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“I want you out of my house.” I snarled, poking my finger into his chest. “I got your files. You’re clearly feeling better. It’s time for you to go. I’m sure someone with your resources will have no trouble anonymously renting a hotel room. I don’t want you anywhere near me or Gigi.”
“I can’t leave now,” he insisted. “For one thing, there’s the matter of my investigation. I need a solid, discreet base of operations. We agreed on a week. I need the full week. And don’t pretend that you can do without the rest of my payment, because we both know that you were just scraping by. There’s also the small matter of the person hell-bent on killing me. And the vampire who attacked you at my house. You may not believe me, but I won’t leave you and Gigi unprotected.”
“Yes, I feel supersecure with a lying, untrustworthy vampire skulking around my house.”
“You can trust me. You’re just a little angry with me right now,” he said, ducking deftly out of the way as I lobbed the soapstone rabbit at his head. It bounced off the wall behind him with a thunk, leaving a basketballsized dent in the drywall.
“Oh, I’m not a little angry. I’m fricking furious with you!” I shouted. “The things I told you, I don’t tell people. I haven’t even told Paul. I don’t know what’s more disturbing, the fact that you can lie to me and not even change the expression on your face or the fact that I didn’t pick up on it. You’re a vampire. That sort of thing comes naturally to you. I should expect it. I mean, were you really even poisoned? Was this ‘defenseless, wounded vampire’ thing just an act so you could con me into providing an off-the-grid hiding spot? You did your homework. I’m sure my profile suggested that poor Iris Scanlon would do anything for money. And hey, if you throw her a bone and sleep with her, she’ll be so grateful that she’ll let you get a meal straight from the source!”
I pulled angrily at my collar, revealing the bruised bite wound on my chest. His expression shifted from defiance to sympathy, and the look of pity made me exponentially angrier. So I grabbed another figurine, a chipmunk, and slung it at him.
“Where did your mother buy this concussive menagerie?” he yelped as he sidestepped airborne statuary. In answer, I threw a fawn and a cardinal and a raccoon in rapid succession. Cal ducked through the field of flying woodland creatures and grabbed my arms. We struggled for control of the final figurine, a matching cardinal.
“I didn’t mean to lie to you. I didn’t know you’d be—I didn’t know that I would want to know who you are. That you would be worth so much more than just safe passage and survival. I know you, Iris. I may not have met you in childhood. I might have missed the awkward adolescent ‘flower child’ stage. But I know you.”
Please note that he didn’t say he liked what he knew about me.
“I wouldn’t do anything to bring you harm,” he murmured. “I need to know that you’re safe before I leave. Please don’t send me away now.”
I refused to look up at him. I wouldn’t let him see me cry. I’d already done too much to show him how much he’d hurt me.
“You’re gone in three days,” I said, my voice quiet and flat. “I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to talk to you. I was safe passage for you. Now you’re a meal ticket to me, nothing more.”
I brushed past him, returning to the kitchen. Gigi was pretending to work, her fingers anxiously shredding a paper towel. I squeezed her shoulder and gave her a little half smile. Behind me, I heard the cellar door slam, indicating that Cal had retired for the evening.
“What gives?” Gigi asked, nibbling on a pizza crust. “Does our vampire have PMS?”
“I don’t understand living men,” I muttered, picking at a slice of pizza. “Do you think I understand undead ones?”
Gigi’s reply was cut short by the opening bars of “Flight of the Bumblebee.” I reached for my phone, not missing the disappointed eye roll she gave me. Grimacing, I hit send and accepted the call, dutifully taking down an altered floral order for the upcoming Carver-Owen nuptials. The bride’s living uncle insisted that he was allergic to roses, which meant a complete change of theme. I offered several alternatives, and we agreed to substitute bold pink stargazer lilies. But I completed the call in a brisk, businesslike manner, lacking my usual enthusiastic flair. And it had Gigi nervously chewing at her lip. When I hung up the phone, she asked, “Iris, is everything OK?”
I cleared my throat and gave her my best reassuring smile, although I felt none of it. “Nothing that won’t be fixed in three days.”
