Secrets in the Shadows (7 page)

“Keep your nose out of my business!” he snapped. He should have held his ground last night and made her get her own room, but he’d fallen victim to his own uncertainty. The bedroom in his house had such heavy curtains there was no risk of daylight seeping into the room, but the curtains here weren’t so heavy. He’d had visions of tossing in his sleep, dislodging the covers and letting the sunlight sear him.

Hannah had to crane her neck to look at him as he towered over her. Not surprisingly, she wasn’t cowed by his temper. “You’ve really got to work on your technique. See, if you want to be all manly and intimidating, you’d be much more effective in something other than silk jammies.” She leaned back on her hands, grinning up at him. “Not that you don’t look good in them, but they’re kind of prissy.”

He actually flinched at the description. “Prissy?” he asked with a curl of his lip. He wanted to tear the damn pajamas from his body right that moment, more stung than he’d like to admit. He’d thought of them as elegant and sophisticated. Certainly not prissy!

Hannah frowned and cocked her head at him. “Relax, Jules. You look like I just told you you have terminal cancer.”

He tried to school his features, regain his usual nonchalance. “I’m very particular about my wardrobe, and—”

“No shit?” she said with a laugh. “I’ve never known a straight man who dresses near as well as you.”

So much for nonchalance. He actually felt the blood draining from his face, and he took a step back from her.

Her eyes widened. “What? What did I say?”

He wanted to conjure a glib answer, but his heart was pounding and his throat was tight and he couldn’t force a word out.

Hannah stood up, her head tilted to the side once more. “I didn’t say I thought you weren’t straight,” she said carefully, watching his face with intense concentration.

He swallowed hard. “No, of course not.”

Her lips tilted up in a half-smile, but her eyes still shone with curiosity. And perhaps a hint of worry. “Homophobic a bit?”

Calm was returning slowly, and he was able to answer in a more normal tone of voice. “Not at all. But I might need to reevaluate my wardrobe if it gives women the impression I’m gay.”

Hannah’s half-smile turned into a full grin. “I don’t think there’s much danger of that, Jules babe. You pretty much ooze testosterone.”

He sniffed. “Nonetheless, I’m going to have to burn these pajamas.”

“Just the top.”

“Huh?”

“Burn the top, keep the bottoms. There’s nothing sexier than a hot guy in black silk pajama bottoms.”

To his surprise, she actually blushed, fully restoring his good humor. “Oh really?” He began unbuttoning the top. “Let’s test that theory, shall we?”

She held up both hands and averted her eyes. “I thought you were a gentleman! And gentlemen don’t undress in front of women they hardly know.”

But even with her eyes averted, he could see the color in her cheeks. No, she didn’t object to seeing him without his shirt. The idea set off a corresponding stir in his groin. He had to get out of the room before he made a too-visible statement of his sexual preferences.

“I’m going to take a shower,” he said, heading toward the bathroom once more. “When I get out, you and I are going to have a talk about respecting each others’ boundaries.”

“I can hardly wait!” Hannah called after him.

Jules stayed in the shower longer than usual, hoping the steam would clear his mind. Fat chance!

What a fool he’d made of himself! He’d thought he was well beyond the point in his life where mere words could hurt him. But the thought that the way he dressed might make people think he was gay … Okay, so maybe he was a little homophobic. What did it say about him that the idea of being mistaken for a gay man could stir such a sense of horror in his gut?

He snorted. He couldn’t even count the number of girlfriends he’d had in his life, and not one of them had seemed to question his virility. And it wasn’t like he got a hard-on when he looked at other men. But the poison Ian had poured into his veins long ago never seemed to disappear from his system.

Maybe when Ian died at his hands, he could finally put the past behind him and go on with his life. After all, if he actually survived this little field trip, he had quite a lot of life left to live.

He was disturbed enough by his memories that he actually nicked his cheek when shaving, something he almost never did. Though the nick healed immediately, he decided to leave a goatee-shaped area of fuzz around his mouth. He leaned forward and peered at his reflection in the mirror. The auburn fuzz gave him a scruffy look that made his fingers itch for the razor, but he resisted the urge.

