by Amber Riley
It had been worth a try to ask. If Jessica hadn’t seen her, then someone else would have. She would have been there at one point. I knew it because I knew her. But she probably wasn’t alone. Anyone could have come instead of her.
“Why are you looking for her?” Jessica asked.
“I’m not,” I told her. “I think she’s looking for me.”
She smirked. “Ex-lover, huh? You scorned her, and now she’s here for her revenge. Ah, sweet revenge.” She clasped her hands together and batted her eyelashes.
I scowled. The last woman I would have ever taken as a lover was the one in that portrait. I pulled it back from Jessica and stuffed it into my pocket again. “Keep an eye out, and let me know if she shows up.”
She picked at the stain on her dress. “Still not watching the news?”
Of course I wasn’t. The news was depressing. It was always about the same things: someone was missing, or dead, a building had burned down, a politician was dirty, the economy was falling. I didn’t want to hear about women killing their own babies or another dogfighting ring.
“I didn’t think so,” Jessica continued. “So you don’t know about the murder in Central Park? The man was completely drained of blood.”
“No,” I said, sitting up straight. “When?”
“Last night.”
Now I was sure of it. The rule in the city was simple: don’t kill your dinner. I had never had a single problem before now. It was too coincidental. I needed to take a look at the crime scene first thing tomorrow night.
“Kaden?” Jessica snapped her fingers. “What’s wrong with you tonight?”
My head was spinning. Why now? I asked myself. Why did she have to come back now? I had just gotten comfortable here after so long.
“I’ve got to go,” I blurted. I got up and stormed toward the door. Max came around the corner with a box of liquor and almost ran into me. He spun on his heel and disappeared around the corner with eyes the size of dinner plates. I looked over my shoulder at Jessica. She shrugged. It was going to get really annoying if he kept avoiding me like that.
“Good night,” she called.
I waved my hand over my shoulder at her. “Stop drinking that stuff, and go home already.”
“Yes, boss.” She laughed.
I was glad one of us could still find humor in anything tonight. Things had gone from bad to worse. There wasn’t anything more I could do now except go home. I was ready to crawl into my bed, safe and sound, to mull everything over.
But when I got there, Reece was waiting on the porch steps for me. His head was resting on a pillar, and his eyes were shut. He was still in his T-shirt, but he wasn’t cold, though he had his arms folded across his chest. Werewolves ran at least twenty degrees warmer than the average human.
“Hey,” I said, giving him a little kick. “What are you doing here?”
He jumped and rubbed his face. He blinked his sleepy brown eyes until he could see straight again and looked up to the sky. “You’re cutting it close.”
He was right. The sky was turning light, and if I was still on the porch in another few minutes, I would be nothing more than a pile of ash. I pushed the door open and waited for him to go inside before me.
He got up stiffly and shook his head. “You’re telling me it was unlocked all this time?”
I shrugged when he passed me, and I shut us both safely inside. “I guess I should rethink that.”
He flopped down on the black leather couch in my living room and put his feet up. “I told Sid what happened, and he asked me to come find out exactly what’s going on.”
“Is your phone broken?” I asked.
“Is yours?” He yawned. “We tried to call like a hundred times.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled the phone out. A little box popped up saying I had missed nine calls. Somehow I had set the ringer to silent. I turned it back up and threw the portrait at Reece. “Was this the girl in the bar tonight?”
He caught it in midair and glanced at it. “It looks a lot like her, but I’m not sure, Kaden. It’s one of those faces that a lot of people have. Who is she, anyway, and what’s the big deal?”
“Her name is Francesca, and it’s a big deal because she works for Phoenix.” I snatched the portrait back. “She’s probably here to collect information for him.”
He held up his hands. “Wait. You think the master vampire sent her here for something like that? Don’t you think he’d do something a little more drastic? I mean, what does he need to know about you? It’s pretty well known how you live here.”
He was right, but I still felt that something was off. She wouldn’t have been vacationing, and I hadn’t received any requests to enter my territory. Working for Phoenix, though, she didn’t need to get permission. The whole world was her playground.
“There was a murder last night where the man was drained of blood,” I said and began pacing back and forth.
Reece sighed. “I think you’ve become paranoid. I’ll talk to one of the wolves that works down in the morgue, but it’s probably just some local vampire gone crazy.”
“It’s too coincidental—” I started.
“Kaden, it’s not this Francesca person. You need to stop worrying that Phoenix is going to send someone to kill you. It’s been what? Like two hundred years?” He yawned again. “Let the past be the past. Relax a little.”
I sat down in one of the leather chairs and sighed. He was probably right. If the master had wanted me dead, then it would have happened by now. There would be no point in coming to get me after all these years. But grudges could last forever—I should know.
“I’ll relax after I figure this out,” I told him. And I would figure it out.
Chapter 3
The cops had probably cleaned up the crime scene and gotten rid of anything I might have found useful. I was determined to try though. Maybe there would be something they missed or something they didn’t think had any relation to the murder.
