Vampire Moon (16 page)

 
      
 
Chapter Twenty-three

 
      
 
“I think I’m in love with her,” said Chad.

 
      
 
It was nearly four in the morning, and we were standing just inside my hotel doorway. It had been a hell of a long night for Chad. Apparently, though, he had loved every minute of it.

 
      
 
“Thanks, Chad. I owe you.”

 
      
 
“I’m not joking,” he said. Chad was a tall guy, easily six-foot-three. Maybe taller. When you barely scrape five-foot-three, just about anyone looks tall as hell. Except for Tom Cruise, of course. Chad added, “There’s something about her.”

 
      
 
“She’s vulnerable and cute,” I said. “And you’re a man. It’s a simple equation.”

 
      
 
We were whispering since Monica was asleep on my bed. We were also whispering because it was four in the morning and we were in a hotel and we weren’t assholes.

 
      
 
He glanced over at her sleeping form. I glanced too. Mostly under the comforter, she looked tiny and child-like. Just a little bump in a big bed. Say that five times in a row.

 
      
 
He said, “Sure, but there’s something else.” He stopped talking. Chad, I knew, wasn’t used to expressing his emotions; he needed prodding, like most men. Well, those men not named Fang.

 
      
 
So I prodded. “You feel an overwhelming need to protect her, to help her, to save her.”

 
      
 
Chad looked at me funny. “That’s pretty much it, yeah. How did you know?”

 
      
 
“Because I had the same reaction,” I said.

 
      
 
He nodded and looked back at her sleeping form. “How could anyone do that to her?”

 
      
 
“There are bastards out there,” I said.

 
      
 
Chad didn’t say anything at first. When Chad and I were partners we didn’t talk much, but we always had a comfortable silence. When he spoke, his words weren’t empty. They were full of a lot of forethought.

 
      
 
“I would kill him,” he said. “If he ever came within a mile of her.”

 
      
 
“That sounds like love to me,” I said. “And just think, I was only gone for six hours.

 
      
 
“And we talked nearly the whole time.”

 
      
 
“You mean she talked and you listened.”

 
      
 
Chad grinned, but kept looking at her sleeping form. “Something like that.”

 
      
 
“Get out of here and get some sleep, you love-struck puppy dog,” I said. “Before you propose to her in her sleep.”

 
      
 
“I guess I am being a little ridiculous, huh?”

 
      
 
I shrugged.

 
      
 
“This has never happened to me before,” he said.

 
      
 
“Welcome to love-at-first-sight,” I said. “Now go on.”

 
      
 
He nodded and told me to call him anytime I needed help. I said I would and practically shooed him out of my hotel room. As I locked the door behind him, I resisted the urge to look out the peephole to see if my ex-partner was hugging and kissing the door.

 
      
 
With Monica sleeping nearby, I did some more work on my laptop. In particular, I got the visiting hours to Chino State Prison. On a whim, mostly because the bastard was on my mind, I headed over to my ex-husband’s law firm’s website. Danny was your typical ambulance chaser. He screwed insurance companies...and anyone else, for that matter.

 
      
 
I broadened my search on Danny Moon, chaser of ambulances extraordinaire. His name was all over the net, usually in association with some case or another, usually a case that actually went to court. You see, Danny
didn’t
like to go to court. Danny was a lazy SOB, and his firm did all they could to keep cases
out
of court. But sometimes the negotiations went bad and cases actually did go to court. When they did, Danny and his firm actually had to do real legal work. Which generally made him grumpy as hell to be around.

 
      
 
Poor baby.

 
      
 
I next went to his Facebook page. I generally don’t go on Facebook. It’s not like I have a lot of new pictures to post, right? Anyway, I do keep an account because my daughter has one and I like to see what she’s doing. Besides, Farmville is a hoot.

 
      
 
No, Danny and I are not friends on Facebook; apparently, divorcing someone is also grounds for dropping them as Facebook buddies. So I guess you could say I’ve been defaced.

 
      
 
Anyway, Danny kept his pictures public. Maybe he didn’t know the intricacies of Facebook privacy, or maybe he didn’t care.

 
      
 
He should have cared.

 
      
 
Although his pictures were very professional, everything a respectable attorney’s pictures should be, there was one very
un
professional picture. Apparently Danny had been tagged at a party. And not just any party. A party at a strip joint in Riverside. And not just any party at a
stripjoint
, but a
Grand Opening
party.

 
      
 
Now, what was a respectable attorney doing at the grand opening of a cheesy strip club in Riverside?

 
      
 
I didn’t know, but I was going to find out.

 
      
 
Chapter Twenty-four

 
      
 
It was almost sunrise and I was feeling my energy fading.

 
      
 
I had already warned Monica of my “condition”. That is, she thought I had a rare skin disease that kept me out of the sun, which, of course, necessitated me keeping odd hours. She promised she would let me sleep during the days, and that she would not leave the hotel room on her own. I told her to wake me if she needed anything, but that I didn’t awaken easily; she would have to give me one hell of a good shove, or two. I told her she could do just about anything she wanted, other than leave the suite, open the curtains, or answer the door.

 
      
 
She agreed to my terms, and for her sake, I hope she honors them.

 
      
 
My body was shutting down. Quickly. I felt vulnerable and weak and easy to subdue. But even at my weakest, I still couldn’t be killed, unless someone drove a stake through my heart.

 
      
 
And why would anyone want to do that to such a sweet little thing?

 
      
 
Vampires might be immortal, but we sure as hell felt human about this time; that is, just before sunrise. (And, no, I didn’t sleep in a coffin. Just give me a bed, darkness, and some peace and quiet.)

 
      
 
When I shut down, I do so in waves. The first, a draining of energy, always hits me about a half hour before sunrise. And ten minutes before the sun came up, the second wave hit.

 
      
 
That was always a rough wave. I was stuck between exhaustion and sleep. I usually lay down at this time, because within minutes I would be out cold. But when the third wave hit, I absolutely had to lie down and sleep. I was out of options.

 
      
 
For now I was in the middle of the second wave. The sun was minutes from rising and my body was exhausted. And that’s when my IM window popped up on my laptop.

 
      
 
Are you up, Moon Dance?

 
      
 
Yes, but not for long.

 
      
 
First or second wave?
asked Fang.

 
      
 
Second wave. Almost third.

 
      
 
So I have only a few minutes.

 
      
 
Yes.

 
      
 
I like knowing that I’m sometimes the last person you think about before going to sleep.

 
      
 
You’ve said that before.

 
      
 
When I was in the second wave, I was often short and to the point and didn’t feel very flirty. I felt exhausted. I felt as close to dead as a person could feel.

 
      
 
I also like knowing that you might dream of me.

 
      
 
I rarely dream, Fang. And besides, what am I supposed to dream about? Words that appear in a pop-up window?

 
      
 
There was a long pause. Almost too long. I felt myself going catatonic. If Fang didn’t say something soon, it was going to take all my last energy to shut the computer down and crawl over to the couch in the pseudo-living room.

 
      
 
Then perhaps we should meet someday, Moon Dance.