Fangs for Nothing (2 page)

Was he Johnny Malone? She did not know. Experience had taught her that he most likely was not, but she would wait and see what the facts indicated. Clearly this bartender had referred to him by the correct name and had given an explanation quite readily, but frankly, to Lizette’s ears it had sounded rehearsed. It was also telling that Johnny, as she’d have to call him for now, had suggested this particular bar. Or a bar at all to discuss the matter.

“Rules are rules,” she told him apologetically. “In order to ensure that nothing goes missing during the investigation phase, I need to confiscate all your belongings.” Reaching into her handbag, she retrieved the list she had printed of all Johnny’s possessions.

“Are the majority of these belongings in your apartment on Toulouse Street? Or have they been moved? I realize it has been six weeks since your passing.”

Johnny snorted. “Nothing has been moved. I still live there.”

“Excellent.” Lizette inserted the paper into the clipboard she always carried for ease in going over the list with him. “Does this look like an accurate representation? I believe at this time you have $1312.48 in your bank account, which was frozen as of this morning.”

“
What?
” he repeated. “You can’t do that!”

“I’m afraid I can,” she said, feeling genuinely bad. If he really was Johnny, this was a huge inconvenience. However, the rules were the rules. As she had told him.

He tore the list out of her clipboard, ripping the top-left corner and startling her. “I don’t have a lot of stuff. I don’t even have my Elvis cookie jar anymore.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, crossing her legs and wishing she had ordered herself a drink after all, though she never drank when she was working. “You do realize, of course, that you will not be able to enter your apartment while the investigation is ongoing.”

He stopped scanning the list to stare at her. “You’re fucking kidding me.”

“No.” Lizette strongly believed in the preservation of their secrecy, or she wouldn’t be able to do this job. But after watching her very first lover being captured and tortured in the late nineteenth century, she had vowed to do whatever was necessary to keep vampires out of the reach of dangerous mortals. It might not make her a favorite person among her vampire peers, but she could live with that consequence if it might mean saving a vampire life.

“Where the hell am I supposed to stay?”

“I believe you have a sister?” That was whom the VA had authorized her to contact. “Stella Malone.”

“I know who my sister is! But you can’t keep me out of my apartment. I need to change my clothes. I have to work. I play in a band on Bourbon. My drum kit is in my apartment.”

She gave her best look of apology. “I will try to be as quick as possible. Today is Thursday. Perhaps by next Thursday we will have our answers.”

“Next Thursday? Are you insane? I can’t lose a whole weekend of work, especially since you’re telling me my bank account is frozen.” Johnny swore, shoving his empty drink across the dull and scraped bar.

Lizette wasn’t afraid, but she was disarmed. Johnny Malone, was, for lack of a better word, arresting. He was not the best-looking man she had ever seen, as his jaw was too square, his nose perhaps too short, but there was something compelling about him. He shifted from annoyed to charmed and back again with very little effort, his emotions clearly displayed on his face for all to see. There were some people who had that special something, that joie de vivre, and he was one of them. It was making it more difficult than Lizette would admit to stay on task.

“I can take a blood sample to start the analysis tonight, then tomorrow I can begin the interviews. If you’ll just provide me a list of your confidants, I will be happy to make appointments with them. In the meantime, I will contact headquarters in Paris and await instruction. Can we meet tomorrow at say nine, so I may retrieve the list, and ask you some questions?”

Johnny didn’t look at her, but stared morosely at his drink. “I have a wedding to go to tomorrow night. My friend Saxon is getting hitched. It will have to be earlier. Let’s say seven.”

“I can accommodate that.”

“Well, thank you,” he said sarcastically.

Lizette frowned, suddenly unsure of what to say. She was used to a belligerent response to her job, and normally she was sympathetic, but she could distance herself from taking it personally. Johnny Malone had her shifting uncomfortably on her barstool. He had a casual nonchalance that roused her ire, yet at the same time intrigued her, as did the unmistakable fact that she found him physically attractive, in spite of the fact that he wasn’t traditionally handsome.

