Some can, perhaps. I wasn’t aware I shared that trait.
You do. It’s like a barometer for your temper. Light is pissy, and dark is . . .
I stopped and waited.
Dark is what? Happy? he asked.
Aroused. Allow me to demonstrate. I sent him a few memories of our time spent in the Blue Lagoon. His eyes darkened from their normally flawless teal to a deep navy. See? Your eyes are dark now. You’re aroused.
A fact that will become evident to others if you continue along that particular memory. And that one.
I smiled.
That one, my little temptress, is likely to get you bent over my lap.
Promises, promises, I purred, suddenly standing up straight when Kristoff spent a few moments indulging in just how I was going to be punished.
Luckily, Magda’s impatience distracted us before Kristoff’s pants grew too tight and I started squirming in earnest.
“Let’s go. What are we waiting for? It will be getting dark in another hour.” She poked Kristoff in the arm.
Kristoff punched in some numbers on the recessed panel, and the gate slid open with a nearly silent hiss.
“Take the car or leave it?” Magda asked, poised to do either.
“Leave it,” Kristoff said.
“It would be safer inside the gate,” Raymond said, looking pointedly up and down the street. “This might be an affluent neighborhood, but you never know. Someone might try to steal it, and I’d hate to have to explain that to the rental company. You’d lose your insurance deposit.”
“Stop being such an accountant,” Magda said with a fond squeeze of his arm.
“Not that I suspect it’s likely to be stolen here, but if we leave it where it is, anyone who comes by will see that someone is here,” I pointed out.
“It’s easier to get away with the car on the road,” Kristoff said with a grim note to his voice.
“Fast getaway,” Magda said, nodding her head sagely. “Makes sense. I could always move it down the road a smidgen. There was a spot I could pull off the street, where it wouldn’t be quite so obvious it was this house we were at.”
Kristoff agreed that would be smart, and accordingly, Magda and Ray moved the car down the road half a block or so.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this. I can’t believe I’m here with a vampire and a sparkling-light lady, and we’re breaking and entering a house so expensive, we could go to jail for at least fourteen years,” Raymond said as we all trooped up the drive to the house. “This is something straight out of The A-Team .”
“Sweetie, your middle age is showing,” Magda said.
Alec’s house, I had to admit, was impressive. It was of modern design, shaped like several square blocks had been stacked one upon another, with bits of it jutting out in an odd but pleasing formation.
“What are we going to do about the lo-”
Before I could finish asking, Kristoff opened the door and gestured for us to go in.
I frowned at him. “How did you know it would be unlocked?”
“I made sure it was.”
“Huh?” For one moment I had a vision of some strange, magical long-distance locksmith abilities known only to vampires.
Now that is so far-fetched, it isn’t even in the realm of television.
Then how . . . ?
“The associate who was in California checking on Alec’s movements opened the house up for me. And no, I don’t know how-I didn’t ask him. Does it matter?” he asked.
“Why are we here if you’ve already had someone search the house?” Magda asked as she and Raymond walked slowly down a couple of slate steps into a vast living room.
Kristoff evidently knew Alec’s house security code as well, since the alarm never sounded after he tapped in a few numbers. “He didn’t search the house for anything but Alec. It’s our job to see if there is anything here that can tell us whether or not Alec is involved with the reapers.”
“Well. All I can say is, viva las vampires,” Magda said as she turned slowly in a circle to take in the sights.
I had to agree with her assessment. The house had an open, breezy layout, and I found myself just as curious as Magda and Raymond as to how a vampire lived.
OK, I admit it. I’m surprised, I told Kristoff as I wandered around the large open room, stopping to admire a huge stone fireplace. Beige suede furnishings and cream-colored accents just weren’t what I pictured his house looking like.
“Green marble in the kitchen,” Magda said, emerging from that room. “Ooh, Jacuzzi on the deck.”
“OK, MacGyver, now what?” I asked Kristoff.
He frowned. “My surname is von Hannelore, not MacGyver.”
“It was a TV reference, and yes, I’m aware we watch too much of it. Moving on, what now?”
“Now we search.”
“Search for what?” Magda asked, coming in from the deck with Raymond. “I’m ready and willing to be put to work.”
“Look for anything that has to do with reapers,” Kristoff told her as he picked up the phone, punching in two numbers. “Or any travel documents. Anything that could give a hint as to where Alec was last. You two do the ground floor. Pia and I will do upstairs. We’ll meet back here to search this floor together.”
Magda saluted. She and Raymond headed to the lower floor while I watched Kristoff.
“Anything?”
He listened for a moment, then hung up the phone, shaking his head. “Nothing useful. The last call he made from here was to the Moravian Council, assumedly before we went to Iceland.”
“He still has his cell phone, yes?”
“Yes.” He held out his hand for me.
I took it, allowing the little skitter of happiness that never failed to follow such a gesture to fill me with warmth. “Now that Raymond and Magda are out of the way, what is it you really hope to find here?”
He shot me a faux-irritated glance. “I should have known better than to try to deceive you.”
“Amen. What do you think we’ll find?”
“I am hoping that he left behind his reaper journal. Normally, he did not take it with him when he traveled.”
“What’s in it?” We paused outside of a room. Night was starting to settle in, so Kristoff switched on a penlight and flicked it around the room. It was an unused bedroom. He moved on to the next.
“His notes on reapers. If he has betrayed us to them, there might be some evidence in the journal. Likewise, if not, there may be evidence to that effect, as well. This is his study.”
The light was so dim that I couldn’t see much of the room.
“And if he’s acting as a double agent, pretending to work with Frederic in order to ingratiate himself?”
Kristoff crossed the room to close the blinds on three windows, followed by some heavy gold-and-cream drapes. “There may be some indication of that, too, although he has never mentioned anything like that to me. We should be safe to turn on the light now.”
I flipped on the light and breathed in the air rich with masculinity, an intriguing blend of leather, furniture polish, and a faint, lingering citrusy note that I remembered as something inherently Alec.
“You take the desk,” Kristoff said, gesturing toward it. “I’ll see if there is anything helpful on his computer.”
He moved over to sit at a small computer table that butted up against one window.
I touched the corner of the large mahogany desk that dominated the room, running my fingers along its satiny top. It was an antique desk, not terribly old, probably made around the turn of the twentieth century, but meant to impress with its size and ornate decorations. I could easily see some railroad magnate or lumber baron seated behind it, barking out orders with a cigar clenched between his teeth.
