by Sotia Lazu
THE AREA CODE OF THE last incoming call was proof positive that Sheena had lied about going out of town. She had to know her assistant wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box too, since she hadn’t bothered calling from a private number. Still, it would have taken us a while to trace the call if I hadn’t seen that number on my cell phone’s screen enough times to know it by heart.
Sheena had called from her house. She had a private office there, with its own line, which was in her ex-husband’s name. She only used that for nefarious purposes, such as organizing the shooting of adult films without her name showing anywhere. I ought to know; I’d been involved in said nefarious purposes.
Once again we were in Alex’s car, but this time there was no traffic delaying us. The scenery was no longer urban, buildings having given their place to trees that appeared to run by my window at full speed. The colors changed too, from gray to green, to yellow, orange, and red. I knew Alex couldn’t see the hues as well as I could in the darkness, and for a moment I grew wistful. There was an entire world he couldn’t be a part of, just as I couldn’t completely belong in his. The thoughts I’d tried to drive away for the finite time we had together resurfaced in my mind. We weren’t meant to be. He thrived in the sun, while I could only live under the moon. The sooner his case was over, the better. We could both get back to reality.
His hand brushed my thigh when he closed his fingers around the gearshift. He flashed a brief smile my way, and I wouldn’t trade that smile for the world, not even to save myself sorrow in the future.
I would if it was to save him sorrow in the future, though. Just as I’d go against his wishes and take away his memories of me if he refused to let go when the time came.
MY AGITATION ROSE WITH every step Alex and I took on the cobbled walkway that led to Sheena’s front door. I could have sworn that walkway was a lot shorter the last time I visited. Now it felt like years passed before we stood on the red, bow-shaped welcome mat.
I remembered that mat. Sheena had told me my hair matched it, once I’d changed its color for the never-shot movie I was to star in. In the darkness, I saw the vibrant hue clearly, and it made me want to rip it to shreds. In some irrational way, it was another reminder of how she’d betrayed me.
Oblivious to my train of thought, Alex wiped his feet meticulously.
I snorted. “You couldn’t have stepped in some mud? Dog poo, even better.”
“Sorry?”
I wasn’t sure if he wanted me to explain my demand-like question or if he was apologizing. I shrugged. “It’s okay.”
He put his hand on the small of my back, and like the first time we met, electricity flowed between us. This time, it had a different result than to raise my lust for him. His touch now was soothing, comforting. I melted against his side.
“Is it?” He gave me a questioning look, wrapping his arm around me, to press me to him. “Are you? I don’t need you for this. You can wait in the car. You should, officially.”
I rubbed my face against his shoulder, then nodded. “Yeah, well, you shouldn’t be here, officially. Let’s get this over with.”
He let go, gave me a peck on the lips, and rang the doorbell.
I allowed my hearing to expand to its vampiric limit and easily made out the ring reverberating throughout the house. Then I heard scuffling.
“Someone’s moving inside,” I whispered. My phone vibrated in my back pocket, startling me. Whoever it was could wait.
“Ms. Herring? Open the door, please. Police.” Alex sounded very police-y, indeed.
There was the scuffling again, like feet dragging. Like someone being sneaky on the wooden floor. The sound wasn’t coming toward us. “Back door,” I blurted and took off. Not literally. I didn’t have to fly, to round the house faster than a human could cross it. I was waiting outside the glass door of the kitchen when the door pulled open.
Sheena burst out and straight into my waiting arms. I grabbed her waist. She dropped the backpack and laptop case she was holding and fought me blindly. I didn’t let go of my grip on her waist.
With her eyes squeezed shut, she screeched like a banshee. I lifted her off the ground to subdue her, and she did her best to lodge her pointed shoes inside my shins. Why on earth would a woman try to escape while wearing high heels? Vanity before safety.
Then she kneed me on the hip.
I adjusted my grip and moved behind her. That way she couldn’t get me with her hands and knees. Still, she wouldn’t stop trying to claw at me over her shoulder or get me with her heels.
