“That was only twenty-four.”
“Huh?”
“You did it in twenty-four words. So why did you become a cop? Is it like on Hill Street Blues where everyone who’s Irish becomes a cop just like his dad?”
“Something like that. Not all of us are cops. My brother sells insurance.”
Giggling, she rose from his lap and pulled him along with her. “Do you like what you do? I mean you’re a detective and young at that. It must have been a lot of hard work.”
He tried to remain focused as her ass wiggled in front of him, taking him to her bathroom. “It was, and yeah I liked—er, like it.”
“So is it like on TV? Have you shot anyone?”
Her wide-eyed stare of curiosity made his heart crash. Yeah, he’d shot someone. “Yep.”
Spencer’s face softened. “Was it awful? I’m sorry, forget that question. It was insensitive of me. So tell me why you’re here in Easton for this long? I mean, how long will they let you look into a friend’s death before they make you come back?”
Bingo—the question he dreaded, but knew he had to answer truthfully. “They won’t let me come back,” he said, knowing it sounded defensive—hating that it did.
She wrinkled her cute nose. “What?”
Larkin frowned. It was now or never. “I said they won’t let me. I’m suspended.”
Chapter 11
“Say again?”
“I said they won’t let me come back because I’m suspended.”
“Oh. When did you plan to share that with me? Before or after you were done playing big man in little city?”
Larkin sighed and ran his hand over his stubbly chin. It rasped with an echo in the bathroom. “Well, I wasn’t going to tell you if I could avoid it. But you got pushy.”
Spencer waved a finger under his nose. “Look who’s talking. Isn’t that rather like the pot calling the kettle black?”
He grinned, that damn grin that was supposed to make everything all right without explanation. “Don’t flash those oral hygienist’s wet dream at me, buddy. You’ve been using your authority as a cop all over Easton and you don’t actually possess that authority right now. So tell me why you were suspended and tell me now or you’re in the shit.”
“I was working a case. It involved a kid who ran drugs for his father and never even knew it. He carried it in his backpack every fucking day to school and the janitor snuck into his locker and lifted the shit to sell. Somebody—we still don’t know who, got wind of how the stuff was transported and followed the kid to school. They tried to steal the backpack and when the kid fought like a champ, they whacked him. An eight-year-old kid dead because his father’s a Goddamned junkie puke.”
Spencer heard the quiet anger in Larkin’s voice. She felt the almost tangible simmer of his fury as he tightened his jaw. Resting her cheek on his solid chest, she asked, “What happened to the father?”
Larkin’s arms remained still at his sides and the coil of muscle beneath her cheek tensed. “I killed the bastard.”
Spencer closed her eyes and swallowed, wrapping her arms around his waist. “It’s inadequate at best, but I’m sorry,” she said on a nearly uncontained sob.
“They want me to see a counselor. I don’t want to. I don’t see why I need to. The fuck who needed counseling is dead. He should have never run from me. He should have never pulled that damn gun, but I can’t say as I’m sorry the puke is dead and that’s what a counselor will want me to say—that I’m sorry, but I swear to Christ, Spencer, I’m not.”
His voice was ragged, torn at what she was sure was Spencer took his arms and wrapped them around her waist, holding him close to her as she listened to the steady rhythm of his heart beneath her ear.
They stood that way for a long time, until the tension in Larkin’s big frame relaxed and she took his hand to lead him to bed.
* * * *
Spencer awakened the next afternoon with a heavy feeling in her stomach. Larkin’s admission last night left the nurturing half of her wanting to take away his pain, but the practical side of her thought maybe counseling wasn’t a bad idea. She reached a hand over to the other side of the bed to find it cold beneath her palm, and a sting of tears pricked her eyelids.
She’d pissed Larkin off and he’d left before she had the chance to tell him she was sorry she’d pushed too far.
Damn.
Rolling over, she hugged the pillow to her chest and tried to block out the prior day’s events, but her tangled thoughts kept right on coming, even as her phone rang and she reached over to grab it. “Spencer? It’s Dad. Could you come right in?”