—
I managed to avoid Cal for two days by waking up after he went to bed for the day and shutting myself up in my room at night. Gigi said that Cal was friendly if they happened to cross paths in the house. Apparently, her finding Cal naked on our floor was some sort of bonding experience.
Cal stayed in the basement and read over the Council reports whenever I was home. I appreciated the effort to make me comfortable, although I still considered whacking him in the face with a shovel if I was ever given an opportunity. Over and over, I considered going downstairs to discuss my conversation with Ophelia and the weird implications of Mr. Crown’s comments in the Council hallway. But I couldn’t bring myself to walk down the basement steps. I didn’t want to help Cal in the slightest way. I didn’t want him to have any reason to believe that I’d forgiven him, that I was interested in doing anything besides smacking him with the aforementioned shovel.
I was well versed in carrying on detached relationships after sex. If he thought I was going to cling all over him, he was sorely mistaken. I was tired of being jerked around by emotionally unavailable men, pulse or no pulse. Going into the Council office on my own, I felt like I was finally regaining control over my life after a week of uncertainty and chaos. Even though it involved some rather painful revelations, it was a gamble that had paid off. I hadn’t had too many of those lately.
And frankly, it was sort of a relief to return to our regular routine. Gigi and I left the house during the day. I was able to return all of my attention to my job and get mired in all of the fantastically mundane details of my clients’ lives.
I returned to my garden, forcing myself to get home before sunset or before Gigi came home from school, so I could throw myself into what had been left undone during Cal’s crisis. I replenished my candy stores and found new hiding places. I clipped the deadheads from the plants and cut back the climbing roses. I pulled weeds and scattered pulverized eggshells along the flower beds. I threw out long-overdue bouquets from the living-room vases and replaced them with experimental arrangements of lilies and ferns or roses and rosemary. I attended one of Gigi’s volleyball games, sold popcorn at the boosters’ concession stand, and put up with passive-aggression from the über-competitive mothers of Gigi’s teammates.
There were no repercussions from my “visit” to the Council offices, so I was back to remote dealings with clients who didn’t want to feed from me or live with me. I delivered cases of blood. I received shipments of tacky Vegas-themed furniture. I sent a cleaning crew to Mr. Rychek’s house to remove the gastrointestinal evidence of Ginger the hypoallergenic cat’s distaste for his wallpaper.
The lowlight of my day was an early-morning brush with creepy Mr. Dodd, a lower-level Council employee who was getting a bit too familiar in his communications with me since signing his contract three months before. I made the mistake of arriving at his house too early to accept delivery of a painting that was being shipped on a six A.M. flight from Chicago to the Half-Moon Hollow Municipal Airport.
I’d been working for weeks to secure this painting, an example of Renaissance portraiture that apparently resembled Mr. Dodd’s first “lover.” Hindsight being what it is, I should have known to stay on my guard around someone who could use the word “lover” without shuddering in discomfort.
The sun was barely over the horizon as I pulled into the driveway on Deer Haven Road. I needed to drop the portrait off as soon as possible. Otherwise, I’d be toting a very expensive, delicate painting in the back of my unsecured van all day. I slipped through the front door as quietly as possible and left the portrait in Mr. Dodd’s bedroom closet, as agreed. He wasn’t in the room, which wasn’t unusual. Most older vampires were unaccustomed to the idea of sleeping in a bed, so they created little light-tight cubbyholes elsewhere in their homes.
The house was quiet and still, darkened by sunproof shades. I hooked a left through the kitchen to check on Mr. Dodd’s blood supplies. I was almost to the front door when a hand shot out from the hallway and caught my arm.
I shrieked, yanking my arm back, but the grip was too strong. I was pushed back into the kitchen, against the counter, the handle of the utensil drawer digging into my back. I hissed in pain, knowing that it would leave a bruise. The stove light popped on. In front of me stood a tall, lanky vampire with shaggy dark blond hair. He smirked down at me, sizing me up and down with cold blue eyes before drawling, “So, you’re the busy little bee who keeps me fed.”
“Iris Scanlon, Beeline. I hope you’re Mr. Dodd.” I managed a prim professional smile while I gave a final tug on my arm. He finally loosened his hold but stepped even closer, cornering me against the counter.
