A Taste of the Nightlife (14 page)

“Gimme that!”

I snatched the can from his fingers and headed for that pristine kitchen. He had to have real food in that gigantic stainless-steel fridge. Everybody had
something.
Orange juice. Great. Strawberry yogurt. My God, the man truly was of the metrosex clan, or he had a girlfriend who came round for breakfast. Don’t think about that now. A lime at the end of its lonely life lay in the otherwise empty fruit drawer. Who keeps a single lime in their fridge anyway? He must drink gin and tonic. Ice? Yes. Bananas. On a cute little hook next to the fridge. Fabulous. Blender? Blender, under the counter, with the price tag still on it. Pinch of salt for brightness and to cut the sweet, and squeeze the lime in through the top.

While the blender did its work, I dumped the remains of the energy drink down the sink where it belonged, pitched the can into the compactor and found a glass in the cupboard. I poured it full of smoothie and shoved it across the counter to Brendan.

He looked at me. I looked at him. He wanted to protest, but evidently thought better of it and instead drained a good half of the glass. His color looked better at once. I got myself a glass. It had been a rough night.

“And have you anything for me, Charlotte?” Sevarin let his gaze linger meaningfully on my neck.

“Sorry.” The smoothie wasn’t bad at all. Needed some herb flavor. Lemongrass? And I could have zested the lime in there if it had been less mummified.

“Ah, how I suffer.” Sevarin laid his hand on his chest.

Brendan rolled his eyes and changed the subject. “What do you know about Post Mortem?” he asked Sevarin.

“About what you do, I expect. It has a human owner, but some nightblood investment. Second-rate food, music rather too loud, decor in the worst possible but most expected taste. If you are hungry but not interested in the uncertainties of hunting, it is a place to find volunteers.”

“Is that from the review you published?” I poured the dregs of the smoothie into Brendan’s glass.

“Some of it,” admitted Anatole.

“Do you know who the nightblood investors are?”

Anatole shrugged. “Before this, I never cared. But I can find out.”

“Could one of them be Chet Caine?” Brendan asked the question to his glass.

I shook my head. “Chet doesn’t have money to invest. He’s only been able to make the rent reliably for about six months.”

“That you know of,” said Brendan gently.

Time for me to change the subject. “What happened with Taylor?” I asked Sevarin . . . Anatole.

Brendan raised his eyebrows, and I explained about my ex-bartender and how Linus O’Grady had dragged his name into this.

“That proved a very interesting time,” said Anatole. “Not as interesting as rescuing fair lady, but still . . .”

“He’s not going to lay off, is he?” I said to Brendan.

“Doubt it very much,” Brendan replied

“If I may be permitted to continue? After Charlotte left me, I continued my surveillance of her brother’s doorstep for twenty minutes before Taylor Watts reemerged. He walked from there to a little bistro on Tenth, where he sat at the bar for approximately one hour, at which point I noticed three things.”

“And nothing on God’s green earth is going to make him hurry, is it?” said Brendan to me.

“Doubt it very much,” I replied.

Anatole ignored us and ticked off his points on his long, manicured fingers. “The first was that he got phone numbers from three separate women with low necklines and clearly low rates of perception. The second was that the longer he sat there, the more uneasy the bartender became.”

I cocked my head toward him. “And that couldn’t have been because a prominent dining critic was in the house?”

“Their intelligence-gathering operation is not as efficient as yours. I was not recognized.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I can tell.”

Gimme strength.
“Guys always think that.”

“Plus, there was the member of the Paranormal Squadron having a beer on the stool by the front window.”

“Was he following Watts?” asked Brendan.

Sevarin shook his head. “He was there when Watts came in, and although he tried to disguise it, he was startled by that young man’s arrival.”

We stood there in that now less than pristine kitchen, drinking our drinks, each turning over the pieces of our own particular puzzle in our mind, trying to make them fit together a little more comfortably. I’d gone to Post Mortem, and maybe made somebody nervous enough to send in the vamplette squad. Taylor Watts had gone from Chet’s to a little bistro being staked out by the P-Squad, and the bartender there got nervous. That was a lot of nerves for a Monday night.

