by Nova Archer
Pushing away from the counter and breaking his hold on her, Eve shivered and started for the door, eager to get out of the room. “I don’t know what you’re rambling about.”
“Sure you do, love. But I won’t tell anyone.” He put his finger to his lips. “Your secret is safe with me.” He laughed. “I’m good at keeping secrets. I know everyone’s. Including Caine’s. Including yours.”
Eve didn’t stay to ask what he meant by his last comment. She wanted nothing more than to get out of that room and away from Kellen. He made her extremely uncomfortable. She believed he had meant to do exactly that.
Was it that obvious that she found Caine attractive? That there was something brewing between them? Could everyone see it like Kellen had? God, she hoped not. The last thing she needed was for the rumors to start flying around about her again.
Because of her foolhardy relationship decisions, her career had suffered before. Her affinity for powerful men in charge was well known. Captain Morales had reprimanded her once before. He had kept it out of her record, but he warned her if anything like that was to happen again, he would dismiss her.
Stopping to lean against the wall, Eve closed her eyes and took in a few deep breaths. She needed to get a hold of herself. Kellen had purposely unnerved her, she knew, but if she was going to face Caine again, she needed to be cool and calm. He could sense her emotions. She didn’t want him to know how confused she truly was.
And the last thing she was going to do was go running to him with tales of sexual assault by one of his team members. Kellen was a vampire. Maybe that was how he was with all women. She had no idea of knowing. And that angered her. She was still running around the lab blind, with no sense of how or why things worked the way they did. It was just another glaring reason why her being here was a dangerous idea.
Sighing, she pushed away from the wall, walked two feet and went into the women’s washroom. She needed to get herself together.
At the sink, she turned on the cold-water tap and leaned down into the basin. She splashed her skin, hoping the iciness would snap her out of her shock and start to put the pieces of her mind back together. She wouldn’t be any good to this case with her brain scattered and unfocused.
“God help me,” she muttered.
One of the toilet stall doors crashed open, and Lyra marched out, sidling up to Eve at the next sink to turn on the tap.
“Are you all right?” she asked while she washed her hands.
Nodding, Eve turned off the cold-water tap, turned and pulled a few paper towels off to wipe her hands and face dry. “I’m good.”
“Are you sure?” Lyra eyed her as she too wiped her hands dry. “I know I’m not the most approachable person, but sometimes I do listen.”
Eve smiled but shook her head. “I’m good.”
“Okay.” Lyra tossed the paper towel in the trash and went to walk out. “Tell Caine that I’m following a lead into the dark arts, and I’ll call him if I come up with anything.”
Eve nodded, but then took in a deep breath, letting herself trust this woman. “Has Kellen ever given you any trouble?”
“As a witch or as a woman?”
“Either, both.”
Lyra scrunched her face as if thinking of just the right thing to say. “Don’t let him bother you, Eve. He likes to rile things up. He likes to disturb others, plain and simple. Most of what comes out of his mouth is bull.” She smiled. “Disregard everything personal he had to say. He did it purely to upset you. And by the looks of you, I’d say it worked.” Lyra rummaged around in her small black bag and came away with a small spray bottle. “Here.” She handed it to Eve. “This will help.”
“What is it?”
“Just a little something I whipped up. Helps distress and boosts energy. And if you’ve been crying, takes the red out of your eyes and the bags out from under them.” She waved a hand in front of her face. “Just like magic.”
Smiling, Eve took the bottle and popped the top off it, smelling it. It had a light floral scent, jasmine perhaps. “Thanks.”
Lyra nodded then grabbed the door handle and opened it to step through. Eve heard her mutter under her breath. “I know she is, Gran, but you can’t force people to talk, you know.”
Eve held the spray up to her face, closed her eyes and pushed. A light mist floated over her head. Instantly she felt better. Her muscles loosened and she almost felt giddy.
Capping the bottle, Eve slid the spray into her purse. Hmm, magic indeed.
Taking in another breath, Eve tucked a stray hair behind her ear, smoothed down the line of her pants, and raised her chin. She could project an air of professionalism. She could make everyone see a strong confident woman. She’d been doing it for years.
The last thing anyone needed to know, especially Caine, was that Eve was scared. Scared of messing up this case, scared of failing on this assignment, and deathly scared of falling in love with her boss.
Maybe two out of three wasn’t bad?
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Didn’t Lyra say she couldn’t get a hold of Jace?” Caine asked Eve as he maneuvered the SUV up to the curb in front of a rundown apartment complex on Twelfth Street.
“Yes. No answer on his cellphone,” she answered from the passenger seat.
Caine glanced out his side window and spied Jace pacing the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street. “Hmm, either our lycan friend is psychic or he’s one step ahead of us.”
After parking, Caine slid out of the vehicle, grabbed his kit from the back and hustled across the street to where Jace, along with another detective, Ren Calder, impatiently tapped his foot next to a dirty, rusted-out white van. Eve trailed behind.
“Okay, how did you end up here?”
Jace showed him a piece of paper with vehicle information on it. “1989 white Chevy van, registered to Jamie Duncan, apartment 16, 1016 Twelfth Street.”
