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  She pronounced “behind” with the accent on the be.

  “And was he selling Jamie drugs?”

  “For true. He and Jamie were smoking dope, and the guy was getting ready to pump a needle into Jamie’s butt. He had coke nails—you know, an inch long on his pinkies, for snorting. When they heard me calling Jamie’s name, that saleau threw everything in a backpack and took off. He had to hold his pants up so he could run. Jamie said that was his podnuh, DeWayne, and he was like a doctor; he was giving Jamie shots to help him get bigger and grow his muscles. Jamie’s been using the money I send to buy the weed and the ’roids. Oh, I wanted to shake him. When I told him the shots ain’t good for him, they make him crazy and shrink his privates, and make him act mean to Momma, he started yelling at me to go play and that DeWayne was his podnuh and he wasn’t listening to me. He slammed the screen door in my face.”

  “Oh, shit.” This wasn’t the first time Maral’s mom had needed help with her younger brother. He’d had problems from birth. Maral’s daddy had been knocking her momma around pretty good while she was pregnant, and right at the end he belted her and she fell and her water broke. The damn bastard was so shit-faced that he didn’t even help her get up. She crawled to the bedroom and gave birth on the wooden floor, splinters and all. Jamie came out with the cord around his neck, blue. The doctors said later if he’d been born in the clinic, he’d have been fine. Instead he’s a little slow. “Is there anything I can do to help? Would he listen to me if I talked to him?” Jamie loves my movies, and he’s always excited when we talk on the phone, but I didn’t think that would hold much water against some redneck juicer from the bayou.

  Maral agreed. “No, chère, that won’t help. And I can’t call the police. By the time they got out here that fils de putain would be long gone, and they’d just give Jamie grief. No, I’m gonna go out on Monday and track the guy down. See if I can get him to leave Jamie alone. Maybe I can buy him off.”

  “I don’t know about that, sweetheart. What’s to stop him from hooking Jamie up again as soon as you leave? Do you want to bring Jamie here?”

  “He can’t leave my momma, Ovsanna, and she can’t be without him. I can take care of it.”

  “Well, you just be careful. I don’t like the thought of you confronting some doper. Take one of your uncles with you, or a cousin or someone. God knows you got enough of them down there. And don’t take any chances. Even if he took off when he heard you coming, that doesn’t mean he’s not dangerous. If there’s anything I can do to help, you let me know.”

  “You could talk to me . . . make me feel good. What are you wearing? Are you in bed?” I could tell from the change in her voice what she wanted from me.

  “Yes, I’m in bed. And you know what I’m wearing—nothing. Just like I always wear when I go to bed. Remember?” I shut off the light and lay back on the pillows with the phone to my ear. I knew what Maral was doing with her hands.

  I might as well talk to her. It wouldn’t satisfy my Thirst, but it would take my mind off Peter, that’s for sure.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I spent part of Christmas Day in the office and the other part at home, alone. Reveling in having the place all to myself. No staff, no Maral, no werewolves.

  But no Peter, either. Not that I expected him to show up, but I found myself looking at the clock occasionally, realizing the phone hadn’t rung.

  Maral called again in the late afternoon to wish me Merry Christmas. She said Jamie loved the movies I’d sent him. He’d calmed down, and no one mentioned his podnuh. She’d tried to get him to do a reading with Maw-Maw, hoping the dealer would show up in the cards and Maw-Maw could frighten Jamie away from him, but Jamie wouldn’t sit for it. He just wanted to play the PSP Maral had given him.

  Momma had told her a little more about the guy. He lived in a broken-down RV, fished with stolen hoop nets, and ran some craw-fish traps, but mostly he hung around the swamps, messing with the schoolkids. He’d been hanging around Jamie since last summer. Maral was going looking for him the next day.

  I warned her again to be careful and told her how much I loved the gifts she’d given me, especially the diamond-and-black-pearl cocktail ring. I’d wear it on New Year’s Eve. My gift to her was a trip to Costa Rica, as soon as I wrapped up the merger I was working on for Anticipation. I was days away from finalizing a partnership with a consortium of Japanese investors, and when the deal was completed, Maral and I were both going to need a vacation.

