King merely smiled, and she was saved from any more conversation when Charlie appeared with her drink order.
“Here ya go, Lizzy.”
She took the tray, but couldn’t help one last glance at King. Expecting his usual entitled, insouciant expression, she was surprised to find a tinge of sadness and even a glimmer of uncertainty.
She was about to leave when she noticed her order wasn’t complete. Damn. “I need another Scat, Charlie.”
“Right, sorry.”
King shifted his shoulders and rested his gloved hands on the bar. “We have business matters to discuss, Charles.”
The bottle of whiskey trembled in Charlie’s hand. “Yeah?”
“Nothing to worry about really. The local police department will be paying you a visit tomorrow.”
Charlie’s face blanched. “A raid? You sure?”
King snorted derisively. “I assure you, my sources are never wrong.”
“I didn’t mean—”
King waved him off impatiently. “You’ll close tomorrow.”
Charlie had completely forgotten about the drink order. “Right.”
King fastidiously tugged at his kid gloves. “The situation is an aberration. An error in someone’s judgment,” he added darkly. “It won’t happen again.”
The cold resolve in his voice reminded Elizabeth exactly why she should avoid this man. He turned to her and bowed slightly, extending his hand. Reluctantly, she gave him hers. When he leaned down and kissed the back of her hand, she nearly gasped. His lips were ice cold.
His eyes fell on her wedding ring as he released her hand. “Mrs. Cross,” he said, the enigmatic exterior once again fully in place.
Without another word, he gave her his back and left. Elizabeth was still recovering from the shock when she felt Simon come up behind her. Funny how she could feel his presence now without looking.
“That was quite a display,” he said.
She turned around and did her best to push away the skin crawlies she felt lingering from King’s touch. “He was just being theatrical,” she said.
“That’s one word for it,” Simon said, shooting daggers at the door.
She placed her hand on his chest, and he covered it with his own before looking down. His face was clouded and he seemed to struggle for words. “I... I don’t like his touching you.”
“It didn’t mean anything.”
“To you perhaps. But it did to him and most assuredly to me.”
Elizabeth felt a rush at his words. Proprietary and jealous. It was silly, but the threat he exuded made her feel safe.
She smoothed his lapel and leaned closer. “Do you know how sexy you are when you’re jealous?”
“Elizabeth...”
“I can’t help it,” she said with a breathy sigh and whispered in his ear, “if I want you.”
She felt his body surge closer to hers, his hands gripping her hips, even as his hands shook. “We’re in public,” he managed in a rough voice.
But he didn’t pull away, as she slipped her arms around his neck. “But we have all day off tomorrow. Raid,” she said and blew a soft breath onto the flushed skin of his neck. “Any ideas?”
He pulled back to see her face, and she felt a thrill at the passion in his eyes. “A few.”
Heat flooded her body and she brushed a tempting kiss against his lips before leaving his embrace. She picked up her tray and looked back at him over her shoulder. “Only a few?”
“Dozen.”
Tomorrow could not come soon enough.
* * *
They spent the next morning and an indecent part of the afternoon in bed. Simon would have gladly stayed where he was, but Elizabeth’s growling stomach reminded him they hadn’t eaten in nearly twenty hours. Truth be told, he needed a little sustenance himself.
He went out alone and found a small deli down the block and bought roast beef sandwiches, two bottles of some strange lemon cola and an afternoon paper. He’d only been gone fifteen minutes and already he missed her. How quickly he’d grown accustomed to having her by his side. It seemed that everything before her was merely an echo. Life was suddenly vibrant, colors sharper, the world alive around him. Even the people on the street seemed different, or perhaps he was only really seeing them for the first time. The smudge of newsprint on the paper boy’s cheek. The apple vendor’s stern concentration as he meticulously scrawled a new sign for his cart. The grin on a small girl’s face as she was pulled down the sidewalk in a little red wagon. They’d all been there before, he simply hadn’t bothered to notice. Simon tucked the newspaper under his arm and started back to the apartment.
