Out of the Night (Harlequin Nocturne) (9 page)

Chapter 8

T
o cover more ground and to make the most of the night hours at their disposal, Campbell and his team split up. Sophia, Billy, Len and Colin worked on getting more information on Jennifer Watson and beating the streets for anything else about humans working for vampires. Kaja, Travis and he headed for Dan’s Carpets. He needed the work to occupy his mind so he’d stop thinking about how Olivia didn’t want to talk to him. Hell, it shouldn’t be a surprise. Just showed she had more sense than he did.

No surprise, Dan’s Carpets was closed up tight for the night, but there was no sign of any human captives on the property.

“This not being able to break down doors and have a look around sure makes things difficult,” Kaja said.

Travis laughed.

“What?”

“Sorry. It’s just funny thinking of a skinny little model kicking down doors.”

“Models are tougher than you think. They have to be. Didn’t you see
Kill Bill?
”

Travis retreated into his laptop as Campbell pulled out of the parking lot and headed for Little Italy. After a lot of key punching, Travis cursed.

“That doesn’t sound like good news,” Kaja said from where she was touching up her fingernail polish in the back of the truck.

“Looks as if the delivery van used to kidnap Jennifer Watson had been reported stolen two days before.”

“Convenient,” Campbell said.

“It looks legit.” Travis stared out the windshield. “What if they’re stealing vehicles, using them in one abduction and then dumping them?”

“Covering their tracks.” Campbell squeezed the steering wheel even tighter.

“Well, that just made catching these cretins harder,” Kaja said.

“Don’t worry, we’ll catch them,” Campbell said. And the perps weren’t going to like it when they did. He pulled his phone from his pocket and checked for messages.

“You expecting a call?” Kaja asked.

Campbell made the mistake of meeting Kaja’s eyes in the rearview mirror. Kaja might seem vain and frivolous, but she was also supersharp and didn’t miss anything, either overt or subtext.

“Just seeing if the others have found out anything.”

“Uh-huh.”

He ignored her disbelieving tone, but it did him no good.

“It’s the human woman—you like her.”

He forced a shrug. “She seems like a nice person.”

“Don’t be deliberately dense, Campbell. You know what I mean.”

“I’m sure I don’t.”

She made a disgusted sound. “Too bad the turning process doesn’t make men smarter.”

Travis looked up from his computer and back at Kaja. “Hey, what’s with the generalizations?”

“You were already smart. Though I’ve never seen you around women. I’ll reserve judgment on that until I see you in action.”

“And when do any of us have time to date? We work nonstop.”

“Now, that’s just not true,” Campbell said. “What is this, National Pick on Your Boss Night?”

“No, but I like the sound of that,” Kaja said. “But stop avoiding the topic. You know you can’t be with her, right?”

He sighed. “Yes, I’m abundantly aware. Not that it’s any of your business.”

“Excuse me? It is my business if I end up having to stake you because you’ve killed her.”

An icy chill went down Campbell’s spine. At Kaja’s words, a flash of Olivia cold and lifeless in his arms, blood trickling down from bite marks on her neck, hit him and turned his stomach. He didn’t have to imagine it. He’d seen it all too vividly before.

“You okay, man?” Travis said.

“Yeah.” Not in the slightest, but he would be as soon as he purged Olivia DaCosta from his thoughts.

* * *

Olivia’s exhaustion made
her sleep so hard that Mindy had to wake her the next morning.

“Come on, sleepyhead,” Mindy said. “You forgot to set your alarm.”

Olivia blinked her eyes, trying to alleviate the ripped-from-sleep confusion. She looked at the clock, which did more to wake her up than Mindy’s words. “Good grief!” She threw off the covers and raced for the bathroom as fast as her healing but still-tender ankle would let her.

“I’m going on downstairs, get things started,” Mindy said.

“Okay, be down in a minute.”

She flew through her toothbrushing, changed clothes and ran a brush through her hair before hurrying downstairs. Rusty was already out front when she hit the bottom step, so she veered toward the door to unlock it.

“Is something wrong?” he asked as he stepped inside.

“No, nothing. We just overslept this morning. Too many brownies last night and not enough setting of alarm clocks.”

