Hunger

by Karen E. Taylor

  Mitch and I sat back down and he poured us each another cup of coffee. “They’re nice people, Fred and Sally I mean.”

  “Yes, did you have a good time?”

  “Well, I don’t know that good could describe it accurately. But as Fred said, it was interesting.” His face lit up in a mischievous grin. “That Betsy is something, isn’t she?”

  “I am sorry about that, Mitch. I had never met her before, but her money is good.”

  “Did you know that when you went to the ladies’ room, she moved over next to me?”

  “And?”

  “Well, I’ll just say that she definitely lacks subtlety. I think she was hoping that maybe more than your company was up for grabs. She must have drunk more champagne by herself than all the rest of us put together.” He laughed again, remembering her actions.

  “Or,” I moved closer to him and put my hand gently on his leg, “maybe she just knows a good man when she sees one.”

  He leaned in to kiss me.

  “Excuse me,” the accented voice broke in on us and we jumped apart. “I don’t wish to interrupt but I wanted to know if you enjoyed your meal.”

  “Victor, yes, thank you, everything was wonderful.”

  He turned to Mitch. “Mr. Greer, I am Victor Lange. I did not have a chance to meet you before.” They shook hands and Mitch looked at his watch. “Deirdre, we’ll have to go soon, too. Just let me make a stop first; I’ll be right back.”

  As he walked toward the men’s room, Victor apologized. “I always seem to be breaking in at the most romantic moments. I am sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it; this is not the place for it anyway.”

  “No, but you’d be surprised what goes on, sometimes. I’m afraid I did the same to Max just the other night.”

  “Max?”

  “Yes, and it was even more embarrassing than that. I called the young lady he was with by your name. She was like you, same height and build, but I see now that her hair was different. Yours is its natural color, is it not?” I nodded and he continued. “Hers came from a bottle, I’m sure. You see, he had described you to me and I was so sure. Quite an unfortunate incident.”

  “How odd.” I had never known Max to be with another woman. I was not jealous, but why had he never mentioned his involvement to me?

  Victor gave me a curious look, and at that moment Mitch returned. “Ready?” he asked. When I stood up, he turned to Victor and shook his hand. “Dinner was excellent, I enjoyed it very much. You live up to your reputation.”

  “Thank you, we try to.” Victor beamed from the compliment. “But I’m afraid that our chef was very distraught with Miss Griffin here, when she refused his special garnish for the steak.”

  Mitch caught my eye with an amused look. “But I thought it was wonderful. It had a garlic base, didn’t it?” Victor nodded. “Oh, well,” he said as he wrapped an arm around my waist, “you have to understand that Deirdre is a purist. Good night.”

  We stopped by the coat check room, then waited outside for the valet to bring Mitch’s car around. I grabbed Mitch’s arm, shook it and began to giggle.

  “What?”

  “A purist? And that crack about me being a prime suspect? You were wonderful. It stopped them all in their tracks.” I gave him a sidelong glance. “You had a good time, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah,” he said with a slow smile as he helped me into the car. “You know, I didn’t expect to and I’m sort of surprised to admit it, but I really did.”

  He pulled out into traffic, stopped for a red light and turned to me. “I thought maybe we could go back to my place, that is if you’re not too tired.” His voice sounded tentative, unsure.

  “That would be fine, Mitch. I slept some today. But what about you? Don’t you have to go to the station tomorrow?”

  He scowled a bit. “Today, after you called, I checked the calendar and realized that I’ve had only one day off since Thanksgiving. And I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep either, so I took tomorrow off. If they need me, they know where to find me. I plan on spending the entire day in bed.” The light changed and he drove, reaching over and taking my hand in his. “But I wouldn’t mind a little company.”

  I said nothing but smiled and tightened my grip on his hand.

  When we arrived at his apartment, he took off his jacket and tie and threw them on a chair. “Get comfortable, if you’d like,” he said. “I have something I want to talk about before we go to sleep.”

