Jamie’s tawny, manicured brows knit into a scowl. “What are you saying, you think this guy broke in while you were asleep?”
“Sounds crazy, I know. A police detective coming into my house in the middle of the night to seduce me. I must be losing my mind.”
She said it casually, but this wasn’t the first time she’d questioned the soundness of her own sanity. Not the first time by a long shot. She fidgeted absently with the sleeve of her blouse while Jamie observed her. He was quietly concerned now, which only increased her discomfort with the subject of her possible shaky mental stability.
“Look, hon. You’ve been under a lot of stress since the weekend. That can do strange things to your head. You were upset and confused. You must have forgotten to lock the door.”
“And the dream?”
“Just that—a dream. Just your harried mind trying to tell you to chill out, to relax.”
Gabrielle bobbed her head in an automatic nod of agreement. “Right. I’m sure that’s all it is.”
If only she could accept that the explanation was as reasonable as her friend made it sound. But something in the pit of her stomach rejected the idea that she might have carelessly left her door unlocked. It was something she simply would not do, no matter how stressed out or confused she was.
“Hey.” Jamie reached across the table to clasp her hand. “You’re going to be okay, Gab. And you know you can call me anytime, right? I’m here for you, always will be.”
“Thanks.”
He let her go and picked up his fork to gesture at her frutti de mare. “So, are you going to eat any more of that or can I scavenge it now?”
Gabrielle traded her half-eaten plate of food for his empty one. “It’s all yours.”
As Jamie went to work on her cold meal, Gabrielle leaned her chin on her hand and took a long sip of her wine. As she drank, her fingers moved idly over the faint marks she had found on her neck this morning after her shower. The unlocked front door wasn’t exactly the strangest thing she had discovered, the twin welts below her ear took that prize, no contest.
The small nicks had not been deep enough to break her skin, but they were there. Two of them, evenly spaced, at the place where her pulse beat strongest against her fingertips. At first, she had wondered if she’d scratched herself in her sleep, maybe been swept up in the strange dream she’d had and raked her nails across her skin.
But the marks didn’t look like scratches. They looked like something…else.
Like someone, or something, had nearly taken a bite out of her carotid.
Crazy.
That’s what it was, and she needed to snap herself out of that kind of thinking before she did any further harm to herself. She had to get her head together and stop manufacturing paranoid fantasies about midnight visitors and horror-movie monsters that couldn’t possibly exist in real life. If she wasn’t careful, she might end up like her birth mother…
“Ohmigod, smack me right now because I am a complete and utter dolt,” Jamie exclaimed suddenly, breaking into her thoughts. “I keep forgetting to tell you this! I got a call at the gallery yesterday about your photographs. Some bigwig downtown is interested in a private showing.”
“Seriously? Who is it?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know, sweetie. I didn’t actually talk to the potential buyer, but based on the snooty attitude of the guy’s assistant, I’d say whoever your admirer is, he—or she—is dripping with money. I’ve got an appointment down at one of the buildings in the Financial District tomorrow night. We’re talking penthouse office, darling.”
“Oh, my God,” she gasped, incredulous.
“Uh-huh. Trés cool, girlfriend. Pretty soon you’re gonna be too good for small-time art peddlers like me,” he joked, grinning with shared excitement for her.
It was hard not to be intrigued, especially given everything she had been through the past few days. Gabrielle had achieved a respectable following and had won some very nice accolades for her work, but a private showing for an anonymous buyer was a first.
“Which pieces did they ask you to bring?”
Jamie lifted his wine glass and tipped it at her in mock salute. “All of it, Miss Thang. Every single piece in the collection.”
From the rooftop of an old brick building in the city’s busy theater district, moonlight gleamed off the lethal sneer of a black-clad vampire. Crouched in position near the ledge, the Breed warrior pivoted his dark head, then held out his hand, and gave a covert signal.
Four Rogues. One human prey. Heading straight for them.
Lucan nodded to Dante and stepped off the fifth-floor fire escape that had been his lookout perch for the past half hour. He descended to the street below in one fluid motion, landing quietly as a cat. Dual combat blades were sheathed crisscross on his back and thrust out over his shoulders like the bones of demonic wings. Lucan drew the titanium-edged weapons with barely a hiss of sound as he eased into the shadows of the narrow side street to await the evening’s action.