Despite what certain vampires may think, like her assistant Dieter, she did notice men. She just chose not to do anything with that acknowledgement. Johnny, if that’s who he was, was a man she couldn’t help but notice. He had short black hair, the front sticking up slightly with some form of hair product. His skin was cool and alabaster smooth, his eyes an arresting blue, with eyelashes that women would kill for. He was wearing a T-shirt that fit him, instead of the huge shirts a lot of men wore, and his jeans had a tear in one knee, exposing soft dark hair on his thigh. He was the kind of man who gave sly, sexy smiles and kept a woman awake long after the sun rose. And that made Lizette want to clear her throat and be done with this case, because she was not the kind of woman who had casual sexual dalliances.

Unfortunately.

“So we are all set then? Where shall we meet tomorrow?” she asked him. Her cell phone dinged on her clipboard as she spoke, and she murmured, “
Pardonnez-moi
,” and glanced at the screen. It was Dieter informing her that he was outside of Stella Malone’s, and she quickly texted him her locale.

“So how do you know what stuff I have? Because you know, there is a whole creepy-stalker Big Brother factor to this list,” Johnny said, running his finger down the itemization of the contents of his apartment.

“We have our ways,” she said vaguely. Ways that usually involved someone on the Retrieval team breaking and entering. Dieter had accomplished that the day before. But in these modern times, there was an element of technology to the process. “It’s amazing how much of a paper trail we create without being aware of it. I was surprised that you only have a bank card, but it did allow us to trace your purchases for the last several years.” He seemed to spend a large amount of his income on drumsticks and downloaded movies.

“That’s invasive. Illegal. Unethical.”

Lizette was not intimidated by his irritation. “It’s also perhaps the only way you can prove that you are in fact Johnny Malone.”

He gave her a long stare. “You’re one of those logical chicks, aren’t you?”

“I would say so.”

His eyes moved past her to the door, and he frowned. “Who is this douchebag?”

Lizette turned. “Oh, that’s Dieter, my assistant.” She raised her hand in greeting.

Johnny snorted. “Dieter? Perfect name for a tool. What do you need an assistant for anyway?”

Mildly insulted by his assumption that her job was easy, Lizette felt herself frown. “He has his useful qualities. Plus it is less noteworthy for me to be traveling with a man, than as a single woman. Especially in a city full of tourists, like New Orleans. People will simply assume we are a couple.”

“The two of you do not look like a couple.”

Dieter reached her and immediately placed his hand on her back, something he didn’t normally do, and Lizette realized the men were glaring at each other. There was some sort of alpha-male standoff going on. Dieter was larger than Johnny, his German roots giving him broad shoulders and eyes so light they sometimes appeared opaque. There was nothing personal between her and her assistant, nor had he ever indicated interest in such an arena, but at the moment it appeared the men would lock antlers in competition, if they’d had them.

It was rather bizarre, and unnerving. And yet, it was also a teeny bit arousing.

Alarmed at the thought, Lizette leapt to her feet and shifted out of Dieter’s touch and away from Johnny, swiping her list out of his hand. “Excellent. I will see you tomorrow at seven then, at your apartment. It’s been a pleasure. Have a good evening.”

He just gave her an amused smile and a nod. “You, too.”

As she walked out of the bar faster than was strictly normal or appropriate, Dieter ambled along beside her, glancing down at her from his substantial height. “How did it go?”

“Fine,” she said, in a clipped tone.

“That guy was a pig, by the way. His apartment was a disaster.”

“Is that so?” Lizette stared at the sidewalk as she walked, concerned her Louboutin might land in a hole again. It was none of her business really if Johnny Malone was a poor housekeeper. Yet it didn’t surprise her.

“Want to go out dancing on Bourbon Street?” Dieter asked.

Lizette shot him a glance. Dieter was grinning, because he already knew her answer.

“Absolutely not. I would like to do an architectural tour of the area, then perhaps see a film.”

“Then I’ll see you tomorrow night. I’m going to hit the bar scene.”

“Do not be conspicuous.”

“Do not insult me. I know.”

He did. It was their job to blend. Lizette gave him a distracted smile of apology. Dieter went off down the street, and Lizette stood for a second, getting her bearings. If she walked to Bourbon Street, she anticipated she could easily get a cab, but the distance of only two blocks seemed daunting. She would have to reconsider her footwear while on this trip. Even Paris wasn’t as crumbling as New Orleans, though she would never recommend traversing Montmartre in four-inch heels. The air was so warm and humid it felt like it surrounded her, embraced her, and Lizette was curious about the city, and somewhat amazed that it was her first trip there. How was it that her work had taken her to Atlanta, Georgia, but never to New Orleans?