“Well, Jamie Duncan is now our second murder victim this week.” Caine handed back the paper to Jace. He put out his hand toward the detective, and they shook. “Good to see you, Ren.”
“You, too.”
After that formality, Caine proceeded to walk up the sidewalk to the apartment complex door. He pressed the landlord’s apartment.
A few moments later, a gravelly female voice sounded on the intercom. “What?”
“I’m Caine Valorian with the crime lab. I have a warrant to search apartment sixteen belonging to Jamie Duncan.”
The door buzzed open. Caine grabbed it to hold it open, and then turned back to Jace. “You and Eve take the van, Ren and I will do the apartment.”
“What? No way,” Jace protested, his eyes narrowing to deadly slits.
Caine set his steely gaze on Jace. “Don’t even try to go there, Jericho. I’ve had more than enough of your attitude this week.” Jace started to open his mouth, but Caine wasn’t through talking. “One more complaint from you, and I’ll take you off this case. You’ll be sitting at the lab going over surveillance video from the Griffin High School graffiti case.”
“I hope she’s worth it,” he muttered before turning and storming back down the walkway to the van, his hands clenched into tight fists.
Lifting a brow, Ren brushed past Caine into the apartment complex lobby. “I’ll just go and talk to the landlady and get the legal end of things taken care of.”
Still holding the door open, Caine took in a breath, prepared for Eve’s tirade about working with Jace and how rude he was. It didn’t come as he expected. Instead, she looked relieved.
Since she’d come back from the firearms department, she had been acting differently. Something had happened, but she refused to talk about it, claiming that Kellen had been a perfect gentleman and a professional. After she had said that, he knew she was lying. He didn’t even need to smell it on her. But he had, like vinegar.
He hadn’t had time to speak with Kellen before they left to come to this address, but when they returned to the lab, the two of them were
going to have a long conversation. Out of all his team members, Kellen worried him the most. He was fun loving and eccentric, seemingly always looking for a good time, but underneath that façade, Caine knew that Kellen was as unpredictable as a tornado.
And for human that didn’t understand vampire physiology, that tornado could rip apart any sense of reality.
“Are you all right?”
She nodded. “Fine.”
He grabbed her arm before she could turn to go back down the walkway. “I know that you aren’t, Eve. I can sense your uneasiness around me, that’s why I paired you with Jace. But I thought we were past that. I thought-”
She pulled away from his touch. “And so does everyone else.” She raised her chin and met his gaze. “I don’t need any rumors flying around about us. Let’s just work this case and be done with it. Then we can both go back to our normal lives.”
Before he could respond, she turned and walked down the stone path to where Jace had already popped open the side door of the van and was waiting, not quite patiently, for her.
He hated to admit it, but her rejection stung. Although he knew she was right, Caine didn’t want to just work the case and be done with it. He wanted more. For himself and from her.
It was certainly a blow to his male ego that she pulled away from him so easily, just as they were starting to connect on a physical level, but he knew deep down inside that this was for the best for them both. She was just a stronger being for breaking the ties first.
Caine knew from painful experience that vampires and humans couldn’t mix. It was too difficult, too painful for both parties. It was best that they both walked away before anything more serious could transpire between them—or before it became impossible to part.
That still didn’t stop him from bending the metal handle on the door before he walked through and let it swing shut behind him.
Jace grunted at her when Eve made it down the walkway to the van. Ignoring him, she snapped on her latex gloves, flicked on her flashlight and went to work inside the vehicle. Maybe if she let her job consume her attention, she could stop thinking about Caine, and how much she wished they could be together.
On her first initial sweep, she noticed a few things—first a burgundy rug. On visual inspection it seemed to match their carpet fibers from the crime scene. Secondly, there was electronic equipment piled in the corner of the van. Things like guitar amps and cords that could make a match to the copper wire they had. And finally she noticed that Jamie Duncan didn’t take care of his possessions very well. The van had papers, cigarette butts, and other items strewn about the interior of the vehicle. It was going to make for interesting evidence collection.
Glancing over her shoulder, she glared at Jace who was still standing there his arms crossed looking very surly. “Are you going to do some work, or pout all day?”
“I’m not pouting.”
She smirked. “Huh, tell that to your bottom lip.” Eve opened her kit, took out a few collection bags, and began to pluck carpet fibers and cigarette butts with her tweezers.
As she did that, Jace finally burst into action and started taking multiple photos of the rug, contents and console of the van.
When he was done, she opened the passenger door and climbed into the seat. She popped open the glove compartment and went through its contents. The only things of interest were a couple of pay stubs from a place called Shadowwood Studios. A recording studio? It would make sense if he were connected to the band Crimson Strain. Maybe he was their roadie. And just maybe he was at the concert in San Antonio that Lillian Crawford had attended.
“Look what I found.” Eve said, swiveling around to show Jace the pay stubs.
Taking them, he nodded. “Well, that would make this sticker make sense.” He swept his flashlight over one of the amps in the back. A white and black frayed sticker was on the side. Property of Shadowwood Studios.
