When He Was Bad (16 page)

An animal.
Women like her don’t go for animals.
The vampire had been right about that one.

“I didn’t imagine it, did I?” Not as much hesitation now, more determination. “Your eyes—they glowed. Your teeth were sharper.” She reached for his hand, fumbled a bit, then caught his fingers. “And you—you had claws.”

The shock had worn off. While he’d been lusting, she’d obviously been in there replaying the whole night and coming to the conclusion that he—

She released his hand. “You’re not a human, are you, Cain Lawson?”

No sense in lying. He stared up at her and let the beast glow from his eyes. “No, baby, I’m not.”

“Miranda, honey, there’s, uh, something you need to know.” Sam Michaels stared at her with a worried, slightly hangdog look on his face that immediately had her shifting uncomfortably in the worn leather chair.

It was just past eight a.m. on Saturday, and she was truly not in the mood to go around and start learning more things that she
needed
to know. After last night, she’d learned more than enough about the world.

Once Cain had made his confession, and his eyes had started to
glow
, for God’s sake, she’d turned carefully on her heel and walked from his room. Her knees had trembled like crazy and she’d sworn that she’d tasted sawdust on her tongue.

But maybe that had just been fear.

She’d locked her bedroom door. Then lodged the desk chair under the doorknob.

Cain hadn’t so much as tried to follow her.

And when she’d woken up and her gaze had fallen on that chair, she’d felt a flash of shame.

The man had saved her life. He deserved better than for her to run from him and hide.

“Uh, Miranda? You listening to me?”

She shook her head because, no, she had no idea what Sam had just been muttering about. Cain was in the lobby of the sheriff’s station, pacing like a caged animal, and she wanted to go to him.

And apologize.

So the guy wasn’t human. She wasn’t perfect, either. And—

“Paul Roberts is dead.”

Now
she was listening to him. “What? What happened? Did one of the deputies—”

A long, hard sigh. “He died five years ago. Killed in some kind of animal attack.” He leaned forward in his desk chair.

“That’s not possible, he’s—”
A vampire.
Wait. Vampires were dead. No, undead. Cain had said that. He’d said—

“Good thing the bastard’s dead, too,” Sam continued, scratching the top of his head. “The guy had a rap sheet a mile long and a serious appetite for hurting women.” His brows beetled. “He liked to cut ’em.”

She could certainly pick winners.

“I don’t know who that guy really was last night, but he was
not
Paul Roberts.”

Was that supposed to make her feel better? Miranda’s feet dug into the worn carpet. “So Paul Roberts, he’s in the system?” The database, whatever the hell the cops and deputies called the computer link that showed all the criminals and their records.

A nod.

“With a picture?” She pressed.

His hands skated across the desk. “I’ve got a picture right here.”

“I want to see it.”

Sam pursed his lips but opened the file and pushed the photo across his desk.

Miranda looked down and saw the face of the man who’d bitten her the night before. Blue eyes. Long, straight nose. High cheekbones. Chin that was a little weak. Dark hair a bit longer than it was now, but—

Definitely the same man. “Could you, um, could you call Cain in here, please?”

“Ah, sure.” He pressed a button on the phone and asked the clerk out front to show Cain inside.

They were sitting in the sheriff’s office. Sheriff McMillan was out of town. He’d gone fishing in Biloxi, and since Sam was the undersheriff, the second-highest officer in Melvin County, he was holding down the fort.

Less than a minute later, Cain marched inside. Miranda felt the lancing heat of his stare. She looked up and met his look directly. “Paul Roberts is dead.”

He didn’t look particularly surprised.

“According to Sam, he’s been in the grave the past five years.”

Again, no surprise. Not so much as a flicker of an eyelash.

Sam said, “Miranda’s told me she met this guy on the Internet—”

Now one black eyebrow did lift.

“—she never saw his ID, so it’s safe to say the guy gave her a false name. And the SUV we towed from her place, well, it had been stolen two days before, so we got no help on ID from that end.”

She lifted up the photo. “Want to see the real Paul Roberts?” Her fingers shook just a bit.

He took the photo. Scanned it. Glanced back at her. Waited.

“Interesting, huh?” she whispered.

“Very.” He dropped the photo onto the desk.

Sam cleared his throat. “I actually think that Miranda got very, very lucky last night.”

