Dead and Dateless (2 page)

“It’s not the jury summons.”

“I didn’t mean to take that towel from the gym. It just got mixed in with my change of clothes.”

“Nope.”

“That cab driver said it was okay if I didn’t have enough cash for the entire fare—”

“Guess again.” Silver flashed as black and yellow pulled out a pair of handcuffs and snapped them open. Two of his men fought to get a grip on my arms. Not easy considering I have preternatural strength and a severe allergy to polyester.

“Then what did I do?” The cuffs slid on and I found myself pulled around the desk. “Because whatever it is, I won’t do again. Cross my heart and hope to—”

“—die?” the detective finished for me. “You just might.”

I came up short. “Excuse me?”

“Murder, Miss Marchette. You’re being arrested for
murder.
”

T
he cop’s words settled in just as I found myself dragged across my new Persian rug (a present from The Ninas—my two best friends in the entire universe), toward the door.

“But—”

“You have the right to remain silent,” one of the suits recited somewhere to my left. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law—”

“Wait a second.”

“—have the right to an attorney—”

“But I didn’t do anything!” I struggled as they hauled me through the outer office. “I’ve never harmed another creature in my entire life! I mean, sure, I put a world of hurt on Princess Annabelle that once, but she
so
deserved it on account of she’s a total slut and she’d been throwing herself at my boyfriend at the time. The Ninas pulled me off of her before I actually drew any of the red stuff!”

“—cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you—”

“Please.” I dug in my three-inch heels and they screeched across the hardwood floor of the outer office like nails on a chalkboard. “I didn’t—I couldn’t—I
wouldn’t.
”

“—understand these rights as I’ve read them to you?”

“
No,
” I blurted as we burst out onto the sidewalk.

“No, you don’t understand?”

“Yes, I understand, but—”

“Good.”

Good? Was this guy crazy? Oh, wait a sec. He was. Because no way did I off anyone. I have been known to get in-your-face with a jerk every now and then (see the above Princess Annabelle confession), but otherwise, I’m a model citizen. I pay my bills on time (sort of). And I give to the homeless.
And
I even let people cut in front of me at the Starbucks (sure, there was that one time that was totally self-motivated on account of the guy was wearing this totally to-die-for Gucci T-shirt and I wanted an up-close look, but cutting is cutting).

Murder
?
Me
?

“This is so
not
good.” I shook my head frantically as I found myself pushed toward a waiting police car. “It’s bad.” I didn’t even want to think about what my heels looked like after all the dragging and pulling. “Terrible.”

“Chopping someone up into hamburger usually is.”

Yuck.

“Now get moving,” another voice said. Hands reached out and shoved me forward.

Okay, so I’ve always had
mucho
respect for New York’s finest. They faced down creeps on a daily basis without Super Vamp abilities (most of them, anyhow), and so I would never have dreamt of making their lives more difficult by dragging my feet, or screaming, or cursing, or crying, or, say, kneeing one of them in the balls.

That is, the sane, well-bred, rational, low-key me would never have done such a thing.

But this was the desperate, depraved, about-to-be-thrust-into-the-back-of-a-police-car-and-carted-off-to-
jail
-for-chopping-some-poor-schmuck-into-hamburger-meat me. It was every vamp for herself.

My knee bent and hit a bull’s-eye.

“Oohmph!” The huge guy with the death grip on my right arm let loose and cupped his crotch. He doubled over and fell to his knees.

In the blink of an eye (my own, because I really don’t do pain and suffering all that well), I kneed the next guy, and the next and the next.

What can I say? I have serious issues with being locked up for something I didn’t do. Even worse, I have serious issues with bright orange jumpsuits (or whatever color they’re wearing on Riker’s Island this time of year) and those cheesy slippers.

I flexed my arms, snapped the handcuffs in two, and whirled before anyone could draw another breath, much less realize what was happening. And then I ran as fast as my preternatural legs could carry me.

I was six blocks away before I finally slowed down. I darted into an alley that ran between a Vietnamese grocery store and a Vinnie’s New York Style Pizza joint, and slumped against a brick wall.

As the breath sawed past my lips, I wondered if born vamps could actually have heart attacks. There had never been any reported cases in the long,
long
history of my race (we’re talking pre-Napoleon) except my great aunt LaRue, who’d suffered chest pains a few years ago. But she’d been infatuated with Ricardo, her drop-dead gorgeous lawyer. It had turned out to be a bad case of angina. She’d been forced to lay off spicy food and so she’d fired Ricardo and hired a vegan named Scott. Problem solved. Which meant, however fast my heart was beating, I wasn’t likely to hit the ground unless the cops managed to catch up, flex some collective muscle, and tackle me.

I ignored the stench of rotten vegetables and yesterday’s pizza sauce and forced myself deeper into the alley. I wasn’t going to think about the horrible condition of my shoes—a pair of Constança Basto sandals I’d picked up for a
steal
last week. Even more, I wasn’t going to mourn my Banana Republic wooden bangle with the dangling beads that had been ripped off prior to the cuffs being snapped on—
sniffle.
There would be plenty of time for that when the cops weren’t
this close
to dragging me off to the pokey.

I drew a deep breath—not that I needed it, but I’d been living in the human world and blending for so long that it was sort of a habit now—and focused my thoughts on getting the hell out of there, like,
now
.

Every nerve in my body seemed to come alive in that next instant. My arms tingled and my legs vibrated. A rush of heat started at my toes and worked its way up until I felt my cheeks flush.

I know, I know, it sorta, kinda, maybe sounded a little like an orgasm. But trust me, it didn’t feel like one. Except for the vibrating legs, that is. And the flushed cheeks. And, perhaps, the hot…not going there.

