Save the Last Vamp for Me (12 page)

––––––––

D
errick had finally emailed the other photos and information sheets. After printing them out, I asked Nick to take care of printing the photos Soames and I had taken. “We’ll go sort this stuff.”

“Sure.” He took our phones and sat down at my desk.

In the War Room, I glanced over the info sheets while Soames taped up the photos from Friday night’s discovery. “I guess my ‘elves as killers’ idea is out.”

“Unless one used an invisibility spell and a scent blocker,” he replied. “I didn’t catch any hint of elf where Lira was killed.”

“Then they’re off my list.” I scanned Lira’s mini-bio, and caught something. “She had a sister.”

“Lira?”

“Yeah. We should see about contacting her. Maybe Lira told her something useful. Be right back.” I left to find a legal pad and pen. Returning, I took a seat and began making notes. Soames finished his task just before Nick joined us. My boyfriend was frowning as he held up the stack of prints. “Where do you want these?”

“Go ahead and tape them under their owners.”

He put our phones on the table and went to work. Soames dropped into a chair and pointed at my notes. “You don’t think the case is over?”

“I’m not sure whoever killed Esme and her family is the same person who took out the other three. Or that the witnesses’ memories were altered.” Even if they had been, catching Lira’s killer didn’t mean he or she would confess to killing the others. I doodled question marks under the last of my notes. “Wonder what Derrick’s going to do about all those bodies.”

“Hide them again. I would,” Nick said while coming to sit at the table. “Huge PR disaster otherwise.”

“If he does, I’ll find them again and tell Damian where they are. Their families deserve to know what happened to them.” The men exchanged a look. “What?”

“Do that, and the media gets wind of it—which will happen because Mayor Wells is a media whore—and humans will go on the war path.”

“You have a point.” It wouldn’t exactly be fair to paint a big, red target on the vampires who weren’t running around eating people.

Good night, had I really just thought that?

“When humans do that, they tend to lump us all together,” Nick added.

“Oh.” Okay, I’d have to come up with a different idea. What, I didn’t know, but somehow, families would learn what had happened to their loved ones. “I’ll figure something out if Derrick tries to pull a cover up.”

“Or you could just stay out of it.”

I stared at Nick. “Excuse me?”

“You poke your nose into things you really shouldn’t, Cordi. Do you honestly think someone’s not already making plans to take you out before you start blabbing about finding those bodies?”

Crap, had I put him and Soames in danger, playing my hunch? “Take me out?”

“Yes, you. They know we won’t say a word, because most humans are just waiting for an excuse to turn on all of us.” Nick’s glare scalded me. “Maybe you’ll get lucky again if you keep your mouth shut.”

It took a moment to find my voice after that, since I was staring at him with my mouth open. “You’re just now thinking to tell me this? You couldn’t do it before we paraded through the Barrows with a pack of hounds?”

He jerked back, throwing up his hands. “And put the idea in Stone’s head myself? You aggravate the hell out of me a lot of the time, but I don’t want you dead. Besides, you don’t listen to me anyway.”

Crap, it was going to turn into one of those arguments. “I do sometimes.”

“No, you don’t. You do what you think needs to be done, or what you think is the right thing to do, and never think about the consequences.”

Soames eased his chair back and stood. “Think I’ll call for a ride. See you tomorrow.” He grabbed his phone and vacated, leaving the door open behind him.

Too bad I couldn’t follow suit. “Look....”

“No, you look. I keep trying to tell you how things work in our world and,” Nick thumped the table for each word as he finished. “You just won’t listen.”

“Your world? Last I checked, this is everyone’s world, which means it’s my world too. I got along in it before we met.” Before he could respond, I said, “And not just because of luck, Nick. Do you realize you’re insulting me every time you say that? That you’re basically telling me I don’t have any skills or knowledge at all?”

“You don’t have enough knowledge.”

I pushed away from the table, anger warming my chest. “I’ve had enough of this crap. I can’t be in a relationship with someone who treats me as though I’m an idiot.”

His face went slack. “What?”

“You heard me. And if that wasn’t bad enough, there’s your dad with all his plans and rules.” Whoops. I closed my mouth, not having meant to throw that in.

Nick leaned back. “You’re breaking up with me?”

“Yes.”

He blinked. “Because of my dad?”

Gah. “No, but he didn’t help matters any.”

Nick’s eyes narrowed. “You’re doing it because of Logan, aren’t you?”

“What the hell? This doesn’t have anything to do with him.”

“No?” He pointed at my phone. “You called him Sunday.”

My jaw dropped. “You went through my phone?”

Nick didn’t deny it. “You said you’d be busy helping your mom.”

“I can’t believe you went through my phone.” Breaking up with him was so very much the right thing to do.

“You were with him Sunday, weren’t you?”

“No. Well,” I hissed and pointed at him. “He and Terra helped us Sunday. Terra’s been cooped up, needed a change of scenery. Mom and Tonya were there too, and I have no idea why I’m explaining myself to you. I can spend time with my friends if I want to. I don’t need your permission or approval to do it.”

Nick jumped to his feet, sending his chair over backward. “You didn’t even mention it.”

“Because you freak the hell out,” I shot back. “Just like you’re doing right now. You’re jealous of him for no damn reason.”

“No reason? He shows up out of the blue, and the two of you are best friends immediately. You blow off any worries I have about him, and you keep secret any time you spend with him. Those are damn good reasons to be suspicious.” Nick’s chest was heaving. His face was flushed and his eyes had turned dark gold. When he clenched his jaws, his face kind of rippled, as though something wanted out.

