Chosen (14 page)

He is not supposed to be laughing.

I shove through the door, startling him. He recovers and beams a smile at me. The woman turns, smiling, too.

“Hey, Anna,” David says. “I’d like you to meet our new partner.”

Partner?

My back stiffens. What the fuck does that mean?

I can’t think of anything to say to that startling revelation. So I stare—at them both.

She’s gotten to her feet. She’s wearing jeans and a white cotton shirt tucked and cinched with a broad leather belt. She’s taller than me—probably five-nine or so—and sinewy thin. She has auburn hair drawn straight back from her face in a ponytail. She’s one of the lucky females who can pull that off. Probably because of those big green eyes and a full-lipped smile that show off a set of too-perfect teeth. She has come away from the chair to stand in front of me, hand outstretched.

“Hi, Anna. I’m Tracey Banker. Pleased to meet you.”

I take her hand, give it a perfunctory shake. Let it drop. She’s wearing perfume—too much of it—something woodsy with undertones of burned sugar and bitter almonds. It makes my nose twitch.

Tracey glances back at David. “Well, I’m sure you two have things to discuss. I’ll leave you to it. I’ll check with you tomorrow morning?”

David nods, and she brushes past me. He watches her as she leaves, then turns his gaze on me. “Well? Aren’t you going to yell at me? Ask me what the fuck I was thinking? Tell me I had no right to take on a new partner without your okay?”

He’s glaring, muscles tense, jaw tight, ready to launch a counterattack.

“No.”

The answer startles me as much as it does David. I ignore the comically puzzled expression on his face and sink into my chair. “Where did you find her?”

He looks at me out of the corners of his eyes, as if he can’t trust my reaction, and takes his own seat across from me. “Remember the kickboxing classes we used to take?”

His emphasis is on the “we used to take.” I don’t comment, just nod.

“She’s the new instructor at the gym now. Ex-cop, wounded in the line of duty. Took an early retirement and has been looking for something to occupy her time besides teaching. We went for coffee after a class last week, I told her what we do. She said she’d be interested in filling in if we needed it. Yesterday, I needed it. You weren’t around. I called her. She came. We made the collar.”

He says it matter-of-factly, no subtle undertones, no recrimination, no opening for rebuttal.

Makes me feel guiltier.

“What business arrangement have you made with her?”

“Fifty-fifty split if it’s just her and me. If the three of us work a job, she gets twenty-five percent, you and I split the rest. She ponies up twenty percent of the monthly office expenses regardless of the number of jobs she works. We cover her insurance, reimburse car expenses.”

“You got that in writing?”

He picks up a contract from the middle of his desk. “Just needs your signature.”

He holds it out, still looking as if he expects me to start ranting. No one is more surprised than me that I’m not. I pick up a pen, take the paper from his hand and sign my name on the dotted line.

David slips the signed contract into a folder on his desk. “So. Do you want to tell me where you were yesterday?”

Battling monsters.

“Lance and I went to Palm Springs for the weekend. He got—sick. I stayed to take care of him. I am sorry. Really.”

“You lost your cell phone?”

I wince, smile deprecatingly. “Battery went dead. I forgot to pack the charger.”

He’s weighing my words, assessing my expression, calculating the sincerity of my apology. I don’t blame him. He’s heard the same story more than once. Only the circumstances of
why
I let him down ever change.

I expect him to respond the way I would—with something snarky. I knew we had a job on Monday so where were we that I couldn’t get to a phone? The dark side of the moon?

Instead, he surprises me by asking, “Is Lance all right?”

“Yeah. Thanks for asking.”

He pushes away from the desk, folder in hand, and crosses the room to a filing cabinet against the far wall. He places the folder in a drawer and closes it. When he comes back to the desk, he slips a jacket off the back of his chair and drapes it over his arm.

“Well, we don’t have anything on the docket for the next few days. Think you can cover the office? I’m going to San Francisco to look at some property with Miranda.”

