Death and Relaxation (2 page)

“Chief Reed,” Sven said with a nod. His arms were crossed, hands tucked under his armpits. He’d only been in town for a few years, arriving as the newest “cousin” of the Rossi clan, which was a wide and varied melting pot.

Old Rossi, the patriarch of the vampire clan, never turned away a new family member looking for a better life.

Not all of the Rossis stayed in town, of course. There were rules, strict rules, and those who broke them were never seen again.

Old Rossi made sure of that.

Sven was built like he might have been a fisherman, or maybe someone who worked a farm a hundred years ago. Here, he worked the night shift at Mom’s Bar and Grill, which was more bar than it was grill.

He must have just gotten off work.

“Sven,” I said. “You here when it happened?”

He squinted and tipped his head the way his sort did when they were scenting for blood, fear, and sometimes other things they hungered for.

“Nope. I got here right after the blast. Perkin’s furious.” His smile pulled up on one side, revealing a flash of his sharp canines. “Thinks someone wants him dead.” His eyes widened. “Imagine that.”

“Yeah, well, you let me know if you hear anything.”

Dan Perkin’s voice cut through the night air. “Throw him in jail! Throw that dirty, lying, cowardly, thieving scrap of garbage in jail!”

“Sounds like he’s singing your song, chief,” Sven said.

“I mean it. You hear anything…”

He nodded. “We’ll bring it to you. Rossi word.”

“Good.”

Fire, but not ambulance—must have called them off—took the corner, lights flashing, sirens off.

I strode past Sven, across the yard, alongside the house to the backyard.

Looked like someone had used dynamite to start a bonfire. The fire wasn’t spreading—early May was still too wet for anything to do much more than smolder—but the hole had blown the heck out of the burn pile and a couple nearby tire planters.

Dan Perkin stood in front of the fire, cussing. From the dirt on him, he’d either been standing right in front of it when it’d blown, or had fallen on his way to see what the commotion was about.

“Hello, chief,” Pearl said from his porch at my right. “Everyone’s all right here.”

Pearl was in her early seventies—mortal—and a retired nurse out of Portland. She wore her hair back in a long braid and always carried her emergency kit backpack wherever she went.

Dan Perkin was lucky to have her as a neighbor.

“Thanks for coming over, Pearl.”

“Couldn’t sleep through this excitement, could I?” she said with a smile.

“Hey-up, chief,” a male voice called out behind me.

I glanced over my shoulder. Ben Rossi, the angel-faced, pale-haired, slender but incredibly strong chief of the volunteer fire department grinned as he hauled a hose out across the lawn. A lot of the Rossis held jobs in the first-responder and emergency departments.

It might seem weird to have a fire department full of vampires, but they were cheerfully immune to human suffering, and their strength and un-aliveness made them solid allies in times of disaster.

Building burning down? Send in the guys who don’t need to breathe and can’t die by fire. Stuck in a ditch? A vampire was one of the fastest, surest climbers around. Kitten stuck in a tree? You’ve never seen a scary fanger go gooey and sweet so fast. Turns out vampires loved cats.

I wasn’t sure if that was a Rossi thing or a fanger thing, but it was adorable.

Jame Wolfe, Ben’s partner both at work and home, strode along behind him, the hose over his shoulder. Built like a wrestler, he had the Wolfe family dark good looks and swagger that pretty much made sure he never went to bed alone.

“Boys,” I said.

“Chief Reed,” Jame replied.

Jame wasn’t a vampire—he was a werewolf. Big family of them owned the rock quarry south of town.

It had been quite the gossip—well, among those who knew about the supernatural inhabitants of the place—when Ben and Jame had moved in together. There had been more than a little speculation as to how the cross-species relationship would be handled. So far, they seemed to be dealing with it just fine: both the gossip and the relationship.

“About time you got here!” Dan Perkin yelled at the firefighters. “My whole house could have burned down by the time you showed up.”

“He’s not very happy,” Pearl said.

Right about then, Dan zeroed in on me. “Chief!”

Dan Perkin was a small man—mortal—in his sixties, thin as a plucked feather. He was wearing a baseball hat, dirt-stained jeans, and John Deere jacket. He was also dusty, angry, and pacing the dirt in front of the burn pile.

