Vamparazzi (17 page)

“Ah. With attractions like
that,
no wonder you didn't just use the street entrance to visit me.”

Lopez smiled. “Well, apart from not wanting to be seen, since I'm not supposed to be here, I wanted to check this out. To see if it looked like anyone else has been using this entrance.”

“And what's your conclusion?”

He shrugged, which made me lose my balance. Preventing me from falling, he helped me stand solidly on my own feet again. Then he stepped out of the tunnel and joined me on dry ground in the access chamber. “I can't tell whether anyone's been here. But I'd have felt better if the door had been rusted shut when I tried to get in tonight.”

“This really doesn't seem like a place where you'd want to find the exit blocked,” I said as I removed the headlamp and returned it to him.

“Oh, I could have just doubled back until I reached a different exit. And then I'd have tried to slip into the theater some other way.” He shook his head. “But the fact that the door's still working . . . Well, it doesn't really tell me anything. Except that I want you to make sure it gets welded shut.”

“I still don't understand how you even knew this door was here. I mean, I work here, and I didn't know any of this underground stuff was attached to the theater. And I'll bet when I show it to Bill, he'll be surprised, too. So how did
you
. . . Oh.”

I looked him over head-to-toe again as it all started coming together in my mind. Lopez had just revealed an unusual level of familiarity with the physical underbelly of the city, and he had come here via abandoned underground tunnels. I remembered him telling me this past summer, when we had visited a crumbling nineteenth-century watchtower together in Harlem, that he'd always been interested in such places and was prone to poking around in them. And tonight, I now realized, he was dressed and equipped much like the people I saw on TV programs about shimmying down manholes and crawling through forgotten drains and sewers.

“Does your undercover case have something to do with urban explorers?” I asked slowly.

“Something,” he said.

“So you . . . you . . .” I gestured vaguely to the tunnel. “Do
that?
”

“I used to. In high school and college. I pretty much gave it up when I became a cop, since it's not exactly legal—especially not since the attacks of nine-eleven. There's been heightened security ever since then.” He started leading me back the way we had come here. “We've stayed down here too long. They've probably looked all over the theater for you by now.”

“So now you're doing this as undercover work?” I persisted.

“Well, I'm not a creeper anymore, but Hector Sousa is.”

“Creeper?” I repeated, following him into the dark but dry tunnel that had led us to this access chamber.

“Someone who goes where he's not supposed to go.”

“Like an urban explorer?”

“Uh-huh. Here, watch your step.” He took my hand to lead me back through the dark tunnel that ran under the street the Hamburg was on, using the headlamp as a flashlight again. “My first assignment after I got out of uniform was on an antiterrorism task force, working undercover. There was a lot of anxiety at the time about urban explorers wandering around abandoned sites and installations, both underground and above ground, without supervision or authorization. Who exactly were they? What were they doing? What were their intentions ? Had they been infiltrated by anyone whose intentions
weren't
innocent? And so on. So the department created an identity for me—”

“As Hector, a man with no razor?”

“—and I made contact with urban explorer groups in the city, going into the field with them—which mostly meant going underground at night—and looking for terrorist activity.”

“Did you find any terrorists?”

“That's classified.”

“Oh. Of course.”

“But it was a big waste of time.” He added, “Don't ever tell anyone I said that, though.”

“Who would I tell?”

“At first, it was kind of fun, since I was getting paid to do things that I used to do as a hobby. But I don't really like undercover work. You're isolated from other cops, and you have to lie to everyone all the time—the people in your real life, as well as the people you're investigating.” We exited the tunnel and entered the Hamburg's basement through the heavy door at the bottom of the short flight of old steps. “And since my investigations weren't finding anything worth reporting, I felt pretty silly and useless after a while. So I started pressing for reassignment, until I finally got it.”

“But now they've convinced you to do it again?”

“I was approached a few weeks ago and asked if I could re-establish some of my old contacts and activities in the urban explorer community. Same identity, different kind of case. And the OCCB agreed to, um, loan me out for a little while.”

So evidently Lopez's changed appearance since the last time we'd met was the result of spending a lot of time underground in recent weeks, as well as assuming Hector's identity.

“You're not looking for terrorists this time?” I asked.

“I'm not supposed to discuss what I'm looking for,” he said as we passed through the basement, heading toward the big staircase that would lead me back up to the theater—where NYPD cops were probably already questioning my fellow actors.

“But your case has similarities to last night's vampire victim?” I prodded.

“Vampire victim,” he repeated, looking pained. “You just couldn't resist using that phrase, could you?”

“Well, she did have all her blood dr—”

“You've been hanging around the vamparazzi too long.”

“I
don't
hang around with them.”

“Then maybe
playing
a vampire victim every night has affected your judgment.”

“My judgment is . . .” I realized that he had just deliberately steered me away from the subject of his investigation—and was trying to irritate me enough that I wouldn't notice the ploy. Which made me even more curious, naturally, about what he was investigating that might be related to Angeline's death. “You said one of the reasons they briefed you on last night's murder was because of where the body was found.”

“You should go upstairs now,” he said firmly. “They'll be looking for you.”

“Underground.”

“Your friend Licenoodle will be worried.”

I ignored this obvious attempt to distract me. “What are you investigating underground that—”

“Esther.”

I gasped as the most horrifying possibility occurred to me. “There've been other victims, haven't there?”

For a moment, his expression went so carefully blank that I knew he was considering lying to me. Then his shoulders sagged and he said, with obvious reluctance, “Maybe.”

