Gigi’s reply was cut short by the opening bars of “Flight of the Bumblebee.” I reached for my phone, not missing the disappointed eye roll she gave me. Grimacing, I hit send and accepted the call, dutifully taking down an altered floral order for the upcoming Carver-Owen nuptials. The bride’s living uncle insisted that he was allergic to roses, which meant a complete change of theme. I offered several alternatives, and we agreed to substitute bold pink stargazer lilies. But I completed the call in a brisk, businesslike manner, lacking my usual enthusiastic flair. And it had Gigi nervously chewing at her lip. When I hung up the phone, she asked, “Iris, is everything OK?”
I cleared my throat and gave her my best reassuring smile, although I felt none of it. “Nothing that won’t be fixed in three days.”
—
I managed to avoid Cal for two days by waking up after he went to bed for the day and shutting myself up in my room at night. Gigi said that Cal was friendly if they happened to cross paths in the house. Apparently, her finding Cal naked on our floor was some sort of bonding experience.
Cal stayed in the basement and read over the Council reports whenever I was home. I appreciated the effort to make me comfortable, although I still considered whacking him in the face with a shovel if I was ever given an opportunity. Over and over, I considered going downstairs to discuss my conversation with Ophelia and the weird implications of Mr. Crown’s comments in the Council hallway. But I couldn’t bring myself to walk down the basement steps. I didn’t want to help Cal in the slightest way. I didn’t want him to have any reason to believe that I’d forgiven him, that I was interested in doing anything besides smacking him with the aforementioned shovel.
I was well versed in carrying on detached relationships after sex. If he thought I was going to cling all over him, he was sorely mistaken. I was tired of being jerked around by emotionally unavailable men, pulse or no pulse. Going into the Council office on my own, I felt like I was finally regaining control over my life after a week of uncertainty and chaos. Even though it involved some rather painful revelations, it was a gamble that had paid off. I hadn’t had too many of those lately.
And frankly, it was sort of a relief to return to our regular routine. Gigi and I left the house during the day. I was able to return all of my attention to my job and get mired in all of the fantastically mundane details of my clients’ lives.
I returned to my garden, forcing myself to get home before sunset or before Gigi came home from school, so I could throw myself into what had been left undone during Cal’s crisis. I replenished my candy stores and found new hiding places. I clipped the deadheads from the plants and cut back the climbing roses. I pulled weeds and scattered pulverized eggshells along the flower beds. I threw out long-overdue bouquets from the living-room vases and replaced them with experimental arrangements of lilies and ferns or roses and rosemary. I attended one of Gigi’s volleyball games, sold popcorn at the boosters’ concession stand, and put up with passive-aggression from the über-competitive mothers of Gigi’s teammates.
There were no repercussions from my “visit” to the Council offices, so I was back to remote dealings with clients who didn’t want to feed from me or live with me. I delivered cases of blood. I received shipments of tacky Vegas-themed furniture. I sent a cleaning crew to Mr. Rychek’s house to remove the gastrointestinal evidence of Ginger the hypoallergenic cat’s distaste for his wallpaper.
The lowlight of my day was an early-morning brush with creepy Mr. Dodd, a lower-level Council employee who was getting a bit too familiar in his communications with me since signing his contract three months before. I made the mistake of arriving at his house too early to accept delivery of a painting that was being shipped on a six A.M. flight from Chicago to the Half-Moon Hollow Municipal Airport.
I’d been working for weeks to secure this painting, an example of Renaissance portraiture that apparently resembled Mr. Dodd’s first “lover.” Hindsight being what it is, I should have known to stay on my guard around someone who could use the word “lover” without shuddering in discomfort.
The sun was barely over the horizon as I pulled into the driveway on Deer Haven Road. I needed to drop the portrait off as soon as possible. Otherwise, I’d be toting a very expensive, delicate painting in the back of my unsecured van all day. I slipped through the front door as quietly as possible and left the portrait in Mr. Dodd’s bedroom closet, as agreed. He wasn’t in the room, which wasn’t unusual. Most older vampires were unaccustomed to the idea of sleeping in a bed, so they created little light-tight cubbyholes elsewhere in their homes.
The house was quiet and still, darkened by sunproof shades. I hooked a left through the kitchen to check on Mr. Dodd’s blood supplies. I was almost to the front door when a hand shot out from the hallway and caught my arm.
I shrieked, yanking my arm back, but the grip was too strong. I was pushed back into the kitchen, against the counter, the handle of the utensil drawer digging into my back. I hissed in pain, knowing that it would leave a bruise. The stove light popped on. In front of me stood a tall, lanky vampire with shaggy dark blond hair. He smirked down at me, sizing me up and down with cold blue eyes before drawling, “So, you’re the busy little bee who keeps me fed.”
“Iris Scanlon, Beeline. I hope you’re Mr. Dodd.” I managed a prim professional smile while I gave a final tug on my arm. He finally loosened his hold but stepped even closer, cornering me against the counter.
“I have been very pleased with your … services,” he said, his eyes sweeping down meaningfully. “I’m thinking I’m going to have to expand my contract. I’m going to need more of your attention.”
