Blood Work (25 page)

“Me too, so no
worries.” She picked at her chips.

Her unwanted
lunch partner opened a magazine and began reading while he ate. He
had dark blond hair, worn a bit too long so it fell thick and heavy
to his shoulders. It didn’t seem to have any product in it but it
swept back off his forehead and only fell forward slightly as he
leaned over his magazine. He absently ran a hand back through it,
revealing how it had been trained backwards. His fingers were long,
his hands broad. Under his long-sleeved work shirt he looked toned
and fit, if a touch on the thin side.

“See anything
you like?” He spoke without looking up. There was humour in his
voice.

“Sorry. I
wasn’t staring.”

He did look at
her then, mouth stretched into a wide, unabashed grin that
positively lit up his entire face. Hazel eyes sparkled with
mischievousness. “Yes, you were. Didn’t mind, though.”

He was
flirting with her. It had been so long since anyone had she didn’t
know what to do. But that was okay, he seemed to know. He held out
his hand.

“Dave. And you
are?”

“Erin.” Her
voice shook a bit, but she gripped his hand firmly.

“Pleased to
meet you, Erin. I haven’t seen you around here before. Are you
local?”

“No, just out
here on some business. You live in Redcliffe?”

“Yeah. Have
for a while now. I was here some years back but had to leave.
Couldn’t stay away though. Love the life out here.”

Erin found
herself nodding. “Yes, it’s very relaxed.”

“Do you like
seafood?”

Erin checked
her watch. He’d been sitting there for ten minutes and he’d already
worked his way up to asking about food? That usually preceded talk
of dinners and dates. Wow. He worked fast.

“I’m not going
to ask you on a date.”

She stared at
him. “What?”

There was that
smile again. “You were wondering why I was asking if you liked
seafood. You thought maybe I was working up a dinner proposal.”

“Do you read
minds, Dave?”

“Not so much.
I read faces.”

“And I have a
face you can read like a book?”

He sat back,
eyeing her pensively. “Like a brail book, maybe.”

She wanted to
toss her beer in his face, but all she could do was blush. Dave
winced.

“Sorry, I
didn’t mean to embarrass you. Sometimes I say things without
thinking.”

Except that he
had thought about it. Erin shrugged. “It’s okay. I’m not used to
the flirting game anymore.”

“Married?”

“So, what sort
of work are you in, Dave?” She leaned over the table to look at his
magazine. “Werewolves?”

His grin was a
little bashful this time. “Just some research.”

Erin took the
magazine and flicked through it. “Research in a magazine that also
features articles on alien abductions, something called a
chupacabra and declares that Elvis isn’t dead, but living in Alaska
training vampires into an army?”

Dave nodded.
“Yeah. Fun stuff.”

“You believe
in this?”

“Some people
do.”

“And you’re
researching it?”

He took back
the magazine, folded it in half and put in his back pocket. “Maybe
I’m writing a book.”

“Fiction or
non-fiction?”

“Wouldn’t it
be fiction either way?”

Erin couldn’t
stop the smile. “You have an amazing ability to not answer any
questions.”

“You’re no
slouch yourself. So, Erin. What do you do?”

“Real
estate.”

“Really?
Interesting. Private or commercial.”

“Commercial.”

“Interested in
Redcliffe are you?”

“I have a
client who is, yes.”

“See anything
interesting?”

“Just one
thing.”

Erin leaned
forward, looked him directly in the eyes. One thing she’d learned
in the police force was that staring someone in the eyes was a sure
fire way to intimidate them. No one liked it much. It was too
intimate a thing to be shared between strangers. She’d trained
herself to do it and laid it on this man without hesitation.

And he
returned it. He didn’t blink, didn’t look away. He just stared
right back.

His eyes
weren’t just hazel. They were clear cut green around his pupils,
darkening to light brown at the edges, with flecks of each colour
scattered throughout. They were bloodshot but bright and it felt as
if he reached out through them and touched her.

Erin pulled
back with a gasp. A shiver went down her spine, but it wasn’t an
unpleasant one.

“Sorry,” Dave
said softly.

