by Debra Dunbar
“We’re taking a boat over to Anguilla this afternoon to talk to the vamp’s friend.”
Joss sniffed derisively. “I trust you won’t drag this nonsense out for too long. I only brought so many books.”
“You should really let me buy you an e-reader.”
Joss scowled. This had been a sore subject for many years, beginning with the first Sony e-readers when I’d declared it the future of reading and Joss had defended paperbacks as though they were an endangered species on the brink of extinction.
At least he had a passion.
“The day you drink fruit punch instead of blood is the day I’ll read from an electronic tablet.” Joss wrinkled his nose as though getting a whiff of something truly offensive.
“Fair enough,” I said, heading to the bedroom for some shut-eye before I met up with Cassie for the afternoon and evening.
The boat ride over to Anguilla looked like something from National Geographic. Crystal clear waters rivaled the brilliant blue sky. It hurt my eyes, but it was worth the discomfort. Cassie mostly stayed below deck while her human friend, Michael, navigated the ocean from the top deck of his small yacht. I sat in the chair beside him wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap, taking it all in.
A raw red wound marred Michael’s neck, and I would have been willing to bet a pint of blood Cassie had been the cause. I was happy to turn my attention back to the water when Michael slowed the boat and pointed out a great big sea turtle gliding just below the surface.
Releasing a breath, I said, “Absolutely magnificent. I’ve never seen one that big.”
“The leatherback sea turtle can weigh up to two thousand pounds,” Michael said.
“Damn,” I said with appreciation.
Michael grinned. “Been around a long time, too. The oldest known sea turtle fossils date all the way back around a hundred and fifty million years ago.”
“Older than me,” I said with a grin wide enough to show off my sharpened molars.
“Old enough to have lived with the dinosaurs,” Michael returned, gaze following the turtle’s progress.
A silent chuckle shook my chest. I appreciated Michael’s easy acceptance of a vampire by his side.
“Are we there?” Cassie yelled from below deck.
“Not yet,” I hollered back. “We were just admiring a sea turtle. Come look.”
Cassie poked her head out, but only to stick her tongue out at us then laugh before disappearing inside.
“She prefers the Caribbean at night,” Michael said with a chuckle as he brought the boat back to speed.
I pulled my eyes away from the water to study the wound on Michael’s neck. “So, you and Cas,” I drawled. “Friends with benefits?”
“Cassie has a lot of friends,” Michael answered with a casualness I could appreciate. He left it at that and I returned the favor by not prying further.
As Anguilla appeared in our immediate horizon, Michael slowed the boat and steered us into Road Bay, slowing to a crawl through the azure waters as he navigated between anchored yachts lulling gently in the calm waters.
Once he’d settled on a spot a fair distance from the other boats, Michael cut the engine. After the anchor had been released, Cassie and I helped lower a gray inflatable dinghy into the water. Michael stayed behind with his boat and a fishing magazine, propping his legs up in the chair I’d vacated.
Cassie settled onto the bench in front of me. A wide-brimmed sunhat obscured half her face with the help of a large pair of sunglasses. Her arms and torso were covered in a creamy floral shawl with fringes hanging from the end.
“You look like a celebrity,” I teased.
Cassie glanced toward the beach and grimaced. “Yeah, well, I’d rather go under the radar with a vampire hunter trolling the islands.”
“Vampires aren’t immune to accidents,” I said, dipping the oar into the liquid blue beneath our boat. When I lifted the oar, droplets of water shimmered like diamonds in the late afternoon sun. “What makes you think this is the work of a vampire hunter?”
“Because this is the third vampire to die within the past two weeks. Bit suspicious, don’t you think?” I couldn’t make out Cassie’s expression beneath her hat and shades, but her frown deepened. “The first casualty took place in Barbados three weeks ago—a vamp named Lenny on holiday from the States. A week later, Antoine was murdered in Guadeloupe . . . and he was an expat living in the Caribbean. Now this guy, Ronald, on Anguilla,” Cassie said, shaking her head.
“Did you know him?” I asked.
She gave her head another shake. “He was in town visiting a friend of a friend of a friend.”
