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  "Cops," whispered Ben. "Always coming in wanting freebies right before closing. Hold that thought. I’ll be right back."

  Marley threw her jacket on but didn’t zip up, and walked outside the back exit to make a quick phone call. She didn’t know how she was going to be able to subtly side step this invitation like she had all the others in the past, so the officers were a welcome diversion.

  The less trafficked back stairs were actually outside the shop unlike the main stairs where the doors opened at street level, and then patrons descended, already inside the shelter of the establishment. Luckily, although these stairs were outside, they were also sheltered as the building walled her in on one side, and the concrete-reinforced earth closed her in on the other. She dialed Jenna and huddled against the Basement as a partial refuge against the bite of the wind that still managed to swirl its way down the stairs and back up again. She waited for the call to connect. Marley watched through the door windows as the two men flashed badges at Ben. Their visit was business and not complimentary caffeine; it was written all over Ben’s face.

  The call went to Jenna’s voicemail, and Marley listened to the outgoing message: "Hey, you’ve reached Jenna. Leave me a message and I’ll call you back. Don’t forget your digits."

  Marley waited for the requisite beep and said, "Hey girlie. I’m at the coffee shop. Still mad at me? Ben said Sam had to work tonight. Shit, I don’t even know what your man does. Anyway, call me back. I think I’m losing my mind. I met him. You know who I’m talking about. He’s not what I thought."

  Not knowing what else to say, Marley hung up and headed back inside. Before she could sit down in front of her laptop, the two men were at her table.

  These guys were as cold as the wind-chill outside with their muscles and iron strapped to their sides, and as tall as Long’s Peak. One would think the weapons would be the most off-putting part about them, but they had twin tattoos like none she’d ever seen—tribal, almost. The ink started where their jaws met their necks, and continued down over their jugulars (although Marley knew from a brief stint in anatomy in one high school or another that all the veins and arteries were in that same piece of real estate). The tats disappeared into their collars, and that was a little too close for comfort to her own not-so-zen moment earlier. What the hell?

  "Miss?" asked the shorter one, although he was only smaller by a fraction. He had skin the color of leather, and spiky black hair. His features were almost native with high, strong cheekbones and a prominent nose. If his hair were long, she would have thought him an American Indian.

  "Uh-huh," she answered, hesitation and wariness evident in her voice.

  "I’m agent Solis. This is my partner, agent Teichmann."

  Teichmann was busy writing in a little notebook. He was your everyday average Caucasian mutt, probably some English and German in his blood. He was built like a six-foot-plus fireplug, stout, huge, and all around intimidating. Marley was thankful he didn’t seem to think she was important enough to look up from his note taking. That was just fine with here. The bulges in his suit suggested he was armed to the nines. Once upon a time she'd had a gun held to her head, and the more distance between herself and a trigger, the better.

  "The young man over there tells us you’re friends with Jenna Moffet."

  Marley hadn’t realized she was leaning forward, trying to read what Teichmann was writing until he finally looked up, and held the book to his chest.

  "Yes," she answered, returning her attention to Solis.

  "When was the last time you saw Ms. Moffet?"

  "A few days ago I guess. Did something happen?"

  "Did Ms. Moffet mention anything about someone she might be spending time with? Someone she might have met recently?"

  "What’s happened? Where is she?"

  Agent Solis sighed, and put his hands in his pockets. Marley thought it might have been a manufactured movement to call attention to the hand-cannon at his belt. As if it didn’t already have a personality of its own.

  "Jenna Moffet is missing, and we’re looking into the possibility that she was taken against her will."

  "Taken?" Marley was riding an elevator up to the freak-out floor, fast.

  "Maybe," said Solis. "So anything you can tell us would be helpful. With whom has she been spending time?"

  Somehow the proper grammar was scarier than the guns. Solis stared, waiting with more angst than she thought was typical of a detective just gathering information for possible leads, while Teichmann, on the other hand, remained expressionless while he took notes in his little pocket notebook, using its leather case as support for his writing just like Marley had seen in a million cop shows. It was almost as cliché as the haircuts.

