Dead End Dating (20 page)

She set aside the stack of paperwork she’d been leafing through. We’d had a mini client rush over the past few days, and so she hadn’t had time to put everything into the computer. I say
she
because my typing skills are right up there with my knack for dealing out death and destruction to helpless humans.
Not happenin’.

“Get this,” she told me. Bohemian beads clicked together as she held up one of the questionnaires. “Her name is Roxie. She’s a bungee-jumping fanatic who loves Thai food. She’s had a total of ten broken bones
and
two concussions, and her favorite actor is Vin Diesel.” Her excited gaze collided with mine. “If that doesn’t say action-adventure, I don’t know what does.”

I gave up my own search and reached across the desk to have a closer look. I scanned the questions and answers, and a smile lit my face.

“Looks like we have a match.” I handed her the information on last night’s Most Wanted. “Get them on the phone and let’s set up a date.”

That’s
date,
not felony. I valued my clients far too much to let one of them get dead. Especially one who’d forked over an obscene amount—thank you, Roxie—for the cream of the crop hook-up package that included personalized service from yours truly and a free groom’s cake should she tie the knot with a Dead End match.

But while I wasn’t going to let her get hurt, I
was
going to use her for bait. I had to. I wasn’t exactly the picture of vampiric nutrition. I’d been bottling it for so long that I’d forgotten what fresh-from-the-vein blood tasted like, and how keen it kept the senses. There was a big possibility that I was no longer the sharpest knife in the silverware drawer and that I was way off base about the handcuffs.

Yeah, right.

Who am I kidding? I knew I wasn’t
that
far off. But I wasn’t making that phone call to Ty Bonner until I was one hundred percent sure. I didn’t want him thinking I was an idiot. No, I wanted him desperately in debt to me for saving his ass. Enough so that he would gladly agree to a date with Esther. One date would lead to two. Two to three. Three to matching coffins and a joint account at the local blood bank.

Hey, it could happen.

On top of my professional reasons for wanting to nab the kidnapper, I couldn’t seem to forget the face of the latest missing woman. I’d spent another sleepless day, tossing and turning and thinking about sordid, twisted serial killers.

And Ty.

And hot sex with Ty.

That was
so
not happening.

I was through with dead-end relationships. I wanted happily ever after. While I couldn’t have my own at this moment due to an extremely demanding career and a totally happening social life, I was still one hundred percent committed to helping others find romantic bliss. Also, if I hooked up Esther and Ty, I could totally cross him off the hot sex list. I didn’t do committed vamps any more than I did made ones. Ix-nay any and all ideas about stripping Ty bare and licking him from head to toe.

No, I had my duty as Manhattan’s latest and greatest to sacrifice my own fleeting sexual gratification for the good of all vampkind. And so I was going to set up a date, follow Hunka-hunka-handcuffs, and wait for him to make a move. Then I would save the day, forget the missing girls, match up Ty and Esther, and get back to sleeping like the dead again.

“Surprise!”

I’d just settled down to check my e-mail when I heard the familiar female voice.

At least I thought it was a female voice. But when I turned toward the doorway, I saw what looked like a gigantic flower arrangement with legs.

“Melissa?”

“I hope you like flowers.” A hand parted the arrangement and a familiar face stared back at me. “I know you’re probably busy, but I just had to thank you again for the date with Francis. It was a night I’ll never forget.”

“That’s great. Really great.”
Not.
“But you didn’t have to go to so much trouble.”

“It’s nothing compared to what you’ve done for me.”

“But I really haven’t done anything.”

“Of course you have. Matching up soul mates is a huge deal.”

“About that…How do you
really
know that he’s your soul mate?”

“I felt a connection with him like nothing I’ve ever felt before. It grabbed me. Right here.” She touched her chest.

“Maybe it was indigestion. Sometimes catered food can really get to you. Especially the Swedish meatballs.” Not that I knew firsthand, but I’d watched enough episodes of
Bridezilla
to know the complete lowdown when it came to waltzing down the aisle.

“True.” She looked thoughtful for a moment before shaking her head. “No, I’m sure it was Francis and not the meatballs. You said he liked me. He did, didn’t he?”