When he returned, Elizabeth was still in bed, although she had gotten up long enough to put on one of his shirts. She looked absolutely adorable, sitting on the rumpled sheets, swimming inside his shirt. It was so oddly familiar, he had to remind himself this wasn’t the way it had always been. A wave of nervousness coursed through him, suddenly far too self-aware. He forced himself to ignore it.
“Aren’t you ever getting up?” he asked, as he set down the paper bag.
She pouted theatrically. “Don’t wanna.”
“Lunch is served.”
“In that case,” she said and walked over to the table. But she ignored the food and slipped her arms around his neck and kissed him.
“I thought you were hungry?”
“Oh, I am. Starved,” she said and insinuated her body against his. “Sex makes me hungry. And I’m very hungry.”
“Elizabeth...”
With a grin she eased out of his arms and plopped down into a chair. “What’d ya get?”
“Cold sandwiches and warm soda, I’m afraid.”
Elizabeth peered inside the bag. “Sounds good to me.”
“And a paper,” Simon said as he took his seat. “There is a whole city to explore, you know?”
“Bored with me already?”
Simon reached across the table and rubbed his thumb across the back of her hand. “Hardly. But as much as I’m loath to admit it, I’m not seventeen anymore.”
“Could have fooled me,” she said, and took an outrageously large bite from her sandwich.
He watched her devour her lunch. For such a small thing, she ate like a horse. He carefully unwrapped his sandwich and picked up the newspaper. Studiously ignoring the gory headline emblazoned across the front page, he flipped to the middle section. “I wonder what’s playing at the Roxy.”
Elizabeth giggled. “You’re certainly getting into the spirit of things.”
“Just swimming with the tide.”
Simon skimmed the pages, waiting for something to catch his interest. “There’s a new Marx Brothers movie,” he said and peered around the edge of the paper. Elizabeth’s expression stopped him cold. Her face had gone white. “What’s wrong?”
Never taking her eyes from the paper, she took it from his hands and laid it down on the table.
“This...this man,” she stuttered and pointed to the picture below the “Butchered!” headline. In grainy black and white, a man hung upside down in a butcher’s window. Her fingers trembled as she turned the paper around. “I think he was one of them. One of the muggers.”
“Are you sure?”
“No. I...It was dark and it happened so fast.” She squinted at the picture. “I can’t tell. Maybe.”
Elizabeth read the lead of the article. “Drucker’s Butcher Shop had more than its usual fare hanging in the window this morning—side of beef, pig and Dutch O’Banion.”
She nervously rubbed her forehead just below the small cut at her hairline.
Simon felt his stomach clench. “Elizabeth?”
She startled and her eyes darted back and forth. “I think one of them called the one that grabbed me Dutch. I think.”
“Try to remember.”
Her eyes flashed to his. “I am,” she sniped.
Simon took a deep breath and nodded. Of course, she was trying. But if that man was one of thos
e who attacked her, they’d managed to become embroiled in something far greater than a mugging. Unerringly, his hand felt in his pocket for the watch.
“I don’t know,” she said and looked at the photograph. “God, this is sick. Who would do something like that?”
Simon moved his chair next to hers. He squeezed her hand and gave her a smile he didn’t feel. “What does the article say?”
“In what looks to be the third in a trio of gangland slayings, a message has been sent. The bodies of Fish Brody and ‘Mustache’ Pete Arnold were found near the East River earlier in the day. Both had been seen frequenting clubs in the Lower East Side with none other than Dutch O’Banion.”
She leaned in closer to the paper. “I wish I could see his face more clearly. Or maybe it’s better I can’t.”
The photograph was blurry, but the gruesome details were clear enough. The gaunt man had been strung upside-down in the window like another side of beef. His mouth hung open, his blank eyes fixed and unseeing. A severed pig’s head rested beside him.
Simon didn’t know what to say to comfort her. He’d imagined the things he’d do if he ever came across the man who’d attacked Elizabeth, but this, this was inhuman.