He looked close to completely losing it. I tried for a calm, reasonable tone. “I told you I don’t cheat. If I wanted to date Logan or anyone else, I’d break up with you first.”

“You are breaking up with me,” he growled.

“Not because I want to date anyone else. We don’t have the same goals, and you don’t trust me. You don’t think I can take care of myself. That’s why I’m breaking up with you.” Was it my imagination, or was his skin turning kind of gray? I reached out with my empathic ability, only to recoil at the seething rage that filled him.

Okay, that was not good. “We both need to cool off a little.”

“I’m fine,” he ground out. “Considering the woman I love is dumping me.”

“You don’t look fine. You look like you’re going to wolf out any second.”

He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. His skin had changed, because I could see it returning to its normal tan. I took a step back, and Nick spoke without opening his eyes. “I’m not going to shift, Cordi.”

“Okay.” But I was going to stay out of reach in case he was wrong.

His eyes were still gold when he opened them. “I scared you. I’m sorry.”

No, he hadn’t. Worried me a bit yes, but it wasn’t worth pointing out. “I’m sorry I’ve hurt you. I never meant to.”

“We don’t have to break up.”

Oh yeah, we did, especially after this. “I care about you, Nick, but we’re not going to work out. There’s too many things we don’t agree on.”

His lips tightened. “There’s compromises we could make.”

I hadn’t had this much trouble breaking up with a guy before, and really, really wanted to be done. “I doubt either of us will budge on some important things.”

“So you get to decide we’re over and it doesn’t matter what I think?”

For the love of little fishies. I took a breath and blew it out. “I get to decide for me.”

“But you’re deciding for me too.”

“Yeah, and I’m pretty sure you’re going to be a lot better off without me around, pissing you off all the time.” I felt like screaming. “It’s late, and I need to get home.”

“I’ll drive you. I want to talk some more.”

I shook my head. “No, I have my car.”

“Come on, Cordi.”

“Nick, for God’s sake, back off. We’re done here, okay? I’m not your girlfriend anymore. I don’t want to keep explaining why, and I’m going home now. Good-bye.” I stepped forward, snatched up my purse and phone, and teleported out to the parking lot. While digging for my keys, I called Leglin, who’d been napping in my office.

“Everything okay?”

I whirled around, nearly falling over my hound, to see Soames standing by the rear of my car. “Holy crap, dude. Don’t sneak up on me.”

“Sorry.”

Leglin licked my hand. I opened the door so that he could climb in. “Your ride’s not here yet?”

Soames hitched one shoulder upward, glancing toward the street. “I, ah, haven’t called. Wanted to make sure things were okay before I left.”

“Oh. Could you hear us?” I hoped not.

“No, but I would’ve heard someone breaking things. You know, if you tossed Nick into a wall or something.”

Or if Nick had done something and I had screamed. I appreciated that he hadn’t said that. “Thanks. Get in, and we’ll drive you home.”

He looked at the building. “Is he okay?”

“Mad, but breathing.”

“All right.”

As we pulled away, I spotted Nick leaving the office. Head down, he slowly crossed to his truck.

I felt really bad at that point, watching him, but knew I’d made the right choice.

––––––––

A
t the first stoplight, Soames cleared his throat. “Should I stay quiet, or is it okay to talk?”

“A distraction would be nice.”

“What he said back there, about us keeping our mouths shut? That’s not entirely true. I mean, I won’t volunteer the information to anyone. Not right now, but when the case is over,” he shrugged. “Unless Lord Whitehaven specifically tells me to keep quiet, I won’t. I’ll tell my Queen and Logan.”

“Why them? Why not the police?”

“We’re clan. What each of us does affects us all. Something like that will explode—Nick’s right about it spilling over to everyone who isn’t human. I can’t make the decision to put the clan into jeopardy over it.”

I nodded, understanding even if it frustrated me. “It’s not right to leave them hidden.”

“No,” he agreed. “And I’m almost certain Terra and Logan will decide I should tell someone, or back you when you do. It’s the right thing to do, and besides, Logan’s mother disappeared. They never found her body.”

“Oh.” I tried to imagine my mom disappearing and never finding her. The idea squeezed my heart and brought tears to my eyes. “That’s horrible.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have told you about it, but I want you to know we’ll probably have your back over those poor people.” Soames fidgeted, picking at a non-existent thread on his jeans. “Things are better than they were, right after the Melding, but we’ve learned our lessons on how dangerous humans are when they’re scared and angry.”

“Yeah.” In some places, supes had been rounded up and placed in “camps” under military guard. Santo Trueno hadn’t been one of those places, and those camps hadn’t lasted for long. The elves had had a lot to do with calming things down and working out solutions. But people from both groups had still died, before supes were granted full citizenship in most countries.

“Is it hard, living in the Palisades?”

Soames chuckled. “It sucks in oh, so many ways, but we were outcasts, just like most of the humans who live there. They’ve mostly accepted us.”

Not exactly what I expected to hear, after years of news reports detailing how awful and violent that area was. Then again, they were shifters and could take care of themselves. At least as long as a big, organized group didn’t go after them, intending to wipe them out. “Well, that’s good.”

––––––––

––––––––

I
arrived home a few minutes after four AM, and dropped into bed as soon as possible. It felt as though my eyes had barely closed when my fairy godfather, Sal, decided to pay a visit.