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“Oh, honey, I’ve been looking. Just haven’t found the right guy yet.”

“And what would Mr. Right look like to you?”

“I’ll know when I see him.” Mindy sounded surprisingly serious in her answer.

The phone rang, startling Olivia and causing Mindy’s jaw to tense. Olivia forced herself not to say anything as Mindy answered.

“No. This is Mindy, her best friend. Who is this?”

Olivia knew it was Campbell even without hearing his voice.

“She doesn’t want to talk to you, so don’t ever call back. And if you show up here, I will find a way to stake your ass deader than dead.” Mindy slammed down the phone. “There, that takes care of your vampire-caller problem.”

Olivia forced herself to nod and return her attention to the movie. She tried not to focus on how much she wanted to call Campbell back and apologize. This was for the best. Then why didn’t it feel like it?

Chapter 8

To cover more ground and to make the most of the night hours at their disposal, Campbell and his team split up. Sophia, Billy, Len and Colin worked on getting more information on Jennifer Watson and beating the streets for anything else about humans working for vampires. Kaja, Travis and he headed for Dan’s Carpets. He needed the work to occupy his mind so he’d stop thinking about how Olivia didn’t want to talk to him. Hell, it shouldn’t be a surprise. Just showed she had more sense than he did.

No surprise, Dan’s Carpets was closed up tight for the night, but there was no sign of any human captives on the property.

“This not being able to break down doors and have a look around sure makes things difficult,” Kaja said.

Travis laughed.

“What?”

“Sorry. It’s just funny thinking of a skinny little model kicking down doors.”

“Models are tougher than you think. They have to be. Didn’t you see Kill Bill?

Travis retreated into his laptop as Campbell pulled out of the parking lot and headed for Little Italy. After a lot of key punching, Travis cursed.

“That doesn’t sound like good news,” Kaja said from where she was touching up her fingernail polish in the back of the truck.

“Looks as if the delivery van used to kidnap Jennifer Watson had been reported stolen two days before.”

“Convenient,” Campbell said.

“It looks legit.” Travis stared out the windshield. “What if they’re stealing vehicles, using them in one abduction and then dumping them?”

“Covering their tracks.” Campbell squeezed the steering wheel even tighter.

“Well, that just made catching these cretins harder,” Kaja said.

“Don’t worry, we’ll catch them,” Campbell said. And the perps weren’t going to like it when they did. He pulled his phone from his pocket and checked for messages.

“You expecting a call?” Kaja asked.

Campbell made the mistake of meeting Kaja’s eyes in the rearview mirror. Kaja might seem vain and frivolous, but she was also supersharp and didn’t miss anything, either overt or subtext.

“Just seeing if the others have found out anything.”

“Uh-huh.”

He ignored her disbelieving tone, but it did him no good.

“It’s the human woman—you like her.”

He forced a shrug. “She seems like a nice person.”

“Don’t be deliberately dense, Campbell. You know what I mean.”

“I’m sure I don’t.”

She made a disgusted sound. “Too bad the turning process doesn’t make men smarter.”

Travis looked up from his computer and back at Kaja. “Hey, what’s with the generalizations?”

“You were already smart. Though I’ve never seen you around women. I’ll reserve judgment on that until I see you in action.”

“And when do any of us have time to date? We work nonstop.”

“Now, that’s just not true,” Campbell said. “What is this, National Pick on Your Boss Night?”

“No, but I like the sound of that,” Kaja said. “But stop avoiding the topic. You know you can’t be with her, right?”

He sighed. “Yes, I’m abundantly aware. Not that it’s any of your business.”

“Excuse me? It is my business if I end up having to stake you because you’ve killed her.”

An icy chill went down Campbell’s spine. At Kaja’s words, a flash of Olivia cold and lifeless in his arms, blood trickling down from bite marks on her neck, hit him and turned his stomach. He didn’t have to imagine it. He’d seen it all too vividly before.

“You okay, man?” Travis said.

“Yeah.” Not in the slightest, but he would be as soon as he purged Olivia DaCosta from his thoughts.

* * *

Olivia’s exhaustion made her sleep so hard that Mindy had to wake her the next morning.

“Come on, sleepyhead,” Mindy said. “You forgot to set your alarm.”

Olivia blinked her eyes, trying to alleviate the ripped-from-sleep confusion. She looked at the clock, which did more to wake her up than Mindy’s words. “Good grief!” She threw off the covers and raced for the bathroom as fast as her healing but still-tender ankle would let her.

“I’m going on downstairs, get things started,” Mindy said.

“Okay, be down in a minute.”

She flew through her toothbrushing, changed clothes and ran a brush through her hair before hurrying downstairs. Rusty was already out front when she hit the bottom step, so she veered toward the door to unlock it.

“Is something wrong?” he asked as he stepped inside.

“No, nothing. We just overslept this morning. Too many brownies last night and not enough setting of alarm clocks.”

Rusty shook his head. “Girl, you can’t scare an old man like that.”

“Well, if I see an old man, I’ll try not to scare him.”

Rusty planted a kiss on her forehead and headed toward his usual table. “You’re good for my ego.”

“We aim to please, serving up ego stroking with your bacon and eggs.”

“You know, life is short and I’m feeling a bit adventurous today. I think I’ll have some French toast.”

Olivia’s mouth dropped open. “Who are you and what have you done with Rusty?”

He laughed. “Guess I’m just tired of the same thing day after day. Where’s the fun in that?”

It hit Olivia that she could say the same about herself. Her days didn’t differ much from one another, unless, of course, you included a vampire attack and phone calls from a tall, sexy vampire who was so off-limits it was painful. She glanced at Mindy, hoping she couldn’t magically read her thoughts.

As more of the morning regulars and a few new faces started arriving, Olivia headed to the kitchen to start another of her carbon-copy days. The sense of dissatisfaction surprised her. She loved her diner and the customers. Cooking for them made her happy. So why did she suddenly feel as though her life wasn’t complete?

Because she was alone, surrounded by people but still alone. Except she hadn’t felt that way when she was talking to Campbell. Maybe Mindy had been right about staying with her the night before. Maybe she did need babysitting.

She shook her head and focused her attention on filling orders.

“Did you all see this?” Rusty asked as he thumped a story in that morning’s New York Times. “Leila Russell is reporting that she’s come across evidence that humans are working for vampires, that there have been kidnappings in the past week.”

Olivia’s heart slammed against her rib cage and she had to grab the edge of the countertop to steady herself. She’d hoped that Campbell had been wrong, but having the same story in black and white, reported by a human journalist who covered the vampire beat, made it even more real. She resisted the very real urge to be sick.