  And Marley knew something. These agents, plus Sabian, plus her fucked up luck, equaled an even more fucked up answer—Jenna wouldn’t be calling her back. She just knew it to be true as she absentmindedly fished in her shirt and began worrying her pendant.

  "Ma’am?"

  The officers were still there, waiting for her to give them something to work with, while Marley, for what seemed like the millionth time today, tried to incorporate something into her reality that just didn’t fit.

  "Um, she’s been dating a guy named Sam." She didn’t miss the way the two agents looked at each other. If she could have translated the look into identifiable reactions, they would have been equal parts shock and I-just-fucking-knew-it.

  "Do you have a last name?"

  "I don’t know his last name. They’ve only been together a few weeks."

  "Can you describe him?" Once again, Solis looked a little too eager, and Teichmann was finally showing some interest. His eyes were glued to her, now. He’d closed his little bullshit notebook and put it in his breast pocket.

  "I’ve never actually spoken to him, only seen him from a distance a couple of times." Well, that wasn't exactly accurate, but she'd always been blacked-out when up close and personal with the guy. "I know he’s older, like thirty, and I think he drives an El Camino or something."

  "Thanks for your help," said Solis as the two men turned on their heels and headed for the exit.

  "Wait," said Marley. "That’s all? Do you have any leads?"

  The agents were through with her in a big way. Solis was out the main door, and Teichmann had already cleared the stairs, phone to his ear and one step behind his partner. Neither man looked back at her, and she was unnerved by how the interview ended. They hadn’t wrapped anything up and didn’t give her their business cards. What they gave her, in fact, was a whole lot of nothing. As soon as she talked about Sam, they got weird, but she didn’t even give them enough information to know who he was.

  Unless they already knew him.

  "What the hell?" she said as Ben walked over to her.

  Ben only shook his head. He looked worried and defeated. Marley could relate.

  "I have to go," she said.

  "Wait. Your beer," said Ben.

  "Rain check."

  "I’ll take you home."

  "No, I need to be alone." Marley needed to be alone about as much as she needed a root canal, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that this had something to do with Sabian. She thought about the recent sleepless nights and the sounds she couldn’t classify as the dark hours crept by. She just couldn’t stick around with Ben though, not after this.

  "No Marley, let me drive you home. We don’t know what’s going on. You might not be safe," Ben pleaded.

  But Marley had already yanked her charger from the wall and shoved her laptop in her bag. She was up the steps and out the side door almost as fast as Solis and Teichmann. She knew poor Ben was probably wrestling with deserting the shop. She hoped he chose the route of the responsible employee and stayed to earn his paycheck like the proper young nerd he was.

  The flurries gave way to legit snow, and now big, lightweight flakes were falling, glowing in the fluorescence of the streetlights. The wind had backed down to a crawl, but that was probably
temporary. She hurried as fast as she could along the slippery sidewalk, eyes scanning the street for threats. There were very few people out, and the few she passed all had the look of vultures waiting for their next windfall of dead meat. She had to get home quick before she had a panic attack. She wished she’d had that beer after all, and maybe a half-dozen more.

  Chapter Nine

  Agents Solis and Teichmann were parked across the street from The Basement, staring into the windows even after all the lights were turned out. The girl—what did that kid say her name was? Right, Marley McRae—had rushed out just after they left, but the agents chalked that up to female dramatics.

  Teichmann sat behind the wheel of the idling SUV. The Vanguard purposely chose the most exhausted look for their rides: black tinted windows on black, glossy paint, nothing to identify which government agency it belonged to, even though everything about it screamed coppers. Anyone who laid eyes on the big box would have been surprised to learn that no official agency would claim this particular vehicle.

  Teichmann handed the phone to Solis for the third time in half an hour. "No, nothing. He was here, but his asset is missing."

