Sleeping With the Entity (7 page)

Pat raised an eyebrow. “Just curious?”

Nick nodded. “For now.”

“It must have been a pretty strong curiosity for them to stray into our territory,” Pat said. “They know the rules. Each vamp tribe keeps to its own areas unless invited to do otherwise.”

“I want to know who sent them,” Nick said.

“It could be the Gold Coast vamps,” Pat said. “They don’t want to get their fangs dirty, so they send enforcers to do their dirty work.”

“The Gold Coast vamps are very natty dressers,” Bruce said. “I can’t see them hiring help wearing that attire. Tim Gunn would have a hissy fit.”

“This isn’t
Project Runway,
” Pat told Bruce. “This is serious business.”

“
Project Runway is
serious,” Bruce retorted. “I still haven’t recovered from Gretchen beating Mondo in season eight.”

“Any face recognitions yet?” Nick asked Neville.

“Not yet.”

“I suspect they’re recent,” Nick said. “They had that edginess that comes from new converts to vampirism.”

“I’ll keep checking,” Neville promised.

“Do that,” Nick said. “Because the clock is clearly ticking at a faster speed now.”

*   *   *

Daniella was in her shop before daylight the next morning. She kept to her usual schedule despite what had happened the previous night. She did keep her pepper spray in hand as she sprinted the few steps in the front of the building housing both her business and her apartment. She planned on avoiding the alley in the dark for the next few days.

After a successful morning creating culinary mini masterpieces, she decided to include a small and elite collection of them on her cupcake menu. The cookies ’n’ cream and the amaretto were two of her favorite concoctions in this new smaller version.

Around noon, Daniella moved to the front of the shop. She was surprised to find a young woman knocking on the door. Her dark blond hair had streaks of statement-making neon red throughout.

“We’re not open yet,” Daniella said.

The woman held up her smartphone. “I saw on Craigslist that you’re looking for help.”

Daniella unlocked the door and temporarily disabled the security system to let her in. Daniella had a good feeling about this applicant for some reason. Maybe it was the wild Technicolor dreamcoat she was wearing, which should have clashed with her hair but didn’t. Daniella had loved the play
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
when she’d seen it.

Once inside, the woman started reading the ad aloud. “In need of a permanent part-time worker. Must be able to frost, work with fondant, take accurate orders, be flexible, willing to get dirty, willing to put up with my entertaining singing, able to take criticism, able to handle customers, and—this is important, remember, so I’m repeating it—able to take accurate orders!” She paused before adding, “My name is Xandra Stevens and I can do all that. I worked in a cupcake shop in Vail and another in Lake Tahoe. I’m the best person for the job. I’m totally stoked about cupcakes and it looks like you are, too.”

Xandra’s energetic enthusiasm was contagious. Daniella handed her an application to fill out and watched the young woman as she sat at one of the tables by the window. She was definitely a free spirit, from the tips of her paisley boots to her dangly bottle-cap earrings.

Daniella opened her laptop and checked out the names of the cupcake stores that Xandra had listed. They were valid. She then Googled Xandra’s name and found her photo on the blogs of both stores with high praise for her.

“Why did you leave Vail and Lake Tahoe?” Daniella asked.

“It was too expensive,” Xandra said. “I had to come back home and move in with my parents.”

“How do I know you won’t take off for the slopes as soon as you have enough money?”

“I’m not a skier or snowboarder myself. I just liked to watch. I actually do have a plan. I plan on returning out west when I’m twenty-five.”

“How would you deal with an unhappy customer?” Daniella asked.

“It depends on what made them unhappy, but I’d try to help them in any way I could. Maybe they are just having a bad day—but that doesn’t mean that I can just dismiss their complaint. I’d do whatever I could to make them chill out.”

Daniella was impressed. The only other applicant had answered by saying “What do you expect me to do about it?” in a defensively crabby way.

“We close early when we run out of cupcakes for the day,” Daniella said. “We bake them fresh every day.”

“By ‘we’ you mean you and who else? Do you need help in the kitchen?”

