Odd Melody (Odd Series Book 2) (23 page)

“You took that the wrong way, or I said it wrong, or…wait.” He took a breath. “I am getting this all wrong because it means too much. Of course, murder is a priority, but I wanted to talk about
us
first. I have to tell you something.”

I was stunned silent a moment. “A relationship talk takes precedence over the loss of human life?” My voice sounded cold and sharp.

“Are you going to take whatever I say the wrong way today?”

I breathed deeply. Okay. Maybe I was being touchy. He wasn’t refusing the topic. He was saying he wanted to put us first. Most women would have been thrilled. I sighed and dropped whatever clever repartee I had planned. “What had you hoped we could talk about?”

“I seem to have a bit of an issue with Julia Whitehouse.”

Again, astounded silent. Was he admitting what I thought he was admitting?

“There is this principle…I never really believed in it before. Anyway, really, it’s based on one person being meant for another and is hokey at best. Sort of a soul mate thing. Anyway, I was going to have to sort it out and explain it to her. Regardless, I wanted to tell you that it does not have any bearing on us. I told you that I care about you and have never felt this way about anyone. I wish we were talking in person, but Mia said…well, anyway, Janie…”

The silence on the other end of the line had me clinging to the phone and holding my breath.

“I care. I have feelings for you. I think you’re beautiful, wonderful and the kindest and most loyal person I have ever met. I have waited a lifetime for you. And I am not losing you like this.” He could not see it but I blinked back tears. “I love you. I want to be with you, Janie. And for me to say those words to you, well, especially after this small amount of time, should tell you how simply extraordinary I think you are.”

He thought wrong. I wasn’t extraordinary. I wasn’t even ordinary. I actually wasn’t any of the things he listed. I sat down hard on the floor because my legs would no longer bear my weight. It’s kind of funny because there I was, supposedly a super-powered, supernatural creature, weak as a kitten. Suddenly everything Chance said made sense.

Vance saw what he wanted to see. I was flawed, so very flawed. I was mean and hard, and I made terrible mistakes. Most of the good things I had done to date were by accident. I was not kind or loyal at all. I was basically cheating on him, and he had no idea.

I had deluded myself and then told myself everything I had done was for us. Was it for us though? If it was for us, why hadn’t I told him, like he was telling me? If I was loyal and kind, why had I been willing to hurt Chance and Vance to get what I wanted? Was I any better than Chance? Or was I like him…deep inside?

I blinked back the tears and the sadness that pressed on me. I sat on the floor, terribly forlorn and broken. I was a big, broken Janie doll. There was a ripple in the currents of the air around me and he arrived. The root of all evil. My biggest problem and the cause of my weakness. Chance appeared and peered down at me. He had come because he sensed my sadness. Like sonar, or some kind of sick radar, he had honed in on my emotions and had come to fix whatever bugged me. When he saw the offending telephone, he looked at a loss.

Well, that made two of us. I waved him away, but as usual, Chance did pretty much what he wanted and leaned on my dresser.

Since he could read my mind if he wanted, shooing him seemed futile so I focused on the conversation. “I just want you to be happy, Vance.” I tried to keep my voice from being too watery.

“You make me happy.” But he answered quickly. It wasn’t something he’d thought about, it was only the automatic answer he gave.

I blinked again and the tears pressed harder. “Vance, I can’t talk about this right now. I need to solve the Hammer stuff and focus on my work.”

“I’ve said mostly what I wanted to say. Oh, and about the Hammer…when I left last night it was because I smelled blood. I found Julia outside. You have no reason to believe me, but I wanted to tell you. I don’t know if it matters or not, but I want there to be truth between us. I am trying to eliminate the lies or untold truths because this space between us…well, I want to fix it, you know?”

I was silent again. I breathed raggedly. “I gotta go, Vance.”

“Yes.” His sigh came heavy over the line. “Know that I’m here for you and always will be, Janie. And always from me is a really long promise.” His attempt to lighten the mood fell short.

I wasn’t feeling it. “Okay.” I hung up. Chance knelt in front of me, took the phone, and I crumpled into his arms. “I have to talk to Julia.” I wailed the words. But that wasn’t why I cried.

He held me. He knew why I was crying, but he said nothing.

