La Vida Vampire (27 page)

“Who’s blood did you think it was?” Balch asked.

“I didn’t think it was anyone’s in particular, but Saber said it could’ve been Gorman’s.” I stopped and looked at March.

“Gorman is still in the hospital, right?”

“Right,” March said, “but I sent a deputy to talk to him anyway.”

“On the chance,” Saber added, “one of his Covenant buddies did it.”

“And?” I prompted looking from Saber to March to Balch.

“According to the nurses and hospital call records,” March said, “Gorman hasn’t had a single call or civilian visitor—other than when you saw him this afternoon.” March paused and smiled. “But then, he’s not your main suspect, is he, Ms. Marinelli?”

“My what?” I asked, looking to Saber for help.

Saber shrugged. “I told them we’ve been eliminating suspects.”

“Then you know we think Etienne is the killer. What’s bothering me is the plain lead bullet.” I gestured with my glass of ice.

“I mean, Etienne used silver ammunition on Rachelle and Yolette. Why change if he wanted me dead?”

“Maybe he only wanted to scare you,” Balch said.

“Or,” Saber piped in, “he ran out of silver ammo.”

“Or maybe,” March added, “Saber was the target, and you got in the way.”

The fine hair on my arms stiffened as I turned to Saber. “Why would Etienne want you dead?”

He shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“Did you hear or see—or smell—anything else before the shot?” Balch asked. “Anything at all?”

“Sorry, no. Like I said, Saber and I were talking. I was focused on that.”

“What happened after the shot?” he pressed.

“My shoulder burned, and I pitched forward. Saber pulled me in the door and about halfway down the hall. I think he drew his gun, and I heard him call 911.”

“And that’s all you remember?” Balch asked.

“That’s it.”

“Ms. Marinelli,” Balch said, shifting in the chair, “could Etienne Fournier want to kidnap you? Extort money from you in exchange for, say, letting Saber live?”

“Depends on how crazy he is. Vampires aren’t exactly easy marks. Even if he’d wounded Saber, Etienne had to know I’d fight back if he came after us in the building.” I blew out a frustrated breath. “That’s why it doesn’t make sense.”

“We can speculate all we want, but it won’t catch the bad guy.” March tucked his little spiral notebook in his pocket as he rose from the chair. “I need to get back downstairs. Balch, you have more questions?”

“Not at this time.” Balch and Saber stood, too, and Balch shook Saber’s hand. He didn’t offer his hand to me, but he did smile. “Hope you heal up fast, Ms. Marinelli. We’ll call to have you come sign your statement.”

Since Saber had my keys and knew the elevator code, he played host and showed the detectives out. I slumped into the fluffy couch cushions and tried to dig up some enthusiasm for yet another trip to a cop shop. Sleuthing was sure taking up my formerly spare and uncomplicated time.

I don’t know how long I drifted, thinking of nothing much but catching up with my online classes and getting my life back on a schedule, when the door lock snicked and Saber’s footsteps crossed to the kitchen. The fridge door opened. Bottles clinked. Liquid sloshed as if in a bottle being shaken.

He was shaking beer?

I heard my mini-fridge motor kick on. The door had been opened. Damn!

I jackknifed up to glare over the couch back as Saber sauntered toward me with a bottle of Starbloods in each hand.

“You opened both fridge doors at the same time, didn’t you?” I accused as I jumped off the couch.

“Yep, and you can complain about my snooping after you drink up.” He held both bottles out to me expectantly. I crossed my arms, wincing when my right shoulder protested the stretch. “I only drink one at a time.”

“No, you have two sometimes,” he argued with a smile.

“How would you know?”

“Old-fashioned detective work,” he said. “I counted the bottles in the bin. Your recycling day is Monday, so you should have six used bottles. You have nine. Ergo, you’ve had extra shots—I suspect when you had the tracker changed out.”

“Fine,” I said, plucking first one, then the other bottle from his hold with my good arm. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Hold it,” he said, moving fast to block my escape. “You don’t have a microwave in your room.”

“So?”

“Aren’t you going to warm up the Starbloods?”

“I drink it cold.”

I veered around Saber, but he caught me around the waist and spun, not hurting my shoulder but backing me into the kitchen island. He braced his hands on the countertop, and his arms brushed my sides.

“What,” I snapped, “are you doing? I told you I’d be back.”