Alex approached, gun in hand. I shook my head, and he halted but kept his weapon pointed at her.
Sheena shrieked and bucked. Her long nails found my face, and one of them gouged my cheek. It stung enough to make my eyes tear up, but I held on even as her fuchsia jacket ripped.
“Ms. Herring, I have a gun pointed at you. We just want to ask you some questions.” Alex’s voice of reason wasn’t working. Sheena didn’t cease her thrashing.
“Sheena, cut that out. You’re not going anywhere until you talk to us.” My fangs had come out, and my s’s were kind of whistly, but I sounded menacing, nonetheless. The scent of my own blood made me moodier than before.
“Let me go.” She stomped on my foot with her heel.
The jolt of pain was sharp but not debilitating. I held her at arm’s length. “Why did you hand me to Willoughby?” I shook her before spinning her to face me. “Why?” I was certain I was yelling, but the last reached my ears as a whine. “I thought you were my friend.”
She stopped fighting, and her body sagged. Easing one eye open, she said, “Cherry?”
“Yeah.” I could have said something wittier, but for the second time that day, my expectations had little to do with reality.
Like I said, I expected shock and fear when Sheena laid eyes on me. Now I saw shock there, all right, but no fear.
She reached for me again, yet not to hurt me. She touched my face. My shoulders. My hair. I didn’t know how to react. She wasn’t trying to wound me or defend herself.
Finally she squeezed me to her. “Oh thank God, you’re okay.”
HER LIVING ROOM HADN’T changed since I’d last been there. Every piece of furniture, as well as the walls and carpeting, still made a statement—the owner had a loud personality.
Then again, the owner herself was a testament to that.
Sheena had on a pair of fuchsia pants and a matching jacket which now lacked two buttons, with a fuchsia and lime-green silk top. The set might have looked appropriate for Halloween on me, but it complemented her mocha-colored skin perfectly. Her matching makeup was messed up, mascara-tinged tears making tracks on her blush.
She’d asked if we wanted coffee or something stronger but we’d both refused anything, so she was the only person in the room with a drink in hand. Scotch. Straight up.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” she said for the millionth time, reaching across the couch to pat my knee.
I traced the scratch already healing on my cheek but didn’t respond. I was still so gobsmacked, I could only stare. If Alex hadn’t pulled me inside the house by the hand, I’d have probably still been out in the garden, trying to figure out why Sheena acted happy to see me.
Alex, my knight in shining armor, took it upon himself to point out the mistake in her statement. “She’s far from okay, Ms. Herring. She’s dead.” His glare was anything but professional.
Sheena sniffed. “She’s walking and talking. It’s more than I thought she was. Ergo, she’s okay.”
Ergo. Leave it to her to find the oddest time to use a pretentious word. I shook my head. Alex was right. I wasn’t okay. I’d spent years alone. Even when I was with Constantine, I had no friends, nobody to be silly with, no shoulder to cry on. I couldn’t see my family. Couldn’t let them know I was still around, still the same person they’d brought up, except for the undead thing. I never wanted kids before I was turned, but knowing the choice had been taken away from me made me long for
the possibility of one at times.
I could have been worse off, I guess. Could have been gone forever. But so much had happened to me because of her.
I looked at Alex and felt a smile tug at the corners of my lips. Some of those happenings hadn’t been bad.
I no longer felt like killing Sheena. “Why did you do it?” It was the thing I needed to find out first.
“I didn’t know I was doing something.” The words came out soft as a breath. “That guy asked to meet you. Nothing bad was supposed to happen to you.” That she didn’t knowingly lead me to my death loosened the knot in my stomach the tiniest bit.
“Something did happen, though.” I thought Alex meant to urge her to say more, but a glance at his face showed me he was still beyond pissed off. “Of course, you thought you were just whoring her out.” He spared her none of the formal courtesy he’d offered her assistant. This wasn’t an investigation any longer; it was as personal to him as it was to me.
