Mrs. Abbott had told him that she would let Julie’s friends, and their parents, know to expect a call from him. However, he still waited until the next day to make sure she had enough time to notify them before calling her friends.
One of them sat across from him now, sipping her latte and twirling a strand of platinum blonde hair around her perfectly manicured finger. She studied him with a little too much interest for his liking.
“You have to understand,” she said. “After Julie’s dad died, she stopped being Julie. Of course, we tried to stick by her, but there’s only so long you can stand by someone who doesn’t want to be your friend anymore.”
“I understand,” Dante said. “Were you two close before her dad died?”
The girl shrugged. Dante checked his notes for her name before recalling it was Missy.
“Not really.” The tips of Missy’s perfectly manicured, neon green nails flashed in the light as she continued twirling her hair. “Paris was alotcloser to her.”
Dante rechecked his notes and saw he was meeting with Paris tomorrow. “That’s Paris Carter?”
“Yes.”
He’d already surmised that Paris Carter was not the PB from Julie’s journal, mainly because there was already a PC on the pages by the time PB entered Julie’s life. “Paris and Julie were good friends?”
“How good of a friend can youreallybe with somebody?” Missy asked. “I mean, the only people we evertrulyknow are ourselves.”
Dante suppressed a groan; God save him from teenagers. But because she was waiting for something from him, he murmured, “So true.”
She grinned as she leaned toward him. “Itreallyis. I mean, think about it, everyone we know is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. They’reallhiding secrets.”
No one knew that better than him and every other vampire on this planet. “Is there anything else you can tell me about Julie?”
Missy released her hair to tap a finger against her bright red lips. “Not that I can think of, but like I said, she was closer to Paris.”
“Thank you for your help.”
Dante started to rise when she rested her hand on his arm and gave him a coy smile. “My parents are away for the weekend.”
Dante’s eyebrows shot up at the same time her words brought him back to a time when he was seventeen. He’d been sitting in the lunchroom with his high school sweetheart, Tiffany Myers, as she spoke those same words to him.
Unlike Missy, who didn’t look at all fazed by her words, Tiffany had stared shyly up at him as her cheeks colored prettily. In his excitement over her words, Dante almost grabbed Tiffany’s hand and ran from the lunchroom with her. But, because he was seventeen, he was too cool to show his excitement.
Instead, he chewed his peanut butter sandwich while trying not to reveal that this was the best news he ever heard. Finally, he swallowed and replied. “Cool.”
Tiffany’s blush deepened while he tried to figure out what to say that wouldn’t blow this. “So, can I come over?” he asked and wondered if he sounded as ridiculous as he felt.
“I’d like that,” Tiffany murmured shyly.
Somehow, he kept himself restrained from jumping up and pumping his fist in the air. “Cool,” he said again, and Tiffany giggled.
Back then, those words were exciting and opened the doorway to a whole new world for him. Now, they made his stomach turn.
“Stay safe while they’re gone,” he said and pulled his arm away before she could reply.
He wound his way through the crowd of the small coffee shop and stepped onto the sidewalk lining Tremont street. Having already sunk behind the buildings, streaks of sun colored the sky. People were heading home to their families, but his night was just beginning.
There were three vampire clubs he planned to check out tonight, one in Southie, one on the Dorchester line, and another in Quincy. He’d been to them a couple of times while searching for other missing people. They were places humans created where they could go to pretend to be vampires. He hadn’t seen any vampires there, but they were a place to start.
Before he could hail a taxi, his gaze went to Adler’s piano bar, a few buildings down and across the street. His chest constricted; he was so close to the woman he could almost smell her.
And then, he realized hedidsmell cherries on the air. Turning his head, he searched the crowd of people on the sidewalk before spotting her a hundred feet to the left. His heart slammed against his ribs as she weaved expertly in and out of the crowd.
She was about six inches shorter than his six-two height. Her formfitting jeans and blue shirt emphasized her rounded hips and breasts that would fit perfectly in his hands. Her sandy blonde hair flowed around her shoulders in waves. She had high cheekbones, a slender nose with a slight slope at the end, and a red, rosebud mouth that could do many amazing things to a man.
He’d encountered more than a few beautiful women in his lifetime, but they all paled in comparison to this one. And her grace was as mesmerizing as her beauty. He couldn’t look away from her as she flowed across the ground like water over rocks.
