff and unyielding and shook her head. He did so kill himself. He’d bled out. The evidence was right there. A thin jagged line that she’d had a helluva time covering with makeup.

  Spencer placed Alan’s arm back over his abdomen carefully and patted it.

  Jack-ass coroners.

  She leaned over his casket with sad eyes, assessing Alan’s still form. “Damn, Alan. I’m sorry. If I had any say in the matter, I wouldn’t let them take you back. But according to those bumbling coroners, you’re not quite ready for your eternal slumber party just yet.”

  Spencer slipped her hand under his head and straightened the satin pillow it rested on. Most people would be disgusted by such a hands-on approach, but Spencer didn’t feel that way at all.

  This was her contribution to death with dignity. As she pulled her hand out from beneath him her fingers grazed his neck and she felt a slight bump on his skin she hadn’t noticed when she was preparing his body.

  She frowned. Huh.

  Leaning in closer, Spencer moved his thick hair away from his neck and let out a short yelp of surprise.

  Alan Perkins had what clearly looked like two incisor bites on his neck that she’d covered with makeup without even realizing. She looked again to be sure she wasn’t seeing things, panic sweeping over her.

  Those were definitely incisor marks. She’d know them anywhere.

  Cathy’s husband, Joel, had them after she’d turned him. Alan’s weren’t as grossly distorted as Joel’s had been for weeks after her cousin bit her life mate. But that was because Joel’s were given during a bout of passion and done in love—rather like a vampire hickey.

  But Alan’s were almost unnoticeable to someone who knew nothing about a vamp bite, but to someone like Spencer this held meaning.

  Oh, sweet fancy Moses, this could only mean…

  No. It couldn’t be.

  It couldn’t be a vampire bite. Spencer’s breed of vamp didn’t kill anyone—ever. Her clan didn’t believe in it. They were peace-loving
vamps. Power to the people and all that hippy-schmippy nonsense her father was so fond of spouting because the seventies was his favorite era.

  Yet, there weren’t any other breeds of vampires in Cedar Glen but Polanskis, and there definitely weren’t any in Easton. Still, she’d know a vamp bite anywhere.

  But then, if this truly was a vampire bite, how could Alan be dead?

  If he was bitten by a vamp wouldn’t Alan be undead like the rest of them?

  Not if he was killed first, then sucked dry…but he hadn’t damn well been dry. She’d emptied his body of blood herself and though there wasn’t much of it, he had bled out.

  Maybe it was some weird hoax? Or some crazy sexual vampire fetish Alan was into?

  Oh, Jesus. She had to tell someone. Then she shook her head. No, no she couldn’t do that.

  She could just imagine the nice coroner’s face if she called him up. “Hey, it’s Spencer Polanski here, down at Polanski Brothers. You know, the place where our motto is you fuck up the autopsy and we watch as you ruin a perfectly good embalming? Look here. I got a guy who was bitten by a vampire. Yep, that’s what I said, a vampire. The real McCoy. Are you freaked out yet? Anyway, you better get some garlic and holy water at the ready. Just in case this guy is the first in a long line of victims for a Dracula wannabe.”

  Oh, God what was she going to do? No one in her clan bit people.

  Not one.

  Would the coroner’s office even think the bite was something meaningful? Would they see it the second time around if they’d missed it the first? Weren’t they looking for blunt trauma or some such official reason to investigate further? Because Alan’s internal organs were gone.

  Spencer clung to the edge of the casket and let the wave of panic take hold, followed by a little mental meditation to help them subside.

  “Spencer?” Her father’s voice made her jump. “Are you okay, honey?”

  Yeah. Good, great even. See this here dead guy? He’s been bitten by a vampire. Have you been snackin’, Dad? Oh, God. Spencer bit her lip and stood up to turn and face her father. “I’m fine, Dad, just tired. Last night was a long one, huh?”