“Sometimes.”

“I can do that,” Xandra said. “I’ve done it before. Just consider me to be one of the Keebler Elves, only better.”

When something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Suz told Daniella that all the time.

But it wasn’t as if tons of people were lining up at her door for the minimum-wage job. Daniella wasn’t sure why not. Times were tough, and people needed work. She wondered if Nick was somehow behind the lack of applicants.

“I’m also great at using social networking tools to bring in business,” Xandra said.

That did it. Daniella trusted her gut and hired her. “Providing your references check out.”

“They will.”

Daniella held out her hand and one of the custom-designed navy-blue T-shirts with the hot-pink shop logo. “Welcome to Heavenly Cupcakes.”

“It’s gonna be sick,” Xandra said with a grin.

“
Sick
isn’t really a term you want to use in the culinary arts,” Daniella said.

“Right. I know that. Sorry. I’m just really stoked.”

Daniella grinned back at her. “Me too. I think we’re going to get along just fine.”

Chapter Six

Daniella loved Shirley, her pink Vespa, for many reasons. First was the freedom she provided. Parking was never an issue, which in a big city like Chicago was a huge plus. Second was the sheer exhilaration of riding the scooter, zipping from one place to another. Third was the incredible gas mileage, especially given the price of gasoline these days.

Yes, she loved Shirley, which was why she took special care of her when not using the scooter. She didn’t leave her parked at the curb overnight. Instead she carefully sheltered her in the funeral home’s large garage. Sure, the perky pink Vespa did look out of place next to the solemn black hearse. After all, they did represent opposing ends of the vehicle spectrum. The Vespa was full of life and the hearse … well, it wasn’t.

The 2010 Cadillac Medalist, with its shiny yet somber black exterior and blue interior, was her brother Gordon’s pride and joy. He’d handpicked the hearse from the Internet, bragging about the great deal he’d gotten on it. The last time her brother had bragged about a hearse was back in high school when he’d taken their old discontinued hearse and had it custom-painted with red flames on an orange background. He’d been a big hit with his buddies, since Gordon had transformed the back of the vehicle into a plush bed for makeout sessions.

Their father had not been equally enthusiastic about the old hearse’s transformation, saying it looked like Hell on Wheels.

Now that their dad was almost sixty, he’d shifted a lot more responsibility onto Gordon’s shoulders. The cruise their dad was currently taking had been a surprise he’d sprung on them at the last minute.

“My friend Franny was going to go with someone else,” her dad had told Daniella, “but they canceled so she suggested I go instead. Franny and I knew each other in college but we lost touch after that. We reconnected on Facebook about a year ago and we’ve met a few times since then.”

She wondered if Franny was his girlfriend. Since Daniella’s mother’s death thirteen years ago, her dad had been 110 percent focused on the business. Independent funeral homes like theirs were finding it harder and harder to stay afloat. The death care industry was big business ruled by large corporations, as was much of the country these days.

But here on her block, the Evergreen Funeral Home lived on. Her dad said business was booming since Gordon stepped in. She found that a little hard to believe given her brother’s gambling habits. But she’d never had any interest in the family business per se. Embalming wasn’t her thing. She and her mom had focused on comforting grieving people, while her father and brother were more interested in completing procedures. Daniella and her mom were into people. Her dad and brother were into the process.

Daniella was so deep in her thoughts that she shrieked when Nick suddenly materialized beside her. The large garage door leading to the alley was still open, which was clearly how he got in.

“You need to be more aware of your surroundings,” he chastised her. “You haven’t forgotten that incident in the alley a few nights ago, have you?”

“No.”

“Good. Here, let me help you with that.” He took one of the canvas bags filled with food from her. “So this is Shirley, huh?” He eyed her pink scooter.

Daniella returned the favor by eyeing him suspiciously. “How did you know I named my Vespa Shirley?”

“I must have heard it in the neighborhood,” he said smoothly. “Where are you going with all this stuff? To the shop?”

“No, to my apartment above the shop.”