  Monday morning I called my attorney, Ernst Solgar, a bloodsucker in every sense of the word. He’s vampyre, Clan Obour, with his tiny feet and hidden kirpan. Although he’s almost five hundred years older than I am, he acknowledges my position as the chatelaine of this city. In the Liber Mortis, the vampyre bible, ownership of a city is clearly defined as the first to “inhabit, occupy or possess a township of greater than nine hundred and ninety-nine souls.” That I did, and every vampyre in town pays fealty to me.

  Solgar never charges me for his services.

  His secretary put me through as soon as she heard my voice. She’s a fan. Maral always makes sure she’s on the list for screening invites.

  “Eench bes ek, Chatelaine?” Ernst asked in formal Armenian. It took me a moment to understand him; his accent is atrocious. The Obour are carrion eaters, they don’t have fangs. Hence the need to carry a kirpan—in his case, a jewel-encrusted dagger. He’s got to be able to cut his meat where he finds it. Solgar has a suckerlike opening on the tip of his tongue, and before his rhinoplasty he had only one nostril. Makes it hard to speak the language of our youth.

  “I’m not so fine, Obour,” I responded, also in Armenian. It’s an easy way to ensure our privacy, unless I’m calling from Macy’s in Fashion Square, which is the mecca for Armenian salesclerks. Then I use German. “I had a visitor Saturday night—a were—and I doubt it was a social call.”

  “And the body? You need me to dispose of it?” Ernst never questions my capabilities. There was no doubt in his mind I’d be the victor in any dispute.

  “I didn’t kill it. He was powerful, Ernst. Incredibly powerful. A wolf, and an ancient one at that. Without a pack. He attacked me alone, in my backyard, and I want to know why. Is this business?”

  “I’ve heard of nothing, Chatelaine. Nothing.” He cleared his throat. I hate it when he clears his throat; it sounds like the vacuum tube they use in a dentist’s office. No, I don’t have dental work done, but I’ve heard the sound. There’s an oral surgeon in the building next door to my office, and I can hear him through the walls. I swear last week he gave someone nitrous oxide and went down on her in the chair. It sounded like Tiny Tim coming.

  “Ovsanna, everyone is shut down for the holidays; there is no one on the phones. You’re probably the only executive who is even in her office. And what would it be about? The Japanese deal? There are only four people in town who know what we’ve structured, and one of them is dead. You and I and Maral certainly aren’t talking. I doubt the Japanese are. I can think of no one who benefits from harming you, Chatelaine.”

  “Will you make some inquiries, please, Ernst. Discreetly. The were’s intent wasn’t to harm me. He wanted my life.”

  I spent the rest of Monday in the office, playing host to the three Japanese businessmen who had the power (that is, money) to catapult my burgeoning film studio into the big leagues. I own the lot, which means income from renting to other production companies, and I’ve been operating in the black for years, quite successful with my own low-budget horror films and made-for-TV movies, but these fellows had approached me eighteen months ago with a truly seductive offer. They wanted 25 percent of my 80 percent of Anticipation so they could develop straight-to-computer, direct-to-cell-phone-and-PDA, low-bandwidth, high-def movies. I wanted the hundred million they had to offer in cash and technological investments so I could continue to maintain creative control and avoid getting swallowed by one of the majors.

  By the end of Monday, we all had what we wanted.
My business affairs people went back to their office to put the finishing touches on the paperwork, and our PR department issued a press release about the merger. I went home to enjoy the solitude with Maral out of town. I checked the security cameras and made sure the alarm was on. The geese were quiet. Then I took a hot bath, lit a fire in the fireplace in my bedroom, and cuddled up in my huge, overstuffed chair to read the latest Doc Ford novel. I love Randy Wayne White’s character as much as I love Lee Child’s Jack Reacher. It dawned on me that that’s probably why I was attracted to Peter. He’s got some of their same qualities. Maybe not as iconoclastic, but definitely as macho.

  I thought about Peter, a lot. I hadn’t heard from him. Maybe it was too soon. Or maybe that meant he’d made his decision. Maybe not hearing from him was the message he wanted to send.