Sheena hung her head. “Willoughby was good looking, well mannered, rich. I thought he’d be good for her.”
How could she have thought a guy named Willoughby could be good for anyone?
Alex sat on the armrest next to me, gun lying on his thigh. He hadn’t even let go of it to hand Sheena her bag and laptop before we’d come inside. I squeezed his free hand.
“Why didn’t you do something when you heard I disappeared?” I asked Sheena. I wanted to believe she’d initially acted with my best interest at heart, but there was no excuse for the rest. “Why did you give him more girls?”
“I didn’t hear you disappeared.” Her voice was louder, exasperated, and she was still not looking at me. “He came here and he said what happened to you would happen to me if I didn’t help them or I went to the cops. He—he bit me.” Her free hand twitched on her lap.
I didn’t want to feel sorry for her, but until recently I’d thought of her as a friend. I couldn’t just delete that. Instead of trying to figure out my feelings, I focused on how her words answered one of my upcoming questions. She knew about vampires. “And you let him do it to others?”
“He promised me they’d be kept happy. That he’d offer them things.” I could tell she was trying to convince herself more than us. “There were some who didn’t have much of a future on the runway, or at all.” I remembered the entry with just a picture and number that her assistant gave us. “Others that he’d specifically suggested I approach. He’d call and tell me what he had in mind. I arranged the meetings.”
“Knowing they’d die?” It was possible I could still find it in me to snap her neck. Deep down I wanted not to have found out about her involvement, even if that shot down our chances of recovering the young women.
“Knowing they’d live forever,” she yelled, raising her gaze to me. “They’d stay pretty forever. They wouldn’t get a single wrinkle, and they’d be rich. Nobody would miss them. I was helping them.”
“What about Dorothea Williams?” Alex’s question fell heavily in the quiet that had followed Sheena’s outburst. “She has a son.” I was grateful the wrath etched on his face wasn’t aimed at me. He was mortal, and therefore physically weaker than me, but seeing him like that, I knew he’d be lethal if he chose to.
Sheena’s complexion turned ashen, and her lower lip trembled. “I didn’t want to give him Dotty. I wouldn’t have signed her if he hadn’t made me. He told me where I could bump into her. I had to make it seem like my idea. He couldn’t approach her on his own, because she was cautious of going out with strangers, being a mom and all. After I met her—she was so nice. He said she’d be the last one. That it had to be her. I introduced them about a month ago, and they went out a few times. When nothing happened on their first date, I hoped he wouldn’t... You know.”
I motioned for her to continue, but my mind reeled. If Willoughby was the guy Dotty had been seeing for a month, then he’d selected her before finding out about me and Alex. Before there was a me and Alex. Willoughby had been keeping tabs on me. But why? The question was drowned out by a flood of guilt. Whatever the reason, it was my fault Dotty was gone.
“When he called and demanded a new girl for next week, I told him I wouldn’t do it anymore. That he’d promised I wouldn’t have to. I asked him about Dotty. He wouldn’t talk about her, but I knew if he wanted a new girl, it meant Dotty—” Her voice, high-pitched by that point, broke, and her next words were muttered under her breath. “She was so nice.”
Hearing Sheena say was twice drove a sharp spear of cold fear through my heart. “She’s dead?”
“I tried to call her, to get her to break things off with him, but she didn’t answer. I thought I was too late. Isn’t that why you’re here?”
I didn’t realize I was almost crushing Alex’s hand until he cleared his throat and tried to pry it away. I let go. “We just know she’s missing. Do you know anything about where he might be taking the girls?”
“No. I swear. I was too afraid to ask for details, and he never told me anything.” She downed the rest of her drink, and her hand trembled when she leaned forward to leave the glass on the coffee table.
“Have you seen anybody else with him?”
“No. Never.” She chewed on her lip, and flakes of the supposed color-stay lipstick peeled off on her teeth.
