Out of the Light, Into the Shadows

by Lori Foster

  Kelsey and Peter left, and the male detective excused himself to answer his cell phone, stepping into Nick’s kitchenette.

  “I’m sorry Peter wasn’t more help to you,” Nick told Jordan. “I’m not even sure if he really was in the alley or not.” When Nick had gotten home from work that night, Peter had already been asleep, so he hadn’t said anything to him about being out of the hotel, though he probably wouldn’t have. He knew Nick would frown on his slipping away from Kelsey.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “It was worth a shot.” She stood up and slid her black purse over her shoulder, the emerald-green shirt she was wearing bunching up and revealing her bra strap. “Thanks for letting us question him.”

  “Sure.” Nick stood with his hands in his pockets and debated going for it. Just asking her out. What difference did rejection make? If she said no, he would be in the exact same position he was in now—alone. But if she said yes …

  “It must be hard for you, raising Peter alone, working nights. Where is his mother?”

  “She died. A long time ago.” Longer than Jordan could possibly fathom.

  “I’m sorry.” Her voice had softened and her eyes were sympathetic. “You must miss her.”

  He had to be somewhat truthful, not wanting to own the grieving widower persona. It felt too dishonest. “We were not together when she died, though I was of course sad for Peter. But what about you, are you married?”

  She gave a rueful smile. “No.”

  “Boyfriend?”

  “No. I’m married to the job.”

  They were standing closer to each other than two normal strangers would, and Nick smelled her blood again. He ached to taste her, to sink his fangs into her neck, into her breasts, and draw her sweet life force into him. He wanted to kiss her lips and run his tongue all over her creamy white skin. “Do you ever date?”

  “Not very often.” Her voice was low, quiet, but coy.

  He decided he had nothing to lose. “So you would say no if I asked you out?”

  “Why don’t you ask me out and see?” she said, voice growing huskier.

  Nick smiled. Maybe she was actually going to say yes, and that made his mouth dry and his body hard. “Would you like to go out, Jordan? Maybe for a drink and a movie? You seem like an interesting woman and I would like to get to know you a little better.”

  “I should say no,” she said, her eyes darting to her preoccupied partner. “But I’m not going to.”

  “Why is that?”

  “A couple of reasons. I need to get a life and I can spare time for one date. And I’m attracted to you.”

  He liked her boldness. “What a coincidence. I’m attracted to you, too.”

  “Normally I don’t like coincidences. But in this case I’m willing to accept it.”

  So was he. Nick smiled. “Are you free tomorrow? I don’t have to work until eleven. We could meet at say, eight?”

  “Sure. Do you want to meet in the lobby?”

  “That will work. See you then. And have a good night.”

  “Thanks, you, too.” Jordan tucked her hair behind her ear and turned back to her partner, who was still on the phone. She gestured to him to head for the door.

  In another minute they were gone, and Nick headed back to work in a much better mood than he had left it in.

  “WELL,thatwas a total bust,” Shawn said after he hung up his phone and stepped into the elevator with Jordan.

  “Yeah,” she said, distracted, wondering why the hell she had just agreed to go out with Nick Stolin. It had all the makings of a Very Bad Idea.

  “What a fucked-up trio, I’m telling you. That chick was missing a few IQ points.”

  “And clothes.”

  Shawn laughed. “Now that I didn’t mind, though she was a little too skinny for my tastes. I like some curves to hold on to.”

  “TMI, Shawn, seriously.”

  “And what about that kid? He seemed more like a head case than autistic to me. And I could swear he had a boner. Did you notice that?”

  Jordan turned to stare at Shawn in disbelief as the elevator descended. “No, I did not notice that. Why would I? Christ, you’re a sick man.”

  “I’m not the one with a boner! How does that make me sick? And I guess you can’t blame the kid … he’s at that age, regardless of his mental capabilities, and he has a smoking-hot babysitter with her ass cheeks hanging out.”

