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I looked into the office. The room was practically sanitized. The spare black console desk had been stripped clean. The filing cabinet had been emptied, its drawers standing open. I was surprised the Council had left the desk lamp behind. “They took your decoy box.”
He snickered.
“What was in it?” I asked.
“I hand-copied about a year’s worth of Penthouse Forum letters into steno notebooks.”
“Ew.”
“In Serbian,” he added. “By the time they figure out what they have …”
“They’ll think you stole a bunch of notebooks from a perverted Serbian,” I said. “I’m not sure whether to be impressed with you or concerned. Where are the real notebooks?”
I could hear him rolling over on the bed, the sheets rustling against the phone. This called to mind images of Cal naked and barely covered by sleep-rumpled sheets, which was not good for my powers of stealth and concentration. He cleared his throat, as if he could sense my indecent thoughts through the phone connection. “Front bedroom closet, in a box marked ‘Receipts 2009.’ ”
“Vampires never save receipts.”
“So it should be easy for you to find,” he retorted.
I stepped into the hallway. I heard a strange sort of shuffling noise downstairs, then a light thud. I stopped.
“Iris? Your breathing’s changed. What’s happening?”
“Shh,” I whispered, listening.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded, his voice suddenly sharp.
The house was silent. When I didn’t hear so much as a creaking floorboard, I shook my head, stepping toward the bedroom. “Nothing. I thought I heard something.”
“Get out,” he commanded. “Get out of the house, right now.”
I listened for a moment, wondering what happened to “no emotional connections” and using me as a human shield if necessary. “No, it’s OK. It’s nothing.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” I said, approaching the closet near the front window of the bedroom. “I’m probably just being paranoid. B and E isn’t exactly an everyday occurrence for me.”
“If you feel uncomfortable, I want you to leave.”
“It’s fine.” I closed my fingers around the closet door and opened it. It was completely empty. Not so much as a dust bunny.
“Cal—” A hand closed over my mouth. I shrieked, inhaling an unpleasant combination of woodruff and lime that stung my nose. I was pulled back against a solid, hard body. The rough fingers stretched across my mouth, the taste of his skin making me gag.
“Iris!” I heard Cal’s voice yell from the earpiece, which was now dangling from my collar.
I took a deep breath, but before I could scream, the hand closed over my throat, cutting off my air. The earpiece clattered to the ground, bouncing across the carpet. The only sound I could make was a strangled croak. Another hand slipped down my ribs and pressed hard, squeezing me back against him.
“Sweet little thing.” The cold, rough voice slipped down the side of my neck. I tried to shrink away, but he just pulled me closer. He ground his hips against my butt, letting me know exactly how much he was enjoying toying with his food. Hot, humiliated tears gathered at the corners of my eyes.
“Iris?” Cal called, his voice small and far away. “Iris, answer me right now!”
I whimpered as his grip tightened on my mouth. Fangs dropped, sounding like a knife being unsheathed. I felt the points scrape against the flesh of my neck.
“What are you doing here, pretty thing?” he whispered, his lips clammy and wet against my skin. “You woke me. No one is supposed to be here.”
His voice slithered around in my head, constricting, smothering. My head felt so heavy, full and numb, like an overblown bloom on a weak steam.
“Do you work for him?” he asked. “Do you know where he is?”
