Drop Dead Gorgeous

by Juliet Lyons

  “But I’m alive—aren’t I?”

  Inspector Vampire, who has climbed into the backseat next to me, says, “Yes, but it’s still a crime scene. Kidnapping and assault are very serious.”

  My thoughts wander back to the way I left the bar, completely under my date’s control. “Wait!” I erupt. “I left my new jacket in the pub.”

  But Superintendent Burke is already accelerating away from the curb. “It’ll still be there in the morning, Miss Hart,” he says disinterestedly.

  “It’s Ralph Lauren,” I say. “I doubt it.”

  “I can call them,” Inspector Ferrer says. “What was the name of the bar again?”

  “The World’s End,” I say grimly, staring into his chiseled face. “Please, no smart comments.”

  His eyes crinkle around the edges as he smiles, and I stare openmouthed. He’s so gorgeous, it burns my eyes to look at him—like watching a solar eclipse without protective glasses. He says the name of the pub into his phone and hits a button. After someone answers, he says, “There’s a Ralph Lauren jacket left on a barstool.”

  “Table six,” I interject.

  “Table six. Can you please hold it behind the bar? Someone will collect it tomorrow. Thank you.”

  He hangs up and puts the phone away. “Crisis averted.”

  Having surpassed the level of staring that is considered socially acceptable, I drag my gaze away. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  When I dart a look back, he’s still watching me, his jaw clenched. I tug my skirt down some more and he looks away. Though it’s difficult to see in the low light of the vehicle, I swear a flush creeps up his neck.

  Can vampires blush? I wonder, admiring his angular profile in the yellow light of the passing traffic. In any case, I’ve learned at least one thing from tonight’s events.

  I definitely, without a doubt, prefer blonds.

  Chapter 2

  Vincent

  “It still doesn’t make sense,” Sergeant Lee Davies says through a mouthful of half-chewed pizza. “Why use his real photo?”

  It’s shortly after midnight, and the three of us are hunched around a table in a conference room at Scotland Yard, amid an explosion of crushed coffee cups and half-empty pizza boxes. Mila Hart was escorted home an hour ago by a squad car—shaken and tired but still making quips about the sorry state of London’s dating scene.

  I swallow a smile, remembering her reaction after we explained the killer had been using V-Date to target victims. Her pretty hazel eyes cast to the heavens, she said, “What a world, when you can’t even trust the dead ones.”

  The room grows silent, two sets of eyes drilling into me.

  “Don’t you think it’s a possibility, Vincent?” Linton Burke asks. From his weary tone, I can tell this isn’t the first time he’s asked the question.

  Truth is, I was too busy thinking about Miss Hart’s shapely legs. Again. “Sorry?”

  Linton emits a heavy sigh. “That the killer put his own picture on the fake profile this time, thinking he’d throw us off the scent. After all, his other pictures were all taken from genuine profiles on the site. Maybe he hoped the confusion would buy him some time.”

  I loosen my tie, narrowing my eyes in thought. “It’s a little farfetched, but it’s a possibility. I’ll call Catherine Adair first thing in the morning and see if she’s found anything of interest on her client database.”

  “Excellent,” Burke says, his tired eyes darting to the clock above the door. Unlike me, he has a wife waiting for him at home—a wife who, judging by the number of times his phone beeped during Mila Hart’s extensive witness statement, is not at all happy about being left home alone.

  “The other thing I don’t get,” Davies says, picking at an empty polystyrene cup with a fingernail, “is why the other two women didn’t react faster to a complete stranger meeting them instead of the vampire in the pictures.”

  “We’ve been over this,” Burke snaps. “He would have glamoured them straightaway.”

  “But why didn’t he glamour Mila Hart until halfway through the evening? Why take the risk? Sitting there in the middle of a busy bar, seen by dozens of people. If Miss Hart died, we’d have been in that bar the next day with his photo. There’d be plenty of witnesses to testify the man they saw her leave with was the same as the one in the picture. Which blows your throwing us off the scent theory out of the water.” Lee Davies smooths a hand over his shiny bald head and leans back in the chair, looking pleased with himself. Unlike Burke, he and his wife are going through a rough patch. He relishes late nights.