“Ah, one of those,” I said, unable to prevent a grin.
“Stan,” Cassie said. “We’re meeting him at the Beach Shack before his night shift at the inn begins.”
“A blue-collar vamp,” I noted.
“Making an honest living and look what happens to his guest.” Cassie scowled. The expression looked out of place on her usually sweet face. “Who knows who’s next? It’s like this hunter is toying with us. Island hopping. Watching us squirm. It’s sick.”
With each stroke of the oar, we neared the beach. People sat reading or snoozing beneath great big beach umbrellas. They were gathered at tables in open-air cafes. It was the perfect picture of leisure.
Cassie adjusted her shawl, draping as much of the wispy fabric as she could over her bare knees. “We have the right to live same as anyone, even if it’s longer than humans,” she muttered. “Even if it’s indefinitely. We didn’t break any laws. Nature made us this way. Fane!”
“Hmm?” I didn’t realize I’d switched focus from Cassie to the impossibly white sand covering the beach. It looked absolutely unreal as though I was rowing toward a beach on another planet. Unlike Cassie, this scenery was all new to me. Its splendor was even more pronounced against the backdrop I’d left behind.
I thought of Alaska again, replacing white sands with snow-covered mountains in my mind’s eye.
“Fane,” Cassie said again.
I answered with the names she’d told me. “Lenny, Antoine, and Ronald . . . what’s their story?”
“I just told you.”
“No, I mean, what did they do to get the attention of a vampire hunter? If that is what’s really at play here.”
Cassie’s shawl slipped off her shoulders as she sat up. “You assume they are in the wrong?”
“Vampires aren’t exactly known for being saints,” I said.
Cassie pulled her shades down just far enough to glare at me over the rims. “That doesn’t automatically make them killers either.”
“Of course not.”
“Good. Glad we got that cleared up,” she said, pushing her sunglasses back up the bridge of her nose before readjusting her shawl. “Do me a favor and hear Stan out before you go condemning our kind.”
A heaviness settled over my chest. Suddenly I was keen to reach the shoreline and escape the confines of the boat.
Condemn my own kind? Cassie should have known me better than that. I’d always prided myself on having an open mind—a sense of balance and patience. Every story had more than one side, which was exactly why I’d made a point of asking what I did. I didn’t give away free passes just for being a vampire.
The space inside the boat shrank, the only sound the dip and drip of the oar again and again until, at last, we reached the beach.
I leapt out of the dinghy with an agility that seemed to startle Cassie. With quick speed, I pulled the front of the boat onto the sand and, before she could step out, I waded to Cassie’s side and held out my hand to help her out.
Mama could rest easy in her grave knowing a century of living among Yanks hadn’t robbed me of the manners she’d instilled in me from a young age. When I thought of my kind, I didn’t think of other vampires. I thought of my family, a long line of Donados, back in Italy. Even though I couldn’t be with them, they were my kin and the people to whom my loyalty would always lay fi
rst and foremost without question.
Vampires, on the other hand, were as random and varied as humans. If they did something nefarious, it wasn’t for me to interfere on their behalf.
Cassie took my hand and squeezed it. “Sorry,” she said as she stepped out of the boat. “Didn’t mean to turn into a barracuda back there.”
The moment she released my hand, I waved her apology away with a flick of my wrist and a toothy grin. “Vampire hunters don’t bode well for any of us,” I said. “I would like to know more.”
Cassie nodded and smiled gratefully.
“This place got any Red Rum?” I asked, nudging Cassie with my elbow as we approached the bar shadowed beneath the thatched roof of the Beach Shack.
“No, but that reminds me. You’re invited to a yacht party tonight, and Joss, too, of course. There will be plenty of blood, rum, and hot ass,” she said in a teasing tone.
I stared pointedly at Cassie’s ass. She laughed. “Hot human ass,” she emphasized, giving me a swat on my vamp ass, which I rather enjoyed.
“Michael’s yacht?” I asked as we sat at a secluded corner table.
