The Vampire Shrink (45 page)

I tugged him into the room. “Come in and sit down. You don't look so good.”

He gave a weak grin. “Just what a guy wants to hear from an attractive woman.”

After carefully relocking everything, I led him into my disinfectant-scented living room and offered him a seat on the couch.

I sat in my fluffy chair and explained the events of the previous evening as he recovered himself and wrote in his dog-eared notebook.

When I finished, he frowned and smacked a hand down on his leg, the negative effects of Brother Luther's energy waning. “I knew I should've come home with you. None of that would've happened if I'd been here. Why didn't you call me? You know I've been on this case for months.”

I did the therapist nod and spoke in my most reasonable voice. “Well, first, you wanted to come home with me so we could have wild and crazy sex, so I might've been even more vulnerable when the maniac showed up if I'd been on my back, screaming Johnny Depp's name.”

He snorted out a laugh.

“And second,” I continued, “I don't have to tell you what violent psychopaths do to people who stand in the way of their fixated object. If you'd been here, even if we were just talking in the living room, he'd have seen you as a threat and taken you out. For some reason I've become important to him.”

“You don't have to worry about him taking me out. I could've handled myself.”

“Maybe.” I wasn't convinced. “I didn't call you because it simply didn't occur to me.” I tucked my legs underneath me and sighed. “From the moment Brother Luther showed up, 'til Luna's vampires arrived and the room got too crowded for him, to the second I fell asleep on the floor, I was on automatic pilot. Actually, by not letting you come home with me, I probably saved your life. Therefore, clearly, you owe me.” I gave him my sweetest, most innocent smile.

He chuckled and slouched into the couch cushions. “Let's entertain the possibility that your suppositions are correct and he would've torn my throat out if I'd been with you. That makes what you proposed to Bullock even more dangerous and lamebrained. How many people would he take out at a huge gathering in order to get to you?”

“Well, that's why the police would be there. Don't you think it makes sense to call him out? If I don't, I'll be looking over my shoulder every day until he either loses interest in me or gets caught. And what's the likelihood that a psychopath will lose interest?”

“Okay, I hear you.” He folded his arms across his chest. “But I can tell you that Bullock won't go for it. She can't put a civilian in danger—it'd mean her badge. Personally, I think having the cops show up at the ball is a great idea.”

“Tell that to Lieutenant Bullock. Are you going?”

He grinned. “Would I miss an opportunity to schmooze with every vampire in the western USA? After all these months following the trail of bloodless bodies, I might be in on the takedown. That's definitely worth the price of admission.”

That gave me the opportunity to ask him the questions I'd wanted to ask since I met him. “Why are you so obsessed with this case, and vampires in general? What do you really want?”

He lowered his head and got very quiet. It wasn't only that he didn't speak. It was as if he stilled his body to the point that I was tempted to get up and put my hand on his chest to see if he was breathing.

After a few seconds he raised his eyes to study me; then he sat up straight, brushed off some imaginary substance from the front of his shirt, and spoke, his voice low. “I've never told this to anyone. Not anyone. Ever. I'm not sure why I'm telling you. Maybe it's because I really do want to have that wild and crazy sex you were talking about, or maybe it's because I just want to tell someone. Finally. And you've got that mystical therapist vibe going for you.” His smile didn't reach his eyes. “I wouldn't have been able to tell you this even a week ago, but after everything you've seen and heard, my story won't sound so far-fetched or delusional. Maybe.” He stood and paced around the room for a few seconds, then propped himself against a far wall, his arms folded over his chest again.

“Ready?” He stared at me. “Wait for it.” He paused. “My mother is a vampire.”

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. My brain spun for a few seconds, trying to concoct the perfect response, and failed. Was this his way of telling me he wasn't going to answer my question? Was he trying to be funny again to deflect from whatever the truth was?

He returned to the couch and sat, reading my face. “You're trying to figure out if I'm kidding, or messing with you, or if I've gone barking mad, right?”

