Chasing Daybreak (Dark of Night Book 1) (3 page)

I wanted to reassure him, to tell him that none of it mattered. But deep down, I knew it would be a lie. Everything had changed. Nothing would ever be the same again.

“We can’t go back, I know that. But maybe we can start something new. We can be friends,” I offered, though it physically hurt to utter the words.

He nodded. “Friends.”

He’d stepped inside my door, and we’d been working on the whole ‘friends’ thing ever since. It didn’t erase the past. It didn’t stop me from missing him. It was messy, complicated, and painful, but it worked when so few things in my life had.

“Here’s the check, Ma.” I stuffed it in her hands and scooped up the unfinished sandwich. “I gotta run.”

Mom kissed me on the cheek as I practically launched myself out the door, waving quickly to Phoebe, the only daughter who still had the patience to listen to her lectures.

The shades were all drawn when I got back to the office, signaling Shane’s presence downstairs. I opened the door slowly, letting as little light as possible into the house and flipping over the OPEN sign as I went. I found Shane in the kitchen, chugging a bag of A-positive straight from the fridge, making my newly full stomach lurch violently.

“Morning, Sleeping Ugly,” I greeted him, trying to hide my revulsion as I strode in and sat down to look over the day’s mail.

“Same to you.” He gulped between sucking noises. My stomach rolled again, and I swallowed a gag.

“Anything good?” he asked, tossing the empty bag in the trash, finally done with his liquid breakfast.

“Bills, bills, and a Victoria’s Secret catalog,” I answered mechanically.

He snatched the magazine from my hands. “Mine.”

I tossed the bills aside. “I had the meeting with Mr. Curtis today.”

“How’d it go?” He flipped through the pages, whistling occasionally.

“I told him we’d go over the file. Try to find some new leads, see if the investigators overlooked anything.”

“You think they did?” He was serious now, all business.

“I doubt it. But it’s worth a fresh look. Maybe we can pick up on something. Either way, it’s a place to start.”

He opened his mouth to say something, but he was interrupted by the chime of the doorbell.

The UPS guy was there to drop off some packages. He glared at me as I signed on the electronic clipboard. He’d left one too many of my packages in the rain, and I’d finally called to complain to his boss. I wasn’t sure what came of it, only that we now exchanged angry looks whenever forced to interact.

I scooped up the boxes and headed back inside, slamming the door with my foot. Setting them carefully on the kitchen counter, I turned and pulled a knife from a drawer. Cutting the tape made me feel like a kid at Christmas. Even if I ordered them myself, getting packages was one of my favorite things.

The first box fell open, showering packing peanuts on the floor as I pulled out my shiny, new night-vision camera. It was actually a combination of night vision and thermal, so it could take video in the dark with no light and read heat signatures through walls. I felt like James fucking Bond just holding it.

“This would have been helpful last night,” I grumbled to myself.

“Hold up. I’m sleeping on the twin bed you had when you were fourteen, and yet you can afford these?” Shane complained.

I shot him a challenging glance. “If you don’t like the bed, I’ll just take it out and put in a nice, roomy coffin for you…”

He shuddered. Claustrophobia, apparently, was not one of the things you got over after becoming a vampire. Without another word, he pulled open the next box, revealing a plethora of goodies.

“What’s all this?” he asked, licking the last drop of liquid from the corner of his mouth.

I pointed. “Bionic ear. Computer snooper. And micro-UHF room transmitter.”

“Okay, this time in English.”

I sighed, “This one lets us hear from distances of eighty yards, this one records and transmits keystrokes on a computer, and this one is a listening device.”

“I don’t know why you need this stuff. I’m better than any techno-gizmo,” he bragged. “And I can hear way farther than eighty yards.”

He was right. Shane was better than any gear I could buy, but the rational part of me knew I couldn’t count on him being around forever.

“Yeah, well, you know, in case you die for real next time…”

He thought about that for a minute before responding, “I’d just come back and haunt you.”

“Funny, I thought you already were,” I said earnestly.

“Nah. If I were a ghost, you couldn’t make me clean the dishes.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You wanna bet?”

The rest of the afternoon passed with me at the computer paging through the articles and coverage of the Welch disappearance. There was a lot of media speculation, but no real leads. Shane sat behind me, making notes as I read aloud.

“Lisa Welch disappeared from her home in Summerville on January 14th of this year. The neighbors reported nothing unusual, at least not to the press. Her four kids were in school, husband at work. That’s about it. It talks a little about her charity work, nothing helpful. Did you call Reggie?”

Reggie Lukas was the lead detective on the case, and an old family friend. He was also one of the few people in town who treated Shane like he was still a person and not some demon sent to steal their souls. His wife, Connie, had even invited Shane to dinner last month.

The older vamps in town pretty much ignored Shane, as he had no wealth or status, so it was good for him to feel like he belonged somewhere. I wondered if he’d change much when the vampire community really started to accept him. I kind of hoped not.

“Yeah, he said we can come down at six.”

I stretched in my chair, “What time is it now?”

“Four-thirty. You need some food?”

I shook my head, “Nah, I’ll grab something after.”

“You know,” he said with mock earnestness, “you really should lay off those fast food stops. They go right to your thighs.”

I spun the chair and stared him down. “My foot is going to go right to your ass here in a minute.”

“Brave talk for a walking Happy Meal.”

“Speaking of your repugnant diet, the blood bank is dropping off your order tonight. I’ll leave a check on the table in the foyer.”

He rolled his eyes. “Thanks, Mom.”