Reece had gone home sometime during the day. He hadn’t called yet to tell me what his friend from the morgue had said, but I could wait to hear about it until after I checked things out. I should have asked him to measure how far apart the fang marks were. Francesca had a large mouth with fangs set farther apart than most vampires. But it was too late to ask now.
When I opened my bedroom door, I heard voices. As I made my way down the hallway, I realized it was just the television. Reece must have left it on when he went home. Or that was what I thought until I saw the blond head of someone sitting in one of my chairs.
Flo was wrapped up in a white fluffy robe. Her hair was pulled back into a braid that reached her hips, and her makeup was flawlessly painted on. She was sunk down into the chair cushion and idly flipping through the channels.
She, like me, used to work for Phoenix, but she came to live here shortly after I did. There were actually four former family members living in New York. Phoenix’s “family” was another way to say “vampire royalty,” and I was their rogue prince. The four of us who had left didn’t see much of each other. I suppose it brought up bad memories for all of us.
Flo had a habit of showing up unannounced once in a while though, then disappearing. Only now wasn’t a good time for her to be around. If Francesca saw her, then she could be added to the hit list, assuming there was one. But it was a little pointless to worry about Flo. She had always known how to take care of herself, and she never appreciated anyone getting in the way.
I walked slowly up behind her and crossed my arms. “Make yourself at home, why don’t you?”
She bent her head backward to look up at me, batting her big blue eyes innocently. “I did.”
“I noticed,” I said under my breath.
She looked me up and down before turning back to the TV. “Where are you going tonight?”
“Central Park.” I went to the closet beside the front door and pulled out a pair of white sneakers. “I think someone was killed by a vampire t
here.”
“I heard,” she said offhandedly. “I checked it out last night, but there wasn’t anything left but the stench of death.”
I raised an eyebrow at her and shut the closet door. I carried my sneakers over to one of the chairs and sat down to untie the laces. “You checked it out?” I asked in disbelief.
She scowled at me. “I do useful things sometimes, Kaden.”
“Not often.” I slipped the first sneaker on and started to tie it. “That’s not why you’re here.”
“Of course not,” she scoffed. “I wouldn’t bother coming all the way out here for something like that. Dealing with those baby vamps is your department.”
It wasn’t like I chose to be in charge of the city. It had just happened. I was the first vampire to settle here, and when other, younger ones started to move in, I had to step up. It was either that or the Enforcement Team would show up to control the chaos. No one wanted to open that can of worms.
“So what are you doing here then?” I asked.
She clicked the power button on the remote. “They’re remodeling my apartment. I need a place to crash until it’s done. I figured I haven’t seen you in fifty, sixty years, so I thought I’d come here instead of a hotel.” She smiled, her pink, glossy lips pulled back to show her fangs. “So, what about this murderer?”
I tied my second sneaker and stood up, fixing my jeans. “I’m going to find out who it was and kill her.”
“Her?” She cocked a well-manicured eyebrow at me. “How do you know it’s a female?”
I hadn’t meant to say that. I didn’t want to tell her whom I suspected until I was sure. Flo had a hot temper. I could only imagine what kind of rampage she would go on. It was better not to wake that sleeping dragon unless it was necessary.
“Him,” I added. “It. What’s the difference?”
There was a knock on the front door before Reece came inside. He was talking on his phone as he shrugged off his coat and tossed it onto the back of the couch. He waved at me and looked curiously at Flo before sitting down. He was saying a lot of uh-huhs but not much of anything else.
Flo made a little disgruntled noise and turned her attention back to the television. Apparently it was too much for her to pay attention to. I, on the other hand, wanted him to hang up and tell me everything.
It seemed like ages before he ended the call. But even then, he didn’t say anything. He held his finger up to tell me to wait a minute and clicked around on his BlackBerry. I huffed, and after clicking a few more buttons, he handed it over. “Pictures,” he sighed.
I looked at the screen and scrolled down the e-mail. There were two pictures of the dead man’s neck from different angles. I felt a wave of relief at the spacing. The fang marks were too close together. But there was still a problem. There was a vampire out there breaking the rules and making a public spectacle of us. I’d have to take care of him or her before someone else showed up to do it.
“So is it Francesca or not?” Reece asked.
Flo shot up in her chair and looked at me. I groaned and handed the phone back. “Thanks, Reece,” I hissed under my breath. He looked at me like I was crazy and scratched his head.
“Kaden,” Flo demanded, “what’s he talking about?”
“Nothing,” I lied. “I was just being a little paranoid. I thought I saw Francesca the other night and figured she was the one that killed that guy, but it wasn’t her.”
Now that I said that out loud, it seemed to click. She might have had someone else kill him, but it wouldn’t have made sense. There was no point in leaving a calling card to let me know she was in town if she wasn’t going to do it herself. It must have been a girl that looked like her on the street. As for Sid’s bar, I didn’t have an answer for that, but it seemed unimportant now.
“It wasn’t her?” Flo started. “How can you be sure? What made you think it was? Kaden, don’t you walk away from me.”
I kept going all the way out the door. I wasn’t in the mood to play twenty questions with her. It usually ended with her screaming, and things might get broken. I chose to revel in the fact that my life wasn’t about to be turned upside down.
