“I’ve seen it around. Hard to miss a Ferrari.” The sentinel hooked his hands on his hips. “Pretty sure it belongs to a local vampire.”
“Find out who.” A tightness in his gut told him the car or the vampire or both were important, and that same instinct was what saved his life overseas. “I’ve seen it before, but I can’t put my finger on where.”
He preferred motorcycles, but fast cars did it for him too. A sleek beauty like that would have earned a passing glance. Too bad he hadn’t had time for a closer inspection. Maybe next time.
And there would be a next time.
His recollection of where he had spied a fob to match that spendy car guaranteed it.
“I’ll ask Abernathy for the plate number, and we’ll run it.” Parker made a note. “You’re staying out at the old Whitaker place, right?”
Tension shot through Boaz’s shoulders, curving them in an instinctive hunch as if he’d been caught misbehaving instead of engaging in Society-appropriate conduct for a man engaged to the Whitaker matron.
Then again, he had the next best thing to a girlfriend back in Savannah who would be less than thrilled to learn of his travel accommodations, let alone his recent and secret engagement.
Goddess, he was tired.
Dragging a hand down his face, he wished he could hop on his bike, drive home, and pretend none of this had happened. That he could find another way to save his sister, his family, that didn’t cost him the first woman to make him think, to make him feel.
I am so sorry.
“Yeah,” he rasped. “That’s where I’ll be.” He hesitated. “I would prefer a call to a drop-in.”
Parker, who had known him a long time, shook his head. “Her father know you’re staying with them?”
Boaz ran a finger along the inside of the collar of his tee. “Yeah.”
That was the polite answer, the one that didn’t expose how Addie ran the household and not her father.
And he was about as thrilled with the prospect of Boaz for a son-in-law as learning Godzilla was rampaging through their small town.
His tone or expression must have set Parker’s detective instincts tingling. “You’re getting serious?”
The other man laughed at what he must consider a witty one-liner, but Boaz played dumb and took the words at face value.
“Everybody’s gotta settle down some time.” He clasped Parker on the shoulder. “I’m going back for another look.”
“Make it quick.” He shook his head, still chuckling, and checked his watch. “The cleaners are getting antsy.”
Leaving the pitted strip of asphalt, Boaz trudged back into the woods to do what he did best.
The victim had been identified as Angelo Willis of Clan Willis, whose newly turned lover, Ron, had met his end at the railroad museum earlier in the night.
Boaz had expected to find Ron’s murder had been a punishment for the younger vampire stepping out on his lover, but this killed that line of inquiry stone dead.
Ron hadn’t had it easy, but Angelo, the poor bastard, had suffered more.
Wrists opened from palm to elbow, throat slit, and femoral arteries gaping, he had been hung naked between two pines and left to bleed out. Beneath him, the pine straw glistened black in the moonlight, and the size of the puddle made it clear the vampire hadn’t fed since news of Ron’s true death had reached him.
Chin pointed skyward, he stared up at the treetops. Or, he would have, had his phone not covered his eyes. Like all the others, music played from the device, but the song wasn’t the same. Another dead end.
“He’s still alive, well, undead,” Honeywell murmured from right behind him. “We need to cut him down.”
Jessica “Honey” Honeywell was the reason Boaz was out in the middle of nowhere debating that very thing. He had dropped in to say hello to a friend, Mark Chambers, on his way out of town when his old flame waylaid him with a link to his case. Now he had more questions with no answers than when he arrived to meet with Addie.
How dead was too dead when you were already undead? He had no clue. Only a master vampire could tell him if Angelo was revivable. His corpse was intact, his decapitation thwarted by a thin strip of meat.
Boaz examined the knots and made a mental note of them, but the killer used all manner of materials to bind and subdue his or her prey. “How old is he?”
“Two-fifty or three hundred.” She leaned over his shoulder, her breath in his ear. “He’ll turn to dust and blow away come morning.”
Choosing to ignore the come-on, he kept his game face on. “Can they revive him in this condition?”
“Hard to say.” She withdrew a fraction when he didn’t reciprocate. Honey was smart like that. “The master of Clan Willis is upper limits for a made vampire. If it can be done, he’ll know how to do it.”
“The head is still attached.” Boaz leaned in as close as he dared without disrupting the evidence underfoot. “Might explain why decay hasn’t set in.”
If the clan master could save him, Angelo could tell them who did this.
“I heard you got yourself a girlfriend.”
The change of topic didn’t surprise him. “And?”
“Also heard you were staying at the Whitaker place.”
“Yeah.” He rolled his hand, waiting on her to get to the point. “What about it?”
“Rumor has it you’re off the market, but I don’t buy that for a minute.” She sized him up, made sure he knew she still liked what she saw. “You’re as available as ever, right?”
The words got stuck in his throat, but he pushed them out in the face of her amusement. “Not exactly.”
“Oh, honey, no. You’re either monogamous, goddess help us all, or you’re the same old Boaz who’s always known how to show a girl a good time.”
A reluctant smile kicked up his lips. “Why can’t it be both?”
“Mm-hmm. See? You never change.” She bumped shoulders with him. “Can you make it by my place?”
Again, the words
