Cause of Death: Unnatural (The Cause of Death Series) (2 page)

“
What Jenn?”

“
I haven't got any money for a cab.”
Jennifer dissolved into tears again.

Em groaned. She told Jennifer to stay
where she was and hung up. She'd take Jenn home, tuck her in and leave her to
sleep it off. A gentle psychic nudge would set the girl up to sleep all day and
Em would get a good day's work in at the lab. Now, how did the rest of routine
go? Sometime in the afternoon, Em would take a tub of ice cream and a bottle of
red wine over to Jenn's place. They'd watch Titanic and weep pathetically when
Leonardo died (again), bitch and talk trash about whoever it was this time who
had dumped Jennifer, and by the end of the night the girl would be as good as
new.

“
Gotta go,” Em called over to Nick.
“Girlfriend duty.” Nick's expression asked the question, and Em's exasperated
face gave him the answer. “I'll just get her home and safe, and I'll be in at
the office soon,” she said. “Can you finish this one up without me?”

Nick looked affronted and Em cursed
herself for stepping on his feelings. Men and their egos.

She checked to see if Poll was watching,
then quickly dropped an apologetic kiss on Nick's cheek. “Sorry babe,” she
said. “I'm not thinking clearly. This ...” She waved a hand at the mangled
bodies. She saw that Nick thought she meant the carnage, and his expression
turned from insulted to concerned. She kissed him again and then left for her
car. “I'll see you later,” she called back.

She hadn't meant the carnage, she'd meant
the whining pain in her head. Funny, it did seem to grow a little less intense
the further she moved from the bodies. Almost like the entity who had committed
the horrors had left the mental siren there like a calling card, a blazing
trumpet of defiance. A psychic fuck you. Obviously not one of the Family, then.
Alina? No, Em didn't think so. But what did that leave?

Em pointed her car toward the Harbor Bar
and tried to remember the name of the ninth boy this year Jennifer was now
calling a jerk.

It took three hours to get
through the wine, the ice cream, Titanic and an angry tear fest. The better
part of a box of tissues was strewn across the floor too. Jennifer was at the
sniffing stage, and had moved so far through her little disaster that she could
now think about things other than heartache and revenge.

“
What about you Em?” Jennifer sniffed, and
she slugged back the dregs of her wine. “What about the boys in your life? What
about that gorgeous Nick?”

Em hugged her knees and shrugged deeper
back into the sofa. Nick. What was she going to do about Nick? Jennifer was
right, he was gorgeous, and he was fun too. In nearly a thousand years Em had
never had so much … fun … with a lover. Sure, there had been lovers with
greater skills, stronger bodies, darker desires, deeper passions, but Nick was
… fun.

Em had a theory about this but it was a
loose thought, one that had been flitting hopefully around her head waiting for
Em to take it seriously. It was a tempting theory, and she was a little scared
that if she gave it any considered thought, it might reveal itself to be
something quite possible indeed. And she wasn't ready for that.

Nick was a good guy. Maybe the ultimate
find. He was fit, he had arms that wrapped around her and crushed her to his
chest, he had an ass she couldn't keep her hands off, and he had a laugh that
made her grin like an idiot. He had a beat-up old car with a picnic blanket in
the trunk, and laying in the sun in the park with Em with the weekend papers
and some bacon and egg bagels was his ideal way to spend a Sunday morning.

Em thought it was his large family - the
brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews, as well as the older generation, and the
care and love they all obviously had for each other - that had created in Nick
a form of love that seemed deeper and stronger than any she had experienced
before. When she watched him with his sister's kids she saw a man she realized
she could love. Really love. She had to admit she hadn't done love before.
Lust, sure, but nothing like the confident, selfless love she saw in Nick. It
was so very tempting.

But it could only ever be a daydream, Em
knew. What would Nick think of her if he knew what kind of monster she really
was. Nick set up home with a soul eating, blood drinking dark creature over
nine hundred years his senior? That kind of shit only happened in movies, and
crummy teen novels.

Em shivered and put aside thoughts of Nick
tangled in the sheets of her bed and decided to answer Jennifer's question
another way.

“
I was going out with Robert tonight, but
things got messy at work,” she said.

Jennifer had the grace to look slightly
guilty. “Have I ruined your date?” she cried. “Oh Em, I'd be really sorry,
except... I don't think you should dating that guy. He's your boss!” The irony
of Jennifer's moral outrage was completely lost on her. “And he is a bit of a
nerd, isn't he? I don't know what you see in him.”

“
Class, Jenn,” Em said. “Elegance.
Intelligence.” Em tried not to sound too smug. Jennifer had an uncanny ability
to attract men with an astonishingly low number of brain cells. Plenty of brawn,
but no brain. It wasn't her fault, entirely, but Em knew she shouldn't rub it
in. “And he's not a nerd! He's sophisticated.” She tried to sound playfully
wounded in case Jennifer had caught the note of smugness in her voice.

Jennifer smirked and waved the bottle of
red over Em's glass. Em nodded, and Jennifer muttered “geek” under her breath
as she poured. They both laughed.

“
And don't worry about tonight,” Em said.
“It really did get busy at work. Robert had an invitation to that new burlesque
club on the south side. We can go later, I guess, once we're a bit more clear
at work.”

Jennifer's ears pricked up. “What's this
new club?” she asked. “I can't believe there's a new burlesque club and I
haven't heard about it!”

“
Well, I don't know, actually,” Em admitted
slowly. “It's in one of the old warehouse buildings down that way, but I
haven't heard anything about it.” And that was odd, now she thought about it.
She thought she'd had her ear to the ground, but this had slipped right past
her.

“
Weird,” Jennifer agreed. “How'd Robert
find out about it?”

