“Your relationship to Mr. Fairfield, miss?”
Emerson blinked quickly and even from across the hall—and by way of my super-vamp sense—I could hear her heartbeat speed up, could hear the sharpness of the shallow breath she sucked in. I crossed my arms in front of my chest, watching, as Emerson licked her lips.
“He was a designer like myself.”
“And you all three live here in this complex? Is it, like, some sort of shared housing or artist co-op or something?”
I watched Emerson’s head swing from side to side, her straw hair brushing her shoulders. “We’re the three finalists in a design competition.” She bit her bottom lip, her eyes flashing and catching mine. “Well, we were.”
“So you’re competitors?” Hopkins tapped the end of his pen against Emerson’s doorframe, the rhythmic tap like a heartbeat. “Was there a lot of stress at this competition? Was Mr. Fairfield not doing well?”
Emerson straightened up, her hands going to the doorframe and gripping. I caught the smallest scent of sweat on the air.
Emerson was nervous.
“The competition hadn’t really started yet. I don’t see why Reginald would have been—would have thought he wasn’t doing well. Maybe Felipe knows more.” Emerson’s eyes crested over Hopkins’s head and she looked at me. “Or maybe Nina knows something.” She glanced at her non-ironic Swatch watch and shifted her weight. “Are we through now? I’ve got to work on my designs.”
Emerson left Hopkins standing in the doorway. He turned on his heel and we were eye to eye—me, standing in my apartment, door flung wide open, spying, and him, narrow-eyed, chewing on the end of his pen. He beckoned for me to come into the hallway.
“Can I help you?”
“Miss LaShay,” he said, shifting his weight in what I was guessing he thought was some sort of imposing manner. “Is there a reason you didn’t mention that you and Mr. Fairfield were direct competitors in this competition?”
I snaked my arms in front of my chest and mirrored Officer Hopkins’s narrow-eyed glare. “I didn’t think it was necessary information.”
“Might have given someone the motive to harm Fairfield, don’t you think?”
“I would think, had he not hung himself.”
Hopkins shot me a slow, appraising gaze. “Just make sure you don’t leave the county, all right? I might have some additional questions for you.”
Something about the way Hopkins kept his watery eyes fixed on me gave me a slight chill. I had every intention of escorting him right out of my apartment until he checked his smartphone, scanned the room, and asked, “Felipe DeLaCruz?”
Felipe turned and raised a small hand. “I am Felipe.”
Hopkins paused then, his flat-balloon face breaking into what passed as a smile. “Pike! Didn’t expect to see you here.”
Hopkins and Pike did that awkward, manly handshake-to-semi-hug kind of thing and I felt my mouth drop open. I made a beeline for them.
“You two know each other?” I hissed.
“Pike does some photography work for us on occasion.” Hopkins raised his eyebrows toward Pike. “Is that why you’re here now?”
“Actually, I was hired by the magazine to shoot the designers.”
Hopkins’s eyes showed a flash of interest. “So you knew the dec—”
I shot a glance over my shoulder and nudged Hopkins and Pike out of the living room, out of Felipe’s direct line of sight.
“Can you not throw around words like deceased and decedent in front of Felipe? That man just lost the man he loved. Can’t you be a little more sensitive?”
The sentence bobbed around in my head and my spine stiffened. My breather roommate was constantly telling me to “be a little more sensitive.” She was usually the one inundated with dead bodies and detectives.
Guess things were starting to rub off.
Hopkins blew out a long sigh and I made a mental note to drop an inhaler off at the police station—the man obviously had breathing issues. Either that or someone along the line told him that sharp breaths were the way to throw a suspect off. I would have laughed, had I not had the sneaking suspicion that I was going to be one of his “suspects.”
“Mr. DeLaCruz?” Hopkins said, edging his way back toward the living room.
I fixed him with a stare, not entirely sure what I was trying to convey. I was angry, suspicious, sad for Felipe’s loss—and, strangely, a little scared.
“So you and Hopkins, huh?”
