The buzz and hum of the active lobby was suddenly plunged into a deep, uncomfortable silence as though everyone—from the half-conscious security guard to the honking cabbies right outside the door—had heard me.
“Yours?”
I wanted to lie, to shrug it off, but those scissors would be dislodged from Emerson’s chest eventually, and when they were, they would see my name engraved right across the blade.
“Ms. LaShay, I’m going to have to ask that you don’t leave town until we have this all sorted out. You’re free to contact your lawyer.”
“My lawyer?” I felt myself blanch. “Am I—am I suspected of something?”
Moyer didn’t answer me but his expression told me that his answer was nothing that I wanted to hear.
A cold stripe of fear shot down my spine and my whole body rang electric. I may have fangs, I may have walked this earth for centuries, but right now, I was in deep, deep trouble.
I handed the cabbie several crumpled bills and pushed my way into the apartment vestibule, sinking my key into the lock. It had only been a day, but I already couldn’t remember not feeling like my body was covered with the stench of death (and not the good kind), or when I didn’t want to slink out of my clothes, burn them—which is high holy treason with a wardrobe like mine—or slip away to parts unknown. I pulled out my cell again and hit speed dial again.
“Underworld Detection Agency, San Francisco. This is Kale. How may I direct your call?”
“Hey, Kale, it’s Nina. Can you put me through to legal?”
“Nina!” Kale’s voice brightened, then dropped to a low whisper. “Can you do me a favor and tell Vlad something?”
I swallowed. “Who told you he was here?”
“You just did.”
Before I could respond—or backpedal—Kale had put me through to legal where my “call was very important to them and would be answered in the order it was received.” I drummed my fingers on my purse while listening to an instrumental version of “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” and told myself that I would deal with Kale’s Easter egg hunt later.
I was still on hold when I made it to the fourth floor, a perky UDA employee breaking in between during “A Groovy Kind of Love” to ask me if I knew I could file most basic UDA legal documents online. I clicked my phone off, depressed at my lack of a solution and dearly missing the good, old-fashioned slam of a receiver on its base.
Sliding an icon wasn’t very satisfying.
I was standing in front of Reginald’s door now, one piddling strip of crime-scene tape strung across the jamb, the door sealed with a flashy red sticker warning that no one other than the police, an inspector, or the coroner was permitted entry.
“Or the resident vampire,” I muttered under my breath before taking my fresh manicure to the thing.
Once the sticker was slit, I was surprised to find the door unlocked. I slipped into the apartment and winced, getting another sickly sweet hit of that new-dead smell.
I crossed the living room and cracked the kitchen window, letting the musty scent of New York summer seep in, letting the throb and bustle of the city pierce the silence.
“All right, Reginald, show me something that will help me.”
But there was nothing overtly cluelike in the apartment. The furniture, modern and standoffish, was pristine, not even bearing a telltale crease where some murderer may have taken respite after his job was done. There was nothing—except . . .
I climbed up onto the dining table, careful to skirt the dark smudges where Reginald’s shoes had scraped, and rolled up onto my tiptoes. There, on the top of one of the exposed beams, was a forgotten scrap of fabric—Emerson’s fabric. The fabric that Reginald’s murderer had tightened around Reginald’s neck until he had stopped breathing. I shuddered, pulled my barrette from my hair, and used it as a sort of makeshift, evidence-sustaining pair of tweezers and grabbed the swatch.
Other than the raggedy ends where the fabric had ripped, there was nothing significant or incriminating about it. The strip was about two inches wide, followed the print of the fabric, but was cut against the grain. No name plates, no fingerprints, no “if found please return to.” I held it up to my nose, whiffing the slightest scent of tuberose and freesia locked into the stitch. Apparently it hadn’t been in Emerson’s apartment long enough to adopt her scent.
There was nothing and I was annoyed, but I shoved the scrap in my pocket anyway, jumping off the table and closing Reginald’s door behind me.
What a waste.
I was only able to grumble for a millisecond; a feeling of stiff unease washed down the skinny hallway and my hackles went up. I spun, staring down Emerson’s closed door.
My nostril flicked.
Emerson’s patchouli smell still hung light on the air, but there was something else now, too, something that wasn’t there earlier.
And then there was the slightest, softest sound.
A footstep.
Someone, doing their best to step lightly, to carefully avoid the creaking floorboards. A drawer slid open. Someone rifling.
I slowly wrapped my palm around Emerson’s doorknob and was met with a lock. I bit my bottom lip, considering.
Then I slid a bobby pin out of my extensive updo (which was quickly falling due to my surprisingly helpful multiuse of barrettes and pins) and quietly stuck it into the lock. A single jiggle and the lock popped, the door popping open a millimeter. I pushed it open a tiny bit more and sucked in my stomach—a human habit that hadn’t yet died—peering into the apartment.
It was quiet, and the heaps of clothing and crap all around could have signaled that Emerson’s place had just been ransacked, or that Emerson employed the same kind of housekeeping style my roommate did back at home: slob chic.
I slid through the doorway, head cocked, still listening. Whoever was inside paused, because suddenly the room went uncomfortably still.
But the scent was still there.
I scanned the room, my footfalls silent even on the squeaky floorboard (we vamps have no discernible weight) and stopped short when I saw Emerson’s sketchbook laid out on the glass-topped kitchen table. It was open to a black-draped design that was a mirror image of something I had been working on and everything in me started to boil.
Which was probably why I didn’t hear him.
He clamped one leather-gloved hand around my waist and another around my mouth and dragged me backward. I tried to dig my heels into the heavy carpet to slow him down but my weightlessness worked against me and it was an easy slide. I tried kicking and punching, but with my assailant behind me, firmly clasping me against his chest, it was futile.
“Let me go,” I growled against the man’s hand, feeling the angle on my fangs sharpening.
He responded by tightening his grip and I opened my mouth, sinking my teeth into his palm.
He howled and pulled away from me; I lurched for the vase on the counter, swinging it hard. Water and roses shot out in a clear arc and the heavy leaded crystal made a pleasing, smacking sound when it caught my attacker square in the jaw. I thought it would stop him but the shot only angered him and his hands were on me, grabbing fistfuls of shirt. I was off my feet and face to face with eyes that spit white-hot anger.
A voice echoing in the hallway startled us both and I was tossed to the side, landing in a crumbled heap in a pile of discarded muslin sketch paper. My assailant cast one backward glance at me, cracked open the living room window, and disappeared onto the fire escape.
I sat up like a shot—vampire pride wounded, the strap on my Jimmy Choo busted, and pulsing with rage. I vaulted toward the window and followed the black-clad man out onto the fire escape for exactly forty-five seconds. He shot an upward glance at me as he climbed down the escape ladders. His eyes widened and his mouth dropped open just the tiniest bit and I knew he saw the smoke, the little burst of fire as it pierced my skin and singed my hair. I edged back as far from the single flicker of fire bringing sunlight that I could, patting my shoulder and trying to put out the flame. I slapped it out. It smoldered, smoked, and seemed to die, only to pop once again like a cobra dancing out of its basket.