He stopped pacing and stomped right up to me instead.

“Cuff him to the wreck at the bottom of the lake and throw away the keys!” he yelled.

“Mr. Perkin.” I put one hand on his upper arm and guided him to the overhang of his back porch. I tried to get him to sit, but he was having none of it.

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“Canoe dummy wet napkin?” he yelled. “What are you talking about?”

“Blast blew his ears,” Pearl said. “You’ll need to speak up.”

I raised my voice. “What happened?”

“I almost died is what happened! Heard something out here. Came to look. Then: boom! Worse than that, my patch, all of it is gone! Blown to bits.”

“Patch?”

“My garden. My
rhubarb
.” He pointed his finger at the sky. “As God is my witness, I’m telling you it was Chris Lagon.”

I was pretty sure that the gods really couldn’t be bothered to stand witness to most of anything Dan claimed to be true. He was always mad at someone, always convinced he’d been cheated, walked over, victimized.

Still, someone had just blown up his brush pile.

“Chris Lagon blew up your rhubarb?” I asked. “Did you see him?”

“No. But he knew I was going to enter the contest this year. Knew I was going to beat him in the drink category. Rhubarb root beer. It’s gonna make me millions.”

It was probably terrible, but I nodded and pulled out the notepad I kept in my pocket. I clicked the pen and jotted down Chris’s name.

“He threatened me!”

“When? What exactly did he say?”

“Yesterday. At his place.”

“House or business?”

“Brewery. Bum sleeps there in the boat. Did you know that? That must be a health violation.”

I knew exactly where Chris slept, and why. Saltwater creatures always stayed near water.

“He threatened you at the brewery?” I said in an attempt to derail his next rant.

“Yes! He said, this is what he said. He said, ‘Bring it on, old man.’” Dan stabbed a finger down with each word as if he’d just hammered the last nails into Chris Lagon’s coffin. “He wants me out of the picture. He wants the rhubarb trophy.”

I doubted Chris wanted anything other than to get Dan out of his hair.

“Can you tell me when this happened?”

He might be angry and bitter, but I was the chief of police. It was possible he had information that would lead me to who in town felt the need to interrupt my morning coffee with an explosion.

“Six o’clock.”

“Were there witnesses?”

“Yes. Yes, there was. Ryder Bailey was there. You can ask him. He saw it all.”

My heart skipped at the mention of his name.

I’d had a…what did one call a crush that started when one was eight and that one still hadn’t been able to shake? Obsession? Longing? Sickness?

Love,
my treacherous heart whispered.

I ignored it.

But whatever it was, I’d had that for Ryder for years.

It had just never worked out for me to ask him if he wanted to date. Either he’d be in the middle of a relationship, or I would. Or we were too busy with school, jobs, and family—or in my case: monsters, gods, and exploding rhubarb—to ever make a step forward.

It was probably better that way. Less complicated.

“Anyone else?” I asked, keeping it cool. Keeping it professional.

“No, but he was there. He knows Chris Lagon blew up my rhubarb in cold blood, and tried to kill me along the way. I demand you arrest him.”

Following demands wasn’t in my job description. Still, I gave him what I hoped was a reassuring smile.

“I’ll stop by Ryder’s place after I’m done here. Now, why don’t you tell me where you were when the explosion went off?”

Ben and Jame had the fire under control and I was just about to call my sister, Myra, for some help with the crime scene when she showed up.

Myra always showed up when she was most needed. It was her thing.

“Hey there, chief,” Myra said. “Brought you some coffee.”

I gave her an appreciative nod and took the paper cup.

If someone lined up us three Reed sisters, one might think we all came from different parents. But if one paid attention to our eyes, one would realize we were most definitely our father and mother’s girls.

I took after Dad the most: straight brown hair, square cheekbones, athletic build, and a mostly easygoing, responsible nature over a temper I’d learned to mellow with humor. I was in shape from the job and jogging habit, and never went out of my way to wear makeup or heels. The one time Jean had forced me into a push-up bra, she’d whistled and told me I should wear it during interrogations because people would lose their minds faced with the dangerously sexy cleavage it gave me.