“I want to be sure you drink it all. Now.” He stared like a stern nurse. “Down the hatch, Cesca.”

“Saber, I don’t drink in public.”

“You’re not in public. You’re in your own home.”

“I don’t let people watch me drink,” I ground out.

“You do now. Come on, stop stalling,” he cajoled. “You need to heal that shoulder, and I’m making sure you drink every drop.”

I reached over his arm to set one bottle on the counter, and shook the other one gently. Not the best delaying tactic, but Saber didn’t look ready to budge.

“The least you could do is turn around.”

“No.”

I ground my teeth. “Fine, then
I’ll
turn around.”

His lips twitched, but he didn’t laugh when I wiggled in the circle of his arms until I faced the far kitchen wall. The protective plastic made crinkly noises as I ripped it off, and the cap came off with a
thwunk.
With a deep breath, I pinched my nose shut and chugged my Starbloods. No sooner did I put the first bottle down than Saber held the second one over my shoulder, already uncapped. As I downed that one, Saber stepped away from me and over to the dining table.

“See, that wasn’t so bad.”

It wasn’t, but I didn’t have to let on. I took both bottles and metal lids to the sink, rinsed them, and put them in the recycling bin before I had the nerve to look at Saber again.

“Happy now?” I asked.

“Ecstatic.”

“Good. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” I said rounding the counter to head for my room, “I need to brush my teeth.”

“Hurry back. I brought your mail in.”

I stopped in my doorway. “I should say thanks, but I bet you snooped through that, too.”

“Only a little.”

From behind his back, he produced the set of
Monk
DVDs I’d ordered, flourishing them as if he were a magician. “Unless you’re too tired, I thought we could curl up on the couch and watch a marathon.”

“I thought we’d discuss the shooting,” I said.

“What’s to discuss? It wasn’t Gorman, and much as Ike might want to off one or both of us, he wouldn ’t bother with a gun.”

“But what good would it do Etienne to shoot either of us? ” I asked, surprised that he seemed so, well, blasé about the incident now. “It just doesn’t make sense.”

“No, it doesn’t,” he agreed as he opened the DVD box. “But rehashing it won’t solve anything either.”

“Saber,” I said, crossing to stand nearer and plead my case. “We can at least check the photos Eugene was supposed to e-mail. Maybe there’s a clue in them. Something to really tie Etienne to the murders.”

Saber tossed the box on the couch and lightly laid his hands on my shoulders. “We’ve done all we can, Cesca. We gave March solid information. It’s his jurisdiction, his job to finish.”

I fought to ignore the thrill of Saber’s touch. “March will call us after he talks to Etienne?”

“Tomorrow. Maybe he’ll have made an arrest by then. And,” he added, sliding his fingertips down my good arm and capturing my hand, “if you don’t feel like watching
Monk
, we’ll do something else.”

The way his voice deepened, I knew what that something else might be. Kissing I could handle. Sex? My heart thumped double its usual time. Nope, I wasn’t ready for that. Was I?

Besides, maybe watching Monk solve cases would inspire us with some brilliant way of catching Etienne. Couldn’t hurt.

After sharing so much action with Saber, it was weird to do something mundane like watch TV together. The intimacy made me twitchy, or maybe it was just my shoulder aching, but I couldn’t seem to settle in one spot. We were half an hour into the first episode when Saber hit the Pause button.

“Are you hurting?” he asked, peering in my eyes.

“Why?”

“You keep squirming over there,” he said, “over there” being my end of the couch.

“I’m a little uncomfortable,” I admitted, “but I’ll find a good position in a minute.”

“No, you won’t. Come here.”

He took my hand, braced his back against the sofa arm, and tugged me into the V of his spread legs until my hip brushed his crotch. I started to scramble away, but he slung his arm around my waist and snuggled my left side to his chest.

“Does that take the pressure off your shoulder?” he asked.

“Um, yes.” It put pressure other places, like low in my belly, but I didn’t say that.

“Good, now relax.”

Surprisingly, after my hormones stopped spiking, I did.

