When Sara stopped to examine the mangoes, she overheard snippets of their conversation in Spanish.
“Big horrible red eyes,” one said, and the other lady tittered in response. “Lots of teeth.” She grimaced and displayed a set of perfect dentures in emphasis.
Teeth. Long sharp teeth clacking together. Sara realized those had been the sounds she had heard last night, coupled with that weird screech, like nails on a chalkboard.
Putting that thought from her mind, she plopped the mango into her grocery basket and grabbed a bunch of guineo bananas. The fat and potassium in them would be good for her mother. After, she went in search of something that would give her a more immediate sugar fix. A few aisles over, she picked up a bar of guava paste—her father had finished the last of it a few days ago—and headed for the cashier.
One of the older men from the neighborhood finished paying, and as he walked away, he mumbled something that suspiciously sounded like “chupacabra.”
She cocked her head and asked the young man behind the counter, “What was el viejo carrying on about?”
“The poor old man is losing it. Says he looked out his window last night and saw un monstruo. A chupacabra,” the cashier said as he rang up her purchases.
“Loco,” she commented.
“Imaginalo—a goatsucker in Manhattan. Poor thing’s probably frozen solid.”
Sara was spooked by the time she left the store with her plastic grocery bag. As she walked home, she kept a close eye on the alleys and rooftops, suddenly uncomfortable with the shadows dusk created. She listened for the slightest of noises, any sounds like those from the night before. She sniffed the air for any telltale odors.
But there was nothing.
When she neared the door to Ricardo’s shop, she paused and peered in through the glass display window. Ricardo was at the register, packing up some candles for a customer. When he looked up and caught her at the window, a hesitant smile came to his lips and he nodded, as if in invitation.
The woman at the counter glanced her way and grinned. Then she made some kind of comment that had Ricardo blushing.
When the woman took the bag and walked out the door, she asked Sara, “What are you waiting for, mi’ja?”
What was she waiting for? she wondered. To wake up?
With that thought, she forced herself through the door and over to the counter where Ricardo stood.
She knew him well enough already to identify the exact moment pleasure filled his body because of her presence. “Hola.”
“Hola. How are you doing today?” he asked.
She shrugged, not that he could see it beneath the thickness of her coat. She grabbed her knapsack with one hand, opened it with the other and retrieved the paper sack from within. The one with the blood bank bags.
“Will you be by—”
“I went by this morning. She’s doing better.” The surprise in his voice about her mother’s condition was painfully obvious.
“Mami says you have to have faith.”
He nodded and took the paper bag from her. “Faith has been known to accomplish miracles.”
Sara slipped her knapsack back over her shoulder and jammed her hands into her pockets. “Is that what you think it will take?”
“Sí. Faith.” The words were simply stated, and yet when she met his gaze, she knew he was referring not just to her mother. He wanted her to have faith in him. Faith that he was one of the good guys. Faith that whatever was going on would end well.
As if she had any choice about having faith in him. Sara counted on him to help her mother. She needed to rely on him so that the monster creating discord in their neighborhood could be discovered and caught.
“So what do we do now?” she asked.
Ricardo read the hesitation on her face. It mingled there with the courage and strength he knew she possessed. The courage that had allowed her to better her life here in the barrio, the strength that she showed every day in the hospital. He had sensed more than once that her work wearied her at times, but she persevered because she was strong.
As she would be now.
“Samantha and Peter want to get together and talk about what’s happened.”
“What time and where?”
“They don’t want the kids in the shelter to overhear, so they’re coming here at eight. Do you want to grab a bite—”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I need to see mami.”
“See you at eight, then?”
With a quick nod, she whirled on her heel and hurried out of the shop.
Sitting on the couch at the front of his store, Ricardo glanced at his watch for what must have been the fourth time in ten minutes. It was nearly eight-thirty. “Maybe she changed her mind and isn’t coming.”
Samantha laid a hand on his arm in commiseration. “Give her time, mon ami. Finding Lucy like that…”
Her voice trailed off as she glanced toward the front of the shop.
Ricardo looked up, as well, and immediately saw Sara at the door. She seemed to be shooting daggers at Samantha. A good sign? he wondered as he let her in.
“I was worried you decided not to come.”
She stepped inside the shop, but cocked her head in Samantha’s direction. “She seemed to be doing a fine job of keeping you company.”
Meeting her gaze, he noted the fire in her hazel eyes and couldn’t help but experience satisfaction at her pique. Moreso, he couldn’t resist baiting her. “Jealous?”
She snapped her head up to look at him. “Should I be?”
“The answer to that better be no,” Peter Daly said as he stepped into the shop, eased past them and went over to Samantha. She immediately rose and embraced the handsome detective. The kiss they shared left little doubt as to where Samantha’s interest lay.