Her focus jumped to him. “What do you mean?” Yeah, she felt damn lucky the bastard hadn’t drained her dry but—

“Three women in Florida have been murdered over the last three months. All with their throats slit.” A pause and his expression tensed. “And all the women told their friends they’d recently met a ‘Paul’ online.”

Chill bumps rose on Miranda’s arms. “Are you telling me the guy I was out with last night is some kind of-of—”

He held up his hands. Glanced from her to a silent Cain. “All I’m saying is the situation fits the MO. I’m gonna be calling the FBI later today, briefing them on what happened. But, to me, well, like I said, I feel like you got damn lucky.”

The phone on the desk rang with a shrill cry. Sam frowned and picked it up. “Michaels. What? Hell. Yeah, yeah, I’ll be right there.” He slammed down the receiver. “Jack Thompson pulled another all-night drinking binge and just tried to break into his ex-wife’s house. He’s pissed and disorderly as hell. I got to help the boys process ’im.”

Miranda nodded, feeling more than a little numb.

“I’ll be right back.” He stalked from the room.

She rose to her feet, lifted her chin, and walked closer to Cain. “About last night—”

“Forget it,” he snapped, and a muscle flexed along his jaw. “We’ve got more important matters to deal with now. So you think I’m some kind of freak—”

She caught his hand. “I—I don’t.”

His nostrils flared and she saw his pupils dilate. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. When you touch me, it makes the thing inside me hungry.”

He was trying to scare her. But from the sound of things, she’d almost been prey to a vampire serial killer, and Cain was probably the only reason she’d escaped.

Her fingers tightened around him. “I shouldn’t have left you last night.”

“If you hadn’t, I’d have taken you.” Stark. Predatory.

Her heart did a hard thud against her chest.

“I want you, Miranda Shaw, and I’m not one of your human men. Don’t make the mistake of thinking I am. I don’t play by their rules, and when I want something, I reach out”—his left hand lifted, caught her chin—“and I take it.”

He wasn’t dealing with the same woman he’d faced last night. She’d been at the end of her rope then. So his words now didn’t scare her.

But they did turn her on.

“I didn’t know how you felt.” He’d given no indication of his attraction before. She hadn’t even realized he’d wanted her until his lips had been on hers and she’d felt the heavy length of his erection pressing against her.

Hard to mistake those signs.

“Now you do.”

Yes. “Cain, I—”

He exhaled and stepped away from her, muttering, “Damn but you smell too sweet.”

That was good, right? Or was it—

She wanted to catch his hand again. To touch him. But time was running out, and though she wanted to make amends to him, now, well,
now
she needed his help.

Before Sam returned.

“The man last night,” she began.

“The
vampire
,” he corrected, voice sardonic.

“Fine. Whatever. That guy, he’s a killer.”

His head moved in the faintest of agreements.

“Sam isn’t going to believe me if I tell him the truth about what happened.”

“Humans rarely understand just what the word ‘truth’ means.”

Not the most helpful of answers. She sighed. Miranda knew she couldn’t just walk away from this case now. And she knew that he was the one with the creature-feature knowledge. “What do we do?”

Three women. Three months. She would have been victim number four. And she didn’t believe for a moment that Paul Roberts was just going to walk off into the sunset and never kill again.

Last night the devil had been in his eyes, and evil that strong didn’t just stop its blood quest.

She couldn’t stand by and wait while another woman was killed. “We can’t let this guy get away,” she said, when he didn’t speak. “There has to be a way to stop him.”

He laughed, the sound too hard. “Ah, baby, let me clue you in to a few facts.”

She bit back the sharp retort that sprang to her lips.

Cain jerked his head toward the closed door. “I’d say, in less than five minutes, a team of suits will be arriving at the station. Your Sam won’t have to contact the FBI, they’ll have monitored the call systems for this station—they do that for all the offices—and they’ll know what happened.”

Her palms were sweating. “They’ll go after Paul?”

“They go after killers like him every day.” A shrug. “Sometimes they catch them—well, they catch the human psychos—and sometimes, when the killer is…different, like your friend Paul, well, then they are pretty much just shit out of luck.”

“So you’re telling me this jerk is going to get away?” And get to keep killing?

He shook his head. “I’m telling you, the boys and girls in the suits are going to lock you up for the next few weeks—”

“
What?
” She was the victim, not—

“Sam isn’t as clueless as he appears. I think he was right about the killings, and the FBI will, too. Hell, there have probably been more murders, scattered around the country. No way has our vamp been playing nice the last few years. The agents, they’ll want to keep you safe until they’re sure Paul isn’t coming after you again.”