  “Did I leave any clothes here?”

  “No.” He frowned at me. “You packed everything up and cleared out, remember?” Then he shrugged and made an effort to smile. “But you can borrow my robe. It’s on the hook on the bathroom door.”

  I found the green terry cloth robe where he had said it was, carefully removed my dress and hung it on the hook. Putting on the robe, I looked at myself in the mirror. It seemed odd that although the robe covered more than the gown, I felt naked in it, somehow more vulnerable than before. Then I realized why that was, this would be the first night Mitch and I had spent together since my revelation to him of what I was. Tonight there would be no lies between us, he knew the worst of me. For the first time in so many years, I had nothing to hide and I felt defenseless. As I walked out the door, though, I caught the faint odor of the robe. It smelled like Mitch; I rubbed my cheek appreciatively on the sleeve and savored the aroma. Everything would be fine.

  He was in the kitchen making coffee. I stood silently in the entrance for a time and watched him. After a while he became aware of my presence and turned to me.

  “I thought that after all that champagne, coffee would be nice. Or I could open a bottle of wine.”

  “Coffee is fine.”

  “That looks better on you than on me,” he said, wiping his hands on a towel. He fixed a tray with mugs, cream and sugar. “Let’s adjourn to the living room.” He picked up the tray. “You bring the coffee, okay?”

  I waited a minute for the water to stop dripping, then carried the pot into the other room and set it on the tray. Wordlessly he poured our cups and fixed his, his eyes never leaving my face. I took a small sip of mine, then put it aside waiting for him to make a move. He cleared his throat and began haltingly. “Deirdre, you must know that yesterday morning was one of the strangest times I’ve ever had.” He stood up and began to pace, touching books, straightening a lamp shade. Finally he sat down and took his mug in his hands, but did not drink. “I’ve always had a conservative nature,” he continued. “People kid me about it sometimes, how I won’t read my horoscope or play the lottery. I don’t believe in luck, coincidences or the supernatural. So what you had to tell me really shook me up. When I left I had no intention of ever seeing you again.”

  I looked away from him and began playing with the robe belt, wrapping it over my fingers. “But I am here,” I said softly as if to myself.

  He either didn’t hear or ignored my interruption. “As the day went on, I began to see things differently. I started to think of you in another light. Not as a blood–crazed lunatic, but as a victim, too. I even did a little research on the areas you said you had been in over the years and found no records of murders similar to the ones we’ve had here. Intuitively, emotionally, I guess I knew you were innocent. But me, I needed definite proof.”

  I glanced up at him to see him take a drink of his coffee. When he looked at me, I turned away. He slowly rose from his seat and sat down next to me.

  “Deirdre, I want to be honest with you. It’s not an easy thing.”

  “I know. Please go on.”

  “I agreed to meet you tonight with the sole purpose of talking the case over with you, enlisting your help. If what we are dealing with is a vampire, and now I must believe that it is, then your firsthand knowledge on the subject will be extremely helpful.”

  So that was it. I could help him solve his case and then go on my way alone. I stood up and walked away from him. “I’ll help you anyway I can, Mitch. You should know th
at by now. But some other time; now I would like to get dressed and go home. You don’t need to walk me back, I’ll catch a cab.” I started down the hallway.

  He stopped me halfway there and backed me up against the wall blocking my escape. “Why don’t you ever let me finish?” he asked with a wry grin. “Are you always this hasty?”

  “Yes, but I prefer to call it caution. And I don’t usually have a problem exercising it. Let me go, Mitch.” I could easily break away from him, but I wanted his concession.

  He did not give it. “Deirdre, how could anyone live as long as you and still not understand other people? I thought that age was supposed to give you a certain perspective. It hasn’t done you much good, has it?”

  “I’m still alive, aren’t I?” I snarled. “That should be good for something.”

  He smiled. “It is good, you know. It saved you for me.”

  I glanced at him, startled.