Pike broke out into a smile that looked wildly inappropriate amongst the background of crumpled tissues and crime scene techs, but it shot a bolt of fire through me just the same.
“Me and Hopkins? It’s not like we were dating or anything. I just bump into him on occasion.”
I nodded.
“So,” Pike said as he followed me into the kitchen, inclining his head, eyes jutting to Felipe and the officer. “What do you think that’s all about?”
“Probably just routine,” I said, suddenly feeling the need to put space between us. “Can I get you something to eat?” I asked him, wishing to God he’d say no since the entirety of my refrigerator’s contents were six O negative blood bags and sixteen varying shades of OPI nail polish.
“No, I’m cool. So what did Hopkins want with you?”
I spun, my body suddenly colder than normal. “He wanted to know what he should buy you for your birthday.”
Pike scrunched his brow and I rolled my eyes.
“Hopkins didn’t want anything with me.”
Pike gestured toward the hall. “You guys were talking for quite a while.”
I pinched my bottom lip, scanning Pike from tip to tail. He was gorgeous, there was no doubt about that. But, could I trust him?
The last time I trusted a good-looking man, he sucked away my blood and my soul. I had learned my lesson.
“It was nothing. He just had some basic questions.” I shrugged, still feeling uneasy.
I peered over Pike’s shoulder to see Felipe on the couch, head in his hands, index fingers pressed against his temples. Hopkins sat across from him, that stupid pen poised over his little leather notepad.
“No one would want to hurt my Reggie,” Felipe moaned. “He was such a gentle soul.”
“Why is Hopkins treating Reginald’s suicide like it was a murder?” I whispered.
Pike shrugged, his gaze following mine. “Maybe there is more to it than we saw.”
By the time Hopkins had grilled us all and the crime scene and cop brigade had left the building, my body was humming. I could still smell Pike in my apartment, his coconut scent just hanging in the air. But there was something else, too—and having spent enough time with it I couldn’t deny it: the stench of death was heavy in the air.
I leaned against my window, watching the taxicabs honking and tourists walking on the street below, watching people going about their everyday lives in the twilight. They moved in sort of an organized chaos, completely unaware that just a few hundred feet away a life had ended and another had changed completely.
I remembered the last breath of life as it seeped out of me. My body fought to hold tight to it and I felt like my insides were burning. But the handsome stranger—his arms—were tight around me and somehow I still felt safe, willing the life to drip out of me as I licked the droplets of blood on his neck. I needed them. The thirst was overwhelming. I was changing; I was becoming someone—something—else, and all around me life went on. My parents sat in the parlor; my siblings, fast asleep in their beds. And I was outside, dying, living, changing, becoming.
An immense sadness washed over me.
I flopped onto my couch and pressed my fingertips to my temples. I didn’t have a headache—it’s physiologically impossible for a vampire to have a headache—but I could almost swear it was on its way.
That’s why I jumped a foot and a half when the goddamn black bird that had taken up residence outside my front window started squawking like the disease-infested winged rodent that it was. I rolled last week’s copy of US Weekly into a narrow tube, flattened myself against the wall, then slammed the magazine against the glass, willing the stupid bird to exit once and for all. I didn’t have the nerve to look.
It’s not that I’m afraid of birds. Hello? I’m a vampire. I’m afraid of nothing! Except maybe sunlight, shoulder pads, and the very real idea that neon and side ponytails are coming back into fashion. But birds? No. They just disgust me. With their beady eyes and their mean, pointy beaks, and those wings. Disease is carried on those wings, I just know it. So the fact that this, this—monster—had the gall to pace my windowsill on a very regular basis, squawking and clawing and generally just making a nuisance of itself, bothered me to no end.
Seriously, I was considering renting a cat.
When a good minute—a silent, non–wing-beating or squawking minute—passed, I took a two-inch step forward and peered around the window molding, an indescribable relief washing over me when all I saw beyond the clear window glass were a few cabs inching along the street and a woman berating a parking meter.