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BOOK: Hannah Jayne
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“Hey, Eldridge.”

Eldridge Hale raised his perfectly manicured eyebrows—mine looked like mating caterpil-lars most often—followed by icy silvery eyes.

“Ms. Lawson.”

I waggled my files. “Dixon in? I need to talk to him.”

Eldridge flicked a page of his magazine, effectively letting me know he was bored. “He’s busy. You’ll have plenty of time to talk to him at the staff meeting.”

I straightened, clenching my jaw. “I need to talk to him now. It’s official UDA business.”

“Send her in, Eldridge!” Dixon Andrade’s voice was spun silk even as he called from his inner office. His hearing was 100 percent killer vamp, as was his olfactory skill, which meant he got a whiff of my Lady Speed Stick as I nearly jumped out of my pants. Disembodied voices never cease to creep me out.

Though it’s been over a year, I found that walking into Dixon Andrade’s office still pricked a little pang of sadness in my heart and gave me a small shudder of fear. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to walk into this part of the UDA again and not think of Pete Sampson, not think of the day I walked in and found my desk smashed to smithereens and his office—including the steel wrist and ankle cuffs used to hold him through full-moon nights—destroyed. The worst thing about that night was that Sampson was missing, blood was spilling in the streets, and Sampson—my Sampson, who had given me my first job, took me under his wing, and brought me more morning donuts than my pants could stand—was the chief suspect.

Now Dixon was lounging behind a desk the size of a Hummer, dressed, as usual, in a top-notch Italian suit that hugged every inch of his six-foot-plus frame. He looked formidable with his dark hair slicked back, his eyebrows pinched in a cautionary scowl. And that was before he showed his fangs.

“Ms. Lawson.”

“Dixon, hi. Thanks for seeing me.” I flopped down in his visitor’s chair and slid Mrs. Henderson’s file across the desk. “Mrs. Henderson didn’t show up for her appointment today, and neither did two other regulars over the last week. No answers when I call, no cancellations, nothing.”

Dixon’s dark brows rose, his eyes catching on something over my left shoulder. I turned and sighed.

“Hi, Vlad.”

If Dixon was San Francisco chic, Vlad LaShay had all the chicness of Castle Drac, circa 1850. His black pants were a heavy wool blend, his red damask vest was resplendent, and his frilly white ascot made him look like a dork.

“Nice ascot,” I said.

“Are we making the announcement first, sir?” Vlad asked, effectively ignoring me.

My ears perked. “Announcement?”

Dixon and Vlad shared a look; my head ping-ponged between them.

Finally Dixon shrugged; his broad shoulders nipped his ears. “She’ll find out soon enough.

Ms. Lawson, Vlad is the Underworld Detection Agency’s new head of operations.”

Dixon grinned and Vlad beamed.

I wasn’t sure what caught me more off guard, the sight of Vlad smiling like someone who wasn’t perennially sixteen and mad at the world, or the fact that Vlad, with his face full of smooth planes and soft hints of baby fat, was going to be my manager.

I scratched my head. “Come again?”

“Vlad will be replacing Mr. Turnbow. Mr. Rosenthal will be shifting from support staff to finance, and Eldridge”—Dixon gestured to the blond vamp outside––“will be the new head of internal organization.”

“What happened to Mr. Turnbow? And the former head of operations?”

Dixon shrugged dismissively. “It was time for them to move on. We had a cake on Friday.”

Leave it to me to miss the one day that management sprang for cake over blood bags.

“Something wrong, Ms. Lawson?”

“No,” I said, swinging my head, “not at all. Congratulations, Vlad. This is a really great step for you.”

“So you said something about some missed appointments?”

“You know,” I answered, snatching the file from Dixon’s desk, “it’s really not that big a deal.”

Exiting, I shut the door to Dixon’s office and Eldridge looked up at me from behind his magazine, one eyebrow quirked, lip turned up and slightly parted to show off the scissor-fine edge of a fang.

“See you around, Sophie,” he said.

I hopped in the elevator and mashed the UP button. My heart was thudding underneath my Nina-approved button-down blouse; pricks of sweat were breaking out all over.

“Come on, come on,” I whispered to the metal box as it lurched its way up—we’re thirty-six floors down—to the outer world. There was a jaunty ding and the doors split open to sunshine streaming through the front vestibule of the San Francisco Police Department. The squawk and buzz of department radios and telephones littered the air. That was when I smashed—chest to cardboard box—into Alex Grace.

