yelled at Han, the guy who owned the Chinese place at the end of the block.
“Already did,” he said.
When the attacker tried to get to his feet, Mindy gave him another jab to the nose. He howled but stayed down.
Olivia lowered herself next to the woman who’d nearly been the city’s latest kidnapping victim and realized it was the granddaughter of the old lady who lived above the dry cleaner’s. She was dazed and her mouth was bleeding, but she was alive. When she spotted the guy on the ground, she started crying and turned her face into Olivia’s chest. Olivia wrapped her arms around her and rubbed her hand over the girl’s long hair. “It’s okay. It’s over. He can’t hurt you now.”
Sirens approached, and it didn’t take long for the alley to be filled with medical and police personnel.
“What happened?” a police officer asked.
“This bastard tried to kidnap this girl,” Mindy said, and kicked the guy in the side again.
The officer guided Mindy away from the guy before she could do more damage.
The girl in Olivia’s arms flinched when the paramedic tried to examine her. “It’s okay. They’re here to help you.”
Reluctantly, the girl let the paramedic help her stand and walk toward the ambulance at the end of the alley. She stopped in her tracks and looked back at Mindy and Olivia. “Thank you.”
Olivia smiled. “You’re welcome.”
For the next half hour, Mindy and Olivia answered the police officer’s questions and told him exactly what they’d done when they heard the screams.
“You should have called the police,” he said.
Olivia got the impression that he had to say it but that he was actually impressed with what they’d done. “If we’d waited, that girl would be on her way to a blood den now.”
He nodded.
“What was she doing out here?” Mindy asked. “Shouldn’t she be in school?”
The officer nodded to where the paramedics were headed up to the grandmother’s apartment. “She said her grandmother was sick last night and wouldn’t answer the phone this morning, so she skipped school to come check on her. She noticed the van following her about a block before she got here.”
“Her grandmother okay?” Olivia asked.
“Looks as if she has pneumonia, so they’re taking her to the hospital.”
Once the officer headed back to his car, Olivia and Mindy walked to the end of the alley to check on the girl and her grandmother. The older woman gripped Olivia’s hand in hers. “Thank you for saving my granddaughter.” Tears streamed from the woman’s eyes.
“We were happy to do it. Now you just concentrate on getting better.”
She nodded. “I will. And then Tracey and I will come down and have lunch at your diner.”
“Sounds like a good plan. Speaking of, we better get back to work.” She smiled at Tracey and her grandmother and turned to head back to the diner.
But when they turned, they found their way blocked by a gaggle of reporters with microphones and television cameras pointed their way. They answered a few questions before insisting they had to get back to work.
On the way back up the alley, Olivia flexed her hand. “You know what? That felt good.”
For the first time in what felt like forever, Mindy smiled at her. “It did, didn’t it? We make a pretty good ninja team.”
Olivia laughed as they stepped through the back door to find the diner full of curious customers.
“Looks as if we’ll be serving up a tale with lunch,” Mindy said.
“As it happens, we have one to tell.”
* * *
“Hey, Campbell,” Travis called from his spot in front of the TV. “You might want to see this.”
He was up for anything to get him away from his desk, so he wandered across the room. What he saw stopped him in his tracks. There on the TV screen were Olivia and Mindy.
“Two women are being hailed as heroes today after they thwarted the attempted kidnapping of a teenage girl,” the studio anchor said. “Olivia DaCosta and Mindy Kemp heard the girl screaming and raced to her aid. Our Sierra Carnes has more.”
Campbell was vaguely aware of the rest of the team filtering into the room as he watched the reporter interview Olivia and Mindy.
“We couldn’t just do nothing,” Olivia said. “We knew what might happen to her if the guy got her into the van.”
“Damn, I knew she was a fighter, but evidently the girl’s got skills, too,” Billy said.
“Both of them,” Colin said.
“Yeah, and they just painted huge bull’s-eyes on themselves,” Campbell said. He spun and stalked back to his desk and picked up the phone.
“Comfort Food Diner,” Olivia said when she answered. “How can I help you?”
“You can start by not taunting the Nefari on the news,” he said.
“Campbell?”
“Yes. What were you thinking?”
He heard a loud thump and wondered if she’d just slammed something down.
“I was thinking I was saving a girl’s life,” she said.
“And you had to talk to the reporters about it?”
“It wouldn’t have made a difference if we’d said no comment. They already knew who we were and what we’d done.”
He growled in frustration. “So you decided to just bask in your fifteen minutes of fame?”
“You know, last time I checked, you weren’t the boss of me. In fact, I got the distinct impression you didn’t even want to talk to me. So I’d appreciate it if you’d keep your opinions to yourself.” With that, she hung up on him.
He slammed his own phone down. Damn fool woman.
When he looked up, he noticed everyone had left the room. Good move.
He stared at the door that led to the street and cursed the fact he couldn’t go over to Olivia’s right now. As he paced the length of the room and slowly calmed down, he realized that it was a good thing he couldn’t go outside at the moment. Instead of racing to the diner to try to continue his tirade, the truth had time to soak through the crevices of his brain.
Olivia was right. He didn’t have the right to tell her what to do, even if he only wanted to make sure she stayed safe.
As he normally did when he wanted to push something from his mind, Campbell focused his energies on work. It didn’t totally keep his argument with Olivia from his mind, but at least he had something to do besides pace the Bat Cave like a caged panther.
He and the rest of the team spent the night scouring nearly all of the six-block radius to which Travis had traced Rico’s phone call, both inside and out. Not surprisingly, no one seemed to have seen anything. Chances were one of the people standing in line for one of the trendy vampire clubs had seen Rico, but they knew what the Nefari did to vamps who were a little too loose with information. Rico was proof enough of that.
He spotted Kaja and Travis going into yet another club across the street and Billy keeping watch from a nearby rooftop, gun and stakes at the ready. Campbell and Colin stepped to the front of the line at Universal Donor.
“The names of these places get more stupid every time I come down here,” Campbell said as they approached the beefy bouncer.