She hung her pink helmet on the scooter’s handlebars, set the garage security system, and closed the door before heading down the alley to the narrow walkway between her building and the neighboring one.

“This is a danger zone,” Nick said.

“If the bag is too heavy for you—”

He interrupted her. “I meant you’re in an enclosed area.”

“There’s a security camera mounted on the front corner of the building,” she said. “It covers this area as well as my shop.”

“Does it cover the alley?”

“No, but I’m looking into adding one there.”

She passed the shop’s door and headed for the one next door. Nick followed her, watching her as she jingled her key in the lock.

“Do you need my help?” he asked.

“I’m okay.” Her nerves were caused by his proximity. She could feel the heat emanating from his body. He was wearing his customary black, and he looked better than she remembered. He smelled better, too. Not that he’d smelled bad before.

Right. She was definitely losing it here. She needed to focus … and not on how sexy Nick was. No, she needed to focus on practical things like opening this darn lock. There. She finally got it and yanked the door open.

A steep flight of stairs led up to her one-bedroom apartment.

After unlocking her apartment door without any trouble and punching her code into the security system, she turned to see Nick still standing in the hallway. “Come on in,” she said. “Would you like something to drink or anything?”

“No, thank you.” He closed the door behind him and set the tote bag of food on the kitchen counter to the right of the entrance.

Daniella had kept the vintage feel of the kitchen with white subway tile on the kitchen walls and the pink refrigerator. Granted, pink wasn’t the usual color for the appliance, but it added a nice dash of color. The original wood flooring had been sanded and varnished throughout the apartment. While the kitchen might look Old World, her cooking equipment was top-of-the-line.

Danielle noted the way he was surveying his surroundings. “I’ll bet you were expecting lots of pink and ruffles, right?” she said

“You do drive a pink scooter and you have a pink refrigerator.”

“I like pink,” she readily admitted. “A lot. But I also like other things.” She gestured toward her living room with its bright palette of raspberry red and ivory. Stationary floral curtain panels subtly defined a cozy reading corner with a window seat beneath large tall windows.

Instead of commenting on her decorating, Nick said, “I wanted to talk to you about security measures. Your windows are locked, right?”

“I have a security system here and as you already know, I also have one in the shop.”

“You shouldn’t be down there alone in the dark,” he said.

“At this time of year there aren’t enough daylight hours,” she said. “I go make the cupcakes in the dark and I come home in the dark.”

“Then I’ll come with you.”

“Don’t be silly. You saw it’s only a few steps from the entranceway downstairs to my shop’s front door.”

“Even so, I’ll escort you.”

“Why?” she asked him suspiciously. “What do you think is going to happen?”

“I don’t want a repeat of that incident in the alley the other night.”

“Neither do I.”

“Good. Then it’s settled.”

She paused in the process of putting the last of her groceries away to look at him. “No, it’s not settled. You’re being bossy again.”

“I’m trying to be nice.”

“I’m not a kindergartner who needs her parent to hold her hand as she walks to school.”

“I’m not your parent,” he said before asking, “Did they really do that? Hold your hand and walk you to school?”

“When I was a little kid, yes. My mom did that. The school is only a couple of blocks away. When I got a bit older, my brother had to walk me home. He hated it,” she said.

“Why?”

“He wanted to hang out with his friends, not take care of his sister.”

“Are the two of you close now?” Nick asked.

“We get along okay,” she said. “Why?”

“No reason. I was just making polite conversation.” He abruptly changed the subject. “I saw there was a buzzer outside by the front door. What do you do if someone buzzes? You don’t automatically just let them in, do you?”

“I use the intercom to ask who it is. Why the interrogation?”

“I told you. I’m concerned for your safety,” he said.

“You’re sure you’re not trying to scare me?” she countered. “Gaslight me?”

He frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“
Gaslight
was a classic movie from the 1940s about a husband who was trying to manipulate his wife into thinking she was crazy.”

“And you think I’m trying to manipulate you?” he said.

“You’ve tried to do it in the past. The first time we met, you thought you could merely tell me not to open my shop and I’d blindly obey.”