  “Unless he wants to be caught,” I offer, though I’m not at all surprised he didn’t glamour Mila Hart until halfway through the evening. There is no denying her obvious charms. I zone out, remembering slender thighs, an ample swell of cleavage, and her mesmerizing hazel eyes—large and intelligent. In the car and all through her interview, I was horrified by my inability to stop staring. I just hope she didn’t notice. There’s nothing like being kidnapped and assaulted and then having a police officer leer at you. I cringe shamefully as my trousers tighten. The cold setting on the shower will get a thorough workout tonight.

  Burke fans out the V-Date photos. “You’re sure you’ve never met him, Vincent?”

  I lean across the table, peering intently at the dark-haired man in the picture before shaking my head. “I don’t think so, though sometimes it’s hard to recognize people with modern haircuts and clothing. There’s always a chance Cat might know him, but even if she doesn’t, someone will.”

  “Well, I say we break here, lads,” Burke says, shuffling the pictures and copies of Mila Hart’s statement back together and dropping them into a manila envelope. “Let’s reconvene in the morning. What time did we ask Miss Hart to drop by tomorrow?”

  “Three o’clock,” I say without hesitation.

  Linton raises an eyebrow, as if he knows full well why I’ve memorized the time. “Right-o.” He pushes up from his seat. “Night, lads.”

  As soon as the door clicks shut behind him, Davies grins, spinning around on his swivel chair so we’re face-to-face. Having worked in each other’s pockets these past years, I know what he’s going to say before the words pass his lips.

  “Blimey, that Mila Hart is a bit of all right, isn’t she?”

  I close my eyes briefly, and when I open them, Lee is wagging a finger in my face. “Don’t pretend you didn’t notice either. I clocked you checking out her rack at every given opportunity.”

  “Lee,” I say, frowning, “don’t say rack. She’s our witness. Have some respect.”

  Lee puts on a posh accent. “Oh, terribly sorry, Holy Father. I meant to say she was an absolute delight.”

  I shake my head, trying not to smile as I adjust the knot in my tie. Lately, I wonder if Lee’s having some sort of midlife crisis. He seems to be spending an awful lot of time making inappropriate comments about the opposite sex.

  “Seriously though, mate, isn’t it time you had a woman in your life?”

  I snort incredulously, reaching behind to pull my suit jacket from the back of the chair. At the last second, I remember Miss Hart took it home with her. The vision of her curvy frame swamped by my jacket, blond hair spilling over her shoulders like a golden waterfall, is enough to induce another dangerous wave of lust. I need that shower. Fast.

  “Lee,” I say, “I’m a professional. End of.”

  He begins swiveling his hips on the chair, twisting like he’s performing a sit-down samba. “Christ, if I were in your shoes, I certainly wouldn’t be going back to a cold, empty flat every night.”

  “I have a feeling you’re going to tell me what you’d be doing,” I say dryly.

  “I’d be down in the West End,” he continues, ignoring me and staring wistfully off into space, “wining and dining a different bird every
night. I mean, what’s the point in owning a Porsche and looking like you do if you don’t make the most of it?”

  “All that is in the past,” I mutter. “Besides, none of that means anything. Not really.”

  “Who cares what it means? Enjoy it. I mean, I get that you have integrity by the bucket load, Vince, and I admire you for it. I do. But these days, women are usually only after one thing themselves. With vampires being out and all, you wouldn’t even have to lie about it. Look at Mila Hart—birds like her are dying to hook up with the likes of you. Unless…” He trails off, a devious glint in his eye.

  “Please don’t ask me if I’m gay again, Lee, and stop referring to Mila Hart as a ‘bird.’”

  Lee snickers. “If you are gay, Vince, you should be out and proud. I’m sure Barry down in narcotics would happily show you all the bars.”

  “Lee, stop.” I push myself up from the table, signaling my intention to leave. “Go home to your wife. Treat her well.”

