“Dates?” She fluttered her lashes. “Oh, no. Nothing like that. Just a girls’ night out, that’s all.”
“That’s nice.” The man lowered his flashlight by degrees. “Maybe you can reschedule for tomorrow.”
“Maybe we can.” She leaned out the window an inch or two. “What are your plans, Officer…?”
The light clicked off, and I blinked away spots, curious how Cass could see a damn thing with her more sensitive eyes.
“Abernathy,” he supplied, eager to please. “I don’t have any, but I’m off after five tomorrow.”
A purr turned her voice to silk. “You don’t say?”
As she swooped in for the metaphorical kill, three men tramped out of the woods at the edge of the road, and my vision cleared enough to recognize the tallest and the blondest of them.
“Cass.” I quelled the urgency in my voice. “We really should let the nice officer get back to work.”
She followed my line of sight straight to the last person who needed to see me, or her, or us. Together. We couldn’t afford him making any connections. I might not have a record, but Cass’s was a mile long. He would have questions, and any answers I gave him would damn me.
“Here’s my card.” She handed the officer a black rectangle with her information in red. “Call me.”
Honestly, I was surprised when she passed on blood spatter or a bite mark in one corner to really drive home she was a vampire. I could picture her listing it below her name—VAMPIRE—as if it were a profession.
“I’ll do that.” He tucked it into his shirt pocket. “You ladies have a nice rest of your night.”
“Oh,” she promised, “we will.”
Her three-point turn, complete with pause to flip her glossy curtain of hair over her shoulder for the sentinel’s benefit, would have done a shampoo ad proud.
“We have a source now,” she announced after raising her window. “You can thank me later. Or now. Now is good.”
Meaning she planned on wining him and dining on him to get intel on what had brought out the big guns.
“Thank you,” I said dutifully. “You’re the very best vampire ever.”
“Aww.” She patted my thigh. “You know what I like.”
“I do know what you like.” I grabbed her wrist. “That’s why I’m going to have to ask you to keep your hands on your side of the car.”
“And now I know what you like.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m a vampire.”
“I’m aware.”
“Your heart almost exploded out of your chest when you recognized Boaz.”
“He could have spotted me. Worse, he would have noticed I was with you.”
Cass was on record as finding Ron’s body. Boaz would wonder, once he realized that, what my connection was to her. I was a Low Society necromancer. I couldn’t resuscitate humans, turning them into vampires. Beyond that act of creation, most necromancers didn’t mingle with their offspring. Let alone with someone else’s.
Tapping the side of her nose, she turned smug. “That’s not what your pheromones said.”
“You’ve told me a hundred times that fear and arousal smell the same to you.”
As a vampire, she provoked a prey reaction in her lovers, so it was hardly surprising.
“No, I told you they smell equally good. That’s not the same thing.”
“I’m glad we cleared that up.”
“Can I stay at your place tonight?”
Another inglorious fact about middle-aged vampires I learned from Cass.
They get lonely.
Really, really lonely.
And once they bond to you, they’re like barnacles on the hull of a ship. You have to chip them off if you decide you want them gone.
“I’ll make up Hadley’s room for you.” I hung blackout curtains with Velcro closures in there months ago for this very reason. Right after The Garlic Incident. “Just remember to lock the door so Dad doesn’t walk in on you.”
“I’m a vampire, not an idiot. I know the drill.” She clicked her nails on the rich leather of the steering wheel. “Do you want to watch a movie?”
“Sure.” She would pass out after the sun rose, and we both knew it. “Keanu or Dracula?”
“Not all vampire movies are about Dracula,” she huffed. “And not all vampires wear black silk capes with red lining.”
“True and true.” I snickered. “I’ve seen your closet, though. You own such a garment.”
“It was for Halloween,” she screeched. “Why must I keep telling you that?”
“Halloween two years ago,” I reminded her. “What’s it still doing in there?”
“Who knows?” She tossed her hair. “I’m a very busy vampire, and I don’t have time to properly organize my closet.”
“It’s not like you’re immortal or anything.”
“What a cruel thing to say. We both know I’m not truly immortal.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry enough to let me cop a feel?”
“Nope.”
“You understand I had to ask.”
“I do, and you understand I had to hard pass or I would start waking up with you curled around me during the day.”
“What a lovely mental picture that provides.” Her chuckle was positively evil. “I could teach you all kinds of things before you marry.”
“I’ve waited this long. I might as well let Boaz teach me all kinds of things after we’re married.”
We hadn’t even kissed yet, so after was good. Much better than me learning ahead of time I didn’t do it for him or that he didn’t do it for me. I would feel more confident in my ignorance once there was a ring on his finger and his escape paths has been barred—mine too.
Seven
The flashy car executing a precise three-point turn tickled the back of Boaz’s memory, but he couldn’t place where he had seen it. The blonde behind the wheel also struck a chord, with that electric hair color, but the tinted windows made an ID impossible from this distance. His night vision was good, but the IED that cost him his left leg nearly took his sight in that eye. The charm he kept on a key ring in his pocket helped, but magic could only do so much.
Parker stepped onto the asphalt beside him and watched the taillights until they burned out. “What?”
“That