  It irked Solis to report that Moffet had disappeared, and her friend confirmed that Halac had been in the area for some time now. He knew what his colleagues back at Vanguard were thinking: how hard is it to keep track of one girl in a geographically isolated city like Fort Collins? Not that the city was small, necessarily. It just happened to have natural barriers to the west in the form of the biggest mountain range in the country, and the next nearest big city was an hour away to the south. To the east the plains stretched as far as the curvature of the earth allowed the eyes to see, and to the north, the only town worth mentioning for hundreds of miles was Cheyenne, not exactly a metropolis.

  Solis figured they also wondered how he and Teichmann had lost one of their own, but fuck them. Every Vanguard agent was trained to be invisible, and if that failed, to disappear without a trace. Many were ex-CIA spooks, but most were just men and women who were the best at what they did—killing bloodsuckers.

  He listened as the agent on the other end of the line asked the questions protocol told him to. He was a mid-level, middle-aged but still fit guy named Janks, and regardless of the appropriateness of Janks’s questions, his voice implied exactly what Solis would have been thinking: get off the fucking phone and go find our rogue.

  "I don’t know. We’re out of leads." He thought for a minute, and had a brainstorm. "What about Franky’s documents?" He listened for a second while Teichmann fiddled with the climate control, and then asked, "How long will it take to pull the archives?" He waited, listening, and then said, "Alright. Get back to me."

  He hung up the phone, and turned to see Teichmann staring at him. Solis hated that about his new partner. When he least expected it, he’d get the heebie-jeebies and realize it was fucking Teichmann and his incessant eyeballing.

  "They’re going to pull Franky’s documents. Might find something there."

  "I mean, we’re talking about Halac," Teichmann said. "He’s gone rogue, right? He’d never dodge procedure, unless…"

  "Unless he’s gunning for BloodStar. And he’s always gunning for BloodStar, so which one?" But Solis already knew. Halac only had eyes for Sabian.

  "You really need to ask?" Apparently Teichmann was on the same wavelength.

  Marley finally made it to her apartment, and tried to put the key in the lock, but missed the first two times. She was practically hyperventilating as her hands trembled. She slowed her inhalations, counted backward from five, and composed herself. She inserted the key into the hole, turned the knob, and calmly stepped inside.

  When she locked the door behind her, she was able to maintain her serenity for about two more seconds before her legs gave out beneath her and she slid against the door to the floor. Marley put her head in her hands, and began to cry for Jenna.

  She took her phone back out of her pocket, and dialed her friend’s number again. Straight to voicemail.

  Realizing sitting on her floor in front of the door, acting a fool and sobbing all over herself was worthless, Marley picked herself up, stripped out of her jacket and beanie and headed for the kitchen. She needed vodka, stat. Marley could barely get the lid off the cheap, plastic bottle in time. She guzzled three shots worth straight from the source—no tiny glasses necessary for a seasoned veteran like herself. The burn in her stomach was divine intervention.

  Marley walked to the front door and put her fingers on the lock. She stood like this for a long time, waiting for the effects of the alcohol. With no food in her belly since that morning (and having lost a pint or so of blood even though she didn’t know it for sure), it wouldn’t take long for the swill to do its job. Finally she made her move and unlocked the door. Her hands were shaking again, different from what she sometimes experienced when she was really jonsing for a drink (she didn’t like to think about that recent development), and she clasped them together, willing them to settle down. Somehow she knew that if she could get her hands to be still, her mind would quiet too.

  She walked across the room and sank into the welcome scratchiness of her second-hand couch, relishing the familiar discomfort.

  Even though her front door was the point of entry that left her most vulnerable, she knew Sabian would be back, had to believe it. Besides, she understood that locking her cheap, flimsy apartment door would be about as effective against a determined intruder as posting a Chihuahua up as an attack dog.