She focused on
the water behind him, not quite sure what had happened, or what he
was apologising for. She’d started it, after all. Her experience
told her he shouldn’t have met the challenge, he should have looked
away first.

Before she
could recover, he was standing up.

“I should
go.”

She wanted to
tell him to stay, but something kept her mouth shut.

“It was good
to meet you, Erin. I hope I didn’t disturb your lunch too
much.”

He left and
she couldn’t watch him walk away.

“You okay,
miss?”

Erin jerked at
the touch on her shoulder. The bar tender stood beside her.

“I saw the way
he was staring at you,” he said, frowning. “Did he say anything to
upset you?”

“No, he
didn’t. It’s okay.”

“I just wanted
to make sure. He’s a bit of a hot spark sometimes.” Reassured of
her wellbeing, he walked away.

“I bet he is,”
Erin whispered. Then she was out of her chair and racing after
Matthew Hawkins.

She caught
sight of him just as he slipped into a black Monaro. He was too far
away for her to catch, parked in the opposite direction from her
own car. If she went back for it, he would well and truly be gone.
He pulled out and headed away from the water. The number plate, NYT
CLL, flashed in the sunlight.

“Damn it.” She
slowed to a stop and caught her breath.

What did it
mean to him that he would take something he hated and put it on his
car like that? She pulled out her phone and called the office.

“Night call,”
she snapped at Ivan before he could say anything. “Not cell. Call.
Look it up now.”

There was a
staccato of typing. “Ah, let’s see. There was an episode of The
Twilight Zone called Night Call. And an agency that specialises in
night call nurses. Other than that, no direct hits. How did you
find out?”

“Ivan, I just
met him.”

“What?”

Erin held the
phone away from her head while he screamed some more. “Shut up! I
can’t believe I sat there with him for all that time and didn’t
realise. He knows I’m after him. He knows me. He came to me
deliberately.”

“Erin, what
did he say? What did he do?”

Walking back
to her car, she decided she would follow the street he took and see
where it got her. “He flirted with me. He knew who I was and he
tried to charm me.”

There was a
speculative pause. “Did it work?”

“Of course
not. I’m married.”

Ivan snorted.
“Like that matters. I think it did work. You sound really
shaky.”

“If I’m shaky
it’s because I’m an idiot for letting him slip through my
hands.”

“Yeah. You
could have jumped him then and there, kept him pinned down.”

There was
entirely too much innuendo in Ivan’s voice for Erin to ignore, but
all she could do was blush.

“What are you
doing now?” he asked as more typing sounds came through.

“I’m going to
follow his getaway path. Just in case.”

“In case he’s
waiting for you at the next corner? Think he might want you to
follow him?”

“It’s a
possibility. He did present himself to me.”

“Keep in
touch. If he starts leading you onto a back road or anywhere dark,
don’t follow!”

“Yes, Ivan.
Thank you. Call if you discover anything.”

She got into
her car and followed his vanishing trail. The street led straight
into a suburb full of modern homes backed onto canals. There were
docks and boats everywhere but no sign of a black Monaro. She drove
down random side streets and peered up driveways and found nothing.
There had been no true expectation she would find him waiting for
her, or that she would be lucky enough to catch sight of him if he
didn’t want her to. Still, it cut to lose him after so briefly
having him.

Erin believed
him when he said he lived in Redcliffe. He hadn’t actually lied to
her at all, she felt. And maybe he’d told her something else as
well. She called Ivan back.

“I haven’t got
anything yet,” he announced immediately.

“That’s okay.
Don’t give me any shit over this, but I want you to check out
things like werewolves or vampires or aliens in connection to the
‘night call’.”

She waited for
the outburst of laughing. It didn’t come.

“No problem.
Anything else? Was he waiting for you?”

Erin stared at
the phone to make sure she was talking to the right Ivan. “You
accept the supernatural angle just like that?”

“Yeah. I mean,
why not?”

“Because it’s
not real?”

“Can you prove
that?”

She sighed.
“Whatever. Just look it up. I’ll be back soon.”

“So he wasn’t
waiting to lead you into a darkened room?”

