“Just like that?” My voice sounded small and hurt. My fantasy Marlboro Man, all studly and strong and beyond reproach was just that: a fantasy.
Dan snorted. “I’d never even gotten so much as a speeding ticket before in my life. Can you imagine?”
“Wow.”
He studied my face and nodded, as if confirming something to himself. “Not much to say about it, is there?” He drew himself up. “It was a horrible thing I did, something I’ve never forgiven myself for. I went to the police and turned myself in that very night, told them where to find the body. I would have done anything to take it back.”
I licked my lips, unsure how to treat Dan now after his stunning confession. “Have you ever run into him down here? The man you killed?”
Dan shook his head. “He either haunts some other place or didn’t become like us. Sometimes I wish he’d stuck around just so he could kick my ass.”
We endured several moments of awkward silence. I didn’t know what to say to Dan. He’d killed somebody.
Okay, the agent had tried to blackmail him. Threatened to take away his livelihood. Tried to ruin him.
But Dan had done even worse, had ended the man’s life.
On the other hand, my Marlboro Man had been so nice to me, taken care of me when I was lost and scared.
But he’d killed somebody.
As my interior debate raged, Dan shuffled. “It’s getting late. We should get over to the King George Hotel.”
I was grateful for a change in subject. I so didn’t want to think about Dan being a murderer. “The King George is here?”
“It’s where all the important stuff happens for paras. That’s where Tristan holds court, so to speak.”
He tucked my arm into his, and I had to fight to keep myself from pulling away. Dan would never hurt me. To cover my sudden stab of fear I said, “The King George was by the waterfront. That’s going to be a bit of a walk.”
“Teleporting is faster.”
“Like how you brought me from the woods to the library. And how Tristan left us.” Could I do that, I wondered?
Dan relaxed a little now that we weren’t discussing his past. “Would you like a lesson? You know the library now, so we can jump there first. Then I’ll take you to the hotel.”
“Okay.” A rush of anticipation made me smile. How cool to just zap wherever you wanted whenever you wanted. I was psyched for this.
“I’m going to hold tight to you. That way if you go off course, you’ll take me with you.” He brushed a lock of my hair from my forehead, and instead of thinking of him taking another man’s life, I thought of him taking me so deliciously in the library.
Well, he did say the agent threatened his family. Who wouldn’t lose it just a little with that kind of pressure?
Murder is not ‘losing it just a little’.
Dan was still talking, and I shut down my internal argument. He said, “We can’t be misplacing our one and only witness to the Ripper, so don’t let go of me. Tristan will have my head.”
I snuggled close to him. Tristan trusted Dan. He didn’t strike me as a man who chose his associates without care. I’d have to ask him about Dan’s conviction.
Then again, reports estimated at least ninety percent of all vampires had killed someone at some point in their undeaths. No one knew for sure, because the vampires obviously weren’t going to admit to it. I wondered how many had died at Tristan’s fangs, whether by design or accident.
How do I know Tristan isn’t the Ripper?
Talk about your unwelcome thoughts. Oh boy, maybe I needed to get new friends on this side of death. But I’d always considered myself a good judge of character, and neither Dan nor Tristan rang any alarm bells. Wouldn’t I know it somehow if Tristan was indeed the monster who’d murdered me?
Dan was waiting for me, and I put thoughts of killers aside. “What do I do?”
“Think hard about the library. Remember how it looks, smells, and feels to be there.”
“Okay.” I thought about the library, its musty old book smell and the underlying odor of smoke. I thought about how hard the table had been beneath me while Dan took me. How muscular and exciting his body was, how bad I had wanted it from the moment we’d met in the woods. He’d been my strong and true Marlboro Man, saving me from those woods where my body lay on the straw-covered ground, bloated and bloodless.
Dan said, “When you have your location, reach for it with your mind, and make yourself go there in your head.”
I ‘reached’, still thinking about how he’d smiled so gently, held me so carefully, calmed my fears when he’d found me. Could a good man commit murder? Was that a possibility?