“Sure, um, yeah, he did.”

“Then he’s probably just too busy to call.” She glanced at her own watch. “Speaking of which, I really should be getting home. I’ve got a ton of things to do, and I really don’t want to miss his call if he feels like talking tonight. If you happen to talk to him, tell him…just tell him I had fun. That is, if he says he had fun. If he doesn’t say anything, don’t bring it up.” Her anxious gaze collided with mine. “Unless you think you should bring it up. You are the expert, so you probably know just the right way to approach these things. I’m sure you’re a genius when it comes to reading body language.”

“I wouldn’t say genius.”
I
wouldn’t say it. But that didn’t mean that I had a problem hearing it from someone else. “In my line of work, it pays to be intuitive. Don’t worry about a thing. I’m sure he’s dying to call, but there’s some life-or-death issue keeping him busy right now.”

“You think?”

“Of course.” I know, I know. I should have stomped her hopes and dreams into my new Persian rug right then and there. But experts/geniuses didn’t snuff out dreams, particularly when they were wearing a pair of three-inch Christian Louboutin slingbacks.

On top of that, she looked so hopeful that I couldn’t bring myself to tell her she would have better luck marrying Brad Pitt.

“Don’t worry about a thing. Go home, put it out of your mind, and just let things happen.”

“I owe you, Lil. And once we get married, I intend to pay you back in full.”

“Excuse me?”

“Our firstborn, silly. We’re naming her after you. Unless it’s a he. Then it’ll be Francis, Junior. But otherwise, you’re going to have a namesake.”

“I don’t know what to say. That’s so…”—irrational, unrealistic, delusional—“sweet,” I finally said, blinking frantically against the moisture that sprang to my eyes. “That’s really sweet.” Well, it
was.

“It’s the least I can do.” She closed the door before I could say another word—and dig the hole even deeper—and I found myself staring at a slightly wilted red rose.

My earlier high seemed to deflate.

Marriage? Kids?

Shit, what had I done?

I spent the next thirty seconds mentally kicking my own ass. But ass kicking didn’t do much when it came to solving problems. And that’s what I needed. To solve this problem. Now.

I figured I had only three options. One, I could actually encourage Francis to meet with her again. He could use his elite vampire skills to “suggest” that they’d had an awful time at the wedding and that she hated him.

The thing was, Francis wasn’t too savvy in the vamping department (remember the Italian grandmother?), which meant I couldn’t totally trust that another meeting would kill the attraction. It could backfire. Melissa might be so overwhelmed by lust for Francis (go figure) and jump his bones before he could so much as say boo, much less vamp her. Talk about undermining my entire project. The point was to find him an eternity mate, not get him laid.

Possibility number two: I could simply put the poor girl out of her misery before she fell any harder for a vamp she absolutely, positively could not have. I was a vicious bloodsucker, after all. But as I’ve said, murder and mayhem weren’t really my lifestyle choices. Which left the third possibility: find Melissa another match and make her forget all about Francis.

I browsed my database and leafed through the questionnaires Evie had left on my desk until I’d singled out two possibilities—a guy who researched preservatives for a local food corporation and one who mapped out sewer routes for New York City. I hoped Melissa would be so distracted by their total hotness—they were both
really
cute—that she wouldn’t notice the lack of personality.

“Melissa,” I said to her answering machine a few minutes later (apparently she hadn’t made it home yet). “This is Lil. I know you had a wonderful time with Francis, but as owner and quality control president of Dead End Dating, I’m obligated to provide at least two more matches for you. We guarantee three, after all, and because you’re one of my favorite customers, I’m going to pick up the tab for both dates. Just my way of saying thanks for being such a good client. All you have to do is show up, and your charm and smile will do the rest.” I left the dinner dates and times for two of New York’s top restaurants and informed her that her dates would be eagerly awaiting her arrival. “When it comes to the future, a girl can’t sell herself short by falling for the first warm body she meets.” Or lukewarm, in Francis’s case. Hey, he was a vamp. “You owe it to yourself to explore all of your options. Have fun.” I hung up.

Problem solved.

“I’ve got Roxie, the Vin Diesel fan, on line one,” Evie said from the doorway. “She says she’s busy all this week. She can’t make a date until next weekend at the earliest.”

