Hannah Jayne - Under Suspicion

“Ohmigod, you and I live together, Soph! Have you not paid any attention? Me and Dixon? ” she enunciated. “The whole dating thing? It totally didn’t end well.”

“Oh, right. That’s probably because it was all in your head. Nina, he’s our boss. It’s expected that he’d call you. And asking you to collate his copies means just that. The man needs staples.”

Nina narrowed her eyes. “Oh, and I suppose you’re going to tell me that him asking me to boot up his hard drive was completely innocent, too!”

I groaned.

Nina leaned over to gather her coat and enormously gaudy Betsey Johnson bag. “So you never told me. Shopping on Market or Haight?”

“I don’t know. Both. I can’t make a decision.”

Nina raised an eyebrow and grinned salaciously. “Ain’t that the truth?”

I pursed my lips and straightened the already-straight selection of Post-it notes and general office tchotchkes on my desk. “Bite me.”

Nina dumped herself into my office chair again and lolled back. She kicked her Via Spiga booties up on my desk, crossing her ankles. “Hey, I’m not judging. If I had two hot otherworldly creatures ready to duke it out to save my afterlife”—and here she splayed a single pale hand against her chest—“I’d do my damndest to keep them both around, too.”

She swung out the nail file again. “So about that shopping trip ...”

I gathered a few files from my cabinet. “Give me a half hour and I promise to be your couture mule all the way through San Francisco. Deal?”

Nina cocked her head, her long, newly colored sunshine-blond hair swishing to her elbow. “Deal.”

I poked my head into the outer office, where I used to sit (back in the Pete Sampson–werewolf-boss days), and mustered up my most harmless human smile for the vampire sitting at the front desk. He was heavily interested in whatever Cosmo had to say, but I saw his nostril twitch. When I sucked in a breath, he stiffened.

I am pretty well used to living a vampire-filled life, but having coworkers who could smell me at fifty paces is still a little unnerving.

“Hey, Eldridge.”

Eldridge Hale raised his perfectly manicured eyebrows—mine looked like mating caterpillars most often—followed by icy silvery eyes.

“Ms. Lawson.”

I waggled my files. “Dixon in? I need to talk to him.”

Eldridge flicked a page of his magazine, effectively letting me know he was bored. “He’s busy. You’ll have plenty of time to talk to him at the staff meeting.”

I straightened, clenching my jaw. “I need to talk to him now. It’s official UDA business.”

“Send her in, Eldridge!” Dixon Andrade’s voice was spun silk even as he called from his inner office. His hearing was 100 percent killer vamp, as was his olfactory skill, which meant he got a whiff of my Lady Speed Stick as I nearly jumped out of my pants. Disembodied voices never cease to creep me out.

Though it’s been over a year, I found that walking into Dixon Andrade’s office still pricked a little pang of sadness in my heart and gave me a small shudder of fear. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to walk into this part of the UDA again and not think of Pete Sampson, not think of the day I walked in and found my desk smashed to smithereens and his office—including the steel wrist and ankle cuffs used to hold him through full-moon nights—destroyed. The worst thing about that night was that Sampson was missing, blood was spilling in the streets, and Sampson—my Sampson, who had given me my first job, took me under his wing, and brought me more morning donuts than my pants could stand—was the chief suspect.

Now Dixon was lounging behind a desk the size of a Hummer, dressed, as usual, in a top-notch Italian suit that hugged every inch of his six-foot-plus frame. He looked formidable with his dark hair slicked back, his eyebrows pinched in a cautionary scowl. And that was before he showed his fangs.

“Ms. Lawson.”

“Dixon, hi. Thanks for seeing me.” I flopped down in his visitor’s chair and slid Mrs. Henderson’s file across the desk. “Mrs. Henderson didn’t show up for her appointment today, and neither did two other regulars over the last week. No answers when I call, no cancellations, nothing.”

Dixon’s dark brows rose, his eyes catching on something over my left shoulder. I turned and sighed.

“Hi, Vlad.”

If Dixon was San Francisco chic, Vlad LaShay had all the chicness of Castle Drac, circa 1850. His black pants were a heavy wool blend, his red damask vest was resplendent, and his frilly white ascot made him look like a dork.

“Nice ascot,” I said.

“Are we making the announcement first, sir?” Vlad asked, effectively ignoring me.

My ears perked. “Announcement?”

Dixon and Vlad shared a look; my head ping-ponged between them.

Finally Dixon shrugged; his broad shoulders nipped his ears. “She’ll find out soon enough. Ms. Lawson, Vlad is the Underworld Detection Agency’s new head of operations.”

Dixon grinned and Vlad beamed.

I wasn’t sure what caught me more off guard, the sight of Vlad smiling like someone who wasn’t perennially sixteen and mad at the world, or the fact that Vlad, with his face full of smooth planes and soft hints of baby fat, was going to be my manager.

I scratched my head. “Come again?”

“Vlad will be replacing Mr. Turnbow. Mr. Rosenthal will be shifting from support staff to finance, and Eldridge”—Dixon gestured to the blond vamp outside––“will be the new head of internal organization.”

“What happened to Mr. Turnbow? And the former head of operations?”

Dixon shrugged dismissively. “It was time for them to move on. We had a cake on Friday.”

Leave it to me to miss the one day that management sprang for cake over blood bags.

“Something wrong, Ms. Lawson?”

“No,” I said, swinging my head, “not at all. Congratulations, Vlad. This is a really great step for you.”

“So you said something about some missed appointments?”

“You know,” I answered, snatching the file from Dixon’s desk, “it’s really not that big a deal.”

Exiting, I shut the door to Dixon’s office and Eldridge looked up at me from behind his magazine, one eyebrow quirked, lip turned up and slightly parted to show off the scissor-fine edge of a fang.

“See you around, Sophie,” he said.

I hopped in the elevator and mashed the UP button. My heart was thudding underneath my Nina-approved button-down blouse; pricks of sweat were breaking out all over.

“Come on, come on,” I whispered to the metal box as it lurched its way up—we’re thirty-six floors down—to the outer world. There was a jaunty ding and the doors split open to sunshine streaming through the front vestibule of the San Francisco Police Department. The squawk and buzz of department radios and telephones littered the air. That was when I smashed—chest to cardboard box—into Alex Grace.

“Hey, Lawson.” Alex grabbed my arms to steady me and I wanted to crawl back against him—sans the box—and sink into those arms.

“Oh, hey, Alex. Sorry, I guess I’m just a little bit distracted.”

I blinked, then looked up into those cobalt blue eyes of his. Oh yes, I was definitely distracted.

Alex Grace was heavenly. His milk-chocolate dark hair curled in run-your-fingers-through-it waves, which licked the tops of his completely kissable ears. Those searing eyes were framed by to-die-for lashes. His cheeks were tinged pink, and his lips were pressed into his trademark half smile, which was all at once genuine and cocky, with just a hint of sex appeal. A man like this was otherworldly.

And Alex had the two tiny scars just below his shoulder blades to prove it.