Dead Sexy (7 page)

In spite of her resolve to put Joaquin Santiago out of her mind once and for all, Regan couldn't stop thinking about him in the days that followed.

When she shopped for food, she found herself remembering that his last meal had been ash cakes and venison stew.

When she changed the blue cotton sheets on her bed, she recalled that his were black satin.

When she drank a cup of hot chocolate, she pictured him sipping a glass of Synthetic A Negative.

When she watched
Dracula 2000
, she imagined Santiago in the Gerard Butler role. It wasn't hard. He already had thick black hair and a long black coat.

When he called and asked her to meet him at Sardino's for a drink, she agreed before her better judgment got the upper hand.

Santiago was waiting at the restaurant when she arrived. Tonight, dressed in a white T-shirt and black jeans, he looked like a teenage rebel from the fifties. All he needed was a pack of cigarettes tucked into his shirt pocket and a pompadour.

A smile curved his lips when he saw her. Taking her hand, he kissed her palm, sending frissons of sensual delight coursing through her. "I did not think you would say yes."

"Neither did I."

Still holding her hand, he led her to a booth in a far corner and slid in beside her, his thigh brushing intimately against her own. "Yet here you are." He caressed her cheek with the back of his hand. "What made you say yes? Were you missing me as much as I was missing you?"

"Were you?" she asked. "Missing me?"

"Every night."

"Then why did you wait so long to call?"

"I was trying to be noble."

"Noble?" she asked, laughing.

He nodded, his expression somber. "Vampires and mortals do not mix well, as you know. And while I think you would be good for me, I know I would be bad for you."

"Would you?" she asked, her voice hardly more than a whisper. "Be bad for me?"

His gaze caressed her. "Very bad."

Regan licked her lips, her whole body tingling with need, burning with desire and the kind of curiosity that the Pandora of legend had been unable to resist According to myth, Pandora had unleashed all the ills of the world on mankind by opening the forbidden box that had piqued her curiosity.

Santiago slid his arm around Regan's shoulders, drawing her close to his side. Excitement and a thrill of danger unfurled deep in Regan's belly. What perils awaited her if she gave in to her curiosity? Would she live to regret it? Would she live at all if she surrendered to the unholy craving she saw in the smoldering depths of his eyes?
Play with fire and you'll get burned
. It was a
cliché, but ever so true. How much more dangerous would it be to play with a vampire?

He pressed a kiss to her cheek, his lips cool and firm. "Come home with me tonight."

Regan swallowed hard. Like Pandora, she could feel herself reaching for that blasted box…

"Reggie, what the hell are you doing here?" Michael Flynn's voice hit her like a blast of cold air.

Regan looked up, startled to see Mike staring down at her, his expression grim.

"Mike," she said, her voice little more than a squeak. "What are you doing here?"

"There's been another murder. I was about to call you when I noticed your car parked out front." He glared at Santiago through eyes narrowed with distrust. "I hate to repeat myself," he said, looking at Regan once more, "but what the hell are you doing here? With him?"

Santiago gained his feet. He was taller than Flynn by a good four inches. "She is having a drink with me," Santiago said, his voice as smooth and cold as winter ice. "Is that a problem?"

"Damn right."

"Michael, knock it off. I'm a big girl. I can take care of myself."

"Yeah? I'll bet that's what the woman lying out in the park thought, too, before someone ripped her to pieces."

"Oh, no, not another one," Regan murmured. "How long ago did it happen?"

"The M.E. puts the time of death within the last fifteen minutes," Flynn replied.

Regan nodded, amazed, as always, at the wonders of modern technology that allowed the medical examiner to determine the time of death to within just a few minutes.

Flynn's gaze moved from Regan to Santiago and back again. "How long have you two been here?"

"I don't know," Regan said. "Half an hour or so, I guess. Why?"

Michael looked pointedly at Santiago. "You're lucky you've got a good alibi, bloodsucker."

Keeping his gaze on Flynn, Santiago gave Regan's shoulders a squeeze, then smiled smugly. "Yes," he said. "Lucky."

"All right, boys, break it up," Regan said irritably. Grabbing her handbag, she slid out of the booth. "I'm sorry, Joaquin, but I need to go and have a look at the body and the crime scene while it's still fresh."

"I will go with you."

Flynn rested his hand on the butt of his revolver. "That won't be necessary," he said brusquely.

Santiago snorted disdainfully. "I live in the park," he remarked. "I am free to go wherever I please."

"Fine," Flynn said brusquely, "just stay the hell away from me. Come on, Reggie, let's get out of here."

Regan hurried out of the restaurant, aware of Santiago's gaze on her back as she followed Flynn out the door.

"Dammit, Regan," Flynn blurted as they walked toward the crime scene, "what the devil are you thinking, hanging around with that bloodsucker?"

Because she couldn't tell him the truth, she told him part of a lie. "I've been talking to him about the murders. After all, who better to catch a vamp than a vamp?"

"Yeah, right. He'd as soon kill you as look at you."

