Part 14 (1/2)
”Fine. But I'm not wearing one of those disco s.h.i.+rts.”
Suddenly, there was hesitation in her voice. ”But wait, what if we get caught?”
”We're vampires, Phoebe.”
”I'd like to say I'd forgotten that, but with all this sunscreen on my nose, it's impossible.”
”How are you feeling about it today? You've taken this entire thing like a total champ. I'm expected to because I'm the man, but according to Nina, women usually cry. A lot.”
”That's only because Nina would point and laugh if I did.”
”So this is a one-upmans.h.i.+p thing?”
”No. It's a pride thing. Crying won't get me anywhere. What's done is done-or maybe it all hasn't sunk in just yet. There hasn't been a lot of time to do much of anything but look for answers. But don't go thinking I wouldn't like to sit in a corner and have a good bawling session over the fact that there'll be no more blueberry cheesecake for me.”
”How do we know that for sure? Maybe because we're potentially manufactured vampires, we can still eat. We can do things other vampires can't-like see our reflections.”
”That's hopeful at best, Starsky, but unfortunately I know for sure we can't eat anymore.”
He'd considered testing the theory, but the worry something would debilitate him and keep him from protecting Phoebe kept him from attempting a cold beer. ”You didn't.”
”I did. It was just a little sliver of that delicious cake Archibald made last night. Coconut cream, I think. It smelled so good baking, I thought, what's the worst that can happen? The worst is, you spend an hour wors.h.i.+ping on your knees over a toilet. Which, by the way, for a man, you have the cleanest toilet I've ever seen.”
He fought a chuckle. ”Couldn't keep it down, huh?”
Phoebe winced, making a face. ”The second it went in was the second it came right back out. Can I tell you the kind of grief counseling I'm going to need because I can't have a s...o...b..ll? So if we find the p.r.i.c.ks that did this to us, I say you let me at 'em. The least they could have done was given us more of a perk than just eternal life.” Her voice hitched at the last of her words, and Sam knew why.
The words eternal life gave them both pause, driving them each into silence. f.u.c.k. He had to figure this out. If their vampirism was related to the dead Alice Goodwin and she was related to the woman who'd shown up on Phoebe's doorstep, they had to move fast. Who knew how long between the time that woman had been turned until she died had been? What if they were only days away from decomposing-hours-minutes? And why hadn't Alice decomposed like his feeble attempt at a one-night stand had?
When he had a moment alone, he'd call Stinky Malone, one of his most reliable, albeit crooked agency resources. Stinky knew how to keep s.h.i.+t on the down low.
For years Stinky had hacked into government sites with cla.s.sified information on suspicious events labeled paranormal by the government. Most only had inconclusive findings, but Stinky knew how to get to them. Maybe, now that he knew something was definitely going on at O-Tech, Stinky could help him out-fish around-something.
Sam pulled his iPod from his jacket pocket and plugged it into the stereo in the car. Music always helped to calm his frayed thoughts when a case got too hectic.
Tom Jones drifted through the speakers, and from the corner of his eye, he saw Phoebe's lips turn upward, again leaving him ridiculously pleased. He'd downloaded them just before they'd left in a lame, schoolboy attempt to impress her with his listening skills.
She burrowed into the pa.s.senger seat; the glow of the setting sun casting a peachy haze over her auburn hair and creamy skin. Jesus, she was s.e.xy. ”Are you wooing me, Mr. Vampire?”
He gave her a nonchalant shrug. ”You can't woo a woman with Tom Jones. It's inconceivable.”
She tucked her stylish dark brown trench coat around her chin and smiled. ”You can if it's this woman.”
He gazed out the window and made a left at the next street. ”Let's put the woo on hold for now because I think we've arrived.”
The brownstone they drove past was well kept and swept clean of the early fall leaves. Trees surrounded it, now barren and bending in the wind. A set of wide steps lined with potted mums led up to a locked door with an intercom system. One they'd probably need to be buzzed into.