Rusty shook his head. “Girl, you can’t scare an old man like that.”

“Well, if I see an old man, I’ll try not to scare him.”

Rusty planted a kiss on her forehead and headed toward his usual table. “You’re good for my ego.”

“We aim to please, serving up ego stroking with your bacon and eggs.”

“You know, life is short and I’m feeling a bit adventurous today. I think I’ll have some French toast.”

Olivia’s mouth dropped open. “Who are you and what have you done with Rusty?”

He laughed. “Guess I’m just tired of the same thing day after day. Where’s the fun in that?”

It hit Olivia that she could say the same about herself. Her days didn’t differ much from one another, unless, of course, you included a vampire attack and phone calls from a tall, sexy vampire who was so off-limits it was painful. She glanced at Mindy, hoping she couldn’t magically read her thoughts.

As more of the morning regulars and a few new faces started arriving, Olivia headed to the kitchen to start another of her carbon-copy days. The sense of dissatisfaction surprised her. She loved her diner and the customers. Cooking for them made her happy. So why did she suddenly feel as though her life wasn’t complete?

Because she was alone, surrounded by people but still alone. Except she hadn’t felt that way when she was talking to Campbell. Maybe Mindy had been right about staying with her the night before. Maybe she did need babysitting.

She shook her head and focused her attention on filling orders.

“Did you all see this?” Rusty asked as he thumped a story in that morning’s
New York Times.
“Leila Russell is reporting that she’s come across evidence that humans are working for vampires, that there have been kidnappings in the past week.”

Olivia’s heart slammed against her rib cage and she had to grab the edge of the countertop to steady herself. She’d hoped that Campbell had been wrong, but having the same story in black and white, reported by a human journalist who covered the vampire beat, made it even more real. She resisted the very real urge to be sick.

“Guess it was just a matter of time before some lowlife got that idea,” said Barney Bretton, a retired cop. “Bottom-feeders in every species.”

“How could a person even think about working for one of those animals?” Barney’s wife, Cheryl, asked. “I can’t stomach the idea of even speaking to one, let alone going into business together. I hope they all get their heads chopped off.”

Olivia jerked at the hatred in Cheryl’s voice and had to turn away. She went to the large walk-in freezer, where she couldn’t hear the continuing conversation. Once inside, she took slow, deep breaths.

“You okay?”

Olivia gasped and took an involuntary step backward before it clicked that it was only Mindy. “Yeah.” She grabbed a box. “Just needed some more cheese.”

Mindy didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t press the point and left Olivia alone.

Olivia took another moment to calm down, reminding herself that people had very good reasons to hate vampires. Two days ago she likely would have agreed wholeheartedly. Now her head hurt every time she wondered if the world actually had a lot more shades of gray instead of being all black-and-white when it came to vampires. Thankfully the dining room conversation had shifted to the more usual griping about politicians when she returned to the kitchen, and she fell into her normal rhythm as the morning progressed.

When the breakfast crowd left and they found themselves in the morning lull, Mindy came into the kitchen and took off her apron. “The first rule of self-defense is to always be aware of your surroundings. Look people in the eye. If something feels wrong, don’t do it. I’m a firm believer in gut instinct.”

Over the next hour, Mindy showed Olivia the location of pressure points, how to disable an attacker by kicking the side of his knee and how to make a fist and use the other hand to help make an elbow strike more effective.

Olivia glanced at the clock. “I need to get started on the lunch prep.”

“One more thing. Palm strikes to the nose can be effective because they’re painful and can knock your attacker off balance, giving you a chance to get away.” Mindy showed her how to hold her palm forward, bring back her arm then shove the heel of her hand up into someone’s nose. “You ram them with as much force as you can.”

Olivia performed a few practice jabs, wondering if any of this would have the slightest effect on a vampire. Not that she planned to be in a situation to have to protect herself against a vampire again. But all of this was good to know because there were plenty of lowlife humans still walking the streets of New York.

Now that Mindy had assumed the role of self-defense teacher, she went all in. Any downtime at the diner was spent practicing jabs and kicks. She even spent the next two nights at Olivia’s apartment, and they practiced until Olivia’s muscles were screaming from the atypical use. But it felt good to do something proactive to ensure her own safety. Mindy even found her practicing some moves when she got out of the shower the morning after their second night practice.

