Darkest Desire of the Vampire: Wicked in Moonlight\Vampire Island (Harlequin Nocturne) (2 page)

Taking a deep breath, she added, “You have no right to tell me what I can and can’t do.”

“Actually,” he replied in a low, brutally controlled voice, his accent impossible to place, “I have
every
right.”

Wow. Talk about arrogant! “And how do you figure that?” she scoffed.

“Because I own it,” he ground out.

Lainey blinked. “Own what?”

His voice got rougher. “The beach, Miss Maxwell.” He took a few deep breaths, his handsome face twisting into a grimace as he added, “I also own the cliffs and the land you’re currently standing on.”

A sarcastic snort tickled her nose. He’d have to be a freaking multimillionaire for that to be true. “You’re kidding, right?”

He responded with a slow shake of his head. There wasn’t even a hint of a smile on his firm lips as he crossed his powerful arms over his chest, and Lainey found herself taking an unconscious step backward. He hadn’t tried to hurt her, or even touch her, but there was something about the aggressive way he was staring down at her—
even though she couldn’t see his damn eyes
—that told her to get away from him. Now. Before something really bad happened.

I’ll just come back tonight, when no one’s around,
she whispered to herself, quickly turning her back on the incredibly strange Nick Santos and walking away. She could hear him mutter something rough under his breath, but she didn’t look back, heading as swiftly as she could in the same direction Casey Munn had gone. Minutes later she’d reached her room at the inn, her pulse still hammering from the odd encounter. She didn’t understand the weird current buzzing through her veins or the heated flush on her skin. Sheesh. The guy hadn’t flirted with her or threatened her...and it’s not like he’d said anything she hadn’t already heard from the young cop, other than the bit about him owning everything. So why this bizarre reaction?

I don’t know, but I don’t have time for this. I need to just shake it off and focus.

Right. Stripping out of her clothes, Lainey took a quick shower, planning to make her way down to the inn’s cozy restaurant for an early dinner. She always ate when she got nervous, which was why she could never drop a dress size. Well, that and the fact that she enjoyed food, like any other healthy human being. Why women wanted to starve themselves to look like skin stretched over bone had never been something she could wrap her head around, and she didn’t even want to try. She’d take her forties pinup figure any day over the heroin-chic look.

But I bet that’s how Nick Santos likes them. Skinny and simpering, terrified by the sight of an ice cream sundae.

“Oh, God. Listen to me,” she muttered under her breath as she stepped from the shower. That kind of cattiness wasn’t like her. And why on earth was she standing in front of the bathroom mirror, staring at her curvy figure while thinking about that arrogant asshead? Sure, he was gorgeous. But that didn’t mean he was decent or kind or worth her mental energy. And, damn it, she didn’t have any mental energy to spare!

She suddenly stilled...holding her breath...not liking the direction her thoughts were going. Was this
some kind of new avoidance ploy on her part? Obsess about the cranky yet studly private investigator so that she didn’t have to think about what she was going to do later that night? If so, she needed to get over it, and fast. Santos obviously had his suspicions about what she was doing, and for some reason, he didn’t like it. With his influence in this town, he could make it so that no one was willing to lend her a helping hand—not that they’d been all that helpful to begin with.

Putting him out of her mind, Lainey dressed and headed down to the restaurant. After having a mouthwatering lobster bisque and fresh-baked bread for dinner, she took a walk along the path that hugged the cliff tops. She wrapped a light sweater around her shoulders to fight off the breeze still blowing in hard off the Pacific, enjoying the brilliant colors of the sunset. As she walked past the taped-off entrance to the stairs, she noted that there was an older policeman manning the site now. The corner of her mouth twitched as she wondered if that’d been Santos’s doing. Had he thought Casey wasn’t tough enough for the challenge if she decided to make another try for it?

Knowing it was best to bide her time, Lainey made her way past the officer in silence, her attention moving to the sprawling homes that rose out of the higher cliffs like rustic monuments to money and power. Which one belonged to Santos? And how in the world did someone who looked to be in his mid-thirties manage to afford one?