“That little thing? Not a chance,” Cassie said, taking a seat and glancing at the yachts anchored in the bay. “Tonight’s party is on Bastian’s boat. He owns a luxury yacht that’s bigger than some of the islands around here. You’re in luck that he’s docked in St. Maarten this month. Bastian’s parties are legendary. He’s one of us, by the way.”
“Is his name truly Bastian?” I asked with a smirk. “Or is it Bob?”
Cassie snort laughed. “You’re one to ask, Fane.” Now that we were in the shade, she took off her sunglasses and hat and set them on the table.
When a waiter in surfer shorts and a T-shirt ambled over, Cassie ordered a diet soda. I asked for sparkling water, holding off on the hard stuff until the party that night.
As soon as the waiter walked away, a male in his early twenties slunk beneath the shade of the Beach Shack and stared in our direction. He wore a white baseball cap, the bill practically touching his pale chin.
I nodded in his direction. “I take it that’s Stan.”
“Never met him before. Let’s see,” Cassie said, waving the guy over. He ambled over slowly, head jerking from Cassie to me. When he’d come close enough, Cassie called out, “Stan?”
He looked over his shoulder. About a third of the tables were occupied and he seemed to take each one into consideration before facing us again with a jerky nod.
“Sit,” Cassie commanded, pointing to an empty chair beside her.
Stan squeezed into the wood chair without pulling it back and slumped over the table. Once he had, Cassie smiled warmly as though oblivious to Stan’s sullen behavior.
“This is Fane,” she said, eyes flicking across the table in my direction. “He’s here to help.”
More here to hang out, but I kept that tidbit to myself. I let Cassie do the talking, not feeling particularly friendly toward white hat guy.
Observing the less-than-friendly exchange between Stan and me, Cassie propped her elbows onto the table. “Let’s get right down to it,” she said. “Tell us everything you can leading up to your friend’s mysterious death.”
Stan looked over his shoulder again. The waiter came over with our drinks, asking Stan if he wanted anything, to which Stan shook his head. Even after the waiter had walked away, Stan’s eyes shifted from side to side.
“Ronald hadn’t even been here a week when it happened. I was working that night and we’d planned to meet up in the early hours, but after my shift he never showed. Later I found out he’d been killed.”
“Read that was an accident,” I said, leaning one arm against the table.
Stan scowled. “Ronald didn’t die scuba diving. He had no interest in water activities.”
Cassie nodded her understanding while I smirked at Stan. He was way too easy to provoke, which made it all the more tempting to keep it up.
“Did he tell you what he was doing that night?” Cassie asked, sounding inquisitive and intent on getting to the truth of the matter.
Stan turned his attention to her. “He was just hanging out having a good time.”
“Where did he hang out?” Cassie asked.
“No one place. He hit up all the beach clubs. Like I said, just hanging out having a good time.”
I leaned forward and stared Stan down despite the cap he had yet to remove or adjust. My fingers stretched across the table’s surface, each digit pointing toward Stan. “And by having a good time, I presume you mean in the form of female companionship,” I drawled.
This comment annoyed Stan enough to get him to lift his head and give me a peek beneath the bill of his cap. Grayish-blue eyes pierced me from the ghost of a face, way too pale even for a vampire, especially one living in the Caribbean. He should have tried a spray-on tan at the very least. Albino vamp’s eyes were narrowed, lips pulled back in a silent snarl.
Cassie smacked my shoulder. “Fane, don’t be obtuse. Of course, he was after female companionship. It’s what every guy’s after around here, unless they came with a fiancée or spouse and even then . . .” Cassie shrugged and took a languid sip of her diet soda.
“And why are you here?” Stan demanded, steely eyes locked on mine.
“To help you apparently,” I said with a dismissive eye roll. “Maybe ol’ Ronny met up with a special lady friend who talked him into an underwater adventure.”
Stan’s scowl made my chest shake with suppressed laughter.
“Ronald would never go scuba diving,” Stan ground out between his teeth.
Cassie glared at me. “I think we can rule out scuba diving.”
Shrugging, I said, “That’s not what I read in the Bermuda Sun.”