  “I don’t even want to think about it.” Ass cheeks, boners, death, why she had agreed to go out on a date with a man ripped with muscles … Jordan didn’t want to think about any of it. She just wanted another doughnut.

  “And the dad, I mean, come on. What is he thinking, hiring that chick?”

  “I don’t know. It must be hard to be new in a city, working nights like that. I bet she’s a bargain babysitter, and he probably only makes peanuts himself.”

  Shawn held the elevator door open for Jordan. “You’re just defending him because you’re flattered he had the hots for you.”

  Jordan bristled. “He did not have the hots for me.”

  “Unh-uh. He basically fucked you with his eyes. But okay, you pretend you didn’t notice.”

  “Okay, I did notice, but come on, you know me. I would never let that cloud my judgment.” At least she never had in the past. Arguably going to dinner with Nick Stolin was a bit murky.

  “Did he ask you out?”

  Jordan winced. “Yes. How did you know?”

  “I’ve got eyes. I’ve got ears. You said yes, didn’t you?”

  Damn it, was she blushing? Jordan hadn’t done that since middle school. “Yes, and I don’t want to hear one word about it. I’m serious. You give me shit, and I will hurt you.”

  “Like I would ever give you a hard time.” Shawn gave her a mock look of innocence. “I wouldn’t dream of it. And if you want to get bounced by the bouncer I figure that’s your business.”

  “Wow, thanks.” Jordan rolled her eyes in annoyance, even as she wasted a tiny second wondering how exactly it would feel to have a guy like Nick Stolin inside her. The heat in her cheeks increased, and it wasn’t from embarrassment this time.

  “So what now?” Shawn said, his thoughts clearly not on sex and on the case, which was where Jordan’s should be. “We’ve got no witness. It’s going to be weeks before we can get DNA results back on the skin found under Samantha Keller’s nails, since the lab is always backed up, and the coroner’s report only told us what we already knew. She was killed, then drained of all her blood via a wound in her neck, presumably some kind of needle, though I can’t imagine how freaking long that would take. I mean, how did he not get caught draining them like that?”

  “I don’t know. Logic would say he moved them after death, but the coroner says the stakings were wounds inflicted prior to death, and the blood loss at the scene where the bodies were found would indicate that. So all we can do right now is go back to trying to connect the victims to each other, to establish a pattern. Talk to family and friends, pull Samantha’s cell phone records.” The problem with a case like this was that the casino area was full of strangers, people who had never crossed each other’s paths before and had no connection other than their trip to the Strip. Of the three victims, two had been local, one had been from Seattle in town for a bachelorette party, and they didn’t appear to have any connection to each other at all.

  “I think he’s just an opportunist,” Shawn said. “He grabs whatever woman is by herself when no one is around to witness him snagging her.”

  “That’s not usually a serial killer’s MO, but I don’t know, I’m inclined to agree with you. The victims were not the same physical type at all. We had the average-height, very athletic Latina; a short, slightly overweight blonde; and a tall, fair-skinned brunette.”

  “Maybe he’s going for every type intentionally,” Shawn said, as they headed into the parking garage. “Or maybe he just snags what he can.”

  “I don’t know …” Jordan stopped at the car and
waited for Shawn to unlock it as they talked over the roof to each other. “I can’t get in this guy’s head at all. Most killers who display their victims don’t actually want them found right away. They want to visit them, spend time with them in their death. His victims are found right away because they’re in such public venues. And why casinos? Does he work in a casino? Are you right, does he just step outside, see a woman by herself, and go for it?”

  “But with a stake in his pocket?” Shawn made a sound of disgust and got in the car.

  Jordan followed suit. “We’re missing something.”

  “We’re missing a lot of somethings.”

  “These were not stupid women. They were all middle class—two professionals, one married with children. They weren’t just hanging around an alley behind a casino at midnight by themselves. None of them had had enough alcohol in their bloodstream to be intoxicated, including our bachelorette party attendee. He’s tricking them somehow, flirting with them, luring them off, don’t you think?”