“Father Cavanaugh of St. Patrick’s parish,” Elizabeth read, “found the body after returning from a late night call. O’Banion’s death is eerily reminiscent of the murder of the Weasley twins three months ago. Stabbed twice in the neck, bodies drained of blood...”
Simon’s hand clenched over hers. “What?”
Elizabeth kept reading. “A pair of stiletto sharp cuts on the neck and the odd loss of volumes of blood. In each case, the blood at the scene was minimal, leading police to believe the murders occurred elsewhere. The small puddle of blood doesn’t account for the shriveled, desiccated skin of the corpse.”
“Dear God. The vampire would then suck the blood of the living, so as to make the victim’s body fall away visibly to skin and bones,” Simon recited, feeling the first rush of possibility.
“A vampire? You don’t really think...”
Simon took the paper from her and scanned the rest of the article. “I don’t know. The marks on the neck could be stab wounds, and the blood loss could be explained through conventional means.”
Part of him felt the exhilaration of potential discovery. The photograph was too hazy and taken from too far away to get a good look at the wound. But if it were what he thought it might be....
Simon set down the paper and tried to clear his mind, but it whirled with the possibilities. Years of research, a lifetime of endeavor, and the evidence to justify it all could be within his grasp. “Imagine if this is tangible proof of the occult. What I’ve been, what we’ve been searching for.”
“I’d feel a whole lot better if I weren’t stuck in the middle of it,” she said.
In his enthusiasm, he’d nearly forgotten the circumstances. “I’m sorry. I’ve just waited so long for something like this.”
“I could have waited a little longer.”
“Yes,” Simon said. “But still, it is a possibility.” As much as he hoped it was true, a part of him was disgusted by the prospect, to wish something so vulgar into existence was shameful. He glanced at Elizabeth and could feel her nervous energy coming off in waves.
She pulled her hand away from his. “And the tiny little fact that this man was murdered and strung up like an animal is what? Extraneous?”
The rebuke was well aimed and stung. “Of course not.”
“You’ll forgive me if I’m not overjoyed at the prospect of finding a vampire when I’m trapped in the middle of this whole depraved mess.”
She was right. This wasn’t an academic exercise, this was frighteningly real. He made a conscious effort to squelch his research instincts. Was he really such a man who could see death and find only what helped his cause? “It’s probably nothing of the kind.”
He needed to touch her again and reached for her hand. Thankfully, she didn’t pull away.
“I know this means a lot to you, Simon. Under any other circumstances I’d be right there with you. But reading about vampires in books is one thing, this...”
“Is something else entirely,” he said and squeezed her hand before rising to move around the room. As much as he tried to deny it, the possibility was there. A chance to find the proof he’d spent a lifetime searching for.
Elizabeth pulled her knees up to her chest and watched him pace for a few moments. “Why do you believe it? I mean, all of it.”
He leaned against the far wall and paused for a moment before he answered. “Because the man I most admired believed it, and was ridiculed for it,” he said simply. “If I can prove he was right, find some empirical evidence...”
“You’ll clear his name?”
“Yes.” It was a simple motive really, one he realized she couldn’t possibly share. “What about you? Why the occult? Why not General Anthropology? History?”
She gave him an embarrassed smile. “It sounds silly.”
He nodded in encouragement and walked over to the bed.
She took a breath and shrugged. “I guess part of me can’t believe human beings are really capable of atrocities like this,” she said and nodded toward the paper. “And I hoped, maybe, there was another explanation. That people weren’t doing those awful things. That evil wasn’t just an idea, but a real, tangible thing. And if it had form, if you could find it, you could stop it. That’s me, saving the world from evil.” She shrugged again. “Told you it was silly.”
“Not at all. I think it’s...” he said and smiled gently as he sat down, “wonderfully you.”
“Naïve and all catty whompus?”
