“You might as well tell her the rest,” Blake said, sitting up and sighing. “But for the love of God, you can’t tell a single soul, or we’ll all be in trouble.”
Cate mimed zipping her lips, almost vibrating in her seat.
“There wasn’t much. We reckoned he must’ve locked everything in his briefcase after they found out about us overhearing. And we couldn’t get in that.” Ian paused for effect, caught up in the moment. “But I found a business card in one of his suit pockets. I reckon he must have left it in there after their night on the booze.”
“Can’t believe you searched his clothes too.” Cate shook her head.
Ian shrugged. “You telling me you wouldn’t have done the same after hearing about a secret new police branch?”
She hummed, non-committal, and waved for him to continue.
“On the card it had his uncle’s name, rank, and the letters, VLCD, and underneath it said Vampire Liaison and Crime Division.” It felt like aTa da!moment, but silence filled the room.
Blake’s expression was hard to read, but Cate sat there with her mouth open and face screwed up in disbelief until she finally barked out a laugh. “You’re fucking with me, right?” She looked from Ian to Blake, then back to Ian. “Ha-ha. Very good. You had me totally hooked until the end there.”
“I’m telling the truth,” Ian tried, but Cate rolled her eyes.
“How gullible do you think I am?”
Ian met Blake’s gaze. He knew from that one look that it was the absolute truth. But Cate didn’t. And why would she? They could either try to get her to believe them—maybe Blake had proof, maybe he didn’t—or they could play it off as an elaborate joke and keep Blake’s secret between the two of them. “Blake?” He hoped Blake knew he was letting him take the lead on this.
No one spoke for what seemed like an age.
“Guys?” Cate looked between them again, face pinched.
With a huge sigh, Blake shuffled back into the corner of the sofa until he could face both Ian and Cate. “Fuck.” He scrubbed his hands over his face and in that instance seemed so much older than his years.
Shit. Guilt began to creep in, and Ian realised maybe he should have kept his big mouth shut. “I’m sorry, I should never have—”
“It’s fine.” Blake offered him a tight smile. “In hindsight I should’ve anticipated your mind would go there and told you first. It was so long ago, I just never thought—” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter now. You just can’t repeat this to anyone—and I mean anyone—and we have to convince Cate that we’re telling the truth.”
Despite the gravity of Blake’s expression, Ian couldn’t help but grin. “So it is a thing then?”
Blake’s lips twitched. “Oh yeah.”
“And vampires are real?” He should probably be terrified by this thought, but Ian was so ridiculously excited he could barely sit still.
Blake nodded. “It would appear so.”
“Fucking hell.” His mind raced; he didn’t know what questions to ask first. “Have you seen one? What are they like? Do they—”
“Hey!”
They both turned to look at Cate. In his excitement, Ian had almost forgotten she was there.
She eyed them both like they were crazy. “Will one of you please explain what the fuck is going on?”
Ian gestured to Blake. “I think you’d better take this one.” Ian wanted to hear all about it too.
Fucking hell! Vampires are real!
Reaching into his jacket pocket, Blake pulled out a business card and flipped it over for them both to see. In bold black letters were the words,Detective Sergeant Blake Jones, VLCD.A telephone number was printed underneath, and that was all. “They don’t add the words for the abbreviations these days. Thankfully someone decided it was a bad idea.”
Ian snorted. “No shit.”
Cate narrowed her eyes and gestured to the business card. “That doesn’t prove anything. What do you tell people it stands for? I’m assuming you must have to tell them something if you’ve got cards?”
“I’ve got one card that I put in the back of my warrant card. Only to be used if I get in trouble with the regular police, and then I’m only to hand it over to the highest ranking officer. The number goes direct to my boss. I don’t go handing them out to anybody and everybody.”