Three episodes into our marathon, Saber decided he was hungry. We found Maggie’s stash of microwave popcorn and, while it popped, Saber inched my shirt off my right shoulder to check the bandage. His touch should ’ve been clinical, but to me it was erotic. So was his warm breath on my neck. Our kiss at the bay front leapt to mind in vivid detail, and my pheromones fired. In the nick of time, the microwave beeped. Instead of chewing nails to take the edge off my horniness, I munched on a few handfuls of the extra buttery popcorn, then washed the salt taste away with water, heavy on the ice. When we’d finished snacking, Saber pulled me against his chest again, but he didn’t use the remote right away. He used his lips, kissing my temple through a curtain of hair, then lifting it from my neck to plant a kiss on my shoulder. My body reacted, but my brain did, too.

“Uh, Saber,” I said, as he turned me in his arms. His cobalt blue eyes had darkened to midnight. “What are you doing?”

“Making a pass,” he whispered. “Why, am I doing it wrong?”

“Oh, no, you’re doing it, ahhh, fine,” I breathed as he swirled his tongue around my ear. “But,” I gulped, “but you’re a vampire hunter and, uh-oh, executioner, and I’m—”

“The weirdest vampire I’ve ever met?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m forgetting all that right now.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re also,” he said, kissing my jaw as if to punctuate the words, “a delectable, desirable woman.”

“I-I am?”

“You are.” He cupped my jaw. “Now, are you going to analyze or enjoy?”

“Just remember,” I murmured as his lips neared, “you started this.”

His mouth settled on mine like it was there for the long haul. And it was. Hurt shoulder? What shoulder? Saber ’s legs and arms encircled me, his sensuous lips and teeth nipped and teased me into a hot, panting puddle of need. It would probably kill me, but I could hardly wait for more.

That’s when the kissing stopped and Saber rested his forehead against mine.

“God, you’re responsive,” he said hoarsely.

I fought to get my brain back in working order. “That’s a good thing, right?”

He raised his head enough to look in my eyes. “Hell, yes. It’s great.”

“So why are we stopping?”

“Because,” he said, grabbing the remote and shifting me back to rest on his chest, “I won’t stop at all if we go any further.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“Cesca, watch the show.”

I was still cooling off when Saber proposed a contest to see which of us could solve the mystery before Monk did. Maybe Saber was still coming down, too. The rod in his jeans sure hadn ’t softened during the postkiss
Monk
episode. I found some satisfaction in that. Not as much as I wanted, but, hey, since Saber showed no signs of making another pass, and since I wasn ’t blinded by flashes of insight into our own case, I took him up on the contest.

Four episodes later, we were tied at two solutions each.

During the last episode, near dawn, I felt Saber’s breathing go slow and rhythmic, and I let my eyes drift shut. I awoke on my bed, the rose-colored chenille throw from Maggie’s room covering me, Saber whistling from the kitchen. I sat up to read the clock on the other side of the bed. It was three thirty, but I noticed more than the time of day. The second pillow on my bed held the impression of a head. The head that made the dent wasn’t mine. Oh, my.

Had Saber really slept with me? And I missed it?

Did I snore? Oh, please, let me not have snored.

Before I worked myself into a tizzy, Saber knocked on the bedroom door, and I whipped around to face him.

“Hey, how’s your shoulder?” he asked as he came to stand by the bed.

Dressed in blue jeans and a lighter blue cotton shirt, no shoes, he smelled of soap, shampoo, and vital, virile man. I gulped. What had he asked me?

“Here, let me take a look at it,” he said, reaching for me.

I hurriedly held the shirt against my chest. “It’s fine. Really. I bet it’s all healed.”

“Then I’ll get the bandage off for you.” He pulled the neck of my shirt back slowly enough for me to keep my breasts covered, then peeled off the tape and gauze as he casually added, “It healed. Good. Oh, by the way, March called.”

“When? Did he arrest Etienne?”

“He called at three. No arrest.”

“Why not?”

Saber shrugged. “No evidence.”

“None at all? What about a boat? Did the divers find one?”

Saber sat on the bed and took my hand. “No, and Etienne is hinting at harassment. Said he wants Yolette ’s body tomorrow so he can leave. If we try to detain him, he’ll be on the phone to his consulate and the press.”

“But, Saber, we know he did it.”

“Technically, we don’t know. We need hard evidence to make murder charges stick.” He shook his head. “We could still get lucky, but I’m not optimistic.”

“We could trick him into admitting to the crimes.”

“Not without stomping on his rights.”

“But he’s not a U.S. citizen.”

“All the more reason we can’t entrap him,” Saber said.