Spencer knew what that meant. It meant that another body needed embalming and she was almost grateful because it meant she had something better to do than moon over the detective.
Showered and dressed, she drove to the parlor in a haze of muddled thoughts, mingled with tinges of regret. As she threw open the back door her dad greeted her with a warm smile. “Hi, sugar. You okay? You look tired.”
Well, isn’t that what happens when you’re boinking all night long, then piss off the guy you boinked by making him tell you his deepest, darkest secret. I’m wonderful. Fab—u—lous.
Spencer gave her father a swift kiss on the cheek and smiled wanly. “I’m okay, Daddy. Just have a lot on my mind.”
Her father’s eyebrows knitted together. “It doesn’t have to do with that Joffrey, does it? I can’t seem to locate the family he claims to have anywhere. If he comes around again, I’ll send him packing. Damn clan courtesy.”
“Thanks, Dad. I hate to say it, but he kind of grossed me out and there was no way in eternity I was going to have him for a life mate.”
Edgar chuckled. “That’s my girl. We have a body waiting for you. I left the chart on your desk. If you’re sure you’re okay…”
“I’m good, Dad. Don’t worry,” she said over her shoulder. Spencer wondered if Ethan had talked to her parents yet as she swung open her office door and located the chart on her desk, taking it with her to the embalming room.
Spencer frowned as she read the chart. Eddie Mason, thirty-three. Found dead in his house at the bottom of his basement stairs. Two broken legs and a fractured pelvis. Cause of death, brain trauma. Spencer covered her mouth with her hand to keep from yelping. He’d landed on a pitchfork, piercing his skull and puncturing his brain.
My God. What a horrible thing to have happened. His picture was in the file. He’d been a handsome man and now that she had something to occupy her mind, Spencer intended that he would be again. She strode to her locker and grabbed her things to begin embalming Eddie.
He lay covered on her table from head to toe and as she pulled back the white sheet, Spencer grimaced. Sometimes this job sucked. Pulling on her gloves, she prepared the embalming fluid and readied herself to remove his blood and gases, turning to assess the damage to Eddie’s head.
And then an instinctual chill ran along her spine, spreading fear throughout her body. Spencer didn’t want to look, but she had to because something told her, before she saw the evidence, that Eddie would have the same marks on his neck that Alan and Brian had.
Spencer held her breath and ignored the injury to Eddie’s head as she lifted his neck and began to inspect it.
Motherfucker…
Spencer gripped the cold metal table and swayed against it. She took deep breaths, panting as the dizzy, heady fear subsided.
Of course, Eddie had vampire bites, too. Small and barely noticeable to someone who wasn’t looking and had a perfectly logical explanation to rely on for Eddie’s death.
Spencer trembled with a combination of rage and fear.
Who the fuck are you and what the fuck do you want? she screamed mentally at whomever, whatever was doing this.
And where was the good detective when she really needed him? It occurred to Spencer that she didn’t even have a phone number for him.
Okay, well if that was the case then she’d just do the Tarzan yell in her
head. That oughta get his attention. Spencer pushed her way out of the embalming room and sat on the bench by her locker so she could concentrate.
Breaker one-nine. Breaker one-nine. This is Spencer to Larkin. Can ya hear me, good buddy? Um, hey, Sherlock! It’s Spencer. I need you. Like now. Ya know, pronto. I have something we need to discuss, so stop wallowing in self-pity and come help me or I’ll have to arm wrestle you just to show you who the man is in this relationship.
Spencer anticipated hearing his car come screeching around the corner at any second. She waited with only the sound of her labored breathing.
Nothing.
Shit. She pressed her fingers to her temple. Spencer had no clue how to do this. Maybe it didn’t work if she wanted it to? How could that be? He was in her head all the damn time. How convenient that he chose now to disappear.
Yoo hoo, James Bond! Where the hell are you? On any given night in the past two weeks I couldn’t have yanked you out of my ass if I had hemorrhoid cream. I said I need you. Where are you? Larkin, you son of a bitch, get to the parlor now! Pick up the phone and call me or I swear to God I’ll let Joffrey take me out and do me like a wild boar in heat.