“Hey, Lawson.” Alex grabbed my arms to steady me and I wanted to crawl back against him—sans the box—and sink into those arms.

“Oh, hey, Alex. Sorry, I guess I’m just a little bit distracted.”

I blinked, then looked up into those cobalt blue eyes of his. Oh yes, I was definitely distracted.

Alex Grace was heavenly. His milk-chocolate dark hair curled in run-your-fingers-through-it waves, which licked the tops of his completely kissable ears. Those searing eyes were framed by to-die-for lashes. His cheeks were tinged pink, and his lips were pressed into his trademark half smile, which was all at once genuine and cocky, with just a hint of sex appeal.

A man like this was otherworldly.

And Alex had the two tiny scars just below his shoulder blades to prove it.

Alex was an earthbound angel. Fallen, if you want to be technical. But he lacked the certain technicality that made other fallen angels so annoying: He didn’t want to kill me. Most of the time.

I tried to tear my eyes away from his beautiful, full lips—lips that I distinctly remembered kissing—and focused hard on my rogue clients; but even though we had decided to be “just friends,” almost six months ago, there was still a sizzling something between me and Alex.

Call it forbidden love or my addiction to Harlequin novels, but Alex Grace was not an easy man to get over.

After all, he was an angel.

“Nice box.”

“Oh, this?” Alex shifted the box and I rolled up on my tiptoes and lifted the lid.

This time, my thudding heart skidded to a stop. There were books and a few wrinkled copies of Guns & Ammo (What? Did you think fallen angels read the Bible?), what remained of a spider plant, which Alex had brought back to life for me, overstuffed file folders, and, rolling on top, the coffee-stained Don’t Hassle Me; I’m Local mug I got him last summer.

His eyes softened. “I didn’t want you to find out this way.”

I put the lid back on the box and blinked up at him. “Are you going somewhere?”

He nodded, licking his bottom lip. “I was going to tell you, but ...” Alex shrugged and looked away in that annoying, alarming way men had when they’ve just told you something vague and noncommittal that could either be “I’m considering changing from boxers to briefs”

or “The fate of the world hangs in the balance.”

“But what?” I tried to keep my voice steady, reminding myself that a good friend doesn’t let her voice go into high-pitched hypersqueak when another good friend might be leaving.

“It’s not really a big deal.” He shifted the box. “Can we go somewhere and talk?”

I sucked in a deep breath. “Can’t we talk now? In your office?”

“My office is pretty much cleaned out, but sure.”

Since fallen angel-ing didn’t come with a paycheck or a 401(k), Alex spent a good chunk of his mortal life working as an FBI field detective, generally stationed in a back office at the SFPD. The vagueness of his actual job title or description allowed him to come and go as he pleased, attending to official police—or angel—business whenever necessary. And also, he really liked donuts.

I followed Alex to his office and gaped at the half-empty room. The desk, where he had worked on cases—and where I once had imagined him pulling me down into a passionate embrace—was shoved against a wall and stacked with cardboard boxes. His office chair was upended on top of them. The free 2008 Honda calendar, which had been tacked to the back wall since 2010, was missing, as was the souvenir picture of us at the Giants baseball game.

“Why is your office cleaned out?”

“It’s no big deal. I just wanted to let you know I won’t be around for a while.”

The file in my hand was suddenly filled with cement, was a hundred-pound weight that pulled my hand down. I leaned in close to Alex, swallowing heavily to try and find the smallest bit of saliva in my Sahara-dry mouth.

“Are you going back?” I finally managed.

Alex, though earthbound and fallen, wanted to return to grace—and I wanted that for him, even though grace meant I would never see him again. But now the thought of my life without him hit me like a raw fist at the bottom of my gut.

Alex was silent for a second that lasted millennia. He put the box down gently and blew out a sigh, which held all the emotion of the last two years of our life together.

“Yes,” he said slowly. “I’m going to Buffalo.”

I choked on the love-soaked soliloquy I was composing in my head. The one that talked about how I would, as the Vessel of Souls and Alex’s only link to the Heavenly plane, be willing to give up my life for him to return to grace. I cocked my head and felt my lip curl up into an involuntary—and undoubtedly unattractive—snarl. “What?”