Ignoring Hannah’s crack about his “perfume,” he splashed some aftershave on his cheeks, then dried his hair. Gel gave the fine strands some body, but he couldn’t find his hair spray. What had Hannah done with it? He leaned his fists on the counter and fumed at the thought of her pawing his things. But he wasn’t about to make a fuss about the missing hair spray—he could only imagine what she’d have to say about that.

The flyaway hair went with the scruffy semi-beard, so he supposed he didn’t look too bad in an unkempt, blue-collar sort of way. Of course, the tailored wool trousers and Armani jacket he’d chosen didn’t go with the look. Daring Hannah to tease him, he boldly strode into the room and dug through his suitcase until he found his lone pair of jeans, then retreated to the bathroom once more before she had a chance to comment.

When he emerged again, he stood still while she gave him a visual inspection from head to toe. Color warmed her cheeks again, and she touched her tongue to her upper lip in what he felt sure was an unconscious gesture.

“Not bad,” she said, the hoarseness in her voice giving evidence of her true opinion.

He couldn’t help smiling. It had been too long since he’d had a woman. But Courtney’s death last year had hit him hard, and his conscience hadn’t let him bring a woman to his bed since. He refused to let another mortal woman come to harm because of her association with him. True, he hadn’t loved Courtney, but there’d been an emotional connection between them. When they’d made love, it was more than just sex. It was hard to settle for less now. Which meant he’d been celibate for a frighteningly long time.

Which, in turn, meant that Hannah’s obvious attraction to him held a great deal more appeal than it should.

“I’m glad you approve,” he said dryly, breaking the awkward moment.

“Yeah, well, you’ve got quite a wardrobe to choose from in there.” She jerked her finger toward the closet. “What’s the deal? Oh, and by the way, I snooped in your cooler too.”

He’d left the cooler—loaded with bottles of blood—on the floor of the closet under a huge bath towel he’d brought from home. He’d have put the blood in the mini-fridge, but he’d been afraid a maid might ignore the do-not-disturb sign on the door and try to restock the bar. Probably paranoia, and eventually he’d have to risk it. There was only so long he could keep the blood fresh in the cooler.

“For future reference,” Hannah said, “when an obvious neat-freak leaves a towel lying around in a heap, it makes us nosy types really, really suspicious.”

He sighed. “Leave it alone, Hannah.”

“Gray only feeds twice a week, and you’re a lot older than he is, so I’m guessing you don’t have to feed as often. There’s a hell of a lot of blood in that cooler.”

What was the point of fighting it? Hannah was going to chew his ears off until he told her what she wanted to know. Besides, she’d no doubt already reached the logical conclusion.

“I’m not going back to Philadelphia,” he said.

“Ever?”

His throat tightened. “Ever.” But of course, she’d want an explanation, so he couldn’t just leave it at that. “I’ve disobeyed a direct order from Eli. There’s a good chance that if I go back to Philly, he’ll kill me.”

Hannah gasped. “No way!” She looked horrified. “You’re not serious, are you?”

He nodded tightly.

“Geez, I knew the guy was a weirdo, but I thought he was a weirdo with a heart of gold.”

His hackles rose to hear the Founder so insulted, but he answered mildly enough. “Eli does have a heart of gold. But he’s learned his lesson after what happened with the Banger. It’s damn hard for a Guardian to stay on the straight and narrow on his own. I’ll do it, of course. I’d stake myself out in the sunlight before I’d let myself go rogue. But I can’t blame Eli for distrusting my motives after the way I’ve acted lately.”

“Well, I have no trouble blaming him! And I don’t want Carolyn or even Gray having anything to do with the sicko.”

She was grabbing for the phone as she spoke, outrage pouring from her in waves. Jules crossed the distance between them and wrested the phone from her hand.

“Settle down,” he said, hanging up the phone. “Carolyn and Gray know perfectly well what Eli’s like. Believe me, if you’d ever met him, you’d know in a heartbeat he isn’t someone you want to fuck with.”

Hannah sat heavily on the edge of the bed, crossing her arms over her chest. “Well, I just lost the last hint of respect I ever had for the guy. Which wasn’t much in the first place.”

How could he expect her to understand Eli? Hell, he couldn’t really claim to understand the man himself. What he did understand was that Eli was a good man who considered his cause more important than any individual. Everyone was expendable. And that was as it should be.