“I always did great on multiple-choice tests.”

He hand-combed his thick chestnut hair, which left a couple of the shorter bits on top sticking straight up. “Okay, let me rephrase. My mother
might
be a vampire.”

“I'm all ears, Special Agent Stevens.” I sat back in my chair and almost reached for my pad and pen before I caught myself.

He sighed and ran his hands over his face, like he'd splashed water on it and was wiping it with a towel. “It happened when I was twelve. My father had taken off for parts unknown a few years before, leaving Mom and me by ourselves. Mom was great. She worked two jobs to keep the roof over our heads. She never complained. One of those jobs was tending bar at an upscale watering hole in Manhattan.”

He got up and started pacing again, as if the very telling of the story required movement. “My mom was beautiful—I mean,
seriously
great-looking—and she was very attractive to men, but she always picked the wrong ones. She was too soft-hearted for her own good. She used to take me to work with her sometimes, and I washed and stacked glasses behind the bar. It was illegal to have an underage kid there, but everyone was cool. No one would've turned my mom in. They loved her.”

“It sounds like you loved her too.”

He ran his fingers through his hair again, strode to the window, and peeked outside. He was giving off so much nervous energy that I could've asked him to hold the plug end of my portable razor and shaved my legs while he talked to me.

“Yeah, you could say that. About a month before she disappeared, she started hanging out with this slick guy—you know the type: expensive clothes, big car, diamond-stud earring. He seemed okay at first. I thought he might be sick because he was so pale, but he was nice to me when I saw him.” He walked into the kitchen, and I heard the cabinet open and the faucet run. He carried his glass of water back to the couch and sat.

Patience, Kismet, patience. Wait. Some stories are hard to tell.

He rubbed the palm of his free hand repeatedly against his thigh. “I was happy for her: she really liked him, and he treated her well. But she started staying out all night, then ignoring the alarm clock when it went off in the morning, and she wound up losing her day job.” He set the untouched glass of water on the table. “Then she started looking different. I was just worried about her; I didn't know what was wrong—now I'd call it anemic. One evening when I came home from my after-school job, I found her still in bed, barely breathing, with two hellacious holes in her neck. I ran out to get help, and when I came back with the nurse who lived next door, she was gone.”

He slumped into the cushions, his chin almost resting on his chest.

I joined him on the couch and laid my hand on his forearm. “You made the vampire connection because of the holes in her neck?”

“Not for a while.” He shook his head. “I thought she'd been kidnapped, or ran away, or that she died and someone snatched her body and didn't tell me. The police investigated, but it went nowhere. I was sent to live with my mother's sister in Jersey. I didn't make the undead association until I saw my mother again.”

Whoa
! That came out of left field. I paused long enough to stifle my initial knee-jerk reaction, forcing myself to remain companionably calm, detached. “You saw your mother?”

“Yeah, during college: a bunch of us guys went out drinking in Manhattan at this new trendy bar. I got up to go to the john, and I saw the guy—the slick guy my mom had been dating before she disappeared. He looked exactly the same. I was ten years older than the last time he'd seen me, but there was a spark of recognition … and surprise. Just then the person sitting next to him at the bar turned in my direction, and it was my mom, looking very pale, and not one day older.”

He leaped up and paced again. I was getting tired just watching him.

“What did you do?”

“I yelled, ‘Mom!' and before I could say another word, the slick guy pulled her by the arm, and they were out of the bar faster than it was possible to move. I bolted after them, but they'd disappeared by the time I got outside. I ran first in one direction, then the other, desperately hoping for a glimpse of the long red dress she'd been wearing, but there was nothing. My friends came piling out, thinking I was drunk, and crammed me into a taxi.”

He plopped down next to me again and sighed. “Of course, nobody believed me. They wouldn't even check out the possibility that she'd been abducted and held against her will. I didn't begin to explore the vampire angle until I read a couple of small articles in the New York paper about dead bodies with holes in their necks. Then it clicked.”

