Insatiable

“Well, that’s good,” Meena said to the center of his chest, since she couldn’t seem to

raise her gaze any higher than that. “Since it’s all I seem to be able to do around you. See you

tonight?”

“Don’t forget your coat.”

He got it for her from the closet, helped her into it, then walked her to the elevator—it

was the kind that came straight up into the apartment. When it arrived, he caught her up around

the waist again and pulled her against him, then kissed her deeply, not seeming to mind that

she must have tasted of toast and coffee.

“Seven thirty,” he said when he released her. “Don’t be late.”

He smiled as she wandered onto the elevator like a woman in a daze. Jack Bauer,

however, strutted stiff-legged onto it, clearly delighted at seeing what he thought to be the last

of Lucien Antonescu. The dog turned and gave him a parting warning yip.

“And the same to you, my friend,” Lucien said just as the doors shut.

Meena, alone in the elevator, watched as the numbers above her sank lower and lower.

With each one, she felt, sanity returned. When the doors finally opened to the lobby and she

and Jack Bauer stepped out of the luxury building’s entrance and into the sunshine of the

bright spring day, reality finally sank in.

And with it, the full impact of what she had just done.

Chapter Thirty

9:30 A.M . EST, Friday, April 16

Peninsula Hotel

New York, New York

A laric swam a hundred laps every morning, freestyle, before breakfast. He might switch

to the backstroke if there was anyone of the attractive female variety lounging at the side of the

pool.

But with the Peninsula hosting a national conference for designers and salespeople of

dental implants, that was most decidedly not the case.

Alaric was on his one hundred and eighty-eighth lap (the pool at the Peninsula was

smaller than Alaric was used to, so he’d had to increase his number of laps) when a hand

erupted through the crystal-blue water and seized his head.

Alaric’s usual lightning-fast reaction would have sent the person who’d accosted him

plummeting over his shoulder and into the pool if he hadn’t looked up at the last minute and

realized it was his boss.

“Goddamnit, Wulf!” Holtzman thundered as he strode away, looking for a towel with

which to dry his now-soaking-wet arm and shoulder. “Did you have to try to drown me? I was

only trying to get your attention. We’ve got a crisis here, in case you’re too busy enjoying your

luxury accommodations to notice.”

Panting, Alaric clung to the side of the pool. He tried not to show his delight at the fact

that he’d managed to ruin his boss’s incredibly ugly suit jacket.

“What crisis?” he asked. His voice echoed satisfyingly in the glass-enclosed pool atrium.

“Shhh,” Holtzman said. He’d gotten a towel from one of the pool attendants and was

rubbing vigorously at himself. “Not so loud. Someone will hear you.”

Alaric shrugged. There were two or three conference attendees around, but they were

hardly a threat to Palatine Guard business.

“None of them speaks German,” Alaric said in German. “They’re American dentists.”

“Nevertheless,” Holtzman said. He came to the side of the pool where Alaric waited for

him. “There’s been another dead girl found in a park this morning.”

Alaric perked up. “Meena Harper?”

“No, it wasn’t Meena Harper,” Holtzman said. “How could Meena Harper have been

found dead? She was with the prince last night, and the prince is here to stop the murders, not

commit them.”

Alaric, disappointed, shrugged. Not that he would have liked to have seen Meena Harper

dead, of course. She was their only lead to finding the prince, and she was, if he remembered

rightly, quite pretty, in her way.

But her death would have connected his case to the prince.

And then the head office might have let him go after the prince, after all.

“They haven’t identified the dead girl yet,” Holtzman said. He had knelt down by the

side of the pool, careful to avoid any wet spots on the deck, and was speaking out of the side of

his mouth. As if anyone in the pool area might not already realize that Holtzman and Alaric

knew one another. “Just like all the others.”

“Then it might be Meena Harper after all,” Alaric said, thinking a little regretfully of

Meena Harper’s shapely legs and dark hair.

“It isn’t her,” Holtzman said angrily. “I saw a picture of her. The dead girl has long hair.

Meena Harper had short hair. Would you stop with this obsession with Meena Harper?”

“I’m not obsessed with her,” Alaric said. “It’s just that if we’re going to catch the

prince—”

“ We’re not going to do anything,” Holtzman said. “ I’m going to catch him. You’re going

after this killer. I want you to get dressed and go look at passport photos of recent émigrés

fitting this girl’s general age and description to see if you can get a match. They think because

of her dental work that she might be of Eastern European descent, too, like the others.”

“Right,” Alaric said. Waste of time , he thought. “But if I were you, what I would do this

morning is go pay a visit to Meena Harper.”

“Oh, you would, would you?”

“Well, what do you think she and Lucien Antonescu did last night? They didn’t go back

to her place. She knows where the bat is roosting. Find out where that is, and we’ll have him.”

“I have a better idea,” Holtzman said. “I thought I would just pay a visit to Emil and

Mary Lou Antonescu.”

Alaric splashed an enormous wave of water on his boss.

“Stop that!” Holtzman cried, leaping back. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Some of the dental implant salesmen, lounging on nearby chaises, laughed.

“Say one word to the Antonescus, and you’ll have the entire Dracul population of

Manhattan on our heads,” Alaric declared. He was angry now, really angry. First Holtzman

had ruined his swim. And now he was making even more sweeping bureaucratic decisions that

were going to make his job more difficult.

“I don’t know how the prince didn’t see us last night,” Alaric said, “but evidently he

didn’t. I know that because the two of us are still alive, and the Antonescus haven’t moved out

of 910 Park Avenue. You know how I know that, Holtzman? Because I’m still breathing and I

called the building this morning pretending to be the cable repairman asking about a

connection in their apartment. And they’re still there .”

Holtzman stared down at Alaric, his brown-eyed gaze troubled.

“I knew I should have put you on psychological leave,” he said. “You aren’t fit for duty.

You—”

“I’m the best you’ve got, Holtzman,” Alaric said, hauling himself out of the pool. He

reached for the towel his boss had dropped. “I’ll bring your killer in. But more important, I’ll

bring the prince in, too. Just let me do my job without telling me how, for once. No manuals.

No rules. Just dead vampires.”

His boss stared at him. Alaric was not unaware that Holtzman’s gaze had gone to his

lean, well-muscled torso.

And why wouldn’t it? Alaric took good care of himself, working out regularly with

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