Page 81 of How to Bare Your Neck and Save a Wreck
Shane accepted his hand and stood. He gave Anthony a hard look after, lifting one eyebrow. “So?”
Anthony raised his own eyebrow right back. “You really don’t take no for an answer.”
“Because that’s not the answer you’re intending to give me,” Shane countered. “You’re not a man of any particular honor, after all, yet you helped me up.”
Anthony laughed at that, and the sparkle in his eye sent a chill down Shane’s spine. “My allegiance is to the science I can do with Vitalis-Barron’s resources, not to this place and certainly not to Dr. Blood. And you’ve intrigued me. So, what do you want from Blood’s office? Be honest with me, please. It’ll be very inconvenient for both of us if you aren’t.”
Shane doubted thatinconvenientwould be the right word for whatever might happen to him if Anthony discovered he’d lied. He suspected, though, that in this case the truth might convince a competitive scientist like Anthony better than any alternative Shane could think up on the spot. “Blood has a new project, something outside the regular bounds of the vampire research she’s conducting in the basement.”
“How do you know this?”
“She offered Dr. Clementine Hughes a job on its research team after Vitalis-Barron fired him.” Shane held his breath, hoping that the revelation aimed Anthony’s fury in the right direction.
“Well, that—” He seemed to search for a word and then fail to find a suitable option, merely gritting his teeth in something that would almost be a smile if it wasn’t so deadly. “They’d fired him. And she still—”
Bingo. Shane breathed out.
Anthony scowled. “You think there might be some hint in her office as to what this project is?”
That was a start, and a better one than Shane could have ever expected. “It’s the only lead we have.”
With a flash of his badge against the elevator reader, Anthony punched a decisive number into the pad, his lips curling. “Then I think it’s time we do a little digging.”
“A littledigging?” Shane complained as Anthony unlocked Dr. Blood’s office door with what he assumed had to be a stolen key. He’d already used his phone in the elevator to do something he assured Shane would loop the cameras. “Are we criminals or archeologists?”
The office was exactly what Shane had expected from the head of Vitalis-Barron’s research department: polished wood and big windows, stately cabinets, a personal printer, and a computer system with three separate monitors that each looked more cutting edge than the last. Her only pieces of décor were a small line of awards and a single picture that showed a young, pale man who looked like a ghostly version of Dr. Blood herself: the only living member of her immediate family. As far as Shane’s research could tell, she loved him in a distant, proud way.
Anthony snorted, closing the door behind them. “I don’t think any proper criminal threatens someone with the world’s fanciest butter knife.”
Shane felt his cheeks prickle with a flush. “It wasnot.”
In response, Anthony pulled the knife back out and prodded him in the shoulder, one eyebrow raised.
“Well, fuck.”
Anthony scoffed, taking a seat behind Dr. Blood’s computer. “I’m beginning to wonder if everyone who breaks into this place is incompetent.”
Shane began checking the cabinets. “My partner—”
“Ah, yes, the one you left uselessly in the lobby.” He plugged something into the computer’s port. It was probably not true hacking, but Shane knew so little on the topic that it certainly looked like hacking to him. He glanced at Shane after a moment. “You should text him back. The buzzing is annoying.”
He’d done so once in the elevator while Anthony was distracted—a simple confirmation of success—but he still felt relieved when he retrieved his phone. Andres’s messages had grown no less panicked since his first one, but slightly more supportive and slightlylesslike he was considering chaining Shane to his bed after all. Shane replied quickly and moved back to his searching.
He could still feel the occasional vibration of Andres’s texts, each one warming his heart. Anthony continued typing and clicking, and Shane glanced over at him what he felt was the appropriate amount for a bastard he was putting just enough trust in to get use out of. Somehow, Nat had fallen in love with this man. Was heartbroken over him. And as much as Shane thought his friend’s best option was probably to run far and fast in the other direction, he’d noticed the way Anthony had smiled whenever she did, a more genuine and happy expression than any of his others.
“You know,” he said, closing yet another cabinet full of signed regulatory paperwork, “Nat’s worried you’re losing interest in her.” The computer clicking paused, and Shane forced himself not to look.
“We haven’t seen each other as much since she was fired.” Anthony cleared his throat. “Is she… all right?”
“That’s a question you should ask her yourself.”
Anthony made a noise, soft and thoughtful and a little melancholic, and then the clicking resumed. After a while, he muttered, “I don’t see anything immediately useful. You don’t have a name or a term I can search for? Otherwise we might be here a while...”
“Did you try the date ranges yet? A special projects folder?”
“I’m not an amateur. But neither is Blood, unfortunately.”
“VR Study.” It was an impulse, nothing more. “Look that up. It’s not the name, but it might get us closer.”
