“How can you say that? If the guy had wanted to kill me he could have done it. I was unconscious for God’s sake. How hard would it have been to finish me off?” She ran a finger across her neck.

Burnett’s eyes grew a tad brighter with aggravation. “It’s just like Holiday said, the death angels could have scared him off.”

“Scared him off, my ass. I still suspect the death angels are the ones who hit me. And frankly, I don’t think you even believe it was the murderer or you’d be all up in arms about it.”

Burnett’s expression told Della she’d hit the nail on the head with that remark. “I didn’t say I believed it, I said there was a chance.”

“And there’s a chance an asteroid is going to hit the earth and kill us all tomorrow!”

“I’m responsible for your safety,” he seethed. “And I can’t look out for you when you’re not on camp grounds.”

“But I’m not going alone. Miranda and Kylie will be there, and I don’t know if you forgot but Kylie just happens to be a protector and could probably kick an asteroid’s ass if it tried to land on me.”

When the expression of stern disapproval didn’t waver on Burnett’s expression, she took off the kid gloves and told him what she really thought. It was an old argument, but the best one she had. “I know what this is about. It’s because we’re girls, right? If it was Lucas and Derek and Perry wanting to go somewhere, you wouldn’t have questioned it. You are nothing but a male chauvinist pig. Oh, and that’s why you don’t want me working with this case, isn’t it? I’m a girl.”

“That’s not it!” Burnett snapped back and looked at Holiday as if pleading for her to intervene, but once again, his wife didn’t say a word.

Which meant she still agreed with Della. And that upped the fire in Della’s belly.

“So you are going to let me work on the case?” she asked, deciding she’d already pissed him off, she might as well go for gold.

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“We haven’t moved forward on the case yet.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” she pointed out.

Apparently, the big bad vampire didn’t like being put on the spot. He growled. “You are an unreasonable stubborn little vamp and you need to learn to respect authority.”

“I will respect the authority, when the authority respects me! And that includes my br**sts!”

Burnett looked again at Holiday. “Can’t you do something with her?”

Holiday shrugged. “I think you both have good points.”

Now Burnett looked mad at Holiday. “She’s not being reasonable.”

“I think she just accused you of the same thing,” Holiday said.

Yup, the warm and cozy, almost hug-worthy emotional place Della and Burnett had found the other night was nothing more than a memory. They were back to butting heads.

Della continued, because Burnett wasn’t the only one with hard head. “If you can tell me without your heart jumping beats that if it was Lucas, or Chase, asking for a weekend away you’d tell them no, I’ll shut up.”

He couldn’t tell her that. He didn’t even try lying. So she didn’t shut up. And after several more minutes of ranting and a few touches of Holiday’s hand, the obstinate vampire agreed to let her go to Kylie’s.

She was walking back to her cabin when she realized he’d never agreed to let her work the case. The temptation to go back bit, but her gut said she should fight that battle another day.

What mattered was that come Saturday, Della would be making a trip to the funeral home that had helped fake both her uncle’s and Chan’s deaths. And while she was out and about, she hoped to possibly get a lead on the Crimson Blood. If the funeral-home director worked with vampires to plan fake deaths, he might know something about the local gangs. Hell, maybe the old man had kept in touch with Chan.

But if she found out where the Crimson Bloods were located, she didn’t know if she could find a way to get there. She recalled Holiday’s “no risks” rule.

Della exhaled. She’d just wait and see what she got from the funeral home, and then she’d make the decision if it was too risky.

But feeling rather productive after winning the argument with Burnett, she decided not to stop just yet. Instead she went to find Derek and see if he’d found anything else out about her aunt and uncle. She’d given him the school name, earlier, and he’d said he was back online.

Answers, Della thought. It would really feel good to at least learn something. Something that at least told her that her uncle and aunt were really alive.

Zilch. Nothing. That’s what she got from Derek. Well, almost nothing. He’d found an old classmate from Klein High who was considering selling his yearbook. Della had gladly agreed to hand over her fifty dollars of allowance to pay for the damn thing. Derek went online right then to tell the guy they had the money, but then the guy started wavering. Maybe he wanted to sell it, or maybe he didn’t.

Frankly, Della wasn’t certain why the damn book was so important. She already had a picture of her uncle, but Derek explained that a yearbook could give them names of who he’d hung out with, his interests outside of the school, and that might offer them more leads. Della didn’t want more leads, she wanted answers.

Chan would have answers. Now back in her cabin, and in bed, she looked at her phone resting on her bedside table and willed it to ring.

When it rang, she nearly jumped out of her skin.

Heart thumping, she grabbed the phone, thinking it could be Chan, and looked at the number.

Not Chan.

Steve. She’d spoken with him last night and barely managed to get off the phone without pummeling him with questions about big-smile-big-boobs Jessie. The last thing she wanted to do was come off like a jealous girlfriend.

She stared at the ringing phone. And gave in.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hi, I thought you weren’t going to answer.”

“Sorry, I was caught up in … something.” The decision to take or not to take your call.

“Is everything okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, fine. How are things with you?” You having fun with Jessie?

“Missing you,” he said. “I wake up at night and you’re all I can think about.”

But not during the day when you have Jessie around, huh? She bit her lip to keep from saying her thoughts out loud. “I’m sorry,” she said instead.




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