“No,” she answered crisply. “There’s nothing waiting for me at my place.”
Which was one of the reasons she’d opted to work on the case after everyone else had gone home. As the last of the detectives had taken their leave, the precinct slipped into a soft silence. There was an aura of safety about it that made her feel good as well as warm. There was no such feeling at the apartment yet. There might never be.
Kyle looked at her in surprise. “You’re kidding. I thought for sure you were the dog-waiting-at-the-door-for-the-sound-of-mistress’s-footsteps type.”
She laughed softly, shaking her head. “Sorry to disappoint you. No dog.” And then she paused for a moment, debating whether or not to say anything further. She decided it would do no harm. “I had a dog,” she finally admitted.
He could tell by the sound of her voice that he’d accidentally opened up an old wound. “What happened to him?”
“She died,” Jaren answered, purposely emphasizing the animal’s gender. Why was it that everyone automatically assumed that all dogs were males and all cats were females? Propagation would have come to a screeching standstill long ago if that scenario were even remotely the case. “Less than a week after my father passed away.”
“I’m really sorry to hear that.”
Jaren shrugged carelessly, as if Annabelle’s death had made no difference to her. As if she hadn’t cried the entire night after finding the Yorkie’s rigid little body on the kitchen floor. “All just part of life, right?”
“So they tell me,” Kyle allowed. “But I can still be sorry.”
She didn’t want his sympathy—or pity. “That is your God-given right,” she agreed flippantly, her tone closing the subject. Standing up, she unconsciously stretched, then caught Kyle smiling as his eyes washed over the length of her. The expression in his eyes both annoyed her and warmed her. “Look, give me a few minutes and I’ll be ready to roll.”
His desk was littered with work and as far as he knew, they had questioned everyone connected to one or the other of the two victims. “Are we rolling?” Kyle asked innocently.
Before she could say anything in response to the assumption she’d made, the lieutenant stuck his head out of his office.
“O’Brien, Rosetti, you’re up.”
At this point, that could only mean one thing. They both turned toward their superior.
“Another one?” Kyle asked before Jaren had a chance to.
The lieutenant nodded. “Another one,” he echoed, then rattled off the address as he crossed to them. The location wasn’t that far away. The man handed Kyle the notepaper he’d used when he’d taken down the information just now.
“Guess the coffee’ll have to wait,” Jaren said more to herself than to Kyle. She really needed coffee in the morning. Nothing strong, just hot and sweet. But she’d get by, she told herself.
“We’ll pick some up on the way,” Kyle promised, grabbing the jacket he’d just shed a moment ago. He pulled it back on as he led the way out of the squad room.
“So much for my theory about a rage against rich people,” Jaren said with a sigh as she squatted down beside the newest victim.
The coffee Kyle got for both of them had more than done the trick. Nine parts caffeine, one part liquid, it brought every nerve ending in her body to attention. Overtired and wired, her body was at war with itself. But all that went on hold the moment she had approached the inert body of the latest victim.
From initial appearances, the so-called vampire slayer’s newest victim was a homeless man. And not just any homeless man, but one who had gained a small bit of notoriety over the last few years. The dead man had a long, flowing gray-white beard. His skin was the color of aged parchment, yellowed long before its time by a harsh sun and an even harsher environment.
But the most noticeable thing about the victim was the dark, flowing cape that he wore over his black, shabby clothing. Winter, summer, no matter what the weather or the season, the Count, as he had been dubbed by an amused journalist who had once done a human-interest story on the man, always wore his cape. With his broad shoulders and his body almost in constant movement—like a symphony that would not end—the Count gave the appearance of being larger than he actually was.
He didn’t look so large right now, Kyle thought, looking down at the lifeless man.
The Count lay in an alley behind one of the restaurants he was given to frequenting. Busboys and swing-shift cooks would feel sorry for him and set aside leftovers for the man, which was one of the reasons the Count looked so well fed rather than gaunt. He didn’t sing for his supper, but in exchange for the leftovers, the Count would spin entertaining, elaborate stories about his life as a citizen of the night. No one ever took the man seriously.
“You know,” Jaren said thoughtfully as she rose up to her feet again, still eyeing the victim, “this one actually looks the part.”
“What part?” Kyle asked.
“Of a vampire.”
“So, you’re saying someone’s going around, thinking they’re killing vampires.” The whole thing sounded even more ludicrous out loud.
She waved a hand at the body. The cape was twisted around the Count like a cocoon. At a quick glance, it looked as if he was attempting to undulate his way out of it.
“Certainly looks that way,” Jaren said, “but I’m open to a better theory. You got one?”
Kyle shook his head. “Not at the moment,” he sighed. And then he shook his head angrily. “Damn it, the Count never hurt anyone.”
Her eyes widened as she glanced at her partner. “You knew him?” That hadn’t occurred to her.
“Everybody knew him,” he told Jaren. “At least by sight. He’s been hanging around this area for years.” To his knowledge, the Count moved around a four-block square area, making it his domain.
“You keep calling him the Count. What’s his real name?”