He must come from family money, which would explain the house. But why would someone so obviously wealthy choose the gritty lifestyle of a P.I.? She’d spent enough time in Ryan’s world to know that the private investigators glamorized in television shows were nothing more than Hollywood fiction. In order to earn such a kick-ass reputation in his field, he had to be a serious badass, which didn’t exactly fit the “family money” image. But who knew? Maybe he’d gotten lucky and won the lottery but was too embarrassed to give up his career and just enjoy the money.

The thought brought a bittersweet smile to her lips because it reminded her of Ryan. He could have been the richest man in the world, and he still would have spent his days slugging through the seedy underbelly of society, looking for a way to expose those who thought they were above the law. She’d loved that about him as much as she hated it and she had always been terrified he’d go too far one day. Make a mistake that landed him in a heap of trouble...or even cost him his life.

Taking a deep breath, she turned away from the majestic homes and stared out over the dark ocean, sending a silent message to her brother.
Wherever you are, Ry, I want you to know that I miss you and I won’t stop looking for you. I’ll never stop looking.

Working to psych herself up for what she knew she had to do, Lainey blasted her favorite playlist on her iPod as she made her way back to the inn. Once in her room, she changed into black jeans, a black T-shirt, black tennis shoes and a black knit cap to cover her blond hair. Tucking her cell phone into a small black backpack, she also packed a flashlight, extra batteries, her camera and a utility knife. Then she pulled on a black hoodie, propped her back against the headboard and found one of the
Underworld
movies to watch on TV while she waited. She wished she could be some kind of kick-ass heroine like Selene instead of a nervous, butterflies-in-her-stomach bookseller. But she wasn’t going to let her nerves hold her back. Not when there was a chance Ryan might have left some kind of message for her down in those caves.

As the movie ended and a clock chimed midnight from somewhere in the inn, Lainey left her room and made her way down the back set of stairs. Hiking her small backpack on her shoulder, she headed toward the cliffs, surprised when she caught sight of another officer standing guard at the top of those damn stairs. She’d thought for sure they’d abandon the post once it hit midnight, but that didn’t appear to be the case. Slinking back into the shadow of the cop’s SUV, she nibbled on her thumbnail, trying to work out what to do. Did she dare try to create a distraction? Or did she simply bide her time, waiting for the opportunity to steal past the policeman?

She was still trying to decide when the cop’s phone rang. He answered the call, then continued talking as he started making his way toward the SUV, saying something about the list being in the car. Hunched down by the front bumper on the passenger side, Lainey waited until the cop was rummaging around in the backseat before sprinting toward the stairs. With her heart hammering so loudly she was surprised the officer couldn’t hear it, she rushed under the yellow police tape and started hurrying down the wooden staircase. It zigged and zagged its way down the rocky cliff, the weathered planks of wood slippery from the sea spray blowing in on the wind. She had to grip the handrail a few times to keep from stumbling but managed to make it to the bottom without being spotted by the cop.

“So far, so good,” she murmured under her breath, thankful for the nearly full moon that illuminated her way without the use of her flashlight. But as she entered the first cave, she had to dig it out of her bag, needing the light to inspect the craggy walls. Though the sea often drifted into the caves at high tide, it hadn’t quite reached that point tonight, leaving a moonlit strip of sand along the base of the cliffs.

She must have spent nearly a half hour in the first cave, the only sounds her breathing and the roar of the surf. As she moved into the second cave, she ran the beam of light from her flashlight over the walls in small sections, searching for...well, for
anything
that her brother might have left behind that the police could have missed. Their father had been a scholar of ancient symbols and had often used various cryptograms when playing games with her and Ryan when they’d been younger. The games had often entailed leaving secret messages for each other, and Ryan had even joked with her that if he ever found himself in a no-win situation while out on a case, he’d leave her a private message to let her know what had happened to him. It was a chilling thought, which was yet another reason why she’d put off coming down to the caves, afraid of what she might find.

When she found nothing etched into the cavern walls, Lainey moved her search to the sandy floor, but again she found nothing.

