Love Bite (Just One Bite #1) (7 page)

She shook
those thoughts off for now as she headed into the house with the bags.
Unnoticed, the ivory color cat followed at her heels and headed straight up the
stairs behind her, pausing around the corner instead of following her to the
nursery. Diandra was just creeping out of the baby's room where RaeLynn lay
sleeping in the crib. “Diandra, we need to talk,” Lizbeth stated, leading the
way to the bedroom where the baby monitor was set up. "We need to figure
out what's going on with you, and what it means for the future,” Lizbeth began.

Diandra shook her
head angrily. “No! There's nothing wrong with me- I feel fine. In fact, I've
never felt better in my life. I've never felt better about
myself
than I
do right now.”

“But you see,
Diandra, that's the point!” Lizbeth said, reaching out and taking as her hand.
“You shouldn't be fine. You shouldn't have gone through labor in two hours and
looked like a movie scene following the birth. You shouldn't have had such an
easy time of it. You shouldn't have lost 50 pounds within a day of giving
birth. You look fantastic, but none of this is right.”

Diandra yanked
her hand away, angry beyond reason, and was amazed to watch Lizbeth tumble off
the bed. She didn't mean to do that. How hard had she pulled, anyway? She
stared down at her hand, trying to make sense of this new development.

Lizbeth calmly
got up from the floor and brushed herself off. Ignoring Diandra's horrified
look, she sat back down on the bed and took the still-extended hand once more.
“And I'm pretty certain you weren't that strong before all this, either. I
think I'd have noticed if you were. Dia, honey, you said it yourself. Jonah is
a vampire, as impossible as that may seem. It appears some clichés have a basis
in reality after all. He bit you but did not kill you, and that turned you into
a vampire.”

Diandra shook
her head again, negating everything Lizbeth had said. “I don't understand how
you can be so certain of this.”

“I'm not, but
it's the only thing that makes sense. What else could it be? He meant to kill
you, but turned you instead. I know you don't want to hear about this, or even
think about it, but you must.” As Diandra wandered away, hands pressed to her
ears like a child, Lizbeth finished what she had to say in a rush. “When I came
in, I shot him and he fled. You passed out and your heart stopped. You died in
my arms. Your heart no longer beat. For this brief amount of time you were
dead. Now your heart beats, but it beats
wrong
. It beats so slowly- one
beat for every five of mine. I'm surprised the hospital staff didn't comment on
that! For a few brief minutes you were dead in my arms. Suddenly you went from
a dead pregnant woman to a vampire in labor. I cannot explain it, but you can't
wish it away.”

Diandra gently
let go of Lizbeth's hand this time before getting up and pacing the bedroom.
Both women were careful to keep their voices down so the sounds of their
discussion did not travel through the walls into the nursery to disturb
RaeLynn.

“This is
absolutely ridiculous, you know. If I were a... well... a vampire, I wouldn't
be up and around. It's daytime. I haven't burst into flames from the sunlight.
I don't feel the urge to sleep away the day. And I certainly don't have a
craving for,” she shuddered before finishing, “Blood.” Diandra paled at the
thought.

Lizbeth stood
up and put her arms around Diandra. “Dia, honey, face facts. Obviously we know
the horror movies and novels got it wrong. You are a vampire, you must be. Yes,
you're awake. Yes, it's daytime. You've not burned up into a pile of ash, I get
that. But stop and think a minute- really think. You've been eating regular
food, but how
much
have you been eating? You've eaten nonstop since
RaeLynn was born and haven't filled up. You're always complaining about being
hungry. Even with all the food you've eaten, none of your clothes fit you
anymore. It's like you're not getting any nourishment from what you've eaten.
You've changed, Dia, and we need to figure out the rules fast.”

The ivory cat
had been listening outside the bedroom door. Now he cocked his head to the side
as though thinking, or hearing something neither human heard, and ran back down
the stairs on silent padded feet. He ran into the parlor and jumped out the
same window Jonah had flown out of and landed silently on the lawn. A moment
later a knock sounded at the door.