“No,” he said and held out his hand for her to join him. She took it and sat on the bed. “You see the best in people. Don’t ever be ashamed of that. Even though I might act differently on occasion, it’s one of the things, the many things, I love about you. You saw the best in me when I didn’t deserve it, and for that,” he said, as he kissed her hand, “I’ll be forever grateful.”
“You know, for a stuffy Englishman, you’re pretty damn eloquent.”
“Am I?”
She ran her fingers along his neck, tickling a particularly sensitive spot behind his ear. “Makes me all puddley.”
He leaned into her touch and felt her lips follow the same path as her fingers. “That’s good?”
“Oh,” she breathed softly. “Very good.”
Her mouth was doing something marvelous to his neck, barely nibbling on the skin, when she suddenly pulled back.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She stared at his neck, her eyes clouding with worry. “Do you really think it was a vampire that killed that man?”
He considered, briefly, lying to her. “It’s possible.”
“God, I hope you’re wrong.”
He wanted to say he hoped so too, but he didn’t. He wanted it to be a vampire. As unthinkable as it was, he wanted it.
His thoughts must have shown on his face because Elizabeth pulled away. “You hope it is one.”
“No,” he said quickly, but couldn’t manage the lie. “Yes. I know it’s irrational, but I’ve spent too long searching to turn back now. If this is a lead, a real lead, I have to follow it.”
Elizabeth was quiet, considering what he’d said. After a long moment, she nodded. “I guess I should put on some clothes then.”
She read his confused expression and sighed again, this time in exasperation. “If you think you’re going vampire hunting by yourself you really are nuts.”
“You don’t have to be involved in this. I’d really rather you weren’t.”
Her face was a mixture of resignation and sadness. “I already am.”
Chapter Eighteen
Elizabeth didn’t feel like a vampire hunter. She sure didn’t look like one. She’d always pictured them as grim men in long cloaks, stalking through the cemeteries of seventeenth century Europe. Her light floral pattern dre
ss and ankle strap pumps were hardly de rigueur.
Simon, on the other hand, could have slipped back a few centuries and fit right in. Judging from his dour expression, he had grim down to a science.
He’d tried to talk her out of coming with him. He’d said, vampire or not, mucking about in a murder was dangerous business. But, she’d been his assistant back home and that wasn’t going to change now. Besides, if she was somehow connected to this mess, the more she knew, the better off she was. Not to mention the fact that she was curious too. She hadn’t sat through Professor Hayes’ endless lectures on Slavic folklore for her health. As frightening a prospect as it was, if a vampire really was involved in the killings, she wanted to know as badly as Simon. It seemed highly unlikely they’d actually find anything, but the possibility was there. Hell, they’d traveled back in time. Anything could happen.
They went to the crime scene first. No yellow tape cordoned off the butcher shop. No large crowd was held at bay by the police. Even the severed pig’s head still sat in its place. A closed sign in the window was the only hint that it wasn’t business as usual.
Simon looked from storefront to storefront trying to divine some clue in the location itself. He was as meticulous now as he was back home. It was one thing she envied about him. He could patiently work through endless stacks of materials, painstakingly sorting through them for that one kernel of evidence.
People were a different matter. It was as though all his patience was spent on inanimate objects, leaving none for the rest of the world. Only the most brave or naïve students dared to darken his door during office hours. She wasn’t sure which category she fit into. A little of both, perhaps.
In the end they complemented each other. Maybe the same would be true in a relationship. A thrill of both excitement and fear rushed through her. A relationship. She was in a relationship with Simon. At least, it felt like one. A day old and already she wondered how long it would last. She was being silly. Simon told her he loved her and he certainly wouldn’t have said it if he hadn’t meant it. But nagging doubts pricked at her. One night of bliss does not a relationship make. He was still the same man who’d pushed her away. The same man who’d spent thirty years keeping the world at arm’s length. Could he really simply push the reset button? Was it even possible?
Out of Time Series Omnibus (Out of Time: A Paranormal Romance & When the Walls Fell) Page 17