Thank goodness for the new vamp meals-on-wheels program. You’d be amazed how many people would be happy to donate to the cause. Some people thought there was something romantic about the idea. Most just didn’t want a town full of thirsty vamps. I couldn’t blame them on that count.

I’d seen Shane after his change, when he was still deranged with the bloodlust. The Vamp Council had kept him caged in the basement of their local safe house for almost two weeks before they called me to come get him. At first, the call surprised me. I was still licking my wounds from my cancelled wedding. He’d taken off, or so I’d thought. Their call gave me a sick kind of hope. Maybe he didn’t blow me off after all; maybe we could still have our wedding, our life, just like we planned. Seeing him in those chains had been the last straw for me. When you were looking into the blood-red eyes of a vampire, there was nothing romantic about it. He’d grabbed for me, trying to rip my throat out. Part of me wanted to let him; it would have hurt less to have my throat ripped out than my heart.

Something between us broke that day. I’d left him in that cage, unable to make myself believe what had happened. And a few days later, he’d shown up on my door. For a few minutes, it was like it had all been one long, terrible dream.

And then he bit me.

Maybe Mom was right, maybe his soul was damned. Maybe he was just another unfortunate accident. Either way, the person he used to be—the person I loved—was lost to me. Now I just struggled to look at him and not hate him. For what he did, what he’d become, and what I wanted him to be. I pinched my nose with my fingers.

“Headache?” he asked.

“Nah, I just didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“I know. Oh, and you’re welcome for saving your life by the way.” He smirked.

“We wouldn’t have been stuck in that closet in the first place if your ‘super nose’ would have smelled Young in the house.”

He frowned. “All I could smell was the vamp blood. I thought someone might be hurt.”

I waved my hand. “Bygones. Besides, watching you get tranqued with a blowgun was totally worth the price of admission. It was like watching an elephant fall asleep at the zoo. In slow motion.”

“An elephant? Surely, you mean a ferocious tiger.”

“Or a baboon.”

He growled.

I laughed. “You should go change. I have a few calls to make before we leave.”

“Are you kicking me out?”

“Darn, and here I thought I was being subtle. Guess I’m no match for your awesome brain power.”

“As long as you can admit it.”

I made a shooing motion with my hand. “Get out.”

“Going. I have a few calls to make myself. Mercy wants to talk to me about the initiation into Conclave.”

Mercy was Shane’s new girlfriend, of the walking-undead variety. I still didn’t get it. She was bottle blonde, her accent was as fake as her expensive fingernails, and she honestly thought Madagascar was something you smoked.

“Are they finally taking you off the leper list?” I asked bitterly.

“I know you don’t care, but it’s my chance to finally be accepted as what I am. It’s not just the money and the status. It’s nice to be around other people like me.”

“Do you really want to break into that world?”

“Well, I don’t really belong here anymore. I’d like to belong somewhere.”

“I just don’t get what you see in her, Shane, seriously.”

“She’s like me,” he snapped.

Mercy was only a few vamp years older than he was, but she’d been made with the permission of the council and had quickly become their favorite pet. It was her voice in his ear telling him he didn’t belong here. He wasn’t mine anymore—the rational part of my brain knew that. It was the rest of me that didn’t get the memo.

“That’s a pretty poor reason to be with someone.” I snorted.

“What’s a
good
reason to be with someone? Enlighten me, Isabel.”

“Well…” I paused, taking a drink of my coffee. “You should be with someone who gets your jokes. Someone who will hold your hand when you’re sick. Someone who doesn’t think Calvin Klein started the Boxer Rebellion.”

“How about someone who I can kiss without wanting to take a bite of? Someone who doesn’t get grossed out when I drink a cup of blood, or who looks at me like they
want
me and not like I’m a burden?”

I was so stunned that I didn’t know what to say. Partly because he was right, and as guilty as I felt about it, I didn’t know how to make it better either. In some ways, having him around helped. In others, it was like picking at old wounds. Neither of us ever seemed quite able to heal.

Shane held up his hand to stop me before I even opened my mouth.

“I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. I just… it’s been so long since I could be with someone and not hold myself back. With Mercy, I can let go and just be myself. Fangs and all.”

I nodded. How could I begrudge him that?

“Well, you always have a place here, no matter what Zombie Barbie thinks.”

But when he smiled, showing just a little too much fang, I cringed. He noticed and closed his mouth tightly. 

“I know,” he whispered, walking away.  As he turned to leave, he added, “But I think I need my own place. Maybe one of the old plantation houses.”

“Or a nice crypt with a view,” I called after him.

***

Reggie had all the evidence boxed up for us when we got to the station. Seeing me walk in, he meandered over and threw a thick arm around my shoulders. The top of my head barely hit his shoulder. Not because he was so tall, but I was just that short. Between my height, my petite frame, and my wavy, dark hair, people were always shocked when I told them my occupation. What I said was private investigator—what they heard was midget bounty hunter.

“How’s it going, baby girl?” Reggie asked, leading me to his desk.

That had been his nickname for me for as long as I could remember. He’d been one of my dad’s best friends when I was growing up, and he’d been especially fond of me. I could always talk him into having a tea party with me when he came to visit. Let me tell you, there was nothing quite as endearing as a two-hundred-and-seventy pound police officer sitting in a small, pink chair sipping imaginary tea with a tiny napkin tucked into his shirt like a bib.

With a squeeze, he let go of me and shook Shane’s hand.

“I’ve been better, Reggie,” I admitted.

He nodded. I was sure he’d heard all about it by now. News traveled fast in a place like Charleston.

Shane sat on the edge of the desk. “So, what can you tell us about the Welch case?”

Reggie ran his hand over his nearly bald head before tossing me a thick manila folder.