Kiss of the Vampire(29)

A minute later, they left the home of the late Mr. Pickett’s business partner and walked back to their cars.

“Well, that was fun.” Dante tucked his notebook away. “And unproductive. What happened to ‘vampire to vampire should go better’?”

Tobias frowned. “He’s scared.”

“Yeah, obviously.” Nix stopped behind her car and looked at her colleagues. Both men had slipped on sunglasses, both wore jeans with suit coats, both had on button-down shirts with no ties. Both were tall, dark, and handsome. And while she had no doubt that Dante was formidable in a fight, Tobias was dangerous. You could feel it, perhaps partly from the pheromones that all vampires released to help subdue their prey. Whatever it was, Tobias had mastered it.

“I don’t think he knew a thing,” Dante murmured. “He was too nervous to lie convincingly.” He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I got online while we were in there and was able to verify his alibi at the time of Pickett’s death, though. Loren was at a party that got kind of wild. It was caught on tape and posted online. I saw him. It wasn’t pretty.” He pulled his phone out and punched a few buttons, then turned the phone around to show them the video. When it ended he sighed and shook his head. “Chances are he wasn’t involved with Amarinda’s death, either.”

Pickett’s business partner hadn’t turned his back on them once, and, if he’d been human, he’d have been sweating like a horse. Nix agreed with Dante. The vamp hadn’t known anything, and maybe that was what scared him the most because for all he knew he could be next.

“From a purely materialistic point of view, it sure pays to be a vampire,” Dante added dryly as he replaced his phone in its holder on his belt.

Nix glanced back at the multimillion-dollar home they’d just exited. The house had to be at least ten thousand square feet, with lots of glass. “You can accumulate a lot of wealth over several centuries. It’s easy to save money when you don’t have to buy food, right, Tobias?”

He shrugged. Nix could see the lines fanning out from the corners of his eyes and knew he was squinting behind the sunglasses. Like most vamps his age, Tobias could spend time outside during daylight hours without any damage, but his eyes were still very sensitive to bright light. “Don’t look at me,” he said as he pressed the remote to unlock his Jag. “I’m not into material things.”

“Uh-huh.” Nix opened her car door. “Just how many cars do you have?”

His brows dipped. “Just this one and the SUV.”

She shared a wry glance with Dante. Leaving it alone for the moment, she asked, “So, where do we go from here?”

“There’s a woman who went to school with Amarinda, a fellow astronomical sciences student…” Dante skimmed through his notes, his index finger tracking along his writing. “Samantha Smith.” He looked up, his gaze going from Nix to Tobias. “She’s up from Tucson for a long weekend with her family in Chandler.”

“All right, let’s do this.” Tobias opened his car door and rested one arm along the roof of the low-slung auto. “Nix, you go on home. I’ll stop at my house and get the SUV, and then we’ll swing by and pick you up. It doesn’t make sense for us to be driving different vehicles.”

Nix didn’t want to spend any time cooped up with Tobias, even if Dante were going to be there. She was already feeling jittery and knew it was just going to get worse the longer she was exposed to him. And those damned pheromones he just kept spewing her way. She opened her mouth to argue but Dante cut her off with “Good idea. My truck will be fine at the restaurant.”

She’d just look silly arguing the point, so she mumbled, “Whatever,” and got into her car. She started it up and pulled away from the curb, making a U-turn to head back the way she’d come. Stopping next to Tobias, she rolled down her window. Figuring it would take him ten minutes to get back to his house, and at least another ten to get to hers once he switched cars, she said, “I’ll see you in about twenty minutes.” Without waiting for him to respond, she drove away. Maybe if she got home quickly enough she could take a few minutes to do an abbreviated tai chi workout. It certainly wouldn’t hurt, anyway.

Eight minutes and probably at least one land speed record later, she screeched into her parking spot and jumped out of the car. If she went inside Rufus would demand to be taken out and she didn’t have time for that. But she didn’t want Tobias or Dante catching her doing a workout, either. As a compromise, she went around the corner of the building and stood on a patch of grass in the landscaped portion in the middle of the apartment complex. She brought her hands slowly down and to the side, waving them back and forth and focusing on her breathing. Inhale. Exhale. Slow, steady. In, out. Even movements, even breaths.