Miranda is a real estate developer who has become more than an investment advisor to David. They are lovers. The lover he sometimes cheats on with that booking clerk at the jail. Which leads me to think it’s not a serious relationship, not that he’s shared any details with me. I don’t have such a good track record with his girlfriends.

“Sure,” I respond quickly. “It will give me a chance to get to know our new partner.”

He shakes his head. His expression says he’s still suspicious, still skeptical of how easily I accepted Tracey into our fold. “You aren’t going to scare her off while I’m gone are you?”

I hope my laugh doesn’t sound as forced as it feels. “Of course not. Have fun in San Francisco.”

He looks not at all reassured by my words. But he does leave.

Which is good.

As soon as he’s gone, I put in a call to Warren Williams.

I know he said he’d be in touch with me, but I want to get the ball rolling. Show him I’m serious about our agreement.

The phone rings five times, then goes to voice mail.

Voice mail? Where is he? He’s supposed to be sitting by the phone waiting for my call.

Abruptly, I click off.

Damn it. The expression “revenge is a dish best served cold” has never been a favorite of mine. I don’t want to wait for the rage to cool. What he and Underwood did to Lance—did to me—is unforgivable, and I want to strike while my blood still boils.

W
AITING HAS NEVER BEEN EASY FOR ME.

Waiting makes me peckish.

Waiting reduces me to finding ways to distract myself, reduces me to tackling distasteful
chores
.

So, when I’ve caught up on email, balanced my checkbook, filed an accumulation of piled-up shit (mea culpa to David), read through the stack of law enforcement bulletins on top of the filing cabinet and drained the last bottle of beer in the fridge and Williams
still
hasn’t called, I’m irritated and antsy enough to bite the head off a chicken.

Tossing the last empty bottle into the trash, I trudge on out to the deck that borders the back of our office. It’s a still, clear and quiet afternoon, the skyline mirror-imaged on the water. I watch sailboats play motor tag on the bay while they wait for the wind. When I was human, it was the kind of afternoon David and I would spend at the Green Flash, a bar down the street from my cottage, drinking beer and eating nachos and watching humanity parade past on the boardwalk.

Nostalgia sweeps over me. I took those days for granted. It’s a stupid human flaw—not appreciating the simple pleasures because they are simple and routine and will always be a part of your life.

Or so you believe.

I plop down in a deck chair and tip it back, hoisting my feet to rest on the railing. So much has happened in the last year. So much has changed. You hear the cliché “not the person she once was” all the time. In my case, it’s not an exaggeration. Last July my biggest concern was when I’d next see my DEA boyfriend, Max. I wasn’t in love with him, but the sex was great and our casual relationship suited us.

Next thing you know, I’m attacked and turned by a vampire. Even though the sex was even better, Max couldn’t get away fast enough when he learned the truth. I saved his life—hell, I’ve saved a lot of lives in the last twelve months—but to the world at large, I’m still a bloodsucker. A monster.

I can’t reveal myself to my family, to David, to any mortal outside of the few who know and safeguard the secret . . . that there are supernatural creatures living side by side with them. It’s the reason I sent my family halfway around the world. I couldn’t bear to see the horror in their eyes should they discover my secret. It’s also the reason I’m glad they have my niece, Trish, to care for. She will fill the void when circumstances force me to move on.

Perhaps subconsciously I’ve already accepted Tracey because she might be the one to fill the void for David, too.

A breeze springs up over the bay. The sailboats hoist their sails to capture it, cutting engines as they forge straight, sure paths out to sea.

I wish my path was as clear.

I hold up my right hand. The palm looks the same. The skin on the back of my hand is smooth and cold as alabaster. I let it drop back into my lap. Three days ago I was a walking charcoal briquette. Today, there isn’t a trace of damage.

I close my eyes. Listen. I can hear and feel everything going on inside my body. Blood pulsing, heart pumping. Muscles, sinew and bone flex and contract on command. Nerves vibrate with energy.

I’m dead.

Yet I’ve never felt more alive.

I
’M STILL IN A FUGUE STATE WHEN THE OFFICE DOOR opens.