I’d slapped her phone away before she took blackmail pictures, and gave her back the damn bra.

Myra was the middle sister. Her hair was dark, almost black, and the blunt bangs over her eyebrows only accented the blue of her eyes. Her face had softer edges and a more generous mouth. Even without a push-up bra, her figure was curvy perfection that the square-cut uniform she was wearing couldn’t hide.

She had also inherited a lot more of Mom’s practical thinking, to the point that some people might say she was cool or clinical, though I never saw her that way.

Jean, the youngest, had deep blue eyes and was always dying her hair with colors not found in nature. She was the most petite of the three of us, had a wicked sense of humor, and an elbows-out attitude about life.

“Where do you need me?” Myra asked.

“Get some pictures of the scene and the blast area. I’m almost done with Dan’s statement, then I’ll talk to the neighbors.”

“No problem.” Myra pulled a camera out of the bag on her shoulder and got busy with that.

There probably wouldn’t be any chance of finding actual footprints in the dirt. Dan and everyone else who had been out here before I showed up would have tromped right over them. Still, Myra had a hell of an eye with that camera. If there was something that could be seen, she’d see it.

It didn’t take long to interview Pearl and the other neighbors. None of them had seen or heard anyone coming or going. They heard the blast, saw the light, and even the quickest to respond—Pearl—had only seen Dan out by the burn pile, spitting mad.

Ben and Jame both waved to me as they packed it up. They stopped at the back of the truck and argued over who got to drive. Ben flashed fang, Jame snarled and then they just stood there staring into each other’s eyes, neither willing to back down.

I held my breath and watched them, wondering if I was going to have to break up what could be a very messy, very bloody fight, or a very hot make-out session.

The sexual tension rolling off those two could have scorched thin air.

At some unseen signal, they leaned away from each other just enough to make room for their clenched fists.

Rock, paper, scissors.

Ben threw paper, Jame rock. Ben jeered. Jame tossed his hands up in utter frustration and then growled and pointed at Ben like he was going to kick his ass, before he stomped to the passenger side.

Ben’s head lifted and his gaze crossed the distance from the road to me. I could see a fire burning in him under that intense stare. Something more than lust.

Love
, I thought. And a hollow need stretched out in me. Not a need for Ben or for a vampire like him. Just the very human need to see that light, that passion that he had for Jame, in someone’s eyes for me alone.

Then he blinked, breaking our contact, and his cocky grin was back.

Jerk.
He’d known I was looking at them, had probably felt my attraction to their fight, to their connection, and couldn’t help but tease the new police chief. So he’d given me a little peek of my own desire, just for kicks.

Vampires had a strange sense of fun.

He swung up into the driver’s seat, fluid and fast. I thought I saw a scuffle in the cab, then Ben ducked down and there was a moment of intense stillness. When he popped back into view he ran one thumb over his lower lip, wiping away a smile and maybe a drop of blood before he started the engine and sent the truck rumbling down the road.

Chapter 2

I LEFT Myra to finish up and deal with Dan, who wouldn’t run out of righteous steam for a couple hours at least, and headed to Jump Off Jack Brewery. It was four a.m. straight up when I got there, but I knew Chris wouldn’t mind me dropping in.

The brewery crouched on the edge of the working bay just south of city limits in what used to be a crab-packing plant. Chris had taken over the property fifty years ago. Half of it was still a packing plant, though it catered to tourists and locals now instead of international shipping.

What had started as a hobby—microbrewing—had landed Jump Off Jack’s smack dab in the top-ten-rated beers in the Pacific Northwest, something that still seemed to surprise and amuse Chris.

I crossed the parking lot and knocked on the big red metal door of the warehouse. Waited. I knew Chris would hear that, even if he was in the far side of the building or upstairs. He had excellent hearing.

Sure enough, the latch turned and Chris pulled open the door.

“Chief Reed,” he said in that lilt that always brought to mind New Orleans. His paperwork, filed back when my grandfather was in charge of such things, said he was from Louisiana but that his family originated from the Amazon. “What brings you out tonight?”

Chris was a creature. The polite term was gill-man, and if he had a few beers in him, he went to great lengths to explain the difference between his type and the other aquatics, such as mers and selkies.