  I would hate that, but I’d understand.

  Tuesday afternoon, he called. Just listening to his voice brought on the Thirst, which pissed me off. I’m too old to be acting like a teenager. About four hundred years too old.

  “How are you?” I asked. That seemed safe enough after the way we’d said good night. I was seated at my desk, staring out the window at a hooker soliciting a guy in a Bentley.

  “Well, I don’t have any burn marks, if that’s what you mean.”

  “I’m sorry, Peter. What happened when I touched you was an accident. I never meant to hurt you. I just wasn’t concentrating.” The Bentley owner must have liked what he heard; he opened the car door and the girl got in.

  “On what? What do you have to concentrate on to keep from sending sparks out your body?” He sounded as if he were interrogating a suspect that he didn’t believe.

  “On not letting my attraction to you get out of hand.” I took a deep breath. Might as well get it all out in the open. “That’s what happens when I get aroused. I have to concentrate to control myself—to keep my vampyre self in check.”

  There was silence for a moment. I heard Peter take a breath and hold it before he spoke. “So I guess it’s safe to say there’s something going on here . . . right? Even with Maral in the picture? And it’s not just coming from me?”

  “No, it’s not.” I heard him exhale. I continued, “But what has to come from you is a decision about what happens next. I want you. You’re the first man I’ve wanted in years. But I don’t know what there is in this for you. I’m a vampyre, Peter. I’m not very good relationship material. My needs aren’t like yours. And I’m not above taking advantage of you to have them met.” The Bentley drove away, the girl’s head already below the dash. Talk about taking advantage.

  He was silent for so long, I thought the call had dropped.

  “Peter?” I asked.

  He was still on the line. “I’ll tell you what,” he said, and his voice had lightened considerably, “let me pick you up around seven or so. I saw the announcement about the merger in today’s Variety, and I think we should go out and celebrate.”

  It was my turn to be silent. Except for the blood pounding through my heart, which sounded to me like a kettledrum in an echo chamber.

  “Are you sure?” I finally asked.

  “Yes. I haven’t been taken advantage of in a long time. I’d like to see what it feels like.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I hate driving in L.A. Most of my clan does. It’s impossible to filter all the input. If I don’t keep my senses tempered, I end up listening to the gangbangers in the Escalade ahead of me, talking about their latest drive-by shooting. At least, I think that’s what they’re saying. The way they butcher the English language just pisses me off more. Then I want to follow them and do a little killing of my own, which will just make me late for whatever appointment I’ve got. The whole thing is one annoying distraction. I make Maral drive.

  But she’d just gotten home from LAX, and it was already six o’clock. I asked Sveta, one of our office receptionists, to drive me home. I sat in the backseat and thought about Peter and smiled. A real date with Detective Peter King, no family members involved. I wondered if he was putting his job in jeopardy. Was he allowed to date someone he’d met on a case? And what did he have in mind for the evening? He hadn’t said what he wanted to do. Not go to dinner, I hope. What the hell was I going to wear?

  “It looks like there’s something going on at your house, Ovsanna,” Sveta said from the front seat. “I can’t tell what it is from here.” She slowed the car.

  There are times when my heightened senses of smell and hearing intrude on my existence and I have to damp them down deliberately to concentrate on other things. Not so my vision. Being able to see the minutest details from hundreds of feet away, even in the dark, always comes in handy. I stared up the road at the shapes Sveta couldn’t decipher.

  It was the paparazzi again. The same seven who had been there Christmas Eve night, plus two more. They were milling around the middle of the road, cameras dangling from their necks. Waiting for me. What the hell was going on? Well, I wasn’t going to give them any more photo ops, whatever they wanted them for. The Mercedes had tinted windows. They wouldn’t even know I was in the car. I stretched out in the backseat and let Sveta drive through, parting them like Moses at the Red Sea. As the gate closed behind us, I turned to watch them. They were eerily silent, staring at the car.

  Maral was waiting outside the front door, anxiety on her face. She’d gone back to her natural hair color the day before she’d left for Louisiana. The red looked gorgeous on her, but it was stringy and unwashed, and there was a peculiar smell coming off her, as if she’d brushed up against something briny. I wondered if the paps had gotten any shots of her. She wouldn’t like it if she showed up on TMZ under “Celebrity Hair.” Not looking like that, at least.