  “When I thought of you, my intentions were strictly business. But when I spoke to you and saw you tonight, I realized that, despite all my plans and despite what you were, I wanted you here tonight and damn the consequences.” He stepped away from me. “And now, I’ve finished. Do you still want to leave?”

  “I never did,” I said in honesty. “If I did, you wouldn’t have been able to stop me.”

  He moved me up against the wall again, gently this time. “I knew that, Deirdre. Will you stay?”

  “For a while, Mitch, gladly.”

  I awoke shortly after noon the next day to find Mitch, fully dressed but lying on the bed beside me. He propped himself up on one elbow, carefully considering me. “Good afternoon,” he said with a gentle smile. “Did you sleep well?”

  “Fine, and you?”

  “Like a baby. Chris was right, you are good for me.”

  “Chris told you he said that?”

  “Yeah, he called the next day. He’s really quite smitten with you.”

  “He is a nice kid, Mitch, but don’t you think he’s a little young for me?”

  He reached over and brushed my hair over my face with a devilish smile. “Yeah, probably, but come to think of it, Deirdre, so am I.” Before I could respond, he jumped up from the bed and retrieved a paper bag that was sitting in the corner of the room. “Here,” he said abruptly, “these are yours.”

  I looked inside to find a pair of jeans, two or three shirts, some underwear and a bra. “Thank you. Where did you get them?”

  “I stopped by your hotel and picked them up for you.” He reached in his pocket and handed my key back. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all.”

  “You get dressed. I have some coffee ready.”

  I smoothed the hair from my eyes. “Sounds good, but is it safe?”

  He shot me a quizzical look. “You’ve drunk my coffee before and lived to tell the tale. Of course it’s safe.”

  “No, I mean is it daylight? Are all the windows covered?”

  “Oh!” he said, walking out. “I’ll check.” I heard him pulling drapes shut, then he called to me. “All clear, I think.”

  “Thank you.” I dressed quickly and cautiously stepped into the living room. “This should be fine.”

  He was standing at the window with his back to me, his hands still on the drape cord. “It seems a shame. It’s such a glorious day.”

  “Glorious for you, maybe, but deadly for me.” His shoulders slumped a bit. “Let it be, Mitch.”

  He spun around, stung by my comment. “I wouldn’t open them. How could you think that?”

  “That’s not what I mean. I know you wouldn’t hurt me. But you should quit tearing yourself up over this situation. It is not worth it. I can’t change, no matter how much you or I might wish it.”

  “But maybe you could. I’ve been doing research in the area for weeks since this case started. Did you know there’s a recently discovered disease that they think may have cause the myths of vampirism to arise? Propheria, I think it was called.” He looked at me hopefully and I hated to disillusion him.

  “Porphyria. I know all about it, Mitch. I paid one of the researchers on the subject good money to examine me and then forget about it.”

  “And?”

  “Sorry, my darling. They could find no trace of it in my system. They did however find out some facts that interested them greatly. My metabolism, my DNA structure, all sorts of details that they wanted to study.” I gave a small laugh in recollection of the situation. “I had one hell of a time getting out of the office intact and with all my files.”

  “How did you get out?”

  “Oh,” I said casually, but locked my eyes on his, “I talked them into it.”

  He shuddered slightly as my gaze held him. “I believe it.” Then he smiled at me as I dropped my stare. “You must teach me to do that, Deirdre. It would be very handy in my line of work.”

  “No doubt,” I agreed glibly. “But I don’t think it can be taught, only acquired.” I grew serious considering the matter. “And not without great cost.” An uncomfortable silence filled the room as we studied each other, both trying to fathom the other’s thoughts.

  “Okay, I’ll drop it,” he said at last. “Now, how about that coffee?”

  The hours passed quickly in his company. We sat and talked about commonplace things, carefully avoiding any mention of recent events. He received several phone calls that I presumed were about the case, but made no comment on them, and I asked no questions. It was a peaceful time, unlike the frenzy of passion or anger we usually experienced. Sometimes he would reach out to me and gently stoke my hair or shoulder. I was grateful for the ordinariness of the situation. We could have been any other couple on their day off. It was a comfortable feeling, one that I fervently wished could continue.