Kyle shrugged. “Haven’t got a clue. Neither did he, I think.”
If the Count had a family, as far as he knew, the man never mentioned them. He’d stopped to buy the man a meal or give him money for one on several occasions. And never once had he seen or heard of the Count imbibing anything alcoholic. He was just a poor, disoriented man who never did anyone any harm. Kyle couldn’t help wondering if his death meant anything to anyone. Did he have a family looking for him even now?
“We can have his prints run through the system, see if he’s a government employee or former military man.” Give him a name in death even if he never used one in life, Kyle thought.
“His thumb print might give us a driver’s license and a former address,” Jaren suggested. “It would be a start.”
A start. It was a little late for that, Kyle thought. But he nodded in response to her suggestion. “Everything but a reason why he’s lying here like that and why someone would have wanted to kill him like some comic-book character.”
Jaren made no comment. Instead, she squatted down again beside the body, taking care not to accidentally step into the blood that pooled beneath him. Behind her, the CSI unit was just arriving.
Her attention was focused on the stake that had been used. It looked identical to the other two stakes. “What kind of wood is this?” she asked Kyle.
Kyle looked over her shoulder. Damn if he knew.
“Sorry, but that’s not within my field of expertise,” he told her. He thought a moment. “But we can get someone at CSI to find out. Why?”
She was grasping at straws but straws were all they had. “If it’s unusual, or found only in one place, then maybe it might lead us to the killer.”
No harm in asking, he thought. “Worth a shot,” Kyle agreed. And then he smiled at her. “Nice to know you can think on your feet.”
“I’m lucky to be able to think at all,” Jaren countered. She’d been feeling nauseous for the last twenty minutes. Ever since she’d finished her cup of coffee. “Where did you get that coffee from?” she asked.
“I picked it up a
t the coffee shop.” And then he looked at her. “You were there. You saw me.”
It had been more or less a rhetorical question. “You drink that on a regular basis?”
“Whenever I can. Why? What’s wrong with it?”
He drank it and he had to ask? The only reason she’d consumed it was because she’d been hungry as well as thirsty and had hoped that the thick liquid would temporarily satisfy both needs.
“Nothing, if I had a huge pothole to fill,” she told him, then added, “I’ve chewed on softer asphalt.”
There was just no pleasing some people, he thought. Served him right for trying to do a good deed. “Next time, you pick up the coffee.”
“I will,” Jaren retorted, turning on her heel and walking away from him. She took exactly three steps before her conscience got the better of her. With a sigh, she turned around again to face him. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bite your head off. I tend to get cranky when I don’t get enough sleep,” she confessed.
“Thanks for the heads-up.” There was just the slightest hint of sarcasm in Kyle’s voice.
It was on the tip of Jaren’s tongue to tell him what she thought of him and his crack. But that would only lead back into an argument and she was in no shape to hold up her end. So, rather than parry back, she swallowed her retort and continued to examine the scene of the crime.
This time, there was no copy of The Vampire Diaries left lying around. But in this case, it was obvious that the victim’s appearance was more than enough to convey the message.
Someone was slaying vampires, whether real to the killer or just a sarcastic comment on something that was currently eluding the rest of them, Jaren didn’t know. But they had to find this person and quickly because the ante seemed to have been stepped up. The time between slayings was decreasing.
They canvassed the immediate area to no avail.
No one had seen or heard anything. The Count had apparently died as silently as he had lived.
While the other two deaths might have had some kind of motive attributed to the executions, the Count’s death mystified Kyle.
“As far as I know,” he told Jaren, “other than being a little off his nut, the Count never offended anyone. Why would someone want to see him dead?” He posed the question as they drove back to the precinct.
“Maybe whoever did this didn’t see him.” Kyle spared her a quizzical glance as he made a right turn. “Maybe what the killer saw—or thought he saw—was a real vampire,” she explained.
“You really believe that?” he asked incredulously. He’d tossed it out himself, but he’d been teasing.
She shrugged. “I believe everything until a theory is discounted. Most serial killers are off balance anyway.”
“But why now?” he queried.
With a frustrated shrug, Jaren took a stab at it. “Maybe seeing The Vampire Diaries triggered him. Or maybe something happened in his personal life that set him off. All we have to do is find out what and we have our killer.”
“All,” Kyle echoed with a short laugh.
She nodded her head. “I know. Pretty big word,” she agreed. She just hoped that it wouldn’t turn out to be too big for them to handle.
Chapter 7
Bone weary and not wanting a repeat performance of last night, Jaren went home at the end of the day.
She called in an order at the pizzeria located in the center of the strip mall she’d just discovered the other morning. On her way home, she swung by the restaurant to pick up what was going to constitute her dinner as well as her breakfast for the next couple of days—one extra-large pizza.
The thin-crusted, extra-cheese-and-meat offering was still warm and resting on the passenger seat beside her, filling the interior of her small vehicle with a comforting aroma. She could almost feel her salivary glands kicking in and going into overdrive. She was tempted to take a piece and start eating as she drove, but she managed to refrain.