“Maybe?”
I repeated shrilly.

He sighed in weary resignation. “In the past couple of months, three bodies have been found in ... unusual underground locations.”

“Three murder victims?” I exclaimed.

“One may have been natural causes.”

“
May
have been?”

“There, uh, aren't enough remains for us to be sure.”

“Oh.” I queasily recalled what he had said earlier about the effects of decomposition and hungry rodents. Then I demanded, “And the other two bodies?”

He hesitated, then nodded. “Murder.”

“Were they exsanguinated?” Seeing that he didn't want to answer me, I prodded sharply, “Well?”

“Try to stay calm.”

“Lopez!”

“We've kept this out of the press. No one knows the details. And it has to stay that way. Do you understand?”

“Yes, yes, go on,” I said impatiently.

“The bodies of two missing urban explorers have been found at other abandoned underground locations.”

“Drained of all their blood?” I asked anxiously.

“Not exactly.”

“What does
that
mean?”

Looking very tired again, he said, “Only
some
of their blood was drained.”

“Y
ou weren't going to tell me this, were you?”I said accusingly.

“I'm not
supposed
to tell you this,” he pointed out, obviously clinging to his fraying patience.

“You've got vampire victims littering the landscape, I could be next, and you weren't going to
tell
me about this?” I was working up a head of steam now.

He rubbed his forehead as if it ached. “I should never have tried to talk to you when I haven't slept in . . . I don't know how long. That was my first mistake—thinking I could deal with you when I'm half-dead.”

Warming to my theme, I demanded, “And what's wrong with your colleagues, that they're doubtful about the connection between exsanguinated murder victims recently found underground and last night's murder? Are they gibbering idiots?”

“My next mistake was thinking I could talk to you at
all,
” Lopez said with morose self-condemnation. “Even if I'd gotten some sleep first. At what point did I think this might go
well?
Where was my head?”

“A vampire's stalking the city, and you didn't think this was worth mentioning to me?”

“Why would I mention it to you?” he demanded, his volume rising. “Just because you're in a vampire play?”

“Well . . . Um . . .” Actually, when he it put it that way, I realized there might be a flaw in my logic. Which didn't stop me from saying, “You should have told me!”

“Told you
what?
” He clutched his skull as if it was really pounding now. “Esther, there is
not
a vampire stalking the ... There's no such
thing
as . . . Just because the victims have been . . .” He scrubbed his hands through his hair. “No. Wait.
Stop.
” Lopez took a very deep breath. And another. Then he lowered his hands and said with almost epic calm, “We can't talk about this now. You have to go upstairs and answer police questions. And I have to go home and die.”

“What?”

“Or at least get some sleep.”

Actually, he did look ready to keel over. I took a deep breath, too. “Okay. Yes. You're right. I'll go talk to the cops. And pretend we haven't had this conversation. You go home and ... shave. Seriously.”

“You don't get to nag someone you're not dating,” he snapped.

“We'll talk again tomorrow.”

“I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to it.”

I overlooked his needlessly sarcastic tone and turned my back to him. I said over my shoulder, “Since I have to go face your colleagues now, could you please lace me back up? I don't want the rest of the NYPD to become this familiar with my underwear.”

“Fine.” He came closer.

“It works pretty much like shoelaces,” I said helpfully.

“Uh-huh.” He yanked the sides of my gown together over my chilly back and started tightening and pulling on the laces, his touch impatient and impersonal.

“Careful,” I chided. “If you tear something, I'll get in big trouble. The wardrobe mistress doesn't like me.”

“Oh?” He yanked again, obviously still annoyed with me. “Why ever
not?
”

“The first time I wore this costume, I asked for more clothes.”

That startled a laugh out of him. His touch gentled, and I could hear a modicum of good humor returning to his voice as he said, “Well, I have to admit, given what you're wearing, I can't understand why there aren't a lot more
men
coming to see this show.”

“Daemon is onstage a lot more than my neckline is,” I said dryly as Lopez finished tying the back of my dress.

At the mention of my leading man, he put his hands firmly on both of my shoulders and gave me a gentle squeeze. “It's so late,” he said. “After they question you, make sure the cops send you home in a squad car, okay?”

I felt his breath on my neck as his hands stroked down my bare arms. I closed my eyes. “Okay.”

“I'm . . .”

“Hmm?” I leaned back a little, trying to get closer to him without doing anything overt.

“I'm sorry. About . . .” His hands moved on me. Comforting. Arousing. “I didn't want to scare you. I just want you to be safe.”

“I know.” My voice felt weak. So did my knees. I sank against him, my back melting into the sturdy wall of his chest.

It was only for a few seconds, I promised myself. I'd move away from him in an instant. But first, I needed ... Well, it had just been too long since I had been near him like this.

Lopez lowered his head to rest his cheek against my hair as he tightened his grip on me. He released his breath on a long, slow exhalation. We stood together silently, his body solid against mine as I gratefully soaked up his heat ... and felt dizzily aware of a growing desire to soak up a lot more than that. Remembering that I had decided to give him up rather than get him killed was a lot easier to keep firmly in mind when he wasn't touching me. Or speaking to me. Or within a mile of me.

I was trying to summon up the will to pull myself out of his grasp when he turned me slightly toward him. My breath trembled in my throat, my blood humming in anticipation of what he might do next. He moved one hand from my arm so that he could trace a finger alongside the rising welt on my neck.

I drew in a sharp breath, excited by his touch.