“Do you have his number? Any way to contact him?” Alex produced his notepad, but Sheena shook her head.
“He always called me, and from a private number. Set the time and place, and asked for what he had in mind. He’d meet them at clubs or parties. The names the girls were to ask for were different every time.”
Made-up names. I wondered if they were worse than Willoughby, though that had to be his real name. Or at least what he went by in the vampire circles. It was what they’d called him during my trial.
Alex asked for her phone. “Maybe he’ll call again,” he said. She gave it to him immediately.
He didn’t ask her to specify the names Willoughby had given her on occasion. It made sense; we had no use for them. We were back to square one.
I rose, and Alex followed my lead. Nothing more to do here.
Sheena pushed herself off the couch with both hands, wavered, and finally managed to stand. “What about me? What are you going to do with me?”
Alex looked at me, and in that moment, I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that he’d be fine with shooting her and burying her in the backyard if I asked him to.
A small part of me would be fine with it too. Sheena had pulled the world out from under my feet, and I couldn’t forgive her for that. Before that, however, she’d made my world a better place for a while. “Get out of town,” I said. “For real this time. If I see you again, I’ll kill you.” I wouldn’t. I’m not a killer. But I’d do my best to make her miserable.
She nodded. “For what little it’s worth, I’m really sorry. I didn’t want any of this.”
I believed her, but I didn’t care.
MY PHONE BUZZED AGAIN on the drive back, and once more I let it go to voicemail. I curled up in my seat and let the rocking motion of the car lull me to sleep.
I awoke briefly when Alex was getting me out of the car. He said something about taking care of me. He was human and fragile despite his size, and I was a vampire and basically immortal. Still, his words made me feel safe. Alex’s strength came from within, and it could move mountains.
Nothing bad would happen to me again as long as he held me.
Chapter Ten
LYING NAKED IN BED, pressed against a hard male body, provided the best distraction from depressing thoughts. The body being Alex’s, chiseled to perfection and warm to the touch, added an extra reason for me not to want to get out from under the covers to retrieve my buzzing phone.
It was still in my jeans pocket, where Alex left it when he’d undressed me to put me in bed, and the jeans were folded on a chair, a few feet from where we were. The distance seemed vast when crossing it entailed disentangling myself from Alex.
/> “You’re not gonna get that?” His breath caressed the back of my neck, making me itch to leave the blasted call alone.
I let out a puff of air and brought his palm to my lips, so I could place a kiss on it. “You heard it?”
“You don’t need enhanced hearing for that. I think I put your keys in the same pocket. They’re jingling.” He caressed my cheek with his thumb.
“I don’t want to get up.” The words were drawn out and nasal.
Alex ignored my whining. “I heard it earlier too. May be an emergency.”
I doubted that. The caller hadn’t been persistent enough; they’d let hours go by between tries. I should have checked my missed calls, but I’d honestly forgotten about them till then. “The only people who have that number are Sheena, Constantine, Dotty, and the council.” Ignoring Alex’s grumbling that he ought to have it too, I went on. “It’s too early for any of the vampires to be calling me, and Sheena wouldn’t dare to.”
I was out of bed as soon as the last word left my mouth.
Dotty. Dotty or her kidnapper—I refused to think of him as her killer—could be trying to contact me. I grabbed my jeans. My fingers might as well have been sausages, the way they refused to be agile and pluck the stupid phone out of the stupid denim. The buzzing stopped.
I finally found the phone, when it started vibrating again. I let out a surprised squeal and looked at the name blipping on the screen.
My mood plummeted. Constantine.
There went the possibility of crawling back next to Alex and having me some early-day sex. Unless I ignored the phone. If it was urgent, he’d text me when he saw he couldn’t reach me. I pressed the little red button and sent him a ready-made excuse message. Can’t talk. Text in case of emergency. Then I turned and smiled at Alex, who was sitting up and looking at me intently. “Nobody important.” A glance at the unanswered-calls list showed it had been him earlier too, but I had no voicemail alert.