“Addictive, isn’t it?” Mindy asked as she toweled her hair dry.

“Yeah. Just call me Ninja Olivia.”

Mindy snorted and walked toward the coffeepot as Olivia headed for her own shower.

Around ten o’clock, right when they would normally be starting another self-defense session, two guys ambled through the front door and immediately set Olivia’s nerves on edge. They didn’t get many customers who weren’t locals, and these didn’t look like tourists either. Big, muscled, the type who looked as though they might work for vampires. As Mindy headed toward their table, Olivia wrapped her hand around one of her large kitchen knives. She didn’t take her eyes off them as Mindy took their orders then headed toward the kitchen.

When Mindy saw Olivia’s grip on the knife, she whispered, “I see you got the same vibe I did.”

Just then the bigger of the two met Olivia’s gaze, and her blood frosted. She swallowed hard. “What do they want?”

“Two BLTs and coffee.”

Olivia moved out of their view before speaking again. “Keep an eye on them.”

Mindy nodded as she turned back toward the dining room.

Olivia placed bacon on the grill with one hand while she reached for the phone with the other. When it rang, she jumped. She answered, but it was a wrong number. She used the phone’s ring to cover up the fact she then dialed Campbell’s number.

“Raines,” he answered.

“Campbell, it’s Olivia DaCosta.”

At first she thought he wasn’t going to respond. “Olivia.” His voice was toneless, distant, as if he didn’t know her. Not the time to worry about that now.

“Listen, this may be nothing, but there are two big guys who just came in the diner and they’re giving Mindy and me a weird feeling. I know you can’t do anything, but—”

“Don’t apologize. I’m glad you called me.” He didn’t sound glad. He sounded worried. And yes, odd timing, but that made her feel a warmth inside she hadn’t felt in a long time, the warmth of mattering to someone. “If you get too scared, call the police. Doesn’t matter if it’s a false alarm.”

“Better safe than sorry, I know.”

“Describe them to me,” he said.

“They’re both tall, over six feet, though one is probably two to three inches taller than the other. Blue-collar dress. Jeans, work boots. One’s wearing a denim jacket and the other black leather. The taller one has dark curly hair, dark complexion.”

“He look Italian?”

“Maybe some, though I’d say not totally.”

“What about the other one?”

“Sandy hair, little scruffy. Looks maybe of Eastern European descent.”

“What are they doing?”

Olivia casually moved so she could glance through the pass-through window. “Just sitting there talking, waiting for their BLTs. But...”

“But what?”

“I don’t know if I’m just freaking myself out or what, but when one of them looked at me, I swear my blood went cold.”

Campbell cursed, and she heard him moving around, as if he was pacing. “I hate this.”

She knew he was talking about being trapped by the daylight. He didn’t have to say the words for her to know that if he could, he’d be there in a flash to stand between her and the two spooky dudes. Did that make sense? No. Did she feel the absolute truth of it? Yes.

“It’s okay. Just talking helps.”

He was quiet for a moment, and she wondered if she’d sounded as goofy to him as she did to herself. “I’m surprised.”

“I’m sorry about the other night. I can’t believe I’m apologizing to a vampire, but there you go.”

“Your friend is probably right. You shouldn’t be.”

As she finished putting the sandwiches together, Mindy came back into the kitchen.

“No, we already have a supplier,” Olivia said, unwilling to let Mindy know she’d broken her promise by calling Campbell. She wouldn’t be able to explain how just talking to him made her feel safer. She didn’t understand it herself.

“What?” Campbell asked.

“Sure, you can send us some material in case we ever decide to switch.”

“Your friend is there and she doesn’t know you’re talking to me.”

“That’s right.”

Mindy grabbed the plates, but Olivia stopped her by grasping her wrist. “Wait.” She slid one of the smaller, less conspicuous knives out of the butcher block and into the pocket of Mindy’s apron. “Be careful,” she whispered. Mindy nodded then headed for the dining room.

“What’s going on?” Campbell asked.

“Mindy’s taking them their food,” she said softly so Mindy wouldn’t hear her.