  He sighs, the life going out of him faster than helium from a burst balloon. “I’m pretty sure she’s shagging the UPS guy.”

  That stops me in my tracks, one hand on the door handle. “The UPS guy?”

  Lee sinks farther into his chair, his once-jubilant smile reduced to a grim line. “First she lost all that weight at Weight Watchers, and now she’s ordering all these new clothes.”

  I release my grip on the door. The cold shower will have to wait. Lee may behave like a randy schoolboy when Burke isn’t around to keep him in check, but he’s still a good friend. “Isn’t that what people do when they lose weight? Because their old clothes won’t fit them?”

  Lee picks at the edge of table, top lip quivering. “At first that’s what I thought, but when I leave the house every morning, she’s dolled up to the nines, even though she claims she’s just popping around to Rosemary’s for coffee. Then when I get back, there’s always another parcel. Even if I wasn’t a detective, I think I’d have figured it out by now.”

  “So why not confront her?”

  “If I do, our marriage is over. We’ve been together since we were fifteen. UPS guy or no UPS guy, I can’t imagine life without her.”

  Modern marriage is obviously a lot more complicated than I thought. I always assumed things were simple these days, what with everyone being so financially independent and all. “So is this why you don’t want to go home lately?”

  Lee breaks my gaze. “You noticed.”

  I nod, perching on the edge of the meeting table. “If you get divorced, wouldn’t you be happier? ‘Wining and dining a different woman every night,’ like you said you’d like to?”

  He sputters in disbelief. “I meant I’d do that if I were you. Who’s going to want this”—he gestures to the portly stomach, rounded beneath his tightly stretched shirt—“a middle-aged, bald bloke with a potbelly? Let’s face it—I’m no Hugh Jackman. Never was either.”

  I suppress a smile. “Looks aren’t everything, Lee.”

  “Easy for you to say, Brad Pitt.”

  “It’s true,” I say, staring out the window at the milky-blue London skyline. “If they were, matters of the heart would be simple. You can’t fall in love with someone just because they’re beautiful. It goes deeper than that. A lot deeper.”

  “Is this why you never bring a plus one to the Christmas ball?” Lee asks, putting his feet up on the table and crossing his legs. “You’re still waiting for Miss Right?”

  “That ship sailed long ago.”

  “Oh, come off it. I know they say you only get one true love, but surely if you’re three hundred years old that means you get at least three, right?”

  I continue to stare into the night, not speaking. It’s not that I don’t want anything to do with women—au contraire. Though I’m not about to divulge my sexual history to the likes of Davies, I’ve had more than my fair share of meaningless, sexed-up encounters over the years. I’ve even had girlfriends, both vampire and human, who I’ve seen on a regular basis. But love—the real kind—takes a commitment I’m not prepared to make. I gave my heart once, hundreds of years ago, and I’m not willing to do it again. Falling in love is like leaping naked headfirst from a tall building. Life is far simpler and safer without it.

  Finally, I meet Lee’s probing gaze. “I’m just not interested in having that complication in my life again.”

  Lee nods slowly. “If I do get divorced, Vince, you and me should hit the clubs together. You can draw them in with your looks, and I’ll dazzle them with my sparkling wit.”

  I laugh, patting my trouser pocket to make sure I have my car keys. “It’s a deal. Come on. I’ll give you a lift home.”

  After dropping Lee in the leafy suburbs of Muswell Hill, I drive back toward Chelsea, to the scene of Mila Hart’s attempted murder. The streets have almost emptied out, but the odd red, double-decker bus hurtles along, sending litter and dust skittering in its wake. A few pedestrians, mostly workers on their way to or from a night shift, bustle past, rucksacks flung over their shoulders, desperate to be out of the chilly night air.

  I park on the street where we found Mila Hart, opposite the damp alleyway that’s now cordoned off with black-and-yellow crime tape. It was a heart-stopping moment for the three of us when we found the matching profile on the V-Date website—the exact same details given by the previous killer. Height, interests, and personal information—verbatim. Then enduring what felt like a hundred-year wait while V-Date’s owner, Cat, pulled out all the messages from her system. I can still hear her gasp of horror from the other end of the phone line when she discovered that “Jeremiah Lopez,” as he called himself, was meeting his date in Chelsea at that very moment.