  In the early afternoon, the phone rang again. Mitch went to it with a shrug and a smile for me. He answered it, talked for a while and then hung up. When he turned back to me he was not smiling. “Nothing, we’ve got nothing on this case. Everywhere we turn, we come up a blank. How the hell am I supposed to solve this, when I have no witnesses, no clues, no idea of who might be doing it? At least with Larry, I had something concrete. But for this one, he could very well be made of mist, it’s that hard to track him.” His voice raised in frustration.

  “You said last night that I could help you. What exactly do you have in mind?”

  “I don’t think you should get involved, not anymore. It could be dangerous for you. I keep picturing you in Gwen’s place, or like the girl in the morgue.”

  “What girl in the morgue?”

  “The one they brought in, you know, the fourth murder. There was something about her that . . .” He stopped and shuddered. “Anyway, I think it would be best for you just to stay out of it. I can keep you safe here until everything is over.”

  “Mitch, you cannot keep me locked away forever. And you cannot always be around to protect me. Sooner or later I will have to feed, and should you be around, well, let’s just say you could become very anemic over time. Neither of us want that to happen.”

  “Well, I did bring your supplies over with me in addition to the clothes.” He gave me a shy smile. “I put it in the vegetable drawer.”

  I laughed. “Good place for it, but that doesn’t solve the problem.”

  “I know. Everything you’re saying is true. It’s just that the thought of losing you makes me crazy.”

  “Fine, let me help you and it will all be over sooner. I don’t believe that the other vampire would harm me in any event.”

  “I seem to remember that that’s what you said about Larry.”

  I smiled. “Then the odds that I am right will be better this time. Let me help, Mitch.”

  He finally reneged. “Actually,” he admitted sheepishly, “there’s really no danger to you on this. I just want you to come along with me while I talk to everyone again. Maybe there will be something you can pick up from them, recognition maybe, I don’t know. But if we start now, we can finish
by eight or nine, get some dinner and come back here.”

  “Now?” I questioned, glancing at the clock. “The sun won’t set for hours. But,” I said quickly seeing the disappointment on his face, “I could leave at sunset. Will that be soon enough?”

  “I guess it will have to be. I don’t have a choice anyway, do I?”

  “No, and neither do I.” I went over to him and gently touched his arm. “Nothing of importance is likely to happen in the next few hours, considering that the person we’re looking for also can’t go about in daylight.”

  He brightened briefly. “Yeah, I guess I hadn’t thought of it that way. I’m just not used to this confinement. When I want to go out, I go.”

  I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him. When I was done, I looked up at him and smiled. “We have some free time, Mitch. Do you know what I’d like to do?” I moved away from him and started backing down the hall, slowly unbuttoning my shirt. “I’d really like to have a shower.” I laughed at the look on his face and tossed my shirt to him.

  His face lit up with a playful grin. “I hope you don’t mind sharing?”

  “Not at all,” I replied. “And I hope you like the water hot.”

  Chapter 22

  When we eventually emerged from the shower Mitch laughed. “Damn, I feel like a lobster. How can you stand it?”

  I shrugged as I wrapped myself in a towel. “It warms me.”

  “I should hope so,” he said with a wry grin, as we went to the bedroom to dress. “It damn near parboiled me.”

  I sat on the edge of the bed to brush my hair. “Let me do that,” he said and took the brush from my hand. He knelt behind me and began to brush, slowly at first, and then with harder strokes. It felt so good that I leaned back into him, contentedly. He continued for a while, then stopped abruptly, threw the brush across the room and buried his face in the mass of hair at my neck. “Oh, Deirdre,” he said, making my name into a low, passionate moan, then made a grab at the towel that covered me. He flung it to the floor and pulled me down on the bed next to him.