  “Like he’s hitting on them in bars and they step outside with him for a smoke or something?” Shawn pulled out into the stifling traffic and heat of a Friday night on the Strip. “God, I hate this fucking traffic.”

  Jordan barely heard his bitching. She thought they might be on to something. “Yeah, I think maybe so. He is charming, good-looking, harmless. They chat in the bar, she steps outside with him a few times during the night to smoke, which seems harmless because presumably other people are around and they’re right outside the casino. By the end of the night, she feels comfortable and lets him walk her to her car. Did any of them smoke?”

  “I don’t know. And what about their friends? Wouldn’t their friends have told us if the victims were talking to some guy?”

  “Not if she talked casually to several guys, or she just spoke to him when she was outside smoking, and not if we didn’t ask.”

  “So you don’t think he’s just grabbing these chicks off the street? We didn’t see any of the victims talking to any guys on the security camera footage.”

  Which had amounted to all of about ten minutes. With the cameras sweeping and the women moving around they had very little actual footage of the women’s interactions in the casinos.

  “No, I don’t think he’s just grabbing them off the street.” Jordan wasn’t sure why, but her gut was telling her he earned these women’s trust in some way first. “Why else would they willingly be in a dark place with a guy they don’t know?”

  “Are we sure he doesn’t already know them?”

  Jordan squeezed the handles of her purse in her lap. “No. No, we don’t know that. Shit, Shawn. We need to reinterview the friends the victims were with the night they died.”

  “What we need is some goddamn DNA.”

  “DNA won’t do us any good without a suspect.”

  “Can’t you just let me delude myself for a minute that he’s already in the system?”

  Jordan smiled. “Yeah, right.”

  “Alright, I’m dropping you off then I’m going home. I want to get naked with my wife tonight.”

  Like she needed to know that? “You need to work on that verbal vomit problem you have. I don’t want to hear about you and your wife having sex.”

  “What? It’s not like I got specific or anything, so deal with it. What are you going to do tonight?”

  “Nothing.”

  What she was going to do was spend the entire evening wondering why she had agreed to go out with Nick Stolin.

  And trying to convince herself that absolutely under no circumstances would she have sex with him on the first date.

  When she was pretty much certain that unless he proved to be a complete freak, she was going to wind up in bed with him.

  A year was just too long, she was just too on edge, and he was just too hot.

  He hadn’t popped out of a desk drawer, but he had been virtually handed to her, and Jordan was smart enough to take him and run with it.

  FOUR

  “YOU’RE going to meet the detective, aren’t you?”

  Nick paused on his way out the door and turned to meet Peter’s accusatory glare. “Yes. Why?”

  “You said you’d take me to the movies this week and now instead I’m stuck with Kelsey while you nail the cop.”

  Nick was never sure which was more disturbing—Peter’s delusional, vapid ramblings, or his lucid moments as a hundred-year-old man in a thirteen-year-old’s body.

  “You can go to the movies by yourself, I don’t care.”

  “It’s not whether you’ll let me go or not, it’s that the theater people won’t let me in.” Peter’s face twisted in anger. “I’m not old enough.”

  And there was nothing either of them could do about that, and the guilt weighed heavily on Nick. “Kelsey will be here in five minutes, she’ll take you.”

  Peter clicked the TV off and tossed the remote down on the coffee table. “I’m an emperor, the rightful tsar of all Russia, and I have to be chaperoned by a vampire who can’t find her ass with both hands.”

  Nick glanced nervously down the hall at the elevators and ignored the comment about being royalty. It wasn’t like Peter could reclaim his throne or get a different body, and Nick could sense Kelsey’s vampiric presence and knew she was about to appear. “Kelsey’s also about to come down the hall and can probably hear you. You’ll hurt her feelings.”

  Crossing his arms over his chest, Peter pouted. “I don’t give a damn.”

  “Alright, fine.” Nick didn’t have the patience for it. “Stay here and whine or go to the movies with Kelsey. Do whatever you want.”

  Peter smiled. “I will.”