The moon seemed even brighter as Lainey stepped back out onto the beach, making her way to the third cave. The wind swept sand against her shins, the tiny granules slipping into her shoes, though she barely noticed. As she stood in the center of the dank, massive cave, her flashlight illuminating the sickening splotches of blood that still covered the sandy floor, she knew she’d found the place where the police had discovered the most recent remains. But she wasn’t thinking about the killer. At the moment, the only thought running through her head was that she wanted to go back in time.

All she wanted was to lose a month. Four measly weeks in a lifetime of them. She just wanted to be back in a time when her brother was still in her life. When she knew he was healthy and alive, enjoying being a pain in the ass to his editors and the crooks he thrived on exposing.

Releasing a shuddering breath, Lainey shook off her melancholy and focused on her search. This cave was bigger than the first two, with the entrances to several tunnels on its back wall. She knew, from the research she’d done on the town, that a tangled network of tunnels connected many of the caves here. She wasn’t venturing back into those eerie passageways unless she had to, hating the idea of being in such a dark, closed-in space.

A search of the floor with the beam of her flashlight revealed nothing more than those unsettling splotches of blood. Turning her attention to the walls, Lainey had just worked her way to the back wall when she finally found what she was looking for—a scrawled, intricate symbol etched several inches over her head. It looked like something he’d had to do in a hurry, but she had no idea what to make of it. The symbol was one from a set her father had created specifically for her and Ryan, and in her mind’s eye she could visualize the translation:

M. O. N. S. T. E. R. S.

Monsters? What on earth did that mean? Ryan wasn’t given to flights of fancy or practical jokes. And she knew there wasn’t any way this message had been meant for anyone but her. With their father gone, there was no one else in the world who would have been able to understand the rudimentary symbol.

What had Ryan been trying to tell her? And what the hell was that sound out on the beach? Had she just heard...voices?

Shit!

She was no longer alone. She could hear someone coming—no, that was
more
than one person. At first, Lainey thought the cop must have caught sight of her sneaking under the tape and sent for backup. But something about the sounds told her this wasn’t a group of cops. They were throwing out curse words like confetti, and her heart started pounding, blood rushing in her ears as she realized she was trapped. Reacting quickly, she reached into her pack for her phone and the knife she’d brought. Being a single woman living in a big city, she’d taken some self-defense courses a few years ago at one of the local community colleges. But her skills weren’t going to be anything that could help her when confronted by an entire group of men. And those guttural, graveled voices were definitely male.

Struggling to control her shaking fingers, she ran into one of the tunnels, turned off her flashlight and tried to dial nine-one-one, but the call wouldn’t go through. Cursing under her breath, she slipped the phone into her pocket as she crept farther into the tunnel, praying the men would gawk at the bloodstained cave, then quickly leave. But she was wrong. As if they knew exactly where she’d hidden, they headed right for her. She panicked, flicking on the flashlight and heading deeper into the network of tunnels as she did her best to outrun them. But they just kept coming until she found herself trapped in another cave that had only one way out.

And it was blocked.

Plastering her back against the rear wall of the cave, Lainey faced off against a group of what had to be at least a dozen men, the beam from her flashlight wavering over their faces as she tried to gauge the exact number. Then there was a cracking sound, and a strange green glow filled the center of the cave, emanating from the glow stick one of the men had just thrown on the ground.

“I’ve called the police!” she shouted, holding the knife in front of her. “If you don’t want to end up in jail, you’ll get the hell out of here!”

“You haven’t called anyone,” a man with greasy black hair sneered before taking a long swig from the whiskey bottle he held in his hand.

Her throat shook as she looked the group over again. There was a lot of leather and dark, stained denim. They smelled of oil and sweat and malice, their bodies tall and hard and packed with muscle. They were brawny and rough, with shaggy black hair and scruffy jaws. She could feel their leers against her skin like physical touches, and she wanted to scream like a banshee for help. But who was going to hear her? She was too deep within the caves now for her cries to reach the policeman standing watch atop the cliff.