The women
exchanged puzzled, wary glances and made their way downstairs. Lizbeth opened
the door, gun still in the small of her back in case it was needed. When the
door was opened, the two women looked outside at nothing. No one was there, no
car in the driveway. Lizbeth strained to listen and heard nothing but the sound
of the ocean. Then she looked down and saw the old-fashioned picnic basket on
the welcome mat. She carried it inside, set it on the coffee table and stood
back.

Diandra lifted
the lid and gasped. Her knees buckled and she sat down heavily on the loveseat.
The basket was full of intravenous blood bags, the type that hung from the pole
for blood transfusions. Hands shaking, she reached between the bags and pulled
out a type- written note. She cleared her throat, once, twice, and reluctantly
read the letter aloud.

“
Welcome to
a new life. There are twenty-eight bags of blood in this basket- a two week
supply. You will need two bags a day every day for about two months until your
body has full adjusted to the change. Then you'll be able to cut down to one
bag every other day. Sunlight, garlic, and crosses will not hurt you or kill
you, as I'm sure you've noticed on your own. We'll discuss what will at a later
date. In the meantime I leave you with two pieces of advice:

Protect
your head and your heart.

Be nice to
the ivory cat. He likes tuna, but do not feed him any other human food unless
you like shampooing your carpets regularly.

Signed, a friend.”

The woman
looked at each other, fear evident on their faces. No one knew but Jonah,
right? So who was this mysterious friend? And what was this business about a
cat? Diandra's eyes kept straying back to the bags of blood as though drawn to
them by a magnetic pull. Finally she could resist no longer and let out a cry
as her fangs protruded and pierced a bag. She sucked the blood down thirstily
as tears ran silent down her face.

Diandra
excused herself to go lay down for a while. Lizbeth wet a cloth for her to put
over her eyes, knowing they must burn from all the tears. She tried to get her
to open up and talk about what had happened downstairs, but to no avail.
Diandra told her she was not ready to even think about it, let alone discuss
it. Lizbeth knew it was a lie, knew she was lying down and thinking hard, but
she let it go. Diandra would talk to her when she was ready.

As Lizbeth
walked downstairs she heard a noise coming from the kitchen. The housekeeper
had off for the day so the kitchen should be empty. She crept down the hallway
carefully, pulling her gun from the small of her back. She hurried her steps a
little more as she heard the sound of a cabinet door opening and closing.
Drawing a steadying breath, she pushed open the swinging kitchen door and
stepped into the kitchen. Lizbeth laughed as she saw their “intruder.” A
slender ivory-colored cat sat on the kitchen floor, pawing at the cabinet that
held the canned goods.

“Well, hello
there! Aren't you pretty?” The cat stood up, stretched, and turned its back on
her. “Oh, I stand corrected! Aren't you a handsome fella?” He flicked his tail
and stalked over to her, rubbing against her legs and leaving fur along the
cuffs of her black dress slacks. He purred, making a deep bass rumble in his
throat. “Are you trying to say you're hungry? Let's see if we have anything you
can eat.” She walked towards the cabinet, returning her gun to the small of her
back on the way. The cat followed her over, pawing at the closed door. She
opened a can of tuna, dumping the contents onto a little blue saucer from the
cabinet. Then she sat the saucer on the floor, gesturing for him to go ahead.

He gave one
last rub against her pants before sitting down on the floor to eat. He did so
almost daintily, eating one bit of tuna at a time, much like a human would eat
one small bite off of a fork. She petted him as he ate, contented by the
feeling of soft fur beneath her hand. She'd always wanted a cat growing up but
hadn't been allowed. She puzzled over what to name him, but the answer just
seemed to come to her. “Eamon,” she whispered. “That's your name, Eamon.” It
confused her a little since she didn’t recall ever hearing the name before. He
looked up at her and she could have sworn he smiled.