Then again, it had been so long since I’d actually had a
mucho,
fantastic O (over a hundred years ago with an actual partner), my memory might be a little rusty.

I sniffled again. Once. Twice. A third time (hey, we’re talking a
hundred
years).

I felt an overwhelming sense of crappiness wash over me. Nonexistent love life. Microscopic apartment. Newborn business barely breaking even. Sure, I had hot, happening hair (brown with enough high lights to make it look sunny-licious blond), but what was hair in the big scheme of things?

A police car rushed down a nearby street and jerked me out of my sudden funk. Panic bolted through me and I clamped my eyes shut and willed myself to change.

A loud flutter soon joined the frantic pounding of my heart. Suddenly, I felt weightless (yep, the change had its perks). I left the alley behind as fast as my tiny pink wings could carry me. (I know most bats are black, but black is so…black. As in dark and gloomy and so
not
my color.)

Even more testimony to the fact that I was totally freaked. No way would I risk discovery and annihilation of the entire born vamp race by morphing into a cute but totally conspicuous pink bat.

But I was free, and putting as much distance as possible between myself and the whole hamburger meat thing (yuck). And that’s all that mattered at the moment.

Pigeons weren’t the only ones who kicked ass when it came to homing instincts.

I reached my apartment, located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, in just under a minute, and landed in the small, and smelly, alley that ran behind my building.

A few tingling moments later, I hurried up the front steps of my building in my bare feet. While I could morph as well as the next vamp, when I was nervous (or wanted for murder) I tended to leave behind a thing or two. In this case, my shoes and a really fab toe ring I’d bought in SoHo.

I punched in the code and rushed inside the renovated duplex that housed mostly single, corporate types and a few seniors. There were only two married couples (the Griffiths on one and the Shanks up on three) and zero children, which meant that the noise level was moderate, consisting mostly of CNN, game shows, and the occasional “Your mother is driving me crazy!”

Tonight, Mac Griffith’s mother wasn’t just driving his wife loony, however. She was shoveling the dirt over and burying her alive, judging from the raised voices coming from the first apartment I passed as I hauled butt toward the elevator. Several frantic moments later, I reached my front door.
The O’Reilly Factor
drifted from the apartment directly across the hall from me and a rerun of
Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire
carried up from old Mrs. Janske’s just below. She was a widow who’d moved in last week, along with a zillion cats and at least three birds.

My nostrils flared as I unlocked the door to my apartment and I caught a whiff of…Make that a zillion cats, three birds, and an entire case of mothballs.

I made a mental note to stop by and introduce my self when I wasn’t being hunted for murder. While I don’t particularly like animals, I do have a weakness for a well-cared-for wardrobe.

To say my apartment was small would be paying it a compliment. It was more like minuscule compared to my parents’ elaborate Connecticut estate and Park Avenue penthouse.

All right, already. It was minuscule compared to most other apartments in Manhattan, or the free world, for that matter. While small, it did have separate living and dining rooms in addition to the kitchen, bath, and single bedroom. Five microscopic rooms, complete with heavy-duty window blinds, and they were all mine. Meaning I didn’t have to see my parents day in and day out.

Not that I don’t love my folks, mind you. But they’re my
folks
and, naturally, they make me C-R-A-Z-Y.

Or rather, they had. Until I’d moved out.

A single lamp burned from the one end table I’d managed to wedge next to my couch. I shut the door and rushed into the bedroom. I barely resisted the urge to fling myself on the king-size bed that took up most of my bedroom and bury myself beneath the covers and cry.

Cry?

Vampires do not cry, at least not in public. Besides, I figured I had, at the most, five minutes (the average cab ride between my apartment and Dead End Dating headquarters) before the cops pushed their way into my apartment. I didn’t have time to shed any big ones. I needed to…to what?

I’d never been arrested for anything in my entire life. Except that little incident at Mardi Gras a few years back. But it wasn’t like I
meant
to flash my tooties at that cop. They’d just sort of fallen out when I’d climbed up onto Nina One’s shoulders to catch that handful of beads. And that’s all I’m saying about that.

I was now on the run for
murder
.

Who? When? Where? Fashionably dressed victim or one in desperate need of a personal shopper?
I didn’t know. I just knew that the police were coming. For
me
. The sirens blared in the distance, growing closer with each passing second.

My survival instincts kicked in and I did what any wanted, fashion-conscious vampire would do: I rushed toward the closet to snag a new pair of shoes.

Okay.
Maybe I snagged an outfit, too (my shirt and blue jean mini were totally rumpled and still smelled like the alley, and
so
didn’t match the lizard and suede Sergio Rossi boots that I pulled on), but I was fast.

I changed and managed to stuff half the contents of my closet, complete with cosmetics and this totally smoking rhinestone choker, into two suitcases before I heard the squeal of tires in front of my building. Car doors slammed. Footsteps thundered up the front walk.

I snatched my pillow from the bed and hauled my stuff toward the nearest window. Pulling up the blinds, I pushed at the glass, but it wouldn’t budge. Talk about a fire hazard. I was definitely subtracting ten percent from next month’s rent. Maybe even fifteen—

The thought shattered as the elevator door
whoosh
ed open on my floor. I gathered my preternatural strength and shoved. Wood creaked and splintered, and the whole frame sort of came apart in my perfectly manicured hands.

Maybe I’d just take off five percent.

Shoes slid and squeaked and stalled outside my apartment. The doorknob turned and the door shook just as I straddled the windowsill. I glanced down at the dark, empty alleyway below me and hesitated.