“You made me into a monster.” I accused him and gave his chest a feeble thump.

“Nah.” He was flip in his answer. “You have always been a monster, you were just in denial.”

I snuffled. It was not a ladylike noise. “No. I munched nachos not neurons.”

He laughed. “When did you come up with that one?”

“A while ago.” I sniffed again. He stroked my hair back from my face and I closed my eyes. “I have to talk to Julia.”

“Okay.” He seemed to be waiting for something more from me.

I was working up to it. “I don’t think I am nearly as nice as Vance or even as nice as Vance thinks I am.” This was a huge confession on my part, and I looked at him for a response.

He met my gaze. “I know that.”

I snuffled again and wiped a hand across my nose. Again, not an attractive gesture. My hair probably stuck out at all angles, my face was probably red and swollen from crying, and I leaked all over the place. But he continued to gaze into my eyes, waiting.

“All along, you saw me for what I really am and you liked me anyway. Mostly because you are as big of a jerk as I am.”

His face crumpled in a scowl. “We are not jerks. Realistic. Survivors. Tough, yes, sure you can call us all of those things. Jerks, no. You really must learn that what we are is not necessarily a bad thing.”

“I wanted to be one of the good guys.” A new wave of tears threatened.

He placed a finger over my lips. “So be a good guy. Just don’t be a dumb one.” He quirked a brow at me. “Whoever said there had to only be gullible good guys?”

I scowled at him. “You cannot be a manipulative, cheating good guy.”

He grinned. “I am.”

The expression turned wolfish and he kissed me, snotty tear face and all. Okay, maybe he pulled off being a good guy while being altogether too delicious to be good for me. Mostly. The man was like cheesecake. It can’t be good for anyone but it is sooo good.

So were there gray areas? Somehow, I doubted it. There were no gray areas in life when it came to good and bad. Those things remained pretty black and white. I wondered if I’d be forced to trade in my hero cape for a super villain outfit simply from hanging out with him.

As his hand closed on the back of my head and tilted it to the angle he preferred, I wondered how much longer I would remember to care whether he was a good guy or bad guy.

CHAPTER Thirteen

Julia was a Wiccan stripper. A virgin, Wiccan stripper…well, Julia was the picture of how not to read a book by the cover. I wondered how many other pages I’d left unread about her.

Julia and I had gotten along well during the short time I’d known her. I even considered her a friend, if a new one, prior to this whole Vance issue coming between us. On the way to Peaches, I called mostly to drill her about the murders going on in our peaceful burg, well, guilt nagged at my conscious. I glanced at my fairy fiancé, who tagged along for the ride, and figured I had enough to guilt trip over. Questioning friends fell pretty low on the list of things to worry about.

Especially since Julia had not rushed to tell me she discovered her soul mate who, by the way, was my boyfriend. Or that Vance had found her beside the body, and she had basically pointed the finger of guilt at him instead of explaining her presence.

Perhaps my feelings for Vance swayed me to believe that he had nothing to do with the murders. A ghost inhabited someone. It could have been Vance. But really, if it had settled in my boyfriend, wouldn’t I know it? Actually, if it inhabited any one in my inner circle of friends, how could I miss it?

Besides, Julia had tried to scratch my eyes out. I was one to hold a grudge. Even with the whole soul mate thing. I wouldn’t defend Chance. Not a chance, no pun intended, at least not while I was awake and had control of myself. Not even now, when he and I had bonded, would I go to the mat for him. Not that I had tested that theory yet. But, still.

When Julia answered her cell, she seemed nearly as surprised to hear my voice as she would have been if Santa called her. “Janie?”

“Yeah, hi.”

“How are you tonight?” Julia has one of those throaty whispery voices with a funny accent that I could not quite pin down.

“Good. Hey, what are you up to? I had a few questions I wanted to—”

“I am working so, yeah, I can’t really talk about anything tonight.”

I raised my brows and remembered to smooth them. When a girl gets to a certain age, in my case, almost forty, she really must think about future wrinkles. “Well, what time do you get off?”

“Late. But, I guess maybe we could talk soon, okay?”