“The officials must have covered it up. Probably thought it would be bad for tourism.” Cassie huffed. She turned to Stan and softened her voice. “Were you able to track down anyone who’d seen him that night?”
Stan nodded. “Tucker at the Blue Fin saw him chatting up a couple females, but he didn’t leave with them.”
“How does Tucker know?” Cassie pressed.
Stan frowned. “He didn’t see Ronald leave, but he remembers he wasn’t around for long. The females he’d been talking to stuck around until closing, though.”
“Ouch, rejection burns,” I said, grasping my heart. “Maybe Ronny tossed himself into the ocean after being rebuffed.”
This comment earned me glares from both Stan and Cassie. Speaking of being burned—
“Ronald wouldn’t go near the water,” Stan said, voice rising. He was too worked up to notice several patrons stare over at his sudden outburst. “He hated the water!”
“Well, then, a Caribbean getaway makes perfect sense,” I returned, my brows jumping with amusement.
The sun descended into the ocean as we made the journey back to St. Maarten. It might have been romantic if Cassie hadn’t expressed her irritation at me for baiting Stan the shmuck for the umpteenth time.
If I had to hear “he’s one of us” one more time, I might just be tempted to throw myself overboard and backstroke the remainder of the way to the island.
In the end, we made it back to the harbor dry and as clueless as when we’d left as to what had really happened to Ronald or the other two vampires who’d recently expired. But at least Cassie’s shoulders relaxed, dropping with the setting sun. We reached St. Maarten in the afterglow between sunset and nightfall. In that moment, a sense of serenity washed over us.
“Stan was a bit of a sap,” Cassie acknowledged, eyeing the dock as Michael maneuvered us in.
“But I’m sure Ronald was a real prince,” I said.
She snorted, turned her head, and gave me an eye roll. “Well, anyway, we got the best information we could given Stan wasn’t with his friend that night. Nothing more we can do tonight besides enjoy Bastian’s bash.”
“And I do enjoy hanging out having a good time,” I said with a wink.
As Cassie laughed, all last traces of irritation left her body. “I hear that’s code for partaking in female companionship,” she teased.
“Are you offering?” I asked in a husky voice, my gaze dropping to her lips.
Cassie placed a hand on her hip. “You’ll forget all about me once you see the smorgasbord assembled tonight. A’s. B’s. O’s. Come hungry,” she added before jumping over the side of the boat onto the dock below.
I threw a thick rope down to her. Cassie caught it easily and set to work winding it around the dock’s boat cleat. As I watched her bent over, looking as cute and sexy as ever, it occurred to me she would be the one to forget me that night, not the other way around.
A heaviness filled me, like an anchor dragging me down. This felt like New Zealand all over again. We’d flirted and laughed, playing off one another blow by blow. The perfect pair. But Cassie couldn’t see it back then, and the present wasn’t improving my odds.
I suppressed a sigh but couldn’t prevent a bitter smile from cracking over my lips. Luckily, Cassie still had her head bent and missed my look of disappointment.
Chapter 4
Never one to be spontaneous, Joss opted to stay in for the evening and read. A part of me wanted to skip the party, too. I’d never been the stay-at-home sort, but it was somewhat tempting to fly solo for a night. Not that I’d likely remain solo long. I loved meeting people, and I was good at it—meaning I didn’t need to rely on Cassie to introduce me around. But she was the reason I’d come to the islands and it seemed stupid not to spend time together, especially time that involved amusement opposed to amateur detective work.
So, I took a catnap, showered, and spiffed up in a plain black tee and long khaki cargo shorts that were snug but not constricting.
It was full-on dark when I returned to the docks. Cassie texted me walking directions to Bastian’s boat, The Sea Serpent, but I only had to use my eyes and ears to find the floating party.
Reggae music drifted over the water and along the dock from a luxury yacht anchored at the far end. Cassie hadn’t exaggerated the size. The boat had two upper decks with wraparound balconies and a helicopter parked on the roof. Now that was what I called the cherry on top. My feet stopped momentarily and my head craned up in appreciation. I’d flown small planes before, but never a helicopter. I’d have to add that to my “to do” list.