In the middle of all this mulling, Brendan’s doorbell rang.

I jumped, splashing smoothie across counter, floor and rumpled blouse. Brendan jerked his head around, alert and pale.

Sevarin arched one cool vampire eyebrow.

The bell rang again, followed by a furious pounding that shook the door in its frame.

“You seem to have someone at your door,” said Sevarin.

“Yeah,” agreed Brendan.

The knob rattled. The doorbell rang, and rang again.

“Are you going to see who it is?” I asked.

“I know who it is.” Brendan set his empty glass on the counter and ran his fingers through his hair. “My family.”

11

Anatole pursed his lips. “I don’t suppose, Mr. Maddox, that you have a back exit?”

“No.”

“How disappointing. Well, we shall have to brave it out.” The pounding grew louder. “You could, I suppose, let them break the door down, but I imagine you’d be charged a maintenance fee for that.”

For a minute Brendan actually seemed to be considering the trade-off, but at last he walked into the foyer and snapped the locks open.

The pair who all but toppled in could only have been Brendan’s relatives. They both had his big frame, black hair and intense blue eyes. Surprisingly, the look worked as well on the woman in the red leather coat, black leggings and red lace-up boots as it did on the man in jeans and black bomber jacket. Better, in fact, because the man had an aggressively receding hairline, one of those obnoxious little chin tufts, and wisps of chest hair sticking out of the top of his black button-down shirt.

“What the hell, Brendan!” shouted Chin Tuft. “What are you . . .” The sentence trailed off as he caught sight of me and Anatole.

Anatole nodded casually, as if meeting someone at a cocktail party.

“What is this, Brendan?” whispered Chin Tuft.

“Anatole Sevarin is a guest in my house,” said Brendan. “You will not give him any trouble, Ian.”

Chin Tuft—Ian—looked as if he was exercising superhuman control to keep from spitting on the floor. “You’re making guests out of vampires now? Dylan was right. You have gone over.”

“Just calm down, Ian.” Brendan’s weary sigh told me this was not the first time he’d been on the receiving end of this particular accusation. “I haven’t gone anywhere.”

“And who’s this?” The woman sauntered slowly up to me. She was a sophisticate—tall enough that she looked slender despite her sturdy bones—and she walked easily in her high heels. She’d gone light on the makeup, and she projected the particular cat-cool menace of supremely self-confident women. She tugged off her red gloves as she approached. Nice touch.

“Charlotte Caine.” I made sure she saw me look her up and down. “And you are?”

But the woman just rolled her eyes. “A vamp and a vamp-lover. Great Goddess, Bren . . .”

“Enough, Margot. Either the pair of you behave or you can come back later.”

These new Maddoxes shared a long, eloquent glance that told me there’d be a lot more words as soon as the unwelcome intruders were gone. I started to move. This was no place for me. But Sevarin put a cool restraining hand on my wrist. I should have just shaken him off, and I’m still not sure why I didn’t. Probably it was blatant curiosity overriding common sense. Or maybe I just wanted to see how long it’d be before Margot’s ice cracked.

Meow to you too.

Brendan walked back into the living room and dropped into an armchair. “So, what couldn’t wait?” He did not invite either of his relatives to sit.

“You know what it is,” Ian muttered.

“Beyond Dylan being dead?” Brendan shot back.

I slid into the corner between the entrance to the kitchen and the interior hallway and wished for invisibility.

“How can you be so cold?” Ian’s chin tuft positively quivered with the force of his rage. “He’s our flesh and blood!”

Too late, Ian rlized what he had said. Sevarin, who had positioned himself on the threshold where he could enjoy the show, licked his lips theatrically and maliciously. Ian went white and clenched his fist. I got ready to duck. These Maddoxes liked playing with fire. It was a wonder none of them were chefs.

“Ian,” warned Brendan.

“He . . .”