  Marley thought about all the things Sabian said to her, and she didn’t like the whole "you’re mine" business; it wormed around in her brain like a sickness, reminding her of other times and places better forgotten. In those days, possession and obsession were old chums, but rarely played nice. This was not the night to think about "those days."

  Sane or not, locked doors or not, she wouldn’t feel safe until the vampire (Good God) who possibly stole some of her blood was back to wrap her in his arms. She fell asleep in her sweats and Ugh boots on the couch, waiting for him.

  Outside, the snow fell heavier and the wind reached gale force.

  The storm was here.

  Sabian wasn’t interested in the pretty young brunette with the broken heart; he was looking to spill blood, but not from an innocent. Instead, the blond. It was never hard to lure a pair of eyes his direction. He had been handsome in life with his thick, wavy black hair and smiling eyes, but in death he’d become electric.

  The blond flashed a coy smile at Sabian, and let her eyes linger on his for just a moment before they fell to the table. Predictable. She swayed almost imperceptibly to the Johnny Cash song coming from the jukebox. Didn’t she notice her friend coming undone next to her? Or was she was only interested in the dark atmosphere of the bar, the music, the peanut shells on the floor, and how pretty all of this made her look in contrast?

  She looked up again, and this time it was Sabian who smiled. He let loose only a fraction of his persuasive energy, but it was more than enough to throw the lever. She suggested to her friend with the puffy eyes that they wait outside, obviously hoping Sabian would follow them.

  The women bundled up in jackets and scarves. The one with a broken heart buried her dark hair under a beanie. The blond wouldn’t dream of covering up her locks, self worth all wrapped up in the flaxen waves that fell down her back. She stared at Sabian as she zipped and buttoned, not quite so demure as before.

  Sabian raised his beer to the blond and nodded as she poised to exit. She raised her eyebrows and tilted her head to the side as though trying to figure something out, but it was a contrived movement, an invitation.

  Always so easy with her type.

  Sabian waited just a few minutes before leaving a ten on the table. His movement toward the door was lazy. He could feel her anticipation as he neared the exit; it rivaled his own. Black humor washed over him, coating his tongue with need for her blood.

  That point in the lifespan of every vampire w
hen he realizes that for the most part, humans are simply part of the food chain, lower in the hierarchy, had come and gone long ago for Sabian. It was a paradigm shift that turned his human morals into flotsam. He’d considered it many times, this ability to see a person for all her selfish potential and the fact that for a mature vampire like Sabian, being judgmental was acceptable, not a character flaw in the least. He’d concluded the superiority was more than a state of mind; it was a fact of evolution, one that allowed him to give or deny mercy. Now, as he watched the blond poke and prod at herself in anticipation, righteous anger began to swell.

  The judgment had concluded, and sentencing was about to begin. Mercy would be denied this night.

  When Dawn Pearson got ready to go out that night, it was just to have a couple of drinks and listen to her friend heehaw about some loser who dumped her, not to meet a hottie in a dive bar downtown. But Dawn went the distance and made herself up as though she had VIP passes to the Broncos locker-room. Now she was glad.

  She looked over her shoulder—the guy was following them out. Nice, but not surprising. He was the typical loner in a bar on the eve of a storm—almost. She thought about trying to milk him for a few drinks but this guy was different. Women probably fought to buy drinks for him, a little twist in gender roles so to speak. To hell with Women’s Lib—Dawn liked gender roles that kept the men paying and her pocket book padded. But even with the hot ones who could have their pick of the lot, her long blond hair and even longer legs were usually enough to cloud judgment and get the old one-eyed trouser snake to take command of the wallet.

  But again, this guy was different, hotter than the fucking sun, as a matter of fact. Veronica was going to kill it with her stupid crybaby, Drama-saurus Rex madness. Who cared if that asshole dumped her? Vero was better off. For the love of God, the loser worked at a carwash and drove a shitty little Tercel.

  Dawn wondered what the hottie from the bar drove. Probably something sleek and foreign with slip-n-slide leather.