I don’t have to turn from my perch to know who’s come in. Her perfume precedes her. If we’re going to work together on a regular basis, David better tell Tracey to go easy on the stuff.

She’s his recruit, after all.

She walks straight through the office and joins me on the deck, pointing to a second deck chair. “Mind if I join you?”

I scoot around so I’m upwind and nod my head. “Have a seat.”

I notice then that she has a brown grocery bag in her hand. She sits down, opens the bag and pulls a couple of bottles of Corona from inside. She offers me one.

I take it.

She might work out after all.

We open our beers and drink.

Tracey wipes foam off her lips with the back of her hand. A simple, unaffected gesture. For some reason, it tips the scales from finding reasons
not
to like her to reserving judgment. Maybe even being willing to give her a chance.

She did come bearing beer.

We drink in silence for a few minutes before she says, “Detective Harris sends his regards.”

I choke on that. “Really? He sent his
regards
?”

A grin. “Well, not so much
regards
as a word of caution. To me. To be on my guard. He thinks you’re . . . How shall I put this?”

At the pause, I jump in. “A lunatic? Crazy?”

She laughs. Nods. “Pretty much.” She eyes me over the bottle. “He thinks you had something to do with Warren Williams being run out of the police chief’s job. Care to comment?”

“You sound like a reporter.”

“Just a curious ex-cop who thought Williams did a good job. And I don’t believe you were responsible for his troubles, by the way. As I understand it, he used you as bait to catch the hit man who shot David. You did nothing wrong.”

I look away from her. No. I did nothing wrong. Did I? A cop lost his life, David got shot, and a father and daughter were put in danger because I got into a fight with my partner. I was mad at David so I reacted like a spoiled teenager—ran away and got drunk. Set a chain of events in motion that . . .

Ancient history.

I guzzle another mouthful of beer, keep tilting the bottle until I’ve drained it.

Yeah, Williams used me. But we both knew I was in no danger. The hit man was human. I’m not. Trouble was, no one else could know. And when it was all over, Williams ended up paying the price because he couldn’t expose the truth.

Williams. Where the hell is he?

“Anna?”

Tracey is leaning toward me. “Are you all right?”

I hoist the empty bottle. “I will be if you’ve got any more of these in that bag.”

She fishes inside, pulls out two more. Hands me one, takes the other for herself. We clink the bottles together and drink.

After a long pull, I shift in the chair so I’m facing her. “Why did you come back this afternoon? You said when you left you’d be back tomorrow.”

She jabs a thumb behind her. “Left my jacket.”

I look. A black Windbreaker hangs from a coat hook near the door. “And you brought beer because?”

A shrug. “I thought maybe David might still be here and we’d . . .” She lets her voice drop.

“Ah. You’re smitten. I should warn you, he’s been seeing someone. He’s on a trip with her now. Probably won’t be back until Friday.”

She sighs and settles back in the chair. “Well, I’ve never shied away from a challenge. And in a way, I’m glad you and I had a chance to get acquainted.”

I hide the smirk by taking another pull.

Get acquainted? Oh, Tracey. You don’t have a clue.

 

 

TRACEY LEAVES AT FIVE WITH AN OFFER TO TAKE ME to dinner. An offer I, of course, decline. I tell her I have a boyfriend waiting for me at home and that she doesn’t have to come in tomorrow since we have nothing on the docket and David won’t be in.

We part ways with a wave and a “see you on Friday.”

I’m relieved when she’s gone. This girl talk thing is hard. But I can report to David that I behaved myself and that our new partner and I had a chance to bond.

The other good thing was that it distracted me from pacing the floor, wondering why I haven’t yet heard from Williams.

At six, I lock up and head for the cottage. Lance calls while I’m driving home. He asks if I’m all right, if I’ve heard from Williams or Underwood, if I want him to come home tonight. I answer yes, no, no. He says he’ll call again later and that he misses me.

I miss him, too. I miss his smile and his laugh and the way our bodies fit together. I miss having him around during the day. I don’t want to sleep alone tonight. I don’t think I want to sleep alone ever again. There’s a hole my life that only he can fill. I miss him so much I ache.