before.”
“Convenient,” Campbell said.
“It looks legit.” Travis stared out the windshield. “What if they’re stealing vehicles, using them in one abduction and then dumping them?”
“Covering their tracks.” Campbell squeezed the steering wheel even tighter.
“Well, that just made catching these cretins harder,” Kaja said.
“Don’t worry, we’ll catch them,” Campbell said. And the perps weren’t going to like it when they did. He pulled his phone from his pocket and checked for messages.
“You expecting a call?” Kaja asked.
Campbell made the mistake of meeting Kaja’s eyes in the rearview mirror. Kaja might seem vain and frivolous, but she was also supersharp and didn’t miss anything, either overt or subtext.
“Just seeing if the others have found out anything.”
“Uh-huh.”
He ignored her disbelieving tone, but it did him no good.
“It’s the human woman—you like her.”
He forced a shrug. “She seems like a nice person.”
“Don’t be deliberately dense, Campbell. You know what I mean.”
“I’m sure I don’t.”
She made a disgusted sound. “Too bad the turning process doesn’t make men smarter.”
Travis looked up from his computer and back at Kaja. “Hey, what’s with the generalizations?”
“You were already smart. Though I’ve never seen you around women. I’ll reserve judgment on that until I see you in action.”
“And when do any of us have time to date? We work nonstop.”
“Now, that’s just not true,” Campbell said. “What is this, National Pick on Your Boss Night?”
“No, but I like the sound of that,” Kaja said. “But stop avoiding the topic. You know you can’t be with her, right?”
He sighed. “Yes, I’m abundantly aware. Not that it’s any of your business.”
“Excuse me? It is my business if I end up having to stake you because you’ve killed her.”
An icy chill went down Campbell’s spine. At Kaja’s words, a flash of Olivia cold and lifeless in his arms, blood trickling down from bite marks on her neck, hit him and turned his stomach. He didn’t have to imagine it. He’d seen it all too vividly before.
“You okay, man?” Travis said.
“Yeah.” Not in the slightest, but he would be as soon as he purged Olivia DaCosta from his thoughts.
* * *
Olivia’s exhaustion made her sleep so hard that Mindy had to wake her the next morning.
“Come on, sleepyhead,” Mindy said. “You forgot to set your alarm.”
Olivia blinked her eyes, trying to alleviate the ripped-from-sleep confusion. She looked at the clock, which did more to wake her up than Mindy’s words. “Good grief!” She threw off the covers and raced for the bathroom as fast as her healing but still-tender ankle would let her.
“I’m going on downstairs, get things started,” Mindy said.
“Okay, be down in a minute.”
She flew through her toothbrushing, changed clothes and ran a brush through her hair before hurrying downstairs. Rusty was already out front when she hit the bottom step, so she veered toward the door to unlock it.
“Is something wrong?” he asked as he stepped inside.
“No, nothing. We just overslept this morning. Too many brownies last night and not enough setting of alarm clocks.”
Rusty shook his head. “Girl, you can’t scare an old man like that.”
“Well, if I see an old man, I’ll try not to scare him.”
Rusty planted a kiss on her forehead and headed toward his usual table. “You’re good for my ego.”
“We aim to please, serving up ego stroking with your bacon and eggs.”
“You know, life is short and I’m feeling a bit adventurous today. I think I’ll have some French toast.”
Olivia’s mouth dropped open. “Who are you and what have you done with Rusty?”
He laughed. “Guess I’m just tired of the same thing day after day. Where’s the fun in that?”
It hit Olivia that she could say the same about herself. Her days didn’t differ much from one another, unless, of course, you included a vampire attack and phone calls from a tall, sexy vampire who was so off-limits it was painful. She glanced at Mindy, hoping she couldn’t magically read her thoughts.
As more of the morning regulars and a few new faces started arriving, Olivia headed to the kitchen to start another of her carbon-copy days. The sense of dissatisfaction surprised her. She loved her diner and the customers. Cooking for them made her happy. So why did she suddenly feel as though her life wasn’t complete?
Because she was alone, surrounded by people but still alone. Except she hadn’t felt that way when she was talking to Campbell. Maybe Mindy had been right about staying with her the night before. Maybe she did need babysitting.
She shook her head and focused her attention on filling orders.
“Did you all see this?” Rusty asked as he thumped a story in that morning’s
Olivia’s heart slammed against her rib cage and she had to grab the edge of the countertop to steady herself. She’d hoped that Campbell had been wrong, but having the same story in black and white, reported by a human journalist who covered the vampire beat, made it even more real. She resisted the very real urge to be sick.
“Guess it was just a matter of time before some lowlife got that idea,” said Barney Bretton, a retired cop. “Bottom-feeders in every species.”
“How could a person even think about working for one of those animals?” Barney’s wife, Cheryl, asked. “I can’t stomach the idea of even speaking to one, let alone going into business together. I hope they all get their heads chopped off.”
Olivia jerked at the hatred in Cheryl’s voice and had to turn away. She went to the large walk-in freezer, where she couldn’t hear the continuing conversation. Once inside, she took slow, deep breaths.
“You okay?”
Olivia gasped and took an involuntary step backward before it clicked that it was only Mindy. “Yeah.” She grabbed a box. “Just needed some more cheese.”
Mindy didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t press the point and left Olivia alone.
Olivia took another moment to calm down, reminding herself that people had very good reasons to hate vampires. Two days ago she likely would have agreed wholeheartedly. Now her head hurt every time she wondered if the world actually had a lot more shades of gray instead of being all black-and-white when it came to vampires. Thankfully the dining room conversation had shifted to the more usual griping about politicians when she returned to the kitchen, and she fell into her normal rhythm as the morning progressed.
When the breakfast crowd left and they found themselves in the morning lull, Mindy came into the kitchen and took off her apron. “The first rule of self-defense is to always be aware of your surroundings. Look people in the eye. If something feels wrong, don’t do it. I’m a firm believer in gut instinct.”
Over the next hour, Mindy showed Olivia the location of pressure points, how to disable an attacker by kicking the side of his knee and how to make a fist and use the other hand to help make an elbow strike more effective.
Olivia glanced at the clock. “I need to get started on the lunch prep.”
“One more thing. Palm strikes to the nose can be effective because they’re painful and can knock your attacker off balance, giving you a chance to get away.” Mindy showed her how to hold her palm forward, bring back her arm then shove the heel of her hand up into someone’s nose. “You ram them with as much force as you can.”