  I flew straight to the pub, leaving Scotland Yard in such haste that, stupidly, I didn’t stop to pick up a copy of his picture. When I eventually tracked them down to the street around the corner, I was so relieved to see her alive, I let him slip away. If I hadn’t behaved like such a pathetic Romeo by catching her midfall, I might have caught up to him. I release a slow hiss of frustration between my teeth. There’s something about this case that irks me, something that goes beyond the fact that innocent women are being targeted.

  Innocent and sexy, a voice in my head reminds me.

  Turning away from the silent alley, I head onto the main road, to the bar where Mila met the killer. The trend these days seems to be for upmarket bars to masquerade as olde-worlde pubs. This one is no different. The exterior is painted a pristine shade of royal blue, the windows buffed to a mirror shine. There are several large, carefully tended hanging baskets on the walls overflowing with pansies, but the real giveaway we’re not in Victorian England is the scent. Bars smell like cleaning fluids these days, not like tobacco and stale beer and body odors. Thank goodness.

  I check my Rolex and see it’s a little after one in the morning. Though the windows are dark, there are lights on behind the bar. A young man loads pint glasses onto a shelf above the beer taps. I push open the wooden door and step into the warm glow of the room. Inside it’s furnished with expensive distressed tables and chairs. I can tell it’s one of those places fond of serving food on wooden boards and shiny slate tiles. Plates and bowls seem to be a thing of the past in London’s eateries of late. The other day at lunch, Lee Davies’s portion of french fries arrived in a metal flowerpot.

  The lad looks over his shoulder. “Closed, mate.”

  “I’m not here to drink,” I say, wondering if I should take out my badge. Though I loathe being one of those types to play the police officer card, I have to admit it comes in handy at times. A bit like having a magic wand—at least where speeding tickets are concerned.

  “I called earlier about a jacket that was left behind. A Ralph Lauren one.”

  The pimply youth looks me over, wiping hands on the front of his black apron. “Oh yeah. It’s in the back.” He grins. “No offense, but I’m not sur
e it’s your size.”

  Smart-ass. “It’s my girlfriend’s.” Using the word girlfriend about Mila Hart leaves me more than just a little hot under the collar. I loosen my tie as he chuckles, ducking through a door behind the bar and emerging a few seconds later with a black blazer.

  “Thank you,” I say, taking the soft bundle from him.

  “No worries.”

  “I don’t suppose you saw her earlier, did you? Blond hair, yea high?” I wave a downward palm level with my chest. “She was with a dark-haired gentleman?”

  He shakes his head. “Nah, sorry. We were rammed tonight.”

  I flash a smile. “Never mind. Thank you anyway.”

  “My ex cheated on me too,” he pipes up as I turn away. “Bitches. All of them.”

  Deciding not to dignify that sweeping statement with a response, I beat a path to the door, stepping back out onto the King’s Road.

  It’s only when I’m back in the Porsche that a mortifying thought strikes me—tomorrow I’ll have to hand the jacket back to her in person, probably in front of my work colleagues. If she possesses an iota of common sense, she’ll know collecting lost property isn’t in my job description. She’ll know I’m attracted to her. Big time. Muttering a curse, I lift it, burying my face into the soft material. It smells like perfume and fruit shampoo, and with my heightened senses, I pick up a deeper scent—floral, sweet, and perfectly intoxicating. Her.

  A tingle zips through me, and I impulsively fling the coat onto the backseat of the car. I must have fallen victim to some bizarre phenomenon where a man projects displaced feelings onto the woman he saves. I sigh, turning over the ignition. Maybe tomorrow I’ll leave her jacket with the others, make an excuse not be present at her interview. She’ll think I’ve just been kind, picking up the lost coat for her. Perhaps Lee can say he did it. I’ll never have to see her again.