She planned to explore as much as possible while she was here, when she wasn’t attempting to stay professional around Johnny.

Glancing back toward the bar, she realized he had come out and was standing on the street corner, watching her. When he caught her eye, he saluted.

Embarrassed to be standing around like she was uncertain, Lizette gave a half wave and strode off in the direction of Bourbon Street, head up, purse on her shoulder, determined to look professional. Only to let out a shriek when she walked over a grate and her skirt blew up, exposing her thighs and possibly another thing or two.

It was not an auspicious beginning to this case.

Chapter Two

IT’S A NICE DAY FOR A DOMME WEDDING

“W
HO
the hell would marry Saxon?” Drake shook his head in disgust as he watched the newly wedded groom chatting merrily with a man in an expensive suit.

Any idle observer would have thought the man in the suit was the groom, not the goofy-looking guy with blond hair poking out all over his head like he’d stuck his finger in a light socket earlier in the day.

“Well, he did marry a dominatrix,” Cort, Drake’s good friend and bandmate, pointed out, taking a sip from a plastic champagne glass filled with something that looked like it had been ladled out of some backwater bayou. Cort grimaced as if it tasted about as good, too. “Besides, is that how the best man should be talking about the groom? Saxon showed you the love. Where’s the love for him, man?”

Drake snorted. “Yeah, he showed me the love all right.” He gave a pointed look down at his best-man attire. Ruffles of linen and lace spilled down his chest and dripped in cascades from his wrists. “I look like Adam Ant, for Christsake.”

Cort sputtered, trying to stifle his amusement, but failed. Miserably.

“I particularly like the pants . . . you can really pull off knee breeches. And shoes with buckles. Although those look a little more leprechaun than pirate,” he said, barely getting the words out before dissolving into an outright chuckle.

“Laugh it up,” Drake muttered, and then automatically lifted a hand to call over the bartender only to drop it back to the bar when he realized all he’d be able to order was a soft drink or some of that god-awful swamp water Cort had. “If Saxon and his whip-wielding bride are going to make me dress like a goddamn pirate, they could at least have some rum for me.”

Cort actually swiped at the tears of amusement dampening his eyes, then after a few more laughs and sniffs, he managed to pull himself together.

“Besides, Saxon likes you better—why didn’t he pick you?” Drake pointed out, which wasn’t totally true. Cort just happened to tolerate Saxon’s “alternative” outlook on the world better than Drake. Saxon didn’t really play favorites. He was a bit like a not particularly bright but sweet puppy. He loved everyone.

“Well, that’s simple. You two have been in the band together longer than I have. Saxon is pretty loyal.”

Yep, definitely just like a puppy.

“Lucky me,” Drake grumbled. “He’s been in the band just as long with Johnny and Wyatt.”

“But would a gangster or a cowboy really make sense for this wedding?” Cort said, looking around at the odd assembly of people as if he were making a valid point.

“Nothing at this wedding makes sense.”

Cort didn’t even try to argue that. “Well, anyway, you know Saxon loves pirates. And I think it’s nice he wanted to take you back to your roots.”

It was Drake’s turn to snort, but not with amusement. “My roots? I was a lord, my friend. Not a lowly gangster like Johnny. Or a dusty, flea-bitten cowboy like Wyatt. I was Lord Hanover. Pristine bloodlines. Royalty.”

“You were a pirate, too, my friend,” Cort pointed out with a smirk. “Turning to a life of pillaging and plundering on the high seas? To avoid the penal colony? Because you were framed by your mistress as a thief? Ring any bells?”

Drake gave his friend a haughty look that only a true aristocrat could manage. “That is not a time I want to relive. Especially dressed like some ridiculous extra who wandered off the set of the
Pirates of the Caribbean
.”

Cort laughed again.

“I think you look rather dashing,” Katie, Cort’s wife and eternal ray of vampiric sunshine, said as she joined them. Cort immediately pulled the petite blonde against his side and kissed her temple.

More bitterness welled up in Drake’s ruffle-covered chest at the sight of their affectionate embrace.

Who needs this lovey-dovey bullshit all the time?
he thought sourly. Sharing an apartment with Cort and Katie, who were also newlyweds—although Drake had long thought their “newly” status had expired months ago—and now being the best man at one of the most ludicrous weddings he’d ever been to was enough to make anyone cranky.