“Is doing his damnedest to provoke you. Back off.” Brendan surged to his feet and put himself squarely between Sevarin and his relatives. “Sevarin is not our problem. Our problem is Pamela.”

“You’ve found Pam?” Margot cut in.

“No. But I’ve seen her.” This was stretching the truth, and he didn’t mention he’d “seen” her in my restaurant a few hours before we got saddled with his cousin’s corpse. This was, in my opinion, positively chivalrous.

“And?” Margot tossed her red gloves onto the bar and got a can of Zap out of the fridge. God, had
none
of these people any standards?

“And Dylan was killed a few hours after he did find her,” said Brendan quietly.

The Maddoxes digested this. Ian’s face flushed as red as Margot’s coat, but she shot him a hard look and he kept quiet.

“Pam always thought she was too good to stay down on the farm,” said Margot. “But she wouldn’t murder one of her own.”

“We’re not her own anymore. She ran out on us before she could take the oath.” The bitterness in Brendan’s words startled me.

“She’s still family.” Margot leaned back against the bar and nestled the can of chemicals in the crook of her elbow.

“It’s just a word to some people, Margot.”

“To you?”

“You know better.”

“I hope I do.” Margot kept her gaze on him as she took another swallow from the can. I shivered. I was used to fights that were actual fights. My family hollered. We stormed and slammed doors and got in each other’s faces. I once threw a pan at Chet, and he’s still damn lucky it wasn’t the cleaver. These quiet, faux-polite exchanges bordered on the unnatural.

“So, why the hell haven’t you found her yet?” demanded Ian.

“It’s a big city, Ian. She might not even be in the city. We’ve got a hefty percentage of the population of the United States living within commuter distance. This is going to take a while.”

“We don’t have a while! This was all your idea in . . .”

Unfortunately, Margot remembered that Anatole and I were there. She put her hand on Ian’s shoulder and rolled her eyes meaningfully in our direction. Ian gave us another one-eighty-proof poison glare. I couldn’t help noticing he checked out my boobs at the same time.
Classy multitasking there, guy.

“It’s too late for this. We’ll see you tomorrow, Brendan.” Margot reclaimed her gloves and gestured for Ian to follow her toward the door. Clearly being a piece of work was a common trait among the Maddox women.

“Nice to meet you,” I called out from my corner. For a moment I thought I’d really done it, because Margot Maddox turned slowly and stalked toward me, inch by inch.

“Don’t think you’re safe just because my big brother’s oing to ta a liking to you, Cookie,” she breathed. The leftover smell of the Zap Energy Drink clashed with her Chanel perfume, but her eyes glittered sharp and clear. “Don’t think that at all.”

Ian almost ruined the menace of her sweeping exit with a smirk and another look at my boobs. Almost, but not quite.

The door closed on the Maddoxes and Brendan snapped the dead bolt.

“Big brother?” I said.

“We don’t have a while?” said Sevarin.

Brendan said nothing. But he looked at me, and I know for a fact he didn’t see any way out there.

“I can’t talk about it.”

“So the honesty only runs one way?”
Why should I be surprised?
I wanted to be resigned. I mean, I barely knew him. The idea hurt anyway, like a healing burn under hot water.

“No. I mean . . .” Brendan gestured, expanding and compressing the air between his hands as if he suffered from a sudden urge to play the accordion. I couldn’t help noticing that the right hand—the one that had punched the wall yesterday morning—was completely healed. Score one for the warlock health plan. “I mean I
can’t
talk about it. There are secrets here that don’t belong to just me. It’s family. I was hoping you’d understand.”

I did understand. I didn’t like it, but I understood.

“I think we may safely conclude, however, that Dylan Maddox was not following Pam purely from love and devotion,” Anatole mused.

A muscle in Brendan’s jaw twitched.

“Yes. Well.” Anatole straightened up and cast an eye toward the bank of windows overlooking Grand Street. “As delightful as this has been, I have other places I must be before morning. Charlotte, if you wish it, I would be glad to escort you home.”