I thought about the missing girl and my desperate hormones. “Tell her to cancel. This is urgent.”

“Urgent?” Evie gave me an odd look.

“You’ve heard the saying…Love waits for no man. Or woman.”

“That’s time. Love is patient and kind.”

“What are you? An inspirational calendar?”

She grinned. “I love those things. My uncle Bernie gives me one every year.” Her expression faded. “And speaking of Uncle Bernie, Louisa Wilhelm called and said she’s ready for prospect number two. I told her not to worry and you would be calling her ASAP. You will be calling her ASAP, won’t you?”

“Probably.”

“And we do have a prospect number two, don’t we?”

“Sort of.”

“That’s what I thought. Why don’t you deal with line one and I’ll go fill out our application for bankruptcy?”

“Remind me to give you a raise for unyielding optimism.”

I knew Evie was joking, but I couldn’t shake the fear that niggled deep down in my gut. But it went beyond the worry over falling flat on my face and tending the counter at Moe’s night after night. I was afraid that maybe, just maybe, my mother was right. Maybe true love was just a crazy idea thought up by humans to sell books and movie tickets and celebrity perfume. Maybe there was no real emotional bond between two individuals. No cosmic connection. No true soul mate.

Maybe it
was
all about the sex and orgasm quotients and fertility ratings.

I forced aside the dismal if slightly titillating thought. I had a much more pressing issue at the moment. I had to convince Miss Action-Adventure why she simply had to drop all and rearrange her schedule to meet a man.

As if he might be The One who would totally and completely change her life.

He couldn’t.

But he could change someone else’s if I didn’t expose him in time.

I reached for the receiver, pasted on my most persuasive smile, and punched the blinking button for line one.

If I hadn’t been dangling just this side of sanity thanks to another sleepless day, the Melissa dilemma, and a useless search for Louisa Wilhelm’s next prospect, the forty-five-minute cab ride with Francis would have pushed me right to the edge.

It was Thursday evening, and I’d picked him up at his place for the next step in his metamorphosis.

“You’ve got the look nailed,” I told him as the cab rolled to a stop in front of our destination—an enormous Colonial-style mansion that sat next door to my parents’ estate in Fairfield, Connecticut. I adjusted the slightly crooked collar of his black silk Gucci shirt and smoothed the edge. My fingers brushed his jaw, and his ears turned a bright pink. “From here on out, it’s all about attitude. The way you perceive yourself. Your charisma.”

“I don’t have charisma.”

“Exactly, and you won’t ever develop any if you don’t stop with the blushing.”

“I can’t help it.”

“Of course you can’t. You’re completely and totally uncomfortable around the opposite sex. But all that’s going to change tonight. Keep her running,” I told the cabdriver before reaching for the door and climbing from the backseat.

“Do you really think this will work?” Francis asked as he followed me up the stone walkway to the front door.

“It can’t hurt.”

“Actually, it could. In case you haven’t heard, werewolves are the enemy.”

“It’s not the Middle Ages, Francis. Werewolves have evolved. They own property and pay their taxes and put their pants on one leg at a time just like the rest of us.”

“Unless it’s a full moon.”

“We all have our flaws. Stop being so negative. This is going to work.” It had to work. No way was I going to hook up Francis if he looked ready to self-combust every time a woman glanced at him. I came to a halt at the massive double doors and pressed the doorbell. A belled version of “Born to Be Wild” by Steppenwolf echoed from inside the house. A few seconds later, a tall, attractive woman with long, brown hair and equally dark eyes pulled open the door.

Viola Hamilton looked like any other filthy rich werewolf living in Connecticut. She wore a flaming red Christian Dior pantsuit, reeked of Chanel No. 5, and had a
RE-ELECT MAYOR BRADLEY LIVINGSTON
sign perched on her lawn.

Bradley Livingston was a werewolf and a liberal, and both equaled the Antichrist as far as my conservative father was concerned.

I, myself, rather liked the Cher impersonation Bradley had done at the annual Founder’s Day Dinner and Dance. You gotta love a man who can pull off fishnet and thigh-high boots.