She shuddered, then gagged. Oh, ick, ick, ick.
There, if that didn’t work, nothing would.
Stupid head.
* * * *
Larkin hunched down in his booth at the Hole and sucked on his soda. Joffrey was a busy guy. He was over in a corner with a tall, blond guy, smiling his perfect fucking smile and sticking his pinky out as he drank from a wine glass.
Well, Spencer wasn’t far off the mark. He was an ass.
Spencer.
Larkin’s stomach did a nosedive as he thought about the woman who made his cock wag like an overexcited puppy and his thoughts muck up like a stopped drain.
She was a vampire.
A vampire. That alone should make a guy go long, but Larkin wasn’t able to do that. As he tried to tonight, while he staked out Joffrey, he couldn’t stop thinking about her.
“Hey, buy a girl a drink?” A perfectly acceptable, pretty, human brunette slid into his booth and flashed him a seductive smile. She slid close to him, pressing her thigh to his.
And nothing. Nada. Not a solitary twitch of interest down south.
It was the single most screwed up thing he’d experienced in a long time. Larkin McBride didn’t pass up the op for a horizontal hop between two consenting adults, especially if they looked like this chick did. But he couldn’t see anything except for Spencer. Her dark eyes, heated with desire when she came. Her ass, full and soft in his hands as she rode him. Her strawberry, ripe lips when she was tearing him a new one.
Well, hell.
Lar—ki—!
He cocked his head and his ears burned. The brunette beside him made a face, but he ignored it.
H—e—
Larkin tugged his earlobe and tried to block out the monotonous beat of the club’s music as he attempted to focus on syllables and letters swirling around in his head. As the brunette tried to catch his attention, he rudely waved her off and turned his back on her.
—lock!
Sherlock…Larkin chuckled to himself as he hurried out of the booth and stayed in the shadows of the crowd so freak-boy Joffrey wouldn’t see him. He had to go.
His vampire was calling…
* * * *
“It’s about flippin’ time you got here!” Spencer yelled at him from the steps of the funeral parlor. “I’ve been waiting forever for you. Do you realize I don’t even know where you’re staying?”
“At the motel in Easton.”
Spencer threw her hands up in the air. “Well, whoopee for you. You forget, Detective, I can’t read your mind. Didn’t you hear me calling you? What happened, Kreskin? Did you lose your touch?”
Larkin smirked. “I was otherwise detained,” he said as he reached the step below her, where she stood hands firmly planted on her hips. “Now kiss me hello.”
Spencer rolled her eyes at him. “Yeah? Well, that’s good to know and I don’t care what you were doing.” Not even a little. “And no, I’m not giving you anything. You didn’t even say goodbye to me this afternoon. Now come with me, Detective. I have another ‘problem’ and I don’t have time to waste sparring with you.”
She turned and flew up the stairs as Larkin followed close behind her. “I had to go get something to eat. You don’t have a damn thing in your fridge and I was hungry,” he defended.
“That was nine hours ago, Larkin.” Spencer shook her head. “Forget it, whatever. Look we have a problem and it’s in my embalming room.”
Larkin grabbed her arm to slow her down. “Another vamp bite?”
Spencer’s face held concern and fear and she knew it, but she didn’t care anymore. Larkin had to figure this out or it looked like people were just going to keep ending up dead and that wasn’t something she wanted to think about or be a party to. “Yeah. Another vamp bite.”
“Shit.”
“Exactly my thought. Of course you wouldn’t know that, now would you, Kreskin? All out of my mind-meld radius doing whatever it is that hunky, brooding cops do. C’mon, I’ll show you. Cover your nose.” Spencer led him into the embalming room and showed him Eddie Mason.
Larkin reached for the clipboard and asked, “Can I?”