Now that gave her pause. “Will he?”

He didn’t answer, but Miranda supposed his silence actually
was
an answer. Oh, damn.

“Go with them. They’ll keep you safe, and Paul—”

“Will what? Move on to another victim?” She’d be all safe and protected by the Bureau while some other poor woman had her throat ripped open by razor-sharp fangs. No, that didn’t sound fair. Not at all.

Her chin lifted. “Why can’t they catch him?”

“Because vampires are damn strong, far stronger than humans. And bullets, well, they can wound vamps—not kill ’em—and usually they only serve to piss off his kind.”

Cain sure seemed to know what he was talking about. Both with the vampire and with the FBI.

“I can’t let him hurt anyone else,” she whispered.

His eyes narrowed. “You might not have a choice on that, baby.”

“There’s always a choice.”

“Don’t be too—Shit.” He stiffened. “They’re here.”

How did he know? What was—

His lips hitched into a half-smile. “Stop applying human rules to me, Miranda. I heard ’em when they entered the building.”

Superhearing, check. She’d have to remember that little perk.

And she’d have to find out just what, exactly, Cain was. Not a vampire, there was too much hate in his voice when he talked about the undead.

Cain didn’t particularly seem the self-hating type.

“They’ll take care of you,” he said, “just—”

“I’m not going with them.” No way was she going to disappear with a bunch of strangers. Her summer vacation had just started last week, and she wasn’t about to lose her carefully ordered life because of one nightmarish evening.

“Choices, remember?” she said softly. She was about to make hers, but she needed him. “Help me, Cain. I know you can. You know about vampires. How they’re strong, how they’re weak.” They had to have some kind of weakness, right? “We can do something, I don’t know, go after him. Stop that bastard from hurting anyone else.”

His eyes narrowed. “You’d risk yourself?”

“I—”

The door was pushed open.

“Look, dammit, I said you can’t go in there! I don’t care who you are—” Sam’s voice blared angrily.

Two men in immaculate black suits stepped over the threshold. One was darkly tanned, short, and stocky, with a long scar bisecting his left eyebrow and sliding down his cheek. The other guy was about average height, pale, with a thin, slightly haggard face.

When he caught sight of Cain, the scarred fellow seemed to stiffen. But his partner directed all of his attention to Miranda, saying, “Ms. Shaw, I’m Donovan Delaney from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It’s come to our attention that you’ve been the victim of—”

“Cut it, Donovan Delaney,” Cain said, rolling his shoulders. “She’s not in the mood to hide.”

The scarred guy cursed softly. “One of yours, is she, Lawson?”

This guy knew Cain?

That same twisted smile was on his lips as he glanced her way and said, “Miranda, baby, did I happen to mention that I just recently, ah, retired from the good old FBI?”

Uh, no, he’d forgotten that lovely little tidbit. “You retired? What are you, thirty-five?”

Cain’s lips twisted in a brief glimmer of amusement. “Just about, and it wasn’t your typical retirement.” His stare returned to the men and the amusement vanished. “And yeah, for the record, she’s most definitely
mine.
She’s not your bait. Not your hostage. If we work this case, we work with
my
rules, and we make Miranda’s life the priority.”

Okay. So he was talking like he was the boss and damn if the scarred agent wasn’t nodding his head in
agreement
while Sam stared at Cain with widening eyes.

“We’re gonna have to get the okay from above,” the shorter guy stopped nodding long enough to say. “It’s gonna be shit with paperwork because you pulled out already—”

“Make the calls, Santiago. This case is
mine.
”

Delaney swallowed a few times, glanced back and forth between the guy identified as Santiago and Cain, then muttered, “Look, buddy, you might have worked the crimes before but—”

“You’re not point on this one,” Santiago said softly. “And trust me, kid, you’re playing out of your league if Lawson’s already involved.”

Delaney flushed.

“You’ll be backup here,” Santiago told the guy. “Cain and I will be lead.”

Ah, so he was the senior agent. Miranda was trying to follow things but she still felt like she’d stepped into the Twilight Zone.

“You’re not going to get approval for—”

“I’ll get approval.” Santiago’s lips thinned. “Wish I wouldn’t, but I will.”