He tugged at his sleeve, and just when he would have ripped off the ruffles oozing from his wrist, Saxon’s new wife, Zelda, approached them.

The bride should be the center of attention on her special day, but this woman was impossible to miss any day. Almost six feet tall in bare feet, she was an absolute Amazon in her six-inch, patent leather, thigh-high boots. Above the boots was an expanse of pale thighs encased in fishnets that disappeared under a micromini leather wedding dress. The skintight skirt cinched into a corseted top, which barely contained high, firm breasts that had probably cost her more than the whole wedding.

Especially given what they must have saved on alcohol,
Drake thought bitterly. But he did almost admire that this woman dared to wear all white. Her hooha might be perilously close to being exposed to the whole reception, but she was going to wear virginal white.

“Hello, guys,” Zelda greeted them with a smile that always made Drake a little nervous. Of course it could be the cat-o’-nine-tails that had also served as her wedding bouquet, which she now absently tapped against her outer thigh. Did Saxon really enjoy whips and chains?

Drake shuddered. That had never been his thing. At all.

Sure, Zelda was hot in a statuesque, unnaturally shapely and intimidating way, but she was definitely not Drake’s style.

Out the corner of his eyes, Drake noticed a curvy brunette hurrying through the courtyard toward the cupcake buffet with a fresh tray of minicakes.

Cupcakes.

Even those irritated Drake. But the woman carrying them, on the other hand, now she was more his style—all sweet looking, with ample curves.
Natural
, ample curves. Soft and warm against him, offering him her sexy little body. Yeah, that was how he liked his women.

Not armed. He looked back to Zelda. That was so not his idea of a dream woman.

Of course, he couldn’t imagine anyone finding Saxon to be her dream man. Especially not as a husband.

Something about the fact that these two—a flaky vampire keyboard player and a gigantic, silicone domme—had managed to find love, depressed Drake almost as much as the lack of liquor.

Weren’t weddings supposed to be uplifting? His gaze returned to the cupcake table, but the curvy woman had disappeared.

“The wedding was beautiful,” Katie told Zelda with her usual generosity.

Zelda beamed, her wide, bloodred smile, making Drake uneasy again. Of course, the bouquet/deadly weapon was still swishing idly at her side.

“I think so,” Zelda said and the two women sank into conversation about decorations and dresses and wedding songs. Funny, even a Pollyanna-like Katie and a sniff-my-boots dominatrix like Zelda could find common ground discussing wedding preparations.

Cort took another sip of his bog water and perused the scene, seemingly quite content with the festivities, if the courtyard could be described as festive. The tables were decorated with bloodred roses arranged in black miniature coffins. Red candles burned everywhere, and the guests looked like a combination of undertakers, the dead, and the crazy-ass dommes who killed them with . . . with things like—Drake’s gaze dropped to Zelda’s bridal whip—things like that. Even the cupcakes were decorated with red frosting, black piping, and small silver handcuffs made out of fondant.

At least that part was apropos. Marriage did mean being shackled to someone else. Until death do you part . . . or until the divorce papers were signed.

Drake scanned the crowd once more, then leaned closer to Cort and muttered “You know you are at a pretty fucked-up shindig when the vampires are the cheeriest ones in attendance. And the least scary.”

Cort chuckled, still looking content to be there.

Drake tried to affect the same collected air, but the lace at his throat itched. And his knee breeches tugged in all the wrong places, and one of his hose was sliding down into his big buckled shoe.

“This sucks.”

“Shh,” Cort hissed, and Drake saw Saxon standing at his elbow.

“Hey, bestie,” the goofy blond greeted him. “Bestie man, that is. How are you digging the pah-tay?”

“I’m dressed as a pirate, where’s my fuckin’ rum?” Drake asked.

In typical Saxon fashion, he was unaffected by Drake’s scowl, or he thought it was a joke. “Dude, I think I have some butter rum Life Savers in my backpack.” He looked around, suddenly appearing very confused. “But dude, I don’t know where my backpack is.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Drake said.

Cort chuckled again.

“So have you tried one of the cupcakes yet? Zelda hired this new caterer who specializes in gourmet cupcakes, and they are supposed to be totally fab.”

“We’re vampires,” Drake pointed out slowly. “Cupcakes aren’t really part of our diet plan anymore.”

“Right,” Saxon nodded, his goofy expression fading to one of serious reflection. “I forgot.”

Then his silly smile returned. “But they are cool to look at, too.”