“Let’s agree to disagree on this, okay? We have more important things to talk about right now. Did you learn anything today?”

Hannah’s fierce glower turned into a smug smile. “Only Ian Squires’s address and phone number. Will that do?” She held up a little pad of paper with the hotel’s logo on it, under which she had written the address and phone number in surprisingly tidy script.

His mouth dropped open. Though he probably should have known better, he hadn’t truly expected her to have much luck. How had she gotten the newspaper to give out Ian’s unlisted number? He closed his mouth with an audible click. “All right. I’m impressed,” he admitted grudgingly.

“I’ll try not to gloat. But one weird thing—when I called the house at nine this morning, someone actually answered the phone.”

He’d thought he was getting used to being shocked by Hannah, but obviously he’d been dead wrong. “You called the house? Are you insane? No, wait.” He held up both hands. “That goes without saying.”

“So is this Squires guy old enough to be up and about at nine in the morning?”

Jules shook his head. “He’s only been vampire a few years longer than me. He must have a mortal working for him.” No surprise there—Ian had been an aspiring snob when Jules had known him. He probably had a houseful of servants by now, just because he could. Did this mortal have any idea what he was working for? Jules knew from long experience that it was relatively easy to pull the wool over most mortals’ eyes, as long as they weren’t too terribly smart. Courtney had been his girlfriend for six months and had never guessed there was anything unusual about him.

“So, what’s our next step, Professor Van Helsing?”

“My next step is to check out that house and confirm there’s a vampire living there.”

“Isn’t that kind of a stupid way of going about it? I mean, isn’t his vamp-dar stronger than yours?”

“Vamp-dar?” Being with Hannah could make his head ache.

“Yeah, you know—the way you guys can sense each other. Kind of like gay-dar.” Hannah paused. “Vampire radar,” she said slowly. “Get it?”

Yes, his head was definitely starting to pound. “It takes a conscious effort for us to sense each other. Unless he’s sitting in his house concentrating on surveillance, he won’t know I’m there.”

“Uh-huh. And if you were him, what would you be doing if you’d set up a trap for a fellow vampire?”

She had a point, but it didn’t much matter. “I don’t have a lot of options. My first step has to be to locate him. I’ll worry about what to do when I find him later.”

“Or what to do when he finds you,” Hannah retorted. She popped up from her seat on the bed and crossed the room to flip open her suitcase.

When she pulled out a gun and a box of bullets, he realized she meant to come along on his hunt. That led to two more realizations—one, that he couldn’t allow it. And two, there was nothing he could say to persuade her to stay put.

She turned to him. “You’ll be happy to know I actually know how to use this now, so—”

Her words trailed off when she met his eyes and he trapped her with his glamour.

***

Drake had done a great many distasteful things in his life, but going to visit with the Master of Baltimore ranked pretty high on the list. Eli had told him almost nothing about her, except that she was very powerful and territorial. Eli’d also said she would honor their agreement and not kill Drake for having the audacity to trespass in her territory, but he found himself less than thrilled by the prospect of facing her.

He’d arrived in Baltimore just before dawn, and had immediately called Camille to announce his presence, as Eli had instructed. It had been too close to sun-up for them to meet, but she’d asked him to call on her at his earliest convenience. His earliest convenience, of course, was the moment the sun set.

Leaving his rental car parked at the hotel, he made his way around the tourist-packed Inner Harbor toward Federal Hill, the wealthy historic neighborhood where Camille lived. He’d barely set foot out of Philadelphia in the last century. On any other occasion, he would have enjoyed the new and different surroundings.

A wide pedestrian walkway allowed him to take the scenic route along the water, but though he tried to drink in the atmosphere, he failed miserably. There was just no getting around the fact that he didn’t want to be here.

Past the bustling, highly commercialized harbor lay Federal Hill, where restored historic houses abounded, homes that spoke of old money and power. Drake paused to reach out with his senses, wondering how many of these elegant homes were vampire lairs. He immediately sensed a pair of vampires not very far away. At a guess, he’d say he was sensing Camille and some unknown other, for her house was less than three blocks from here in the correct direction. Other than that, the area was vampire-free. He supposed that was a good thing. The only thing worse than meeting with Camille would be meeting with Camille and her cadre of fledgling Killers.