Spencer nodded and waited as he read over Eddie’s chart. His eyebrows shot up, she’d guess it was because he saw how Eddie had died. “We have to start thinking connections here, Spencer,” he said as he pushed his way out of the doors and into the locker room. “All men in their early thirties, single, one suicide and two apparent accidents. Brian Reynolds wasn’t nearly as solid financially as Alan was. I wonder about Eddie. I thought maybe money was the motive, but not with Brian’s stats.”
Spencer frowned at him and asked, “How did you find out about Brian’s stats?”
“There aren’t too many Brian Reynolds in Easton. It was easy. He didn’t seem to have any romantic involvement either.”
A glimmer of an idea hit Spencer between the eyes. Maybe it was all the talk with Ethan over his homosexuality as of late, but for sure Alan was gay. “I’d bet Brian was gay and I’d bet Eddie was too…and I’d bet they hid it from everyone.”
Larkin kissed her squarely on her lips and gave a yell, “I’d bet your cute ass you’re right.” He smiled, then frowned. “So somebody’s whacking gay guys. Because? Homophobes on one of those crazy missions in the name of religion? And why the vamp bites? Do vampires have an aversion to gay men?”
Spencer’s head shook again. “Not that I know of. I mean, I’m beginning to think I’ve been a really sheltered vampire all these years, because I never would have thought Ethan would be afraid to tell me he was gay, but he was. Different clans do things differently. It’s like being black or white in the human world. African Americans celebrate Kwanzaa. Christians celebrate Christmas. Some vampires drink the blood of other vamps. The Polanskis don’t, partly because there are ways around it and it made us less likely to have anyone take issue with us. My father believes that someday society will come to accept us and he’s doing his part to make that happen. We don’t abuse our abilities, but we do drink from our mates. Each clan of vampires has their own rules, so maybe some do have an aversion to homosexuality, but I can’t see it. I’ve heard of many who are bisexual. I think Ethan’s fear stemmed from Alan’s paranoia.”
Larkin frowned. “Okay, so we more than likely have someone who has something against gay me. Tell me about the blood thing. How does a vampire kill a human with a bite? For that matter how does a human become a vampire if not from a bite? Because wouldn’t Eddie, Alan and Brian be vampires now too? From the bites?”
Spencer pinched the bridge of her nose. “First things first. A vampire can suck a human dry—draining is what we call it—it leaves the human a shell and obviously blood is an essential part of any human body. When a vampire turns a human we do bite our intended, but at a crucial moment during the tur
ning, a vampire feeds the human their own blood. Voila, instant vampire. So the answer to the question is no. Those men wouldn’t have been vampires per se and they weren’t totally sucked dry either. Alan may have bled out, but he didn’t lose all of his blood. Blood coagulates. If a vamp had drained him, trust me, there would have been nothing left. That would have left me and any coroner suspicious as hell.”
Larkin nodded at her. “I wondered how the vampire thing happened. Okay, so none of these men were drained and they all have vampire bites. Eddie and Brian are quite possibly gay.” Larkin paced the length of the room in agitation. “Maybe it isn’t a vamp? Just some asshole getting off on making it look like one? You said yourself that it happens. The police have been fooled into believing that a crazy bunch of cultists or kids were responsible for deaths that really could be attributed to vampires.”
She reached a hand around her neck and massaged it. “Yes, that’s true, but I’m telling you, these are vampire bites. I know the difference between the plastic dime store shit you can buy and stick in your mouth at Halloween and a real vamp bite.”
Larkin looked skeptical, but answered, “I’m not even going to ask how you know something like that. I’m just going to take your word for it. So it looks like I have to go look around Brian and Eddie’s.”
“You?”
He grinned. “Yeah. Me.”
“What about me?”
Larkin chucked her under the chin. “I think you’re taking this Charlie’s Angels thing too far, Farrah.”
“Listen up, Sherlock. You could use a little Farrah in your life. Besides Farrah doesn’t have what I have.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “What’s that?”
“Night vision and super powers. Lest ye forget our little arm wrestling match. I’m the key to successfully breaking into Brian and Eddie’s.”
Snorting, he laughed. “Lest ye forget, I’m a cop. We’re practiced at this kind of stuff.”
Polanski Brothers Page 12