I had a can of silver spray in my pocket. As creepy as he was, Mr. Dodd hadn’t done anything to deserve a face full of corrosive chemicals. So far, he was just displaying the oily, overaggressive charm that came as second nature to vampires who’d had one too many human groupies tell them how mysterious and powerful and seductive they were. They got used to playing women a certain way and couldn’t seem to break out of that role in everyday interactions.
He was like a vampire peacock. A lot of show but basically harmless.
Mr. Dodd leaned closer, his hand braced against the lip of a drawer left slightly ajar. I straightened, my arms at my sides, and hip-checked the drawer closed, snapping it on his digits. He hissed out an annoyed breath, and I sidestepped while he was distracted.
“We have several expanded-service packages,” I told him, stepping around the decorative, but unnecessary, kitchen island. “Just check the contracts and decide what you’re comfortable with.”
“If I wanted to contact you directly, how would I do that?” he asked, looping around the island and following me to the door. I snagged my purse from the foyer table. I kept my hand in my pocket, fingers wrapped around the spray canister, because Mr. Dodd’s predatory pacing was starting to make me nervous.
“Just call my cell phone and leave a message. Or you can e-mail the address on the card.”
He’d sped around me by the time I reached the front door, stepping in front of me as I wrapped my free hand around the doorknob. He smirked, his voice low and deliberately sultry. “And if I wanted something special? Something more personal?”
“Call my cell phone and leave a message or send me an e-mail,” I repeated.
He leaned his weight against the door, leaving me to tug futilely at the handle. “But what if I want to see you in person?”
“I don’t do that.” I grunted, pulling harder on the door.
Because clearly, this whole door situation had nothing to do with his vampire strength. I just needed to pull harder.
“But you’re doing that right now, aren’t you?” he said, leering down at me.
“I don’t normally.”
“I’m the first vampire client you’ve met?” he asked, eyeing me carefully.
“You’re the first vampire I’ve seen in months,” I lied, smiling pleasantly. “I tend to keep daytime hours. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve finished here. It’s time for me to leave.”
He ignored me, moving closer and closer with every passing second. The doorknob pressed into my back as I strained away as far as possible. “You smell just mouthwatering. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that?”
A frisson of fear bubbled up in my throat. As a matter of fact, someone had told me that, at Cal’s house, just before he sank his fangs into my neck.
I cleared my throat, breathing carefully out of my nose. “No, actually, no one has ever told me that.”
“Do you have any plans later?” he asked.
Yes, I planned to introduce him to the joys of a colloidal silver facial in about four seconds. Four seconds counted as later, right?
“I’m leaving. Now.”
He chuckled. “You think so?”
Dodd slithered into the space between me and the door. He smirked down at me, his face alarmingly close to mine. His lips parted, and he leaned down, either to kiss me or to sink his teeth into me.
Stepping to the side, I jerked the door open and let the weak morning sunlight flood the little entryway. Stumbling back into the shaded living room, he seemed amused by my antics. His lips curled back in a leer as he dragged his gaze up and down my form. “Oh, you are an interesting little thing, aren’t you? I’ll be in … touch, soon.”
Just before slamming the door, I shot back, “Consider our contract canceled.”
I ran to my car, hands shaking as I tried to stick the key into the ignition. I leaned my head against the steering wheel and took a few deep breaths. What was wrong with me? Why hadn’t I just shot that moron in the face with silver spray and run out of there? Was I so afraid of losing business that I was willing to put myself in danger to keep some psycho happy? It was time to reevaluate my business model.
What exactly was the protocol here? Should I call Ophelia to complain about Dodd’s inappropriate behavior? Should I mention that based on the “mouthwatering” comments, it was possible that Dodd had attacked me at Cal’s house? Then again, how exactly would I do that without explaining what I was doing at Cal’s house after the Council closed it up?
I missed my old life. I remembered fondly when my biggest worries were Gigi getting a bad grade on her Spanish midterm or the looming demise of our water heater. I’d carefully constructed a quiet little life for myself, and it had taken just a few minutes in Cal’s kitchen for it to derail. Now I was wrestling vampires in blandly decorated foyers and having angry sex against walls with an ancient Greek boarder.
To whom I was not currently speaking.
Damn it.
—
I didn’t tell Cal about my run-in with Mr. Dodd. First, because I would have to seek him out in the basement to tell him, and I wasn’t ready for that. And second, because I wasn’t sure whether Mr. Dodd was the vampire who attacked me at Cal’s house or just a horny vampire with a poor choice in colloquialisms. But I did call Ophelia at sunset and explain that her subordinate’s contract was canceled and why. The cold, steely tone of her voice when she assured me that “the matter would be addressed immediately” made me want to crawl under my bed in the fetal position with a blankie and actually made me feel a little sorry for Mr. Dodd.
That didn’t last long.
After I worked the Dodd-related adrenaline out of my system, I could almost forget about everything that had happened in the previous week. Except at night—after I’d gone to bed ridiculously early—when Cal moved quietly around the dark house. I could hear him warming up blood in the kitchen, typing on his laptop. After a few hours of work, he seemed to fall into a pattern of moving between the front and back windows, prowling. I wanted to go downstairs and talk to him, to demand an explanation for his jackassery. But it was so much easier to stay curled in my bed with chamomile tea, pretending that he wasn’t there, pretending that I wasn’t watching the door to my room for any sign of him outside.