Phoebe glanced at him, concern on her pretty face. ”Why aren't we stopping?”
”Because, Detective Hutchinson, if Alice Goodwin and the woman I was bitten by are connected to us via O-Tech, who knows who could be hanging around, looking to keep us from finding out what's going on. So we park a couple of streets away-you know, to keep our cover?”
”Ohhhh,” she said, patting his arm with a smile and a nod. ”Good point. You're pretty good at this.”
Sam fought a grunt. ”I watch a lot of TV on my downtime.”
”You mean when you're not fending off hordes of women?”
”That can become trying for a hot geek like me. We need our rest to fight the hordes another day.”
Sam parked the car two streets over in a grocery store parking lot behind a Dumpster he could smell every piece of garbage in.
Phoebe hopped out, gagging. She covered her mouth with her arm. ”Okay, vampire smell-a-vision officially sucks. So what's the plan?”
The plan was to find a way to get into Alice's brownstone without having to use the front door. He held out his hand, one she almost always willingly took. His fingers curled around hers, and he tugged her smaller frame to his. ”I think we're going to test the theory that we have the ability to jump-high.”
Phoebe frowned, tightening the belt on her coat. ”Can't we just break in? We did that at your place just fine. Or why don't you wall-walk?”
”That was because we weren't going to arouse suspicion at my place, and I don't know the exact location of her apartment. I don't want to walk into the middle of the wrong apartment. A brownstone, if it's the typical type anyway, tends to have just a few apartments. So people know each other pretty well. We don't want anyone to see us or be able to identify us.”
Phoebe wrinkled her nose. ”Okay. I propose that when this is all done, you know, if we live, we go out somewhere. Anywhere. Like a place that doesn't have a TV, because you're far too good at this breaking-and-entering, felonious-acts thing.”
If she only knew ... Sam smiled at her suggestion, then tugged her along behind him, their footsteps silent against the wet pavement. It took them all of ten seconds to walk a quarter of a mile through the back alleys leading to Alice's-still a source of wonder for Sam.
He approached the backside of the building, and for a moment, rethought his plan. He should have dropped Phoebe back off with Nina where she'd be safe rather than risk someone harming her. It had been hard enough to convince Nina he could handle the doctor's office. If something happened to Phoebe, she'd chew him a new a.s.shole. Even he, trained in the art of war, was just a little leery of the Nina-nator, as Marty called her.
Phoebe looked up at the brownstone while she stood beside Sam. She gave him a nudge. ”I say we go for the roof, break the exit door lock, and tap the stairwell.”
Sam grinned down at her, unable to help some misplaced sense of pride at her willingness to bust into a brownstone not just in heels, but b.a.l.l.s to the wall. ”Wow, who's the amateur detective now?”
Her almond-shaped eyes twinkled. ”Alas, I'm a single woman, living with a gay man. We do a lot of Psych. Mark won't admit it, but I think he has a crush on Corbin Bernsen. Anyway, do you think we need a running start?”
”I don't know. When Nina showed us how, she was in the air without much effort at all.”
Phoebe let go of his hand and crouched low on her haunches. ”I feel very Bionic Woman right now,” she joked before she was up and gone-completely out of his line of vision.
Sam mirrored her crouch, lunging upward with so much ease he almost wished the guys back at the agency could see him.
He landed with light feet on the rooftop, caught a glimpse of Phoebe's smug, pleased grin, one he was about to return but didn't quite manage.
Instead of smiling in return, he blacked out.
CHAPTER 10.
Phoebe tore her phone from her jacket pocket and hit the app on it for Twitter. Why wasn't anyone answering their phone? For the love of 911. It wasn't like they were in a vampire state of emergency or anything. Shouldn't everyone have their phones manned and at the ready?
She held her phone up and squelched a screech. No bars. Perfect. She used her thumb to frantically find the location of the icon to text-the one Mark had shown her like only a million times-and bit off another scream. If they got out of this in one piece, she was getting the phone for kindergartners, with big directions and easily understood icons.