  Nick didn’t like the look on Peter’s face. It was an indicator that he would try to ditch Kelsey, but Nick had to work later and he didn’t want to cancel his date with Jordan. Peter was an adult, and frankly, Nick was tired of catering to his bad behavior and trying to keep him out of trouble. Peter was his responsibility, but he couldn’t control him any more than he could protect him.

  “Good night.” When he got to the elevators, they opened and Kelsey stepped out in a hot-pink cocktail dress.

  “He’s in a mood, isn’t he?” she asked with a bright smile. “I could hear his nasty thoughts from eight floors down.”

  “Yes. Sorry.”

  “No biggie. I’ll take him downstairs and bribe the guard to let him play poker in the private room. Peter likes that.”

  Nick felt the tension in his shoulders increase. “That’s illegal.”

  “Duh,” Kelsey said, looking at him like he was a moron. “So what? We don’t have the same rules as mortals, and we can get out of anything. We don’t show up on camera, and we can move faster than the mortal eye can see. We get to do what we want.”

  The problem was, Nick never got to do what he wanted. If he could, he would quit his job and start his own private security firm. He was really tired of walking his own moral fence by working for guys like Donatelli, and he wanted to be his own boss. He also wanted to go back in time and be anywhere other than that room in Ekaterinburg, but those were futile wishes. Peter was his creation, and his responsibility.

  But at least, maybe for one night, he could actually enjoy the company of an attractive woman.

  “Alright, thanks for watching him, and just don’t get in any trouble, okay?”

  “Never,” she said breezily.

  When Nick got down to the lobby, he spotted Jordan at the same time he smelled her. She wore a vanilla-scented perfume, and it hit his nostrils right as he saw her leaning against the back of a couch checking her cell phone. Dressed in dark jeans, boots with a heel, and a tank top, she looked casual and sexy as hell. He was almost immediately in front of her before she glanced up.

  “Geez, you startled me,” she said, snapping her phone shut and standing up straight. “I didn’t hear you coming toward me at all.”

  “I move light for a big guy,” he said, with a smile. It amazed him all over again how truly b
eautiful she was, and now that he knew what she did for a living, he was even more intrigued. Weak women didn’t interest him, but Jordan seemed to be that attractive combination of very feminine, yet strong and decisive.

  “I guess you do,” she said with an answering smile. “So, how are you? How was your day?”

  Since he had slept for most of it, it had barely existed, but he just shrugged. “Okay. Peter is a little cranky tonight. How was your day?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry Peter is out of sorts. That must be hard. My day wasn’t great either. I can’t really talk about the case, but let’s just say, it isn’t going well. That consumes my days and my nights lately.”

  “Do you enjoy your work? Why did you choose police work?”

  She paused. “You know, people ask me that all the time, and I always give the pat answer. Because I like putting away the bad guy. And that’s true. But you know, it’s a control thing … doing my part makes me feel like I have more control over life. Not doing anything to make the world a better place makes me feel helpless. Does that make sense?”

  “Yes,” Nick said. “Yes, it does.” It was why he had stepped in front and taken the bullets meant for Katie and Peter. It was why he struggled now to find purpose.

  Then Jordan gave a rueful shrug. “I should feel guilty for being here with you, you know, but I really needed to clear my head and take a step back.”

  “Well, let’s help you do that then. Are you still interested in seeing a movie?” Nick crammed his hands in his jeans pockets because he suddenly had the overwhelming urge to touch Jordan. He wanted to run his fingers through her rich auburn hair, brush his lips over her mouth, slide his hands down her body. He wanted to bite her, feel her hot blood in his mouth, with an intensity that shocked him.

  He didn’t really ever have the desire to touch mortals, and he didn’t live-feed anymore. That he wanted to do both was unnerving.

  Denying himself had been a mistake. He should have taken more time to slake his sexual and vampiric appetites over the past few years.

  “Sure. I already ate so I think we can skip dinner or a drink, if you don’t mind. That way we can get in a movie and you won’t be late to work.”