Part 15 (2/2)

Nina made an angry grunt, her eyes scanning the forms Phoebe held. ”f.u.c.k. This just keeps getting better and better. So now what?”

Sam placed his hands on his lean hips, his eyes glimmered. ”We send Phoebe in.”

Ahhhh. Bait. She could be bait. To murderers. Madmen. Total nutb.a.l.l.s. Oh, sweet mother of all things holy. ”So you want me to join the clinical trial?”

Sam's expression was hard, making Phoebe c.o.c.k her head. He was usually so easygoing and lighthearted. But this Sam had a vibe she didn't understand, a hard current of something ... ”Yes. That's exactly what we do. You've got all the forms, right?”

Phoebe gave a hesitant nod. ”I do.”

”You already have the diagnosis, and your doctor deemed you a candidate-all we need to do is get you into wherever it is they're performing the tests.”

Fear swept over Phoebe. Go figure. ”I don't want to poke holes in your Miami Vicealike plan, but what good am I going to do? Sure, I can get inside, but I don't know the first thing about chemicals and beakers and all that medical stuff we saw, Sam. They're obviously not going to give me the laundry list of ingredients they're using to test these poor people with, and I wouldn't know what the ingredients were even if they did.” Panic had begun to set in again, deep and foreboding.

When Sam answered, he was all goodness and light again. ”No, honey. I don't want you to go in, go in. There'll be no Charlie's Angels for you. I just want you to join the trial and get the address for where this is going down. The rest will be up to me.”

Relief flooded her. G.o.d, he was super-duper dreamy. Virile. Smart. Funny. s.e.xy. s.e.xy. Seeeexy.

”I dunno, Sammy,” Nina said, intruding upon her inward fangirl gush. ”I'm not so hip to the idea that they could find out about Phoebe. What if one of those goons comes looking for her? What if they f.u.c.king decide to come get her when she doesn't show up? I'ma hafta slap a b.i.t.c.h if that happens. So, tag, you're the b.i.t.c.h, Sammy.”

Sam began to pack up Alice's bank statements while Darnell straightened the bookcase. ”Do we have any other choices, Nina? I'd rather risk them knowing of her than not find the answer to this and let her die.”

Okay. Sam was officially dreamy napalm. d.a.m.n her fears, her inexperience with a solid felony, her misgivings. He was willing to do whatever it took to keep her from dying. Mad-a.s.s hot. That's what he was.

Nina slapped Sam on the back and smiled with a sinister glint to it. ”She dies, you die, dude.”

Darnell chuckled, husky and low. ”Aw, now, Nina, stop hars.h.i.+n' the man's vibe. He's jus' tryin' ta do what he feels is right for his ladylove. You gone and forgot what tha.s.s like?”

But Phoebe didn't hear Darnell proclaim she was Sam's ladylove as much as she did the threat that Nina would kill Sam if something happened to her. Her eyebrow rose. ”Was that sisterly concern I just heard?”

Nina flipped up her middle finger, pale and threatening. ”No. That was if-they-find-you-they-might-find-us concern, Presumptuous Barbie.”

Phoebe would have risen to the bait if she weren't getting so good at this emotional-reading thing. She found, in the madness, she was spending more time really hearing the intonation of people's voices, really listening to the inflection and change of pitch.

That had been concern in Nina's, and while she was prideful enough to refuse to allow Nina's rejection to show outwardly, she wasn't going to pa.s.s up the opportunity to revel in any small indication Nina was warming to her. She sauntered over to Alice's window and flung it open. ”Was not,” she taunted in a tone that teased. ”You liiike me. Oh! You know what this reminds me of?”

Nina rolled her beautiful eyes. ”Christ. If it's one of your stupid soap opera references, it's nothing like it. I'd kill a b.i.t.c.h before I'd let her hold me hostage in some convent while she slammed my man. Trust that s.h.i.+t.”

Phoebe shook her head with a coy smile. ”No, it's not like that, silly. I don't even know your man. Who's my brother-in-law, by the way. It's more like the time on Guiding Sunrise when Sierra Madson finally, after a twelve-year search, found her sister Arianna living right next door to her. Arianna didn't like Sierra at all when she found out they were sisters, but when danger struck in the way of the Bowler City serial killer, she had Sierra's back. Which just proves, you don't want anything to happen to me. I'm growing on you, Nina, and I know that cinches your panties, but really, what doesn't, Warrior Barbie?” she asked with a giggle before she jumped out the window to the back alley, narrowly escaping Nina's screech of fury.

She smiled when she landed like some graceful version of a one-hundred-forty-five-pound cat.

Nina liked her.

Heh.

CHAPTER 11.

”I can't turn my brain to the off position,” Phoebe said from her place on the bed. Freshly showered and in a pair of sweats Mark had brought for her along with some of her other clothes and cosmetics, she'd propped herself up on Sam's pillow while she waited for vampire sleep in his darkened bedroom.