  “What’s wrong with you? You look like shit,” I said. Two days at home with her family in the bayou and she was a mess.

  “I have to talk to you. Before you go in the house. I’ve got someone in there, and I’ve got to explain.” Her voice was brittle with tension. She stepped in front of me to block me from entering. Normally I would have taken her in my arms to calm her down, but the smell wafting off her made me keep my distance. It was someone’s body odor, not hers, and it had settled on her like skunk spray. It was foul.

  “What the hell is going on, Maral?” I said. “What’s that odor? Who’s in the house?”

  “It’s my brother’s friend. But he’s not in the house, he’s in the guesthouse. That’s what I have to talk to you about. I had to get him away from Jamie. I had to bring him back with me from my momma’s. I know I smell, I sat next to him on the plane. We just got here and I haven’t had time to take a shower. But I don’t trust him enough to leave him alone anyway, so I was waiting for you to come home.”

  “All right. All right. Settle down. You’d better tell me what you’ve got to tell me fast because I have a date and I’ve got to get ready. I’m leaving here at 7:30.”

  “A date? With who?”

  Like quicksilver, accusation replaced the nervousness in her voice. I didn’t have time to deal with it. “Never mind,” I said slowly. “Just tell me who the fuck this guy is, and why have you got him in my house?” I drew out every word deliberately.

  “He’s that dealer, Ovsanna. He was selling drugs to Jamie, and I couldn’t get Jamie away from him. Jamie thinks they’re best friends. I didn’t know what to do. I just want to get rid of him. Jamie told him I work for ‘that scary lady in the movies,’ and he thinks you’re Mary Tyler Moore. He thinks you can introduce him to Ashley Judd. He wants to do a commercial for zit medicine so he can make a lot of money and get his face cleared up. It’s absolutely gross, covered in pussy pimples. I told him you’d put him in the movies if he came with me, and he believed me.”

  “You told him what?”

  “He thinks he’s going to meet Jack Bauer. Like 24 is real.”

  “Maral, are you nuts?”

  “Well, I tried to pay him to leave Jamie alone, and he said, sure, he’d take my money, and as soon
as I left, he’d get the retard to pay him again. That’s what he called Jamie—a retard—and I wanted to kill him. I couldn’t think of anything else to do. I just wanted to get him here; I thought if I could get him here, maybe you could—”

  “What? I could what?” I was getting pissed. “What were you thinking, bringing a drug dealer into my house?! Get him out of here!”

  “Don’t yell at me, Ovsanna, please.” She clenched her hands in front of her as though she were praying. “You offered to help. You said if there was anything you could do . . . well . . . I thought you could—do what you do. Get rid of him somehow. Like you got rid of those beings in Palm Springs.”

  “Oh, damn it, Maral. You’ve been around me ten years and you still don’t understand how any of this works. I am an actress and the head of a film studio. I am not a hit man. I don’t go around baring my fangs whenever someone becomes an inconvenience. And I am not going to kill someone just because you ask me to!”

  “But Ovsanna—”

  “Now, look, I don’t have time for this right now. And I definitely do not want to see this person in my house. It’s bad enough I can smell him. Get him out of the guesthouse. Put him in a hotel. Take him to the studio tomorrow morning and find him something to do to keep him busy until we can deal with him. And for God’s sake, tell him to take a bath!”

  I moved around her and opened the door, but she grabbed my arm before I could enter. “What?” I demanded, shaking loose of her grip.

  “You’re going out with Peter King, aren’t you? You’re going out on a date.” There was panic in her voice.

  I hated seeing her upset. She’s like a little girl whose mother leaves her on the first day of school. I put my hands on her shoulders and forced her to look in my eyes. Again, I spoke slowly. “Maral, what I do when we’re not together is no business of yours, unless I choose to make it so. Yes, I’m spending the evening with Peter, and when he arrives—after you’ve had a shower—you’re going to greet him like my personal assistant and stop acting like a child. What’s gotten into you?”