Lizbeth
stepped away from the cat, studying him with suspicion. This was no mere stray
cat, of that she was certain. But before she could strike up an odd
conversation with him, she heard RaeLynn calling for attention. She hurried up
the stairs to the baby's room, picking her up out of the bassinet and soothing
her automatically, lest the baby wake Diandra. In the hustle and bustle to tend
the baby's needs, her concerns over the cat were forgotten.

The two women
once more fell into a routine, although not nearly the same one they had before
their lives were turned upside down. When they woke in the morning Lizbeth
tended to RaeLynn's needs while Diandra excused herself to the bathroom to
ready for the day and drink her baggie of blood in privacy. Then the three of
them went downstairs to have breakfast.

Diandra ate
the same meals as Lizbeth, although they provided her with no nourishment. She
was down to a size 10 now, just two weeks after the birth of her baby. People
stopped her all the time to comment on how fantastic she looked, begging to
know the secret to losing so much weight. She merely smiled and said she wasn't
sure how it had happened but she was satisfied with it regardless. Her waist was
narrow but her hips were still curvy and her bust was very full. She was the
perfect hourglass figure, and she need not do anything to maintain it.
Supermodels worldwide- eat your hearts out, she thought with a wicked grin.

After sharing
a meal they parted ways for the day. Lizbeth went back to the police station
where she just knew she was closer to breaking the cold case wide open. She
would closet herself in the little cubicle in the bullpen and divide the day
between this one cold case and the few current cases needing her attention.
Alexar pulled her to the side one morning for a discussion.

“You may think
you're being clever, but I am aware of what you do in your spare time,” he said
quietly. At Lizbeth's look of puzzlement he clarified. “You're working on the
case that ended your career last year.” She started to stammer a reply but he
cut her off. “I don't mind that you're doing so. I mind that you don't trust
me. You could have come to me. I would have helped you. I agree that things
were not as they appeared, and I know a frame job when I see one. You were the
sacrificial lamb to allow this to continue. But we are going to stop it.”

Lizbeth
started at him, incredulous. “You mean to help me with this?”

Alexar smiled
as he adjusted the cuffs on his charcoal grey suit jacket. “But of course. I
don't believe in letting things like this go unpunished. So you're going to
gather your research and meet me in the conference room. You can bring me up to
speed and we'll see where to go from here.”

Lizbeth wandered
back to her desk, dazed from this turn of events. It went against the grain to
trust any cop after all she had been through, but her digging into his
background gave her no cause for concern. There was not one whiff of scandal in
his file, and he had a history of locking up dirty cops. While that left a bad
taste in a lot of mouths, it eased her mind quite a bit.

Lizbeth
grabbed all the paperwork she had quietly put together over the last several
months and took it to meet Alexar in the conference room. She set it all down
on the long wooden table in front of him, and then excused herself to bring in
coffee mugs for the two of them. When she came back in, he asked her to lock
the door so they would not be disturbed. Again, while many cops would have been
disturbed by this request, it further bolstered her opinion of him. It made her
feel that what she was discussing with him would be treated with the utmost
discretion.

Alexar and
Lizbeth spent their entire shift poring over the case files she had put
together, drinking copious amounts of coffee. Suit jackets were flung
carelessly over the backs of their chairs as they got further involved with the
case file. They made charts and graphs with all the data, and discussing the
case from many different angles. They talked about staying past end of shift to
go over the accumulated data but decided that would call undue attention to
what they were working on. Instead she agreed to send him anything she came
across from her private email to his instead of using company computers and
email. That way it would be kept off the books, and no one would be the wiser.

Lizbeth went
home that night in a better frame of mind than she had been in for months. She
had to admit, she liked the feeling of having someone in her corner, and having
someone to bounce ideas off of. It made her feel better, a little more secure.
Alexar had agreed with her assessment of who the most likely suspects were, and
was going to do a little background checking of his own on the two men.

Lizbeth parked
the car in the driveway and entered the house. She dropped her briefcase on the
table by the front door and headed upstairs to get changed out of her work
clothes into something more comfortable. Diandra lay on the bed wearing a
peekaboo black robe. Lizbeth raised her eyebrows but hurriedly stripped off her
own clothing and climbed onto the bed.