Page 26 of Countdown to Murder
“How were you going to explain wrapping her in a blanket and carrying her?” I asked.
“Electronic sniffers.”
“Well, there you go. Same answer.”
He nodded. “Okay. Her suitcase will need to be bagged to keep from dropping scent markers, too. Anything else?”
No one said anything, and Panda headed towards the stairs. “Let’s get her downstairs before we start adding mesh panels and nets. Mira, go explain what we’ll need her to do.”
* * * *
Mira
Fawn had told me things to say to help me keep my distance, and had given me ways to figure out which would work with various types of clients.
I mostly stayed silent around Miss MacKenna once we had her in place, pretending she wasn’t trying to engage me in conversation, and just all around ignoring her. I thought she’d given up, but after fifteen minutes of silence, she said, “I’m bored. Ember talked to me while she guarded me, why won’t you!? Did I do something to offend you?”
“My top priority is keeping you safe, and we’re blind down here. We have video monitors, but it gives me a narrow area of vision. I can’t see someone coming until they’re here, but my hearing is exceptional. I’ll know someone is close before they open the door to the supply closet, and then I’ll hear the door open, but only if I’mfocused on it. If I’m listening to you, I won’t hear him coming.” And then for the part Fawn told me to use. “I’m certain that under different circumstances, we could talk for hours about makeup and fashion and possibly martial arts, because it appears you’ve had training so you’ll look as if you know what you’re doing in your action movies. Unfortunately, my primary objective right now is to keep you safe, and for that, I need to listen for the approach of your stalker.”
She nodded. “Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. I’ll put my headphones on and find something to occupy myself.”
The first night, hours after we had the client underground, the vampire returned and scattered flowers on the bed she’d been sleeping on upstairs. I sensed him nearby, but I was with her and couldn’t go after him. No one managed to put eyes on him.
Even with cameras all over the place, there was no record of him entering the house, and no trace of him inside or outside the house. No window alarms were triggered. No motion detectors. No lasers were tripped. It wasn’t possible to reach her bed without triggeringsomething, and yet, he’d done so. I had a feeling I knew how, but there was no way for me to tell them what I knew.
The following night, he managed to get the flowers to the base of the steps, downstairs. No one saw him, the equipment didn’t pick him up, and I didn’t sense him near.
If he’d been in the client’s head when he scanned mine, then he knew I’d picked up on him trying, and that it’d been me that put the alert out that he was on the premises.
It also meant he knew where she was now, and how to get to her, and the scent trail didn’t matter. I hadn’t figured it would, but it hadn’t hurt to try.
On my final sleep before I was prepared to pull a thirty-hour shift, Panda insisted I get the bed. He also put Eunice in with me, to sleep when I did, since Panda planned to catch a few short naps during the thirty hours I’d assured him I could be awake and alert. Apparently, a twenty-minute nap kept him going for hours, while I needed either no sleep or hours of sleep, and anything in between wasn’t helpful.
Eunice is about five foot eight with a slender build, so he fit on the sofa I’d been sleeping on.
I changed into shorts and a loose crop top, and promptly fell asleep.
However, when I awakened, a heavy arm was draped over me, and a large body was behind me. Bigger than Eunice, and I heard only a single heartbeat behind me in the room, meaning Eunice was no longer on the sofa.
I focused on my heartbeat, to make sure it stayed at the same rhythm and wouldn’t give me away. I already knew my breathing hadn’t altered. I ran through a few scenarios in my head and was about to flip around and gofor a kill shot when the air clicked off and I scented Panda. The vent had been blowing towards my face, so I hadn’t smelled him behind me. My knees went weak with fear, even lying down, at how close I’d come to killing him.
“Fuck. I almost hurt you. What the hell are you doing?”
“You have shorts on. I have shorts on. We’re just sleeping.”
I wanted to argue with him, but I couldn’t. I was tucked into his warmth, the living heat of his body, and it feltsogood. Comfortable. Safe. I remembered the kiss from a few days earlier — the wild abandon, the rapidly beating heart, the dump of something more potent than adrenaline into my bloodstream.
This was the opposite of that. I felt so relaxed, warm, and comfortable. As if I belonged here. Had always belonged here, but hadn’t known it.
“Shhh. Sleep, Mira. Unless something awakened you I need to know about, we need to get all the rest we can.”
“I don’t know why I woke. I also have no idea why I didn’t alert and wake when you got into bed. My snake always warns me when I’m in danger.Always.”
“Then she clearly knows I don’t present a danger to you.”
Chapter Fourteen
Panda