Sam gave her a drowsy glance from the bench under his window where he'd been sleeping since this had begun and he'd offered up his bed like the gentleman he was. ”It isn't your brain that needs turning off-it's that pretty mouth,” he said, though his sleepy words were filled with amus.e.m.e.nt. ”But before this vampire sleep-by-comatose a.s.sault gets us, you really did a number on that guy on the roof, huh? Way to go.”

She knew how to defend herself-she'd spent a lot of time using her fists before she'd learned her lesson. But it didn't make how utterly mortified she was any better.

She'd used her vampire powers to take a weak, dying fellow manufactured vampire out. ”I'm not too proud of that, Sam. He had to have been weak and desperate at that point, and now he's dead, too. But we have no idea who he is or why he was at Alice's. Though, I'd bet he was following the same trail we were. So not only did I beat him up with my fierce from-the-hood skills, he spent the last minutes of his life being launched across a rooftop.”

”You're right. I'm sorry. And unfortunately, his ident.i.ty is a question we may not have the answer to anytime soon-or even ever, honey.”

Yet, she couldn't stop the worry from rolling over her in waves. She'd tried to put together any sort of connect the dots to this madness, and she still wasn't sure it had to do with patients for the clinical trial. ”Do you really think this is the answer? The Alzheimer's patients? That we were just easy targets for these monsters because no one would care if we dropped off the face of the planet? That if I had been a part of the clinical trial, I would have ended up like Alice?”

Sam's words were instantly soothing, his tone gentle and sympathetic. ”I do. It's only a hunch, though. I just looked at the common denominators the minute you said you'd been offered the trial. But I don't think that's the case, in reference to you dropping off the face of the planet, Phoebe. I think Mark would move heaven and earth if something happened to you. If his clucking over you like a mother hen tonight was any indication of how he feels about you, I wouldn't put it past him to hunt the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds down and take them out. In fact, I wouldn't put it past him to take out Nina, if it meant protecting you. And that's saying something.”

Phoebe s.h.i.+vered despite the fact that it was only a phantom reaction to the fear that she'd come so close to ending up like Alice Goodwin and that poor, unidentifiable man on the roof.

Though, the way things stood right now, they both could end up like that anyway. ”But it's like you said, he wouldn't have gotten very far because he's not a relation. So had I gone first, Alice could've been me. And I know that's a s.h.i.+tty thing to say when a perfectly decent human being is dead. My thoughts should be with Alice. Yet, I can't help but focus on the fact that this could have happened to me if I hadn't hesitated about the trials. There would have been no one to take up for me because I'm essentially alone.” Her eyes squeezed shut tight. Okay, she wasn't entirely alone. She did have Mark and ...

Oh, G.o.d.

The clock was ticking and still she hadn't told everyone everything.

She heard the rustle of Sam's jeans as he moved on the bench, felt the sink of the mattress beside her when he sat at the edge of the bed. Without a word, he enveloped her in his arms, and she let him, resting her head on the spot where his chest met his shoulder.

Sam placed his chin on the top of her head. ”We'll figure this out, Phoebe. We've got a solid lead now.”

Without realizing she had, she wrapped her arms around his waist. ”Listen to you, Baretta, with your fancy detective terminology,” she teased, then briefly wondered at the slight stiffening of his body. But that didn't last long. Not when a tendril of heat was finding its way to her belly, warm and stoking a potential fire.

”I just mean we've got something to go on now.”

”But it isn't a lot. We could be all wrong about the connection between the clinical trial and us. And if we are, we're back to square one ...”

”If this is what I'm thinking, if this Dr. Hornstein really is using this clinical trial as a cover, he'll rush your application through for the chance at nabbing another test subject. If what we suspect is true, this will all be over before you know it. Trust me on that.”

Right then and there, it hit her. Hard. In the gut. Without warning. ”I don't think I'm ever going to relax again. Who could relax after finding out there really is a boogeyman, Sam? Nothing's the same anymore. Nothing. The entire world's changed after what's happened to us. We're vampires, Sam. Sweet baby J, vampires really exist. They really drink blood. They really live forever. They have friends that are werewolves and demons. Demons who wear bling and high-top sneakers. Who would have thought-”

”Favorite soap opera?” he muttered against her forehead, pulling her tighter to him.

”Don't try and distract me. We're in the middle of a crisis and you want to talk something as superfluous as soap operas? We're vampires. Vam-pi-res,” she sounded out. A vampire. She was a vampire, vampire, vampire. Phoebe clenched her teeth. Teeth that included fangs. Fangs, fangs, fangs.

Fangs, fangs, bo-fangs, fee-fi-fo-fangs.

Fangs!

Oh, Moses and the Red Sea.

Sam pulled her into his lap and cradled the upper half of her body. ”Hey. Focus on me. Favorite soap opera,” he insisted, tweaking the s.p.a.ce where her waist and hip met.

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