“You should watch more Dexter.”
If I started to spend any more time at the police station, I was going to have to ask for a desk, a badge and a paycheck. This was, however, the first time in at least a year someone other than Barbie was perched behind the front desk. Instead of explaining myself and getting the frustrating runaround of “I’m sorry, did you say your name was Secret? I’m going to have to call someone…” I decided
to try the path of least resistance.
I jerked my chin up in an abrupt greeting and marched past the front desk without a second glance or another word. Apparently the key to success was simply pretending you belonged somewhere.
Detective Tyler spotted me before I was halfway across the room, and instead of any kind of glaring or snide remarks, he gave me an amiable nod and waved me over to his desk.
Okay, this was just weird. Had I stumbled into some alternate reality where I was a normal woman and got to play cops and robbers for a living instead of eating blood and running a vampire government? If so, I was already loving it.
“McQueen,” Tyler greeted me as he sat down in his desk chair.
I took the seat opposite him and leaned back, balancing the wooden chair on its two rear legs. This was a move my grandmere lovingly referred to as Death Bait.
“So, Detective Tyler, how can I be of assistance? Or did you call me in because you missed seeing my face?” I gave him my most dazzling smile. He looked unamused.
“While it fulfills my deepest unrealized fantasies to sit here and trade quips with you all day, Secret, I’m afraid it will have to wait until I don’t have a triple-homicide case to solve.”
My chair dropped down, and a loud smack echoed through the relative quiet of the room. Tyler pretended to ignore it and handed me three folders, then took his opportunity to lean back. He loosened his tie, a blue-and-gold-striped number that brought out flecks of gold in his brown eyes I’d never noticed before. The blue also made the dark circles under his lashes take on the appearance of deep purple bruises.
He looked exhausted.
The first folder was all familiar information. Trish Keller’s photos, her class schedule, some statements from her roommate and a few family members, and the unfortunate crime-scene photos. Say what you will about the naked female form, but there’s nothing pretty about it when it’s gray-blue and stuffed in a Dumpster.
The next two folders were carbon copies, with minute variations to keep things interesting. Misty Fitzpatrick and Angie Ferris. Both in their early twenties, both matriculated at Columbia, and both looked like boozy, floozy party girls based on their personal photos. What was it with the young women of today thinking the more eyeliner you wore and the oranger your tan the better it made you look?
Sometimes I was thankful sunlight would kill me. I’d rather be pale than look like a walking pumpkin. In the back of my head I heard Grandmere scolding me to not speak ill of the dead. Even thinking ill of the dead would be poor form in her opinion.
I scanned the crime-scene photos of the two new girls, but they didn’t tell me anything. Both girls were found nude, their skin frozen by the bitter cold of winter, their lips blue and fingertips black. As I thumbed through them I felt the weight of Tyler’s gaze looming over me. My gaze darted up and caught him staring at me with a singular focus.
“What?” I asked as I closed the folders and placed them on his desk.
“I wonder about you sometimes.”
This wasn’t exactly akin to having a handsome man confess I think about you sometimes. To be frank, the less Detective Tyler thought about me, the better. Once upon a time I would have relished attention from him, because he was a good-looking, smart, funny man. He was also deliciously human, and much like being with Dominick, the time I spent with Tyler early in our acquaintance had made me feel grounded to the real world.
Then the illusion had been masterfully shattered when I was forced to dice up three vampires in the Bryant Park subway station and Tyler had gone home without his memory.
That was the real reason I didn’t need him thinking about me. It was a rare feat, but sometimes people who’d been enthralled by a vampire were able to regain their original memories. It often took years, sometimes hypnotherapy, but once in awhile they just had a series of lucid dreams until the real memory came back to them.
I did not need Tyler Nowakowski to remember what he’d seen. He’d lock me up next to Gabriel and throw away the key.
“What do you wonder?”
“How is it a pretty girl like you can look at pictures like that and not be moved by them?”
“Would you prefer I turn into a trembling, weepy mess and launch into a fit of hysterics? It’s not really my style, but if it would help you rationalize me better, I can do it.” For effect, I stuck out my lower lip a bit and gave it a good pre-sob tremble.
Tyler rolled his eyes. “Why do you insist on making a joke of everything?”
“Because if I took everything I see on a daily basis seriously, Detective, the weight of my life would destroy me.” Wow, that was a hell of an honest answer. Where had that come from?
Even Tyler looked a little stunned by my candor. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to imply—”
I waved off his apology. “We all have our coping mechanisms, right?”
“I suppose so.”