One Lucky Vampire(38)
“You didn’t need me anymore. I couldn’t be your daytime V.P. and you already had a nighttime one.”
“We could have worked something out, Stephano. Besides, you can work during the day, you just need to take in more blood.”
“Yeah. Like that was going to happen,” Jake said wryly, but frowned as he realized he hadn’t fed since meeting with Marguerite yesterday. He’d intended to have a refrigerator and blood delivered to the house to keep in his room while on this case, but hadn’t got to that yet . . . and he was kind of hungry.
Pushing that worry away for now, he said, “Look, I’m sorry to call out of the blue, but I need Jackie’s help.”
“Jackie?” Vincent asked with surprise.
“Who is it?” Jackie asked in the background. “Is it for me?”
“Hang on, babe,” Vincent said, his muffled voice suggesting he’d covered the phone with his hand. Voice clear again, he asked Jake, “What’s up?”
“I’m a bodyguard now,” Jake said in case Vincent wasn’t as well informed as Marguerite.
“Yeah?” Vincent asked with interest. “That sounds cool. How do you like it?”
“It’s a lot less exciting than it sounds,” Jake said wryly.
“Yeah. So is detective work,” Vincent said on a disappointed sigh. “Bloody boring most of the time. A lot of sitting around, watching and waiting.”
“So is being a bodyguard,” Jake assured him.
“Man, what’s up with that?” Vincent asked with disgust. “I watched a lot of shows to train for helping Jackie with her cases; Castle, The Closer, Criminal Minds, even old Magnum P.I. Not one of them had the hero sitting around twiddling his thumbs and—hey, cut it out, I’m on the phone here, woman.” There were the muffled sounds of what might have been a short wrestling session and then Vincent said, “Sorry, Steph. So what can we do for you?”
“I’m guarding a woman in Ottawa and I need you guys to look into her soon to be ex-husband, find out what he’s into,” Jake explained, turning his cart into the next aisle and moving to examine the different pastas. Why did they make them in so many shapes and sizes? Was one size or shape tastier than another? He frowned over the problem.
“Right. What’s his name?” Vincent asked.
“Rodolfo Rossi,” Jake answered, tossing several types of pasta into the cart with his free hand. Better to be safe than sorry. He wouldn’t want to buy spaghetti and have a recipe call for those little bow tie type things.
“Rodolfo Rossi,” Vincent repeated. “Jackie’s writing it down. How do you spell it?”
Jake rattled off the spelling as he pushed the cart up to the sauces, adding, “He’s presently married to Nicole Phillips, but the divorce will be final in less than two weeks.”
“Okay. We’ll look into him,” Vincent assured him, and then paused briefly before asking, “You okay?”
Now it was Jake’s turn to pause. He considered the question seriously. He’d been pretty messed up after the turn, and definitely less than grateful to Vincent for saving his life and using his one turn to do it. He didn’t think he’d ever even thanked the man for what he’d done. Sighing, he stopped walking and said solemnly, “Much better. Thank you. And thank you for what you did, Vincent. I do appreciate it and I’m sorry I was such an ungrateful prick at the time.”
“Yeah, you were kind of a prick,” Vincent agreed with amusement and then gave a startled, “Ow! Hey, that’s husband beating!” that suggested Jackie had smacked him for the prick comment. Heaving a sigh, Vincent said, “Look, no problem. I understood it wasn’t your choice and that you needed time to deal with it. I’m just glad you’re doing better now.”
“Thanks,” Jake said smiling faintly. “I’ll let you two go now. I need to get back to work anyway.”
“Okay. Is this the number we can reach you at?” Vincent asked.
“Yeah,” Jake said.
“Okay. Later, Stephano.”
“Bye Stephano!” Jackie called.
“Bye guys,” Jake said, not correcting them on the Stephano bit. It was his name after all.
“Oh,” Nicole said, glancing down at her phone when it dinged to announce she had a text message. Jake was at the checkout. “I have to go.”
“Nancy’s done his shopping, is he?” Dan asked with obvious amusement.
“Jake,” she corrected dryly, though she knew he knew the name wasn’t Nancy. Dan had seemed to find the whole male cook/housekeeper thing a real hoot from the moment she’d explained about Jake.