“I bet that’s where our Crimson Strain boys record,” Jace added.
Nodding, Eve slid the pay stubs into an evidence bag and looked around the front console. It was dirty with smudged fingerprints all over it. Maybe too many prints. “There are a lot of prints here. Maybe we should take it back to the lab and super glue it.”
“Good idea,” Jace commented as he jumped out of the van. “I’ll radio Caine and let him know what we found and see if we can get over to Shadowwood to ask some questions.”
While Jace radioed Caine, Eve resisted the urge to smile. She breathed a sigh of relief that Jace was actually working with her and not trying to push her out of the case. She knew they would never be friends, or even friendly, but she felt like she’d just passed some kind of milestone.
She also felt like they were making advancements in the case. The sensation that they were getting close to the answers hummed all around her. She loved the rush of that. It was just one of the many reasons she became a crime scene investigator. That and the sense of danger connected to working a scene.
Of course working in Necropolis, the danger was exponentially multiplied by a thousand. Working around Caine, even more so. She didn’t feel threatened by outside forces when she was with him. No, she knew she was physically safe from harm. It was from inside she sensed the danger. The danger of losing herself completely to him.
Every time she was next to him, tingles of anticipation crept over her. The anticipation of fulfilling desire and ending her longing for him. Two emotions that had gnawed their way into her heart since meeting him.
Waking up next to Caine on the sofa in her hotel room didn’t help matters any. It just intensified her feelings for him. The fact that he didn’t push her, when he knew damn well she was vulnerable and could’ve easily been persuaded into anything, made her feelings for him even stronger. And she knew it was more than the lure of his vampiric charms that called to her. He was much more than the sum of his vampire physiology. He had soul and character far deeper than she could’ve ever imagined. She wanted to know him, all of him, with every passing moment.
The end of this case couldn’t come soon enough.
She didn’t know how much more she could withstand. It helped that she was physically away from him, forced to think of other things, but she knew the moment she saw him again, the intense sensation of need and desire would wash over her once more.
She guessed the trick was not to be alone with him.
She would do her job, work the case and stay as far away from him as possible.
Jace popped his head back into the vehicle, the radio clamped in his hand. “Meet Caine at the doors. You can ride over to the studios with him, while I take the van back to the lab.”
She opened her mouth to respond, but Jace had already left.
Damn it! Just when she was starting to believe her own words.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Shadowwood Studios was on the corner of Shadowwood Avenue and First Street, and very near to both murder sites. Caine made a note of that in his mind. It could be just a coincidence, but he didn’t believe that; he believed in the evidence. And it was currently pointing to the studio.
As he pulled up to the curb in front of the studio, he glanced over at Eve. She was in the passenger seat, seatbelt on, hands firmly planted in her lap. She didn’t look up, although he knew she could feel his eyes on her.
When they had exited Jamie Duncan’s apartment complex, she had been waiting at the front door for them. He perceived her distance immediately. It was like ice on his tongue. Without looking at him, she said she would meet him in the SUV, and then proceeded to walk toward the vehicle.
He knew why she was behaving this way, knew it was the logical thing to do, but he hated it. He despised not being able to talk plainly with her, not be able to share a look or a thought without realizing that it would do nothing but damage them in the end.
He parked and turned off the vehicle, Detective Calder pulling up behind them. “Okay, let’s go. Hopefully someone will tell us something we need to know to catch th
is guy.”
The moment Caine, Ren, and Eve stepped through the door to Shadowwood Studios, Caine recognized the haunting sounds emanating from the recording room. There was no mistaking his favorite chanteuse’s evocative voice.
Caine glanced over at Eve. Her brow was wrinkled, and her jaw clenched. He imagined she was trying very hard not to let the emotion of Nadja’s song overwhelm her. At this close proximity, even Caine was finding it difficult not to be carried away.
Before they could move any further into the studio, a security guard met them. Caine knew he was a lycan immediately. The guard was huge, but for a man his size, he still managed to move with speed and grace. Most lycans had that uncanny poise.
“Can I help you?”
Ren held up his badge. “NPD. We’re here investigating the murder of Jamie Duncan. We understand he worked here.”
The guard nodded, his eyes wide, the news obviously surprising him. “He does...did.”
“What’s your name?” Caine asked.
“Lucas Marchak.”
“Did you know the deceased, Lucas?”
“Yes, but not well. He was into, ah, other stuff.”
“Like?” Caine urged.
“Drugs and partying all the time.”
Caine continued. “Did he party with the members of Crimson Strain? They record here, don’t they?”
Licking his lips, Lucas shuffled his feet. “I should go get the manager.”
“Okay, Lucas. Is it all right if we watch the recording?”
“Sure,” the guard said, moving to catch up with Caine as he walked through an open doorway and into the recording studio. Stopping just inside the doorway, Caine stared, transfixed, into the glassed booth.
Nadja Devanshi was everything Caine expected her to be. Tall and willowy, cascading ebony hair sweeping around her tiny waist, and a pale oval face highlighting impossibly green eyes and a lush red mouth. An ethereal enchantress.