Erin hung
up.

Ivan had some
good news when she got back to the office.

“Found a
mention of Night Call,” he announced proudly. There was an empty
Chinese box on the desk beside his computer and he seemed
brighter.

“Where?”

“On a message
board. Weirdoteens dot com. Seems like a place for emos and Goths
and they talk about suicide and death and stuff.”

Erin winced.
“Really? That’s just sad. Where did our guy come into it?”

“A message
posted a couple of weeks back asking if anyone knew about Night
Call. The poster said that his dog was acting strange and he
suspected it to be a werewolf. Apparently, he’d heard somewhere
about this Night Call guy who helped people solve supernatural
problems. He wanted to know if anyone knew if it was legit.”

“A dog turning
into a werewolf? That kind of makes sense, really.”

Ivan stared at
her. “Really?”

“Yeah, why
not? I mean, wolves and dogs are closely related. Why wouldn’t they
get together, and you know, do stuff?”

“Do
stuff?”

“I don’t know.
Make little werewolves or something.”

“You don’t
know anything about werewolves, do you.”

Erin scowled.
“I saw that Hugh Jackman movie.”

“Oh, that is
like the worst werewolf depiction ever. You need to see something
classic.
An American Werewolf in London
. Or
The
Howling
. Then you wouldn’t say dogs and werewolves went off to
make little werewolves.”

She belted him
lightly on the head. “Go moose your hair or something.”

“The guy
didn’t get a lot of helpful replies. No one seemed to know anything
about Night Call but they seemed to find his theory about his dog
pretty funny. A bit later on, after a lot of ‘you’re dreaming’
replies, the kid comes back and tells them how he heard about Night
Call.”

“How?”

“In the Fringe
Bar.”

“Hawkins works
out of bars?”

“No. At least
I don’t think so. This kid says he was at the bar, talking to
someone about his dog when this ‘old guy’ overhears and gives him a
card.”

Erin sat on
the desk. “He doesn’t give out any of the details on the card?”

“Just that it
said ‘Night Call, for things that go bump in the dark’, and a guy’s
name and number.”

“Presumably
Matthew Hawkins.” She couldn’t believe it. How complicated could
this guy make his life? “Are you familiar with the Fringe?”

“Am I
gay?”

“Right. Go
home and get your game face on. You’re taking me out tonight.”

I wandered out to the dock and sat
at the edge, dangling my feet in the water. Wow. Now that was a
head rush. I hadn’t actually stared right into someone’s eyes like
that in a long, long time. When they said the eyes were the windows
to the soul, they were right. You could look right inside a person
and see so much. Done with the right person and it could almost get
orgasmic.

Without
thought, I slid off the dock and into the cold water.

The canals
were saltwater and really shouldn’t be swum in. There were all
sorts of nasties coming in from the open ocean: jelly fish, sharks,
the occasional saltwater crocodile. But when you’re desperate…

I hauled
myself out before anything could look at me and think ‘food’. The
sun felt good, so I lay down and closed my eyes, letting it burn
red on the inside of my eyelids. Still saw Erin there, though. She
was… how could I say it? Electric. Dynamic. Open. Alive. But
hidden. There was this great big part of her she locked away. And
it was an important part. I didn’t know what it was, but I wanted
to find out.

And her
flavour. I mean, wow. The sugary crispness of ripe honeydew melon,
the touch of a Moscato’s harsher sweetness, the double bitter bite
of coffee beans covered in silky, rich, decadent dark chocolate. It
was complex and intoxicating, a deeper, richer flavour than any
vampire. They were all monotonal blandness next to this.

Somehow, I
didn’t think I was going to forget Erin any time soon.

Man. What a
thing to happen. Now of all times.

I hadn’t meant
to go over when I recognised her. My head was like let’s get out of
here, but my legs were all, no way man, she’s after you, find out
what you can. And there I was, sitting at her table, grinning like
some simple minded fool, flirting like there was no tomorrow. And
she hadn’t recognised me. Not until the end there. I could have
walked away right at the start and stayed safely anonymous. Instead
I blundered right in and messed everything up.