“Somos amigos y nada mas,” Ricardo once again stressed, reminding her of his earlier explanation that he and Samantha were just friends.
“She seems awful touchy for just friends,” Sara said, a slight pout to her lips that he had to experience for himself. He kissed that pout and took her full lower lip between his teeth for a love bite. As he released it, he whispered, “You’re the only one I think about.”
“Good,” she said over her shoulder as she walked to the sofa.
After they were all seated, Sara surprised him by taking the lead. “There’s talk all over the neighborhood that a chupacabra is on the loose.”
“A what?” Peter asked, a confused look on his face.
“It means goatsucker in Spanish,” Ricardo explained, but then quickly added, “It’s a mythical creature.”
At his comment, Samantha raised an eyebrow, and it registered that before meeting her, he had thought vampires were creatures of legend, as well. He motioned for Sara to continue.
“I had gone on the Net even before I heard the talk tonight. I searched based on those things we knew, and chupacabra kept coming up. Though I don’t know where an orange feather comes in.”
Sara seemed calm on the surface, but Ricardo noted the faint tension lines along the corners of her expressive mouth, and the defensive posture.
“Care to run down the info you have?” Peter asked her, clearly in detective mode.
Ricardo sat back as Sara provided the characteristics she had gleaned from the various Web sites. The only physical evidence they had so far that matched, however, were the puncture wounds on Lucy’s neck.
“The smell’s off, although maybe there was a hint of sulfur,” he mused out loud.
Sara shrugged. “I didn’t get a whiff of that rotten egg smell the other night, but maybe that’s the smell it leaves behind, and the stench we got was—”
“Up close and personal. Not to mention the noises.”
“It was almost as if it was trying to…communicate. Trying to tell us something.”
“You think this chupacabra is sentient?” Samantha leaned forward, her blue eyes inquisitive as they settled on Sara’s face.
Sara quickly offered up her facts. “It seems to both have avoided us and sought us out. And except for Lucy, we haven’t found any of its other victims, but they must be somewhere.”
“It snatched the other dog about two dozen blocks away,” Peter added. “The officers I spoke to said other animals had disappeared. So it knew to leave when it was spotted, or when its food supply ran out.”
“But if it tried to talk to them, then it may have a reason for being here other than food,” Samantha suggested.
“Maybe,” Sara added, her voice tinged with worry, “it’s here because it wants something or someone.” She speared Ricardo with a look.
The others, too, he noticed, looked at him. Could it be? he wondered.
Unfortunately, it seemed to make sense. The cat left on his doorstep. Lucy. The fact that the only times they had come close to spotting it, he had been around.
He didn’t bother voicing his thoughts. All he said was, “So the only question that remains is, where do we find it?”
Peter spoke first. “This thing has avoided capture for quite some time, and we haven’t had any luck finding it, which means that we may need more manpower on the job.”
“Diana and Ryder?” Samantha suggested.
Sara surprised Ricardo by asking, “Diana Reyes?”
At the mention of that name, he couldn’t help but notice how Peter stiffened, his eyes narrowing as he considered Sara carefully before he spoke. “You know Diana and Ryder?”
Which, Ricardo thought, in their secret speak translated to: You know about vampires?
It seemed like forever till Sara replied, “My best friend, Melissa Danvers, is married to Diana’s brother. I’ve heard her mention Diana and Ryder, but I’ve never met them. Melissa thinks they’re cool, though, so it’s fine by me.”
Which meant she didn’t know that Ryder was a vampire, nor that they existed. Ricardo could almost hear his friends’ and his own sigh of relief. Unfortunately that also meant he had to keep on lying to Sara. Uneasily, it occurred to him that the lies were piling up way too quickly.
Samantha hesitated, clearly concerned, before she said, “Why don’t we bring in Diego and Blake, too?”
At the mention of her two other vampire friends, Ricardo raised his hand to stop the discussion. “That may be just a little too many…people searching.” He had a feeling that just as he and Samantha could sense the creature, it could sense the vampires. One too many vamps around might drive it away.
Peter slipped his cell phone from his belt and held it up. “I’ll call Diana. When’s a good time?”
Ricardo replied, “You know the old saying—no time like the present.”
Chapter 17
W hile Peter and Samantha waited for the arrival of Diana and Ryder, Sara and Ricardo slipped upstairs for some private time.
He had no sooner closed the door at the top of the stairs when Sara asked, “Isn’t this weirding you out?”
She stood in the middle of his living room, her arms still wrapped around her midsection, the lines of her body tight.
He walked over, placed his hands on her shoulders and slipped a bit of his energy into hers, seeking to calm her. Beneath his palms, the rigidity of her muscles gradually loosened, and with a satisfied little sigh, she confirmed that the caress had helped.
