Hannah Jayne: Under Wraps

All that was missing was a lollypop and a placating pat on the head.

I crossed my arms and stopped walking. “Police work? Don’t you mean man’s work?”

“You said it, not me.” Hayes’s eyes scanned me and his big hand cupped my shoulder. “This is dangerous. Whoever is doing this is not playing games, and the last thing I want—or need—is anyone else getting hurt. No one is going to be helped if I have to worry about my ‘partner.’ I appreciate your offer, though.” Hayes turned around, striding down the hall.

My skin bristled. “Do you know how vampires feed, Detective? Or that werewolves have the ability to change every night—not just at the full moon?”

Hayes’s pace slowed, and then he stopped, turning slowly. “Excuse me?”

I jutted out one hip, resting a hand on it. “You don’t know a thing about the Underworld or the people living in it. All the detective training in the world isn’t going to help you against one of them.”

The detective’s cheek pushed up in an amused, gorgeously annoying half smile. “Is that so?”

“Have you ever seen a zombie, a hobgoblin, a troll?”

I could practically see the wheels turning in the detective’s head, working it out.

“No,” he said slowly. “But—” Hayes started and then stopped when I raised both my eyebrows, expectantly.

Hayes’s grin went full. “All right, Lawson, looks like you’ve got yourself a partner. Meet me up top at noon.”

That’s right, I thought, grinning smugly to myself. Sophie Lawson, CSI.

Hayes spun on his heel and called over his shoulder. “Just do me a favor and try not to get yourself killed, okay?”

I took a step forward and realized my knees had gone rubbery.

I returned to my desk, the rapid beat of my heart having slowed to a near normal pace, my revelry in wild, gun-toting crime raids with Parker Hayes almost over. I plopped down on my chair and cracked open a Diet Coke, then dropped my head into my hands.

“Well?” The voice was cool and right next to my ear, and I almost jumped out of my skin.

“Holy crap, Nina, you should wear a bell or something!” I gripped my thundering heart with my hand, and Nina sat down on the edge of my desk, her long, milky-white legs dangling.

Nina is a vampire—a 167-year-old vampire—and my very best friend. She was turned in 1842 and before that was a twenty-nine-year-old foul-tempered Parisian heiress who climbed out her bedroom window one night to meet a dark-eyed stranger. Two months after that, Nina, the newly made vampire, caused the Massacre of Elphinstone’s Army. You could never tell it by looking at her, though. She’s just barely my height but supermodel-skinny with waist-length black hair, a little ski-jump nose, a heart-shaped red mouth … and fangs.

“Tell me everything and don’t leave out a single, juicy detail. He smelled good, didn’t he? Different”—Nina’s dark eyes scanned the ceiling—“not like your standard breather. It was like …”

“Smoke and toasted almonds and cocoa. Not that I really noticed,” I said quickly.

“So spill! You were gone for an age with Mr. Yummy Cop,” Nina said, lacing her fingers together and leaning into me.

“Actually”—I wiggled a file on demons in unincorporated San Mateo County out from under Nina’s butt—“he’s not a cop, he’s a detective.”

Nina licked her lips. “Even better.”

I reached into my desk drawer and shoved a Fiber One bar in her hand. “Eat this. You’re obviously starving.”

Nina glared at the Fiber One bar, fangs bared, and dropped it as though it were holy water. “Gross,” she said, wiping her hands on her dress.

I shrugged. “Sorry. It’s the best I could do. I don’t have any Plasma Pops here.”

Nina’s eyebrow twitched and she pursed her lips. “Stop stalling, start spilling.”

As much as I wanted to brag about my Sampson-Sophie-Hayes manwich, the details of the murder—and the bloodless, eyeless bodies—trumped my lust-o-meter, and I shivered.

“There’s a murderer in town,” I said.

Nina rolled her coal black eyes. “Big deal. There’s a million murderers in this town. Get to the cop.” She grinned. “Did he take off his shirt?”

“Nina! We were with Sampson.”

Her jaw dropped, her pointed incisors glistening. “Did Sampson take off his shirt?”

“No one took off their shirt!” I lowered my voice. “Like I said, there’s a murderer in the city and the PD is concerned it’s supernatural.”

Nina looked only slightly interested—although whether it was in my story or her cuticles I couldn’t tell. “You should check with the zombies. They can get so rowdy.”

I began stacking files and shoving them into my shoulder bag. “Nah, zombies are totally adherent.”

“When they’re on their first brain.” Nina jabbed at my files with one perfectly manicured cotton-candy pink fingernail. “What are you doing with those? Aren’t they confidential?”

“The PD wants Sampson to work with them, but he can’t. Too risky to be out after dark, especially if he’s examining crime scenes with that much blood.”

Nina licked her lips, and I pretended not to notice.

“So, I’m working with Detective Hayes on the case. Bringing in some of the files that we have. Thinking maybe we can locate the perp—I mean perpetrator—from some of our adherents. I figured we’d go through the relevant UDA files and see if there are any clues.”

I loved how detectivey I sounded.

Nina pressed her pale hands to her open mouth, her thin black eyebrows shooting up. “You’re kidding me!”

A little twitter of pride slipped through me, and I hid my smile behind a stack of file folders. “Really, Nina, it’s no big deal. The PD needed some help, and frankly, I’m the only one who can do it.”

How totally CSI am I?

“No big deal?” Nina hopped off my desk—her landing didn’t make a sound—and turned to me, her palms pressed against my file folders, pinning them to my desk. “You are going to be nose to nose with that hot cop for, for days, weeks, maybe months on end and it’s no big deal?”

I hadn’t thought of that.

Me and Parker Hayes, alone together for days, weeks, months on end? I imagined us head to head in his office working on the case, the Styrofoamed remains of our on-the-go dinner spread before us … huddled together in his squad car, rushing off to crime scenes … showering together, first thing in the morning…. My mouth went dry, and I found that I was twirling a long strand of red hair around my index finger—my number-one nervous tic. I shoved my hands into my jacket pockets.

“The detective isn’t that hot close up. And he’s certainly not all that hot about having me tag along, so I doubt we’ll be spending all that much time together anyway.”

So much for our morning shower.

“Still”—Nina’s cold eyes skimmed over me skeptically—“if you’re going to run into him again, you really should change your outfit.”

“I’m not going to change for him!” I said, indignant. “Besides, he’s already seen me once today. And,” I said, standing, “I look fine.”

Nine crossed her arms in front of her own midnight blue vintage Valentino wrap dress—vampires are total fashion whores—and shrugged.

“You do look fine,” she mused, “just so secretarial.”

I stood up and hauled my shoulder bag over one arm. “I’m an administrative assistant,” I spat.

“Fine,” Nina said, stretching out one long, lean leg and examining her newest pair of Jimmy Choos. “At least—” She dropped her foot and leaned into me, her dark lips ice cold as they skimmed my neck. She unbuttoned the top two buttons on my white blouse. “Show some skin.”