After bringing the pizza inside her second-floor garden apartment, Jaren deposited the large box on the kitchenette table. Determined to exercise control, Jaren went to change, putting on a pair of comfortable jeans and a T-shirt. On her way back to the kitchen, she turned on her TV set. The two things she’d done on the day she’d moved in was have the electricity turned on and have the cable company hook up her set.
The channel that came on now didn’t matter. She kept the TV on for company, wanting something besides silence to fill the room. As she returned to the kitchen, Jaren also turned on most of the lights in the apartment.
Usually, the dark didn’t bother her, but this case, with its eerie details, was getting under her skin. Until she could come to some kind of logical conclusion about the nature of the killer, she preferred seeing into all the corners of her apartment.
Not that that was an easy trick. There were towers of opened and unopened boxes scattered throughout the two-bedroom apartment. She’d been in Aurora a full two weeks now and so far, she’d only unpacked necessities.
Admittedly, Jaren thought ruefully, she wasn’t much of a housekeeper these days, but then, those weren’t the skills that the police department required of her. Her years of caring for her father, of being the adult to his child had caused her to shun all vestiges of that sort of behavior when it came to her own living space.
Picking out the largest piece, she brought her plate with her into the crammed living room. Jaren sank down on the floor, sitting cross-legged in front of the TV. A local news station was on, but her attention was primarily focused on appeasing her growling stomach.
She’d just systematically worked her way through the slice to the end crust when the bell rang. Frowning, she glanced in the door’s direction, as if that would be sufficient to make the bell cease trying to claim her attention.
It didn’t.
The doorbell rang a second time.
With a sigh, she got up, picked up her plate and walked back to the kitchen. The front door was just off to the side. Setting her plate down on the table, she paused. She hadn’t actually made any friends and as far as she knew, no one outside of the Human Resources Department at the precinct even had her home address. This had to be a stranger.
For a second, she glanced at her service revolver casually lying on the table beside the pizza box where she’d put it.
Better safe than sorry, she told herself, picking the gun up.
Just then, her cell phone rang. Holding on to her weapon with her right hand, Jaren dug the phone out of her back pocket with her left.
“Hello?”
“Are you planning on opening the door anytime soon, or are you just going to keep staring at it for the rest of the night?”
Startled, Jaren looked around, searching for a hidden camera. Then, chagrined, she realized that the window over the sink looked out on the space just a few feet shy of her door. Anyone coming up the walk could look in and see her in the kitchen.
Added to that, the voice was familiar. “O’Brien?” she asked even as she told herself she was wrong. They’d just spent the whole day together, basically getting on each other’s nerves. There was absolutely no reason for him to be here.
“Good guess,” the deep voice on the other end of the cell said. “Now open the damn door.”
Still holding her cell phone in her hand, she tucked the service revolver into the back of her jeans and flipped open the lock. She stepped back as she opened the door.
Jaren started to ask if there’d been another vampire slaying and if that was what had brought him to her door when she realized that he was holding something wriggly and caramel-colored in his hands.
All paws and ears, her partner’s companion was a puppy—of the mongrel persuasion.
What the hell was O’Brien doing here with a puppy?
Since she was still partially blocking access to her apartment and not saying anything, Kyle asked coolly, “Mind if we come in?”
Jaren cleared her throat and took another step back, clearing a path for him. She w
as still staring at the extremely animated ball of fluff in his hands. “Who’s your friend?”
“She doesn’t have a name yet,” Kyle told her, struggling to keep the dog close. The puppy seemed just as determined not to be kept close. From what she could see of the situation, Jaren mused, O’Brien was the one destined to eventually lose the battle. “I figured you might want to take care of that little detail.”
Jaren’s eyebrows drew together as she tried to make sense of her partner’s answer. “Why would I want to do that?”
“Because she’s your dog,” he replied simply.
Jaren stared at him. “I don’t have a dog.”
“You do now,” he informed her matter-of-factly. Kyle twisted around, foiling the puppy’s attempt to escape by climbing up his shoulder and then diving down to the floor. “My sister’s dog, Hussy, had a litter a couple of months ago and she’s been trying to find homes for the puppies now that they’re weaned.”
“Hussy?” she echoed. That seemed like a rather callous name for a pet.
“She gets around,” Kyle explained, giving her Greer’s reason for selecting the name. “Despite all of Greer’s precautions,” he added. Greer had given in to the inevitable and was having the dog spayed before she had a chance to beget yet another litter. “Interested?” He seemed to move the puppy toward her as he asked the question.
It was on the tip of Jaren’s tongue to politely but firmly refuse the offer. She even got to utter the first few words.
“It’s very nice of you to think of me—”
But her refusal got no further. With a little help from Kyle, the puppy took matters into her own paws. Its tongue working faster than a windshield wiper set on High, the puppy began to lick every inch of Jaren’s face.
Any resolve Jaren had melted away on the spot. She wasn’t even sure just when the transfer was undertaken, when the puppy went from Kyle’s hands into hers, but suddenly, there she was, holding on to a wiggling mass of tongue and fur, trying not to laugh as the puppy tickled her earlobe.
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