Under Wraps

shut, throwing the lock and closing the curtains and blinds for good measure. I crawled to my nightstand, leveled my breath, and dialed the phone.

Chapter Twelve

I opened my front door timidly, just an inch, and my eyes settled on Parker’s. His were deep and intense, but that cocky half smile was still playing on his lips.

“See? I knew you couldn’t resist me.”

I threw open the door, and Hayes sauntered in.

“Look, if I weren’t feeling so”—I glanced nervously toward my open bedroom door—“violated, and if I weren’t so concerned about the safety of all the other tenants in the building, you wouldn’t be here.” I tried to stand tall, look fierce, hide the fact that my heart was thumping in my throat and that I’d paced a bald spot in my carpet, jumping at every little sound over the last half hour.

Parker was unfazed and dropped onto the couch, grinning at my pink rubber-ducky pajamas. “Nice jammies,” he said.

“Thanks,” I said, pulling my bathrobe tighter across my chest.

Parker looked around the apartment. “This place is really nice. I didn’t really get a chance to look around earlier….”

I pursed my lips as he stood up again, looking at my books, scrutinizing the photos in frames on my mantle, on the wall. “I guess demon paper pushing pays pretty well.”

“Well,” I started, “it does. But I’ve also got a roommate.”

Hayes straightened and looked at me, startled. “A roommate? You never mentioned …” His eyes wandered to my bedroom door standing open. “I didn’t notice another bedroom.”

“There really isn’t one.”

“Oh,” he said, his blue eyes wide and apologetic. “I didn’t realize you were—that you were living with someone.”

“Oh. Oh! No, not like that.” I fought the smug smile on my lips. He thinks I’m sleeping with someone! Well of course. I straightened up, brushing a lock of red hair from my shoulder. Why wouldn’t he think that? I’m cute, I’m … standing here having a conversation in my head while Parker Hayes stands there staring at me. “She’s a vampire,” I blurted. “Nina, remember? She’s a vampire so she doesn’t sleep. So”—I shrugged—“no bedroom.”

Hayes looked around. “Then what does she need a place for?”

I strode across the room and pushed open the guest room door, revealing the room that had been completely converted to a walk-in closet, housing the rows and heaps of Nina’s couture, collected during the generations of her afterlife.

Hayes let out a low whistle. “Holy crap. That woman can shop!”

I shrugged. “Wait until you’ve been alive one hundred and forty-odd years. See what you accumulate.” I kicked Hayes’s bag off the couch and sat down, Indian style. Hayes followed me and sunk down into the pale yellow cushions, looking tense. “Isn’t it kind of weird living with a vampire? I mean, aren’t you afraid she’s going to bite you?”

“Nah.” I kicked my legs out in front of me, crossed my ankles on the coffee table. “They’re not all monsters.”

Parker nodded slowly, and in the few minutes since he’d been in my apartment my heart had slowed to its regular, calm thump-thump. I followed his eyes as they swept over my cheap IKEA furniture, the array of celebrity magazines on the coffee table, the books on my shelves. He blinked at a well-worn porcelain doll high up on the bookshelf.

“She’s Nina’s,” I said, rolling up onto my tiptoes and gingerly pulling down the doll. Her pale, perfect skin mirrored Nina’s flawless complexion, right down to the color and cool, slick feel. Her eyes were painted a cornflower blue and wide open in a constant wonder. Her hair was slick and black like Nina’s, but she had the corkscrew curls of a little Victorian girl, and they were gathered at the nape of her neck with a limp satin bow. She was dressed in a threadbare white gown, its hem woven through with a satin ribbon. The pale yellow hue of the once-white garment betrayed its age.

I looked down at the doll. “It was hers from—from before.”

“From before she became a vampire.”

I nodded. “It’s the only thing she keeps from then—from her human life. You know, when I first met Nina—we started at the UDA the same week—she was this tough-as-nails vamp chick. You know, black leather bustier, blood-red nails, the works. I was terrified of her.”

“Because you thought she was going to eat you?”

“No.” I sat down on the couch, the doll resting on my knees. “I never worried about that.”

Parker raised his eyebrows, and I hurried on.

“She was terrifying because she didn’t seem to care about anything. Most vampires live in nests or families. Nina didn’t. She was always alone. And then one day Sampson gave me an assignment. There was a vampire they suspected was about to go rogue. Going rogue in this case means street hunting. The UDA clientele is strictly forbidden to street hunt—to take their prey from the general population.”

Parker gulped. “Well, that’s refreshing. I guess.”

“This suspected rogue was on the street all night, frequenting a particular spot where a group of runaway kids hung out. Word was the vampire kept trying to get one of the kids alone.”

“Separate them from the herd?”

“Right. So I was supposed to investigate and let Sampson know if the vampire needed to be … handled.”

“Handled?”

“Vanquished. Killed. The UDA takes their rules seriously. Anyway, I went out to the Haight where these kids were, and sure enough, the rogue vampire showed up.”

“And it was Nina?”

I nodded. “Yeah. And she was trying to separate one from the flock. It was a girl —maybe thirteen, fourteen years old. The poor thing was filthy. Her clothes were torn, her hair was matted. She was a throwaway kid; no one would have noticed if she walked the street one day and wasn’t there the next. She looked like every other kid out there.”

“So, easy prey.”

“That’s what I thought. I followed Nina out to the girl twelve nights in a row. I couldn’t get close enough to hear what they were talking about the few times they did talk, and I wasn’t sure if she were just working slowly. Sometimes a vampire will befriend a human—offer eternal life or whatever—and in return …”

“The human brings them fresh meat,” Parker finished.

“Right. One night Nina got the girl into a car with her. I followed them, and Nina drove the girl home.”

“Just home?”

I nodded. “That’s it. She was a runaway. Nina brought her home.”

Parker frowned. “That doesn’t sound very vampirey.”

I smiled. “I know. I was waiting in my car the night she did it. I followed them, and then, thinking I was being real stealthy, parked under a tree on the opposite side of the street, when suddenly Nina was sitting in my passenger seat. Vampires are rather hard to sneak up on. Ssense of smell, lightning speed, you know.”

Parker smiled.

“Nina told me if I told anyone at UDA what she did, she’d kill me. And believe me, when that much leather bustier and fang is in your passenger seat threatening death, you believe it. I asked her why though—why that girl, why bring her home. Nina just shrugged and said, ‘Little girls need their moms.’” I swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat. “We both knew how it felt to lose our moms. Nina couldn’t go back to hers once she’d changed and I—well, you know about my mom. I guess we bonded over that.”

Parker patted my hand softly. “That’s really nice. And I don’t mean to be callous, but sweet-as-pie or not,