I took his hand. “So you're searching for your mother?”

He gave a sheepish smile. “Pitiful, eh?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Not pitiful. Understandable. What will you do if you find her?”

His eyes welled up. One perfect drop of liquid pain rolled down his cheek. “I just want her to tell me why she left me. She loved me—I know she did.”

I gathered him into my arms and gently rocked him.

He let me hold him for a few minutes, then pushed away and plucked a tissue from the nearby box. “Some FBI agent I am, eh? Blubbering on your shoulder like a kid. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to turn you into my therapist.”

I stroked his cheek, letting him see the compassion in my eyes. “You didn't come to me as a therapist. You came as a friend. And as someone said to me recently, ‘I'm here for you.'”

He blew his nose and smiled. “I guess the wild and crazy sex is out? I'd be willing to settle for pity sex.”

I laughed and took his hand again. “How about a chaste platonic kiss?” I bent in and pressed my lips to his.

He pulled away and whispered, “How about this instead?”

He used his body to shift me backward until I was prone on the couch. His lips were soft and warm as they captured mine. He gently rubbed his groin against me and teased his tongue into my mouth.

My arms tightened around him, and I felt his excitement.

He broke the kiss and slowly sat up. He wore the expression of a man who was certain of his sexual charm.

“Yes. When it finally happens, it will be very good.” Then he nodded and stood.

I sat up, relieved I didn't have to enter the murky territory of Alan versus Devereux, but aroused all the same.

Men were so good at disguising vulnerability with sex. He straightened his clothes and nonchalantly ran his fingers through his hair, as if he hadn't just reintroduced me to Mr. Happy. The physical contact had done what he wanted it to do: it distracted us from the hurtful topic.

“I'm going to go home and put on my costume for the ball. Do you want me to come back and pick you up?”

Driving up to the mountains alone was always fun in the daytime, but at night, with more vampires afoot than usual, company sounded like a good idea. Besides, I didn't have any idea where the ghostly castle was or how to get there. “I'd appreciate the ride. What are you wearing?”

He grinned. “Guess.”

“Garden-variety vampire, or something unique and interesting?”

“I'll surprise you. Is an hour enough time?”

“Sure. I'll just throw on a low-cut black number, put on some white makeup, false eyelashes, and red lips, and I'm good to go.”

He headed for the door and glanced back over his shoulder. “Okay, then—it's a date. Be back in an hour.”

Before doing anything else, I followed him to the door and locked it behind him.

I raced up the stairs, started the water in the shower, then went into my bedroom to discover what kind of long black dresses might be hiding in my closet. It was entirely possible; I'd accumulated dresses that I wore for one professional event or another and had then forgotten about. As I'd suspected, pushed against the far wall of the closet was a plastic bag stamped with the name of an expensive chain store, which contained the perfect black dress.

Finding the price tags still attached meant I'd never worn it, or I'd gone out in public with the tags flapping underneath my arms. Unfortunately, both options were possible.

Well, I couldn't help it if my inner world was more interesting to me than most of the mundane details of the outer world. Would I trade my expertise in the emotional, psychic, and psychological realms to be less socially awkward? No. But I wouldn't mind giving my Inner Nerd a break. Maybe I just needed a wife? Yeah, that was it, someone to do all the stereotypical things we attribute to wives.

Or maybe a harem. Yum, a male harem.

I imagined Devereux, Alan, Tom, Vaughan the chiropractor, and the cute doctor I'd met in the ER all dressed up in slave costumes. I spun the wheel of various scenarios and envisioned them feeding me grapes, rubbing my feet, and carrying me in one of those Egyptian-style chairs. Immediately I became totally distracted by a quick visual of the six of us having a private party in a luxurious curtained bed.

Maybe a cold shower would do me more good than a hot one.

But it's a good sign that I'm having normal sexual urges, right?

I laughed out loud, removed the dress from the plastic bag, and spread it out on my bed.