“Buffalo.” Alex leaned back against the wall and looked stupidly unaware of the fact that I was about to lay down my life for him, right here between the men’s room and the utility closet. “Stakeout. I’ll be gone for a couple of weeks. It’s starting to look like the trail of the guy I was after a few years ago is fresh again, and they’re shampooing the rugs here so I have to get everything out, anyway. Good timing, huh? Hey, Lawson, are you okay?”

My heart was lodged securely in my throat. Images of bloodshed, of bullets firing, of Alex’s lifeless body roared through my head.

“I swear to God, I’m going to kill you Alex Grace.”

Alex cocked his head. “Aw, Lawson, I’m going to miss you, too.”

I let a beat pass and my annoyance die down. “You’re going on a stakeout? I thought you were—you were ...”

Alex’s eyebrow arched as a hearty officer sauntered into the men’s room across the hall, newspaper tucked under his arm, dark eyes intent on us.

“You were saying?”

“Have a nice trip.” I could feel the scowl weighting down my lips.

Alex blew out an exasperated sigh, rolling his eyes. “Now what?” he wanted to know.

“Nothing.”

Alex crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Out with it. You can’t be that pissed off about Buffalo. What is it that’s making you look like someone kicked your puppy? Come on, you can’t hide it. I am an angel, you know.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t your only angelic powers wolfing down a pizza in one bite—”

“And the occasional mind reading.” Alex grinned salaciously and I wanted to crawl under the table. He never said it outright, but I had the overwhelming suspicion that Alex had done the occasional mind dip when my mind was ... indisposed. Like imagining Alex Grace greased up with coconut oil and reclining on a beach—that kind of indisposed.

Why couldn’t I fall in love with an inmate, like a normal woman?

I worked to avoid the blush that I knew was creeping over my cheeks. And here’s the thing about blushing: on chestnut brunettes a bashful crimson makes a pretty glow; ditto on those sun-kissed blondes. But when you’re redheaded (my Red Hot hair color only served to slightly mask my natural Crayola orange ’do) and have the kind of skin that people politely refer to as

“porcelain” (meaning glow-in-the-dark white), a “hint of blush” equates to looking exactly like an overcooked lobster in a white button-down shirt.

“Can I go to Buffalo with you? I’m good on a stakeout. I come with my own donuts.”

“Why?”

“We’re having another shake-up at UDA.”

Alex rifled through a box and handed me a Styrofoam cup; then he filled it from the office water jug. “Big deal. You’ve been through that before.”

I took a gulp of water. “Yeah, but this time Vlad is my boss.”

He did something between a guffaw and a choke, and water dribbled down his chin.

I narrowed my eyes. “You deserve that,” I said, pointing to his wet shirt.

“Vlad? Your boss? That’s priceless.”

“It’s not just that. In the last month alone, Dixon has replaced every higher-up with a vampire. He said a couple of people retired, but I’m not sure I believe that.”

“Why? Wasn’t there cake?”

“And then there’s this.” I handed him the file folder and he squinted at it.

“Mrs. Henderson?”

“She didn’t show up for her appointment today. She never misses an appointment. And another couple of my clients were no-shows, too. Isn’t that weird?”

Alex finished the water in one final gulp and handed the file back to me. “Not really. Why don’t you just call her?”

I bit my bottom lip. “I think I’ll do one better. Thanks, Alex.” I spun on my heel and was halfway into the hall when I felt his hand on my shoulder.

“What are you doing?” he wanted to know.

I shrugged. “Just going to make a pit stop.”

“Don’t get involved, Lawson.”

“Who’s getting involved?” I snaked the check out of Mrs. Henderson’s folder. “I’m just doing a friend a friendly favor.”

Mrs. Henderson and her two obnoxious teenagers lived in a gorgeous Old Hollywood–style house in a quiet neighborhood off Nineteenth Avenue. I was pleasantly surprised when I found it on my first try. I had been there numerous times for Mrs. Henderson’s Christmas parties, but generally there was an eight-foot winking Santa to guide me down the tree-lined streets.

The house, usually resplendent with an impeccably manicured lawn and showy dusting of baby pink impatiens, was hardly recognizable. The lawn was overgrown and the impatiens were leggy and capped with drooping brown blooms. I continued up the stone walk and stooped on the porch to gather up at least a week’s worth of Chronicle newspapers and local circulars advertising great prices on everything from fertilized duck eggs to tripe.

BOOK: Hannah Jayne
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