I was planning to do that by skipping the crime scene and keeping my appointment with my antique dealer. He would call every few months with an interesting item. Usually it was something from the time I was alive. He knew what I was. His finding out was a complete accident, and he scarcely handled the news well, but he didn’t know anyone else that appreciated history as much as I did.
I arrived at his apartment building within minutes and pressed the button on the intercom. He lived in a decent area, but the building itself was run-down. The fire escapes were rusted, and the cement around the door was cracking. There was a Blimpie right across the street with a torn sign above it and a stray cat sitting in front of it.
“Hello?” Tom’s hoarse voice crackled through the box.
“It’s me.”
A buzzer sounded, the door unhinged, and I slipped inside. The paint was peeling off the walls, and the stairwell smelled like someone had just thrown up, but I wasn’t getting into the rickety elevator. Besides, the smell wasn’t so bad the higher you climbed, and his apartment always smelled like a candle store.
The hall on his floor was covered in an ugly, worn green carpet, and one of his neighbors was screaming at someone every time I was there. A person must get used to it after a while, but I couldn’t imagine it. Especially when the little ankle-biter dog started barking its head off.
Before I could knock, Tom was ushering me inside. His hair was sticking up in odd places, and he had something that looked suspiciously like spittle on his shirt. A perk of having a new baby. Luckily, his offspring was nowhere to be seen. People always want you to hold them and say how adorable they are.
“I’ll go get it. Wait here.” He disappeared into his office, leaving me alone in his kitchen. Roosters covered almost every inch of it, from the hand towels to the decorative tile behind the sink. Even the dishes that were drying on the counter had a picture of a chicken with her chicks painted in the middle.
Tom’s wife, Diana, looked up from her laptop with a big smile. Unlike her husband, she didn’t look any worse for the wear. Her hair was teased and sprayed into place, and she looked bright and full of energy. I wondered how she managed that when Tom looked like he hadn’t slept in days, not to mention his obvious lack of shower time.
“How have you been?” she asked.
“Good, thank you. And yourself?”
“I’m great,” she replied, an ear-to-ear grin stretching across her face.
Drugs. That must have been her secret. No one was naturally that energetic with a newborn in the house.
Tom came back into the room with a boyish grin as he handed me a little black box. “A guy brought it in yesterday afternoon. I wouldn’t have called you about this except that the guy knew a little history on it and mentioned your name. Well, I’m sure there’s more than one Kaden in the world, but …” He shrugged, trailing off.
“My name?” I repeated. That sinking feeling settled back into my stomach, and I started to think I had talked myself into having false securities. I flipped back the velvet box to see a sapphire ring glittering happily up at me. I swallowed hard and plucked it from the fabric. “Where…”
He laughed. “You recognize it? I dated it to the fifteenth century, but what are the chances?”
“It was a gift from my wife on our wedding night.” I slipped it on my finger where it had been centuries ago. “I lost it in Europe awhile back.” It had actually been stolen from me, and for that reason I knew she was here.
“Huh,” he replied, uninterested.
“Thank you,” I said distractedly. I pushed more money than the ring was worth into his hand, and his eyes popped.
I stepped back from him as he tried to shove half of the bills back at me. No amount of money would be enough for this. I might not have married for love, but she was a good woman and this
was an important reminder of my humanity.
“Tom.” Diana was still watching us. “Ask him.”
He gave up trying to force the money on me and glared at his wife instead. “I told you, no.”
She gave him a dismissive wave of the hand and turned to me. “My niece just moved to the city with a couple of friends, and she doesn’t really know anyone. Her friends are losers, and I was hoping you could show her around.”
Tom was slowly turning a deep shade of red. “Diana, stop it. This is a client, here to do business. Stop pestering him.”
“I just thought that since they’re about the same age and since they were both single …” She paused and had the decency to blush a little. “It’s better than having her walk around the streets alone when her friends go home with random men. I told her mother I’d try to keep an eye on her, but what kind of college kid wants to spend her weekends playing Scrabble?”
“Diana!” Tom tried to guide me to the door. “I’m sorry, Kaden. I’ll walk you out.”
“Look, this is her a few years ago.” Diana rushed in front of me with a framed photo.
It would have been rude to just push past her. The polite thing to do would be to look at the picture and say she was attractive, but that I was awfully busy. If worse came to worst, I would have to lie about having a crazy, jealous girlfriend.
She held the photo up in front of my face so I could get a good look. Diana and Tom were standing on either side of a young girl in royal blue graduation robes. She was about five-three and slender. Her eyes were a light shade of brown that matched her hair, which was cut up to her chin. She looked like any other high school girl—ordinary—and yet there was something about her. At the very least, I wouldn’t have to lie about her being cute.
“There was a murder in her neighborhood last night.” Diana lowered the picture and ran her finger over her niece’s face. “She’s from a small town in Vermont. She doesn’t know about city life, and I’m worried about her. I’m sure you two would get along great.”
If she cried, I was out of there. There was nothing worse than a crying female. I would rather stab my own eyes out with a hot poker than deal with that.