And she hung up on me. Even strip clubs gave employees a break. Ohio laws held in strip clubs, didn’t they? They had to. Peaches wasn’t a sweat shop. I repressed a giggle at the thought of exactly how much sweat that particular “shop” generated and then went back to being annoyed. If Julia had wanted to talk, she could have. Obviously, she didn’t want to.

Too bad. I had been to Peaches before, albeit with Vance, but nothing said I couldn’t go on my own. I glanced at my fiancé. “How do you feel about going to a strip club?”

“A what?” Every so often, I forgot that Avery had not lived above the fairie mounds. Even though he was older than me by a hundred or so years, he wasn’t up to date on topside life.

“Strip club. Men pay money to watch women take their clothes off.” I figured that pretty much summed it up. “And they serve alcoholic drinks…spirits?”

He perked up immediately. “This place sounds very nice. Perhaps you are my favorite fiancé.”

I grinned. “Yeah, you haven’t been bad so far either. Sorry I’m going to have to dump you.”

“I had a feeling you were not becoming attracted to me. Perhaps if we mated?” He offered it with a raised brow. I glowered at him and he laughed. “Perhaps not.”

“Nope. Too many people want to mate with me lately as it is. I’m a one man woman.”

He snorted.

I continued to give him a dark frown. “Hey, cheer up. I’m taking you to see naked women.”

“Whatever you say, princess. You are a one man woman.”

“That’s more like it, Jeeves.”

“Avery, princess, my name is Avery.”

I rolled my eyes and focused on the road. The snow had started again. Freaking Ohio weather. I turned up the radio and resisted the urge to sing. No sense driving Avery mad. Poor little guy had trouble firing on all cylinders to begin with.

We pulled into the lot of Peaches, and I had to park a ways from the building. Considering the economy, I had expected a smaller crowd on a weeknight. Apparently, the stripping industry had not taken the hit the news from Vegas implied. Seemed men always had money for nudity and booze. I guess it’s good to have priorities in a time of crisis.

We walked in together and the bald eagle tattooed man who worked the door nodded to me and asked for ID. I showed him and he turned to Avery and asked for his ID. I had a brief moment of panic. Did he have one?

Apparently, my mother thought of such things because he did. He and the doorman shared a brief nod. I paid his cover because although my mother gave him an ID, she had not furnished him with cash.
Thanks, mom.
We went through the inner door covered with lewd stickers. Avery read one of them aloud. I gave him an elbow jab, which would have landed midsection on a normal man to shut him up. Avery caught it in the ear and yelped.
Oops
.

As I entered the bar and went to buy drinks, we caught a few glances from the mostly vampire patrons. At least this time I didn’t smell of blood, so I wouldn’t get mobbed. If the mortals in the crowd knew about the undead around them, they would probably find their breast enjoyment safer and cheaper at home on their couches. But what mortal men do not know, they do not fear and that is life.

I got myself a Corona and asked Avery what he wanted. He proudly asked for a Guinness. I glared at him. “We aren’t in Ireland.”

“They don’t have Guinness?”

“No.”

“Do they have Lambic?”

I glanced at the bartender. She shrugged and waited for him to order something domestic. Her breasts in her lingerie jiggled, and I repressed a shudder. “No, Avery, you are in Ashtabula, guy. How about a Sam Adams?”

“A man?” The fairy seemed confused.

I ordered a winter lager for him and he peered at it warily.
Fairies. You could dress them up…
 

Within moments, with his glamour turned on low, a nearly drunk Avery had attracted a nice group of naked to the waist women. Turned out he liked Sam and Sam liked him. Also, it turned out he was a cheap drunk.

Once rid of him, I went in search of my prey, I mean Julia. Peaches seemed odd filled with people after spending so much time there alone with Chance. Corona in hand, I felt strangely comfortable for a woman alone in a strip club. Then, I saw Julia. She sat at a table by herself and talked frantically into her cell, arms waving. The red leather skirt that barely met the black fishnet stockings stretched across her mile of leg provided more cover than she had worn the last time I had seen her at the club. Red heels emphasized her tiny ankles and matched the halter-top that left her creamy mounds overflowing. An acre of red hair cascaded down her ivory back in a wash of curls while dark and sultry Cleopatra-style make-up completed the hot stripper façade.