“That feels…amazing.”
She was amazing, he thought, recalling the other night and the touch of her body against his. All those delicious Dominican curves and that smooth skin. His body flared to painful life, and she must have sensed the change in him.
“Seems to me you need to relax, as well,” she said. She raised her hands to his shoulders and gently massaged his muscles. Her fingers were strong and sure, her movements soothing.
“Mmm. Do you do this for your patients?”
She inched closer, raised up on tiptoe. “Only the ones I really like.”
His grip on her waist urged her up the last distance to meet his lips. At the first touch, pleasure rocketed through his body. He deepened the kiss, opening his mouth against hers and wrapping his arms around her to pull her close.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t come tonight.”
Sara eased away a bit. “After finding Lucy and lying to Mrs. Lopez, I wasn’t sure, either. I don’t like lying.”
A ripple shifted across his shoulders. As she shot a glance at his face, she saw discomfort mar his features. “I don’t, either, but sometimes people can’t handle the truth.”
That he suspected she might not be able to cope with some things was transparently clear, but before she could challenge him on it, a knock came at the door.
He left her side and opened it. Peter stood there. “Diana and Ryder are here.”
Ricardo allowed Sara to precede him down the stairs. The new arrivals stood in the center of the sitting area.
Even if she hadn’t been told who the woman was, Sara would have pegged her for Sebastian’s sister. The siblings shared similar features and coloring: dark, nearly black hair and pale, creamy skin. But Diana, she noticed, had unusual gold-green eyes instead of Sebastian’s hazel.
To her surprise, she recognized the man beside Diana.
Tall and handsome in a dark and dangerous way, he was striking. She pointed at him and said, “I know you.”
He studied her face, and then recognition dawned in him, as well. “You’re Melissa’s friend. I saw you once at the hospital.”
“Yes, I remember seeing you, too,” she said and held out her hand to him. “Sara Martinez.”
He shook her hand. “Ryder Latimer. And this is Diana Reyes.”
Sara smiled at the woman. “Pleased to meet you,” she said. “You look a lot like your brother.”
Ricardo stepped beside her, and after the introductions he led Sara to the couch, where Samantha joined them. The others took the chairs opposite.
Sara’s presence beside him acted as a good grounding point, Ricardo thought. With the addition of the new couple to the room, he found it difficult to distinguish the nonhuman life forces crashing against his psyche from the human ones.
Even if Samantha hadn’t confessed to turning Ryder over a century ago, the telltale signature of his undead essence would have tipped Ricardo off. But Diana’s energy…well, that was confusing him.
He tried to concentrate as Peter filled in the new couple and offered suggestions on what they might do to locate the creature. Ricardo’s concentration wavered, however, as he examined Diana, trying to figure out just what was off about her.
As she sat next to Ryder, the nature of her life force was indistinct, possibly the same as Ryder’s, though Ricardo couldn’t be sure. It was as if a halo of power surrounded the two of them, making it impossible to confirm whether the female FBI agent was human or vamp.
When she caught him perusing her, she shot him an easy smile without a hint of fang. Was that h
er way of telling him what she was? he wondered. He had little time to consider it further, for Sara nudged him in the ribs, bringing him back to the conversation.
“Ricardo, do you think it’s dangerous?” Peter asked, apparently for the second time.
“Dangerous?” he repeated. He recalled the images of the dead cat and Lucy, revisited those moments when he had connected with the creature during his meditations. With a nod, he said, “I sensed something bad about its force. But that doesn’t mean it can’t control that aspect of itself.”
With an uneasy glance at Ryder and Samantha, he added, “We need to consider that what it did to those animals, it did to survive. That it didn’t know any better.”
A pregnant silence followed his statement, along with concerned looks in his direction. Finally, Samantha said, “If you’re right and it does understand, that makes it more difficult to decide what to do.”
“And if I’m wrong?” Ricardo asked her.
“We kill it.”
As decided upon in his shop, Sara and he paired up to walk through their neighborhood, making sure to pass those places where they had previously encountered the chupacabra. Ricardo still wasn’t convinced that’s what it was, but figured there wasn’t any reason not to call it something other than “the creature.”
They hadn’t said much as they walked, and it was getting late, he thought as he shot a glance at his cell phone to check the time. From the corner of his eye, he noted Sara doing the same thing. They both not only had their cell phones, but earlier in the night they had made sure the GPS chips were activated.
With those chips in, Diana had assured them, her brother Sebastian would be able to use his computer skills to track their locations in case of an emergency.
Ricardo hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Now he also wanted to ease the tension he sensed growing between him and Sara, so he asked, “Do you believe all life is sacred?”
Devotion Calls Page 13