Drake fought the urge to roll his eyes, and managed to say in a somewhat pleasant voice, “You know, I think I will go check them out now.”

“You totally should,” Saxon said happily.

Drake started to wander away, when Cort snagged his ruffled wrist and stopped him.

“Come on,” Cort whispered, all his earlier humor gone, “try to have fun. This isn’t about you, it’s about Saxon and Zelda.”

Drake sighed. Cort was right, damn him. He could suck it up for one night.

He nodded to Cort and wandered toward the buffet table, which was surrounded by a motley assortment of attendees. But he was focused on locating one person, the cute woman with the serving tray. One reason, she was pretty adorable, and another, if she worked in the kitchen, maybe they had some booze in there. Hell, at this point, he’d take a few swigs of cooking sherry . . . anything to make the rest of this bizarro night tolerable.

But he’d barely reached the buffet when the woman he immediately recognized as the maid of honor approached him.

“Hey there, matey.”

Shit. He had not gotten a good vibe off this chick. She’d been staring at him through the whole ceremony like she was planning on a little maid of honor/best man hookup tonight. Or in her case, more of a tie-up than a hookup. God, he hoped she didn’t have hooks.

He grimaced, but then forced the look into a stiff smile. The willowy woman strode up to him, the twinkly lights decorating the courtyard glinting off her black PVC, fetish bodysuit. This woman, while still tall in her stilettos, wasn’t as Amazonian as Zelda, although there was something just as unnerving about her. Then again, she, too, had a whip as an accessory. Not a cat-o’-nine-tails, just a mere riding crop, but Drake knew that would really sting, especially on bare flesh.

“How are you . . . ?” he said stiffly, drawing a complete blank on her name.

“Obsidian,” she answered.

How the hell had he forgotten that?

“I’m much better now that I’ve found you.” She smiled, glossy red lips curling back over small, sharp-looking teeth.

He shifted away from her. Why was it that he really did find the dommes far more creepy than the undead? Maybe because the undead posed no threat to him . . . chicks with implements of torture . . . that was another story. Pain was so not his thing.

He hesitated, not sure what to say, which gave her the opportunity to make her move. She stepped closer and ran her crop down the length of his arm.

“Have you ever been dominated, pirate?”

Something that felt akin to panic tightened Drake’s chest, and he immediately cast a frantic look around, searching for any escape he could find. As if answering his silent entreaty, the sexy caterer rushed out of the kitchen, carrying a tray of something that looked like bleeding skewered hearts.

“Sorry,” he said with a quick raise of his hand to Obsidian to halt her line of questioning, not to mention to get the riding crop away from him. Then he reached out to the curvy caterer, catching her free arm.

“Cupcake,” he said sweetly. “You are working so hard. Surely you have time to steal a moment with your beloved seaman.”

And before he thought better of it, he kissed the shapely stranger.

* * *

THIS WEDDING WAS
in the bag. Josie Lynn Thibodaux felt confident about that. Creating a successful catering company was at least 75 percent word of mouth, and she needed this bride and groom to have nothing but complimentary things to say about her food, her service, and her staff. Okay,
staff
was a generous word. Her staff was herself and two college kids who she could only afford to pay minimum wage at the moment.

All the more reason why she needed to hustle.

So being grabbed by one of the wedding guests and kissed was not part of the professionalism she was hoping desperately to portray. Not to mention, the surprise lip-lock caused her to lose her balance on the tray of sashimi tuna sculpted in the shape of hearts and skewered with stalks of rosemary and topped with a roasted red pepper and sundried tomato puree—one of the gothic-themed appetizers she was particularly proud of.

She registered the metal tray clattering to the ground, but she was still too shocked to pull away. The lips moving over hers seemed to hold her immobile and she was powerless to break away.

But finally good sense kicked in, and she shoved at the man holding her. She looked up into a pair of intense, dark eyes and was lost again. Wow, he was good-looking. Like ridiculously good-looking.

Once more, common sense took effect when she noticed several of the guests staring in her direction. All the dazed desire clouding her thoughts disappeared, replaced by much more distinct irritation.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

The man, who she now saw was dressed as a pirate—
damn, this is an odd wedding even by New Orleans standards
—smiled. A roguish smile that suited his attire.

“I’m sorry to catch you off guard, cupcake,” he cajoled. “But I couldn’t resist a quick moment with my lady.”