Tall, Dark, and Vampire

To his surprise, she laughed. It was a smoky, sexy laugh that made him stop dead in his tracks. He fought the urge to turn and go back to the club so he could hear it in person, but he shook his head and kept on his present course.

“No, detective.”

“Doug,” he interrupted.

“Alright,” she said through a chuckle. “No, Doug, I don’t have any enemies, at least none that would’ve messed with Ronald Davis, and I definitely don’t have any old boyfriends looking to cause trouble.”

“Current boyfriend?” he asked quietly as he looked over his shoulder, worried that someone would overhear.

“No,” she said slowly. “I’m quite single. Not so much as a dinner date in a long time. You could say that it feels like centuries.”

Doug stopped at the corner and looked both ways before jogging across the street.

“How about Mexican?”

“Mexican boyfriends?”

“No.” Doug laughed loudly and ran one hand over his head. “Mexican food. Do you like Mexican food?”

Nail-biting silence filled the line as he waited for her to respond. He started to sweat. Doug suspected he overstepped his bounds, and just as he was about to take it back, she answered.

“Are you asking me out on a date?”

“That depends.”

“Oh really?” She laughed again. “On what?”

“Would you say yes?”

“Maybe.”

Doug tried to suppress the grin that bubbled up. She was flirting with him as much as he was with her.

“Maybe, huh?”

“Is there anything else that I can do for you?”

Doug bit his tongue because he thought of about a hundred different things she could do for him, to him, and with him, but instead, he replied, “I’ll be sure to let you know. Don’t leave town or anything,” he said playfully. “I may have a question or two tomorrow.”

“I can assure you that I’m not going anywhere, except to bed… alone.”

Before he could say another word, she hung up, leaving him with the beginnings of a hard-on and a blanket of guilt. Doug shook his head and stuck the phone in his pocket. He really was going off the deep end. Asking her out in the middle of an investigation? What the hell was wrong with him?

Doug made it the rest of the way to the examiner’s office in record time. He was beat and wanted nothing more than to crash in his crappy apartment and sleep for a week, but his curiosity about Miranda’s text trumped his exhaustion.

He peered through the small window on the door to the exam room and saw Miranda perched over the body of Ronald Davis. He swung it open and was instantly hit with the stink of death and antiseptic. Doug knew he should be used to the smell by now, but it still made his stomach lurch.

Miranda glanced over her shoulder and waved him closer. “Thanks for coming.”

Her brown hair was tied back tightly and went well with her strictly business attitude. She was professional, which made the tension in his shoulders ease, but it flared again when he set eyes on Ronald’s mutilated body. Granted, some of the damage was from the autopsy—but not the worst of it.

“Someone did a fucking number on this guy,” Doug said without looking at Miranda.

This was definitely a crime of passion. Doug would bet money that if Maya had not pissed off an old boyfriend, perhaps Ronald cock-blocked someone else.

“Someone or something,” Miranda said evenly.

“What do you mean?” Doug asked warily.

He turned his attention to Miranda and shifted his weight when her serious brown eyes met his. To his surprise, she removed the protective eyeglasses and burst out laughing.

“Relax, Paxton.” She held both gloved hands up in surrender. “I’m not going to jump your bones or stab you with a scalpel.”

A smile cracked his face, and he crossed his arms over his chest. “Am I that transparent?”

“Pretty much,” she said, dropping her hands. “We had fun. I’m married to my job, and you… well, you’re married to not being married.”

“Right.” He nodded, but a little voice inside said, nope.

Not that he had anything against marriage as an institution, but he had a hunch he would suck at it. Besides, in his experience, most people leave. His father split before he was born. His mother died. Foster families were like layovers at random airports. You never stayed for long, and if you did, you wished like hell you didn’t.

Miranda shook her head and put the glasses back on as she turned Ronald Davis’s head, giving Doug a better view of his neck. “Look at this,” she said, pointing at the jagged wounds. “This wasn’t done by a knife or any other kind of weapon, at least not one that I can match it to.”

Doug squinted and leaned closer. “How the hell can you tell? It looks like chopped meat.”

“The edges are jagged.” She stepped away from the autopsy table and stripped off her latex gloves before tossing them into a wastebasket. “I thought it might be a dog bite, so I swabbed the wound and had a closer look.”

She went to a table on the other side of the room, which was littered with various pieces of lab equipment, and tossed her glasses on the counter. Miranda leaned back on the edge of the counter and nodded toward the microscope next to her.

“Have a look.”

Doug sighed. “Give me the short version. I won’t even know what I’m looking at.”

“Oh, you’re no fun.” She crossed her arms, and he knew she wanted him to play her game, but he held his ground. “Fine.” She sighed. “There was saliva in the wound, but it wasn’t from a dog.” She grabbed a folder and held it out. “I had a sample from that pit bull attack we had a couple of weeks ago and compared it to the saliva that I found on Ronald. No match. It wasn’t a dog.”

Dread crawled up his back as he glanced at the data she handed him. “It’s not another fucking freak biting people again, is it? The press will have a damn field day. I can see the headline now: Zombies in New York.”

“No, it’s not from a person either.”

Doug furrowed his brow and glanced at Ronald’s body. “I don’t get it. If it wasn’t a dog or some doper hopped up on crack, then what was it?”

“I don’t know, but he’s practically drained of blood. From what the crime scene report said, there wasn’t much at the scene.”

“I know.” Doug nodded. “He was killed somewhere else and dumped where we found him.”

Miranda pushed herself off the counter and met his concerned gaze. “I’m sending the sample to the lab for analysis.”

“Shit. You mean we could have some psycho out there with a vicious animal that’s attacking people?” Doug ran a hand through his hair and gave her back the folder. “How long is that gonna take?”

Miranda let out a short laugh. “A few weeks, if you’re lucky.”

“Damn.” Doug sighed. “Those guys on television have it easy. They get their answers after the first commercial break.”

“I’ll see if I can get them to move it along, but you know how things work.” She gave him a weak smile. “You look exhausted. When was the last time you slept?”

“Don’t ask.” He lifted one shoulder. “Sleep is overrated.”

Silence hung between them. Her pale brown eyes looked at him with the unmistakable twinkle of invitation. He knew she still wanted him. Hell, Miranda was beautiful and smart, and most guys would probably give their left nut to go home with her. Up until a few hours ago, he probably would have asked her to come back to his place, but all he could think about was Olivia Hollingsworth.

He didn’t even know the woman. What was his problem?