Regan felt a little thrill of excitement as she recalled the way Santiago had looked at her earlier. It wasn't death he had on his mind, unless it was what the French called
la petite mort
, the little death, in reference to making love.

The sight of the body sprawled beneath a flowering bush drove every other thought from Regan's mind. Though she had seen many similar deaths lately, it didn't make this one any easier to bear. Once again, she was glad she didn't have to notify the family, didn't have to see the faces of the victim's husband and children when they learned that their wife and mother wouldn't be coming home that night, or any night.

Frowning, Regan wondered what the woman had been doing in the park after sunset. She would never know now.

Regan looked up at Michael. "Did the M.E. say she'd been killed here?"

"As a matter of fact, he suggested she might have been killed somewhere else and her body dumped here."

Regan moved closer. Spotlights lit the area, making it almost as bright as day. The woman's body had been shoved under the bushes, apparently in an effort to hide it. As far as Regan could see, there was no blood on the ground, and none left in the body. There were gaping holes where her heart, liver, and throat had been torn out, but no blood.

"I think someone else is killing these people and trying to make it look like the work of vampires," Regan said.

Flynn snorted. "Why would anyone do that?"

Regan gestured at the woman's body. "Why would anyone do this?"

They stood back as the body was bagged and carted away.

"I need to go and check out the rest of the park," Flynn said. "Come on, I'll walk you to your car."

"Thanks."

"Be careful, Regan," he said as she slid behind the wheel. "Keep your doors and windows locked."

"Don't worry about me, Mike, I can take care of myself."

He closed her car door, then leaned down to look in the window. "I can't help worrying."

"I know. Good night, Mike. Be careful."

He waved as she pulled away from the curb.

Regan's mind wasn't on Mike or on the road as she drove home. Instead of traffic noise, she kept hearing Joaquin Santiago's voice, whiskey smooth and maddeningly sexy. Instead of streetlights, she saw his eyes, deep and dark and mysterious as they gazed into her own. How many centuries had he lived? How many secrets lay hidden beneath the midnight blue depths of his eyes? How many innocent lives had he snuffed out so that he could prolong his own unnatural one?

What if he was the killer?

That chilling thought brought reality rushing back to the fore. No matter how handsome he was, no matter how charming he appeared to be, no matter how blatantly sexy he was with his bedroom eyes and his roguish smile, he was a vampire and strictly off-limits.

Clearheaded now, Regan made a left onto her street, and noticed that the car behind her also made a left. Now that she thought about it, she realized that the same sleek silver-gray Mercedes had been following her ever since she left the park.

Overcome by a sudden sense of foreboding, she drove past her apartment and made a right at the next stop sign. The car behind her did likewise.

With growing apprehension, Regan continued on down the street and when the car continued to follow her, she drove to the police station and pulled into the parking lot. The Mercedes drove on past without slowing down.

Regan blew out a sigh of relief. She was getting paranoid, she thought with a shaky laugh. There was no reason for anyone to be following her. None at all.

Chiding herself for acting so foolishly, she drove home, checking the rear view mirror all the way. There was no sign of the silver-gray Mercedes. Pulling up in front of her apartment building, she switched off the ignition, then sat in the car, the hair along her nape quivering. Ordinarily, she parked in the underground garage, but not tonight. She told herself she was behaving irrationally but she couldn't help it. No way in hell was she parking in that garage tonight.

She was about to open the car door when she saw the silver-gray Mercedes turn the corner.

With a wordless cry, Regan started the engine. Tires screeching, she pulled away from the curb, her heart pounding a rapid tattoo in her chest, her palms damp on the steering wheel as panic gripped her. She couldn't see who was driving the silver Mercedes, didn't want to see who it was because she was afraid, so afraid she could taste it in the back of her throat. She told herself there was nothing to be afraid of. She had destroyed vampires before, she could do so again. She had a pistol loaded with six silver bullets that would stop a vampire cold. That knowledge did nothing to allay her fears.

She drove straight to You Bet Your life Park, certain that the only one who could help her, the only one who could save her from the unknown terror that stalked her, was the vampire Santiago.

Santiago stood on the balcony of his apartment, enjoying the moonlight while savoring the sounds and smells of the night—the faint hum of a small white moth doing a dance of death with a streetlight, the rich earthy scent of dew-damp grass and flowering trees. Being a vampire had given him a keen appreciation for the beauty and mystery of the night. It was a different world after dark, one feared by mortals because their vision was limited, or perhaps because they were the predators by day, but at the setting of the sun, they were prey, like everything else.

So many things had changed since he was made, and yet much remained the same, like the age-old struggle between life and death, good and evil. Mankind had made great strides in some areas—the oceans and the air were clean again, cures had been found for most of the diseases that had plagued the world of men, cloning had never become as popular as scientists had predicted it would, nuclear weapons were no longer a threat. There were settlements on other planets now. Solar power had, for the most part, replaced electricity. And yet, in spite of all that, there were still wars and rumors of wars. Doing away with poverty had not done away with the urge to steal. Prejudice still reared its ugly head from time to time.