“
He said he'd got a flyer in his
letterbox.” Which was weird too, now she thought about it. “His home letterbox,
not his work mail,” she frowned. “I've just realized how strange that is. I'd
assumed it had been a work thing because there was a handwritten note on the
back asking him to call for a meet and greet. I thought it was the club
management trying to get in good with the police...”

Jennifer shrugged. “You guys are crime
scene, not police, aren't you? And how did they know where he lived? That's
kinda spooky, don't you think?”

Em found she had to agree. Why hadn't she
realized any of this before?

“
But he did call,” she said, “and they gave
him a free admission plus one to tonight, which was supposed to be the opening,
and to a behind the scenes tour, or somesuch.”

“
Behind the scenes at a burlesque club?”
giggled Jennifer. “As if you won't be getting enough tits and ass from the
seats out the front! What do they think you are?” She snorted suddenly with a
huge burst of laughter. “What do they think Robert is? I wouldn't have thought
burlesque was his thing.”

“
Oh, leave him alone!” Em laughed. “He's
not that much of nerd. And if the tits and ass are worth paying to see the
first time, who cares if we get to see them twice. It will be fun. We'll go
tomorrow. We should be done with this case by then.”

“
I still don't think you should be dating
your boss,” Jennifer muttered into her wine glass, but with a decidedly cheeky
grin on her face. “Especially when the geek is taking you to a strip club.” She
giggled again, and Em threw a cushion at her.

“
Shut up, Jenn. And I'm not taking dating
advice from you, thank you very much. No one can eat this much ice cream, or
drink this much wine!”

Jennifer looked placidly at the snowdrift
of tissues and the empty cartons of ice cream on the coffee table. “I know,”
she said with a sigh and a smile, and Em could see that she was okay now. “He
was a jerk, you were right. Better luck next time, hey.”

Em was relieved. Jennifer had come through
this one quite well. It had taken more ice cream and viewings of Titanic than
Em cared to remember to get the girl to this stage. Jennifer was very good at
flirting, exciting new sex and hopeless adoration, but absolutely dreadful at
breaking up or putting her foot down. Em's coaching sessions had resulted in
Jennifer finally being able to hang up on a boyfriend before he hung up on her,
and being able to say “I hate you” like she meant it. She'd come a long way,
and Em had high hopes for her yet. Jennifer was still a naive sentimental, and
Em wished she'd slow down on the vodka, but there was a chance, just a chance
she might score something more than a one night stand.

Baby steps, Em thought. Baby steps.

The doorman gave them a bored glance. It
was a practised bored glance, Em realized. The club had barely been open a
week, he couldn't really be bored. Not yet. The thick black eyeliner, the black
bow tie and suspenders over his tanned and chiselled naked torso were all part
of the same act. He had a thin face and a long nose. It made him look a little
like a rat.

There was something else familiar about
him too, Em thought, but she couldn't put her finger on it. Her headache was
back. It had subsided a little over the last two days - an entire packet of
paracetamol and half a bottle of scotch will have that effect - but the mental
throbbing seemed to be back now, and twice as bad as before.

“
Name?” said the rat-faced man, raising an
eyebrow as he scanned Robert's jacket and shirt. He was a little overdressed,
Em agreed, but that was Robert. What could you do?

“
Robert Williams. This is my guest, Ms
Emilia Ambrose.”

The doorman flipped through several pages
of his list before he found Robert's name. When he did, he muttered something
under his breath and turned to rummage through some papers in a small alcove in
the doorway. He pulled out a red envelope, opened it and read its contents. His
eyes flashed up sharply to meet Em's, then he lowered his gaze again and
checked Robert's name off the list with a flourish.

When he looked up again his demeanour had
changed entirely.

“
Mr Williams,” he smirked. “Welcome to our
humble little establishment. We are so pleased to have you, and Ms...
Ambrose... was it?” He flicked a look in Em's direction again but didn't meet
her eyes this time.

Em knew there was something about the man
that she should be paying attention to, something about him that was... She ran
her fingers through her hair and used the movement as an excuse to press her
palm against the side of her head. The headache was getting worse by the
minute. There was a ringing in her head that sounded like twisting, tearing
metal. She could hardly think with the throbbing in her temples, but she smiled
at Robert when he took her elbow and they walked downstairs into the club
together.

They were seated at a small, round wooden
table close to the stage and within moments a young blonde waitress came to
take their drinks order. Em watched her carry her tray back to the bar, lean
over, give their order to the buff young man mixing the drinks and saw the
waitress nod her head in their direction. The man looked over quickly, and even
across the darkened room Em saw his eyes widen and a predatory half smile curl
his lips.

What was that? Em thought. She suddenly
had the strangest feeling that she had forgotten something. There was something
about the doorman and the man behind the bar that she should have recognized,
but this headache! It's making me crazy, thought Em.

Robert was making small talk about the
club and its patrons, Em realized, and she hadn't heard a thing.

“
The owner is European, apparently,” he
said, “Ukrainian, or something - or so I've heard.” He grinned a little
disparagingly. “Well, that's what Eddie says. He'd know. Is there a club in
town Eddie doesn't frequent?”

“
Eddie?” said Em, a little stupidly.

Robert looked at her. “Eddie, the mortuary
technician.” He paused. “Em are you OK? You look a little...”

Em reached across the table and laid her
hand on Robert's. “I'm fine,” she said. “I've just got a bit of a headache.
It's nothing, really.” That was an understatement, she thought, and then she
noticed Robert was still frowning at her. Under the table she rubbed her ankle
up the inside of his leg. “I'm fine,” she said again.

He still looked concerned. “If you're not feeling
well,” he began, and the blond waitress interrupted with their drinks.