Death Calls. Caridad Pineiro
current position exposed and shot her gaze up to the coed’s too earnest and classically pretty features, she suspected there were other reasons, as well, but couldn’t be cruel.
“You are that,” she offered.
“So what about you and the boss man?” the vampire asked.
What about her and Ryder? “I’m not…like you.” She looked down at her glass, a bit uncomfortable about reminding the unfortunate coed of her undeadness.
“Yeah. You’re older,” the bartender said, so matter-of-factly that Diana jerked her gaze up in surprise, only to find the girl smiling. A broad, fooled-you smile that was friendly and blasted away her earlier discomfort.
“You’re right. I’m older and my clock—big tick tock. Settling-down time, sabes?”
“You don’t seem like the home-and-hearth type.”
Diana hesitated, thinking about the kind of life most people considered routine, about the kind of life she had finally acknowledged she might want. Except that lately an ordinary life seemed impossible.
Look at what had happened to her friend Sylvia. To her normal life. Look at what had happened in Diana’s past.
The girl placed her hand on Diana’s arm. “I never thought of myself as a soccer mom, either. I guess I should be glad I can avoid babies and wrinkles—”
“And sunburn,” Diana tacked on, slightly renewed by the young vamp’s honesty.
A wistful look came to the vampire’s features. “I always did burn, but damn did I look good in a bikini.”
Diana patted her cold hand. “It’ll work out. I’m sure you’ve got friends here. Ones who will help you.”
Some of the sadness faded from the girl’s face as she nodded toward Ryder’s office. “So do you.”
A reluctant sense of rightness came to Diana as she realized the young vampire was right. For so long her mantra had been one of sticking to herself and limiting the circle of people around her. But now, she had an ever-expanding cadre of the living—and the undead—whom she could count as friends.
The sadness of her recent loss was slightly tempered as she met the bartender’s gaze. “Maybe I do.”
Chapter 5
Immobile as a gargoyle, Ryder balanced high on the edge of the building across from the church, watching over Diana in the crowd below. He had been lucky. The funeral was in the early morning and the day overcast enough to allow him the freedom of attending.
Diana hadn’t called to tell him about her friend. She hadn’t left a message at the bar, either, although the bartender had made a point of relaying that Diana had been by and appeared to miss him. Funny how Diana could spill her guts to a stranger, but be unable to convey anything to him about her emotions.
Not that she needed to tell him what she felt this morning, he thought. Grief etched lines on her face as she gripped the top of the gray casket and helped the other pallbearers wheel their burden to the uppermost step of the church.
Diana’s steps were slow and measured, keeping pace with those in front of her. Each of the pallbearers peeled away until only Diana and a man stood at the back of the hearse. The husband, he suspected. They both stroked their hands over the surface of the casket one last time, and then the man embraced Diana and cried. His heartbroken sobs carried all the way to where Ryder perched. Diana tried to comfort the man, but her actions were stilted. Awkward. The lines of her body tense.
Luckily, someone from the family came to her aid and gently led Sylvia’s husband to a limo. Others quickly followed, but Diana hung back, her eyes on the hearse.
Death sucked.
And being undead didn’t make it any easier.
He had imagined too often lately how it would be after Diana died. He’d pictured the interminable days until they were reunited in the afterlife. The pain that came with such thoughts made him yearn to turn her, to keep her with him always. It was a desire he struggled with every day. And the struggle had kept him away from her.
Diana stood on the steps alone, clad in black, scoping out the church grounds.
Across the street someone with a camera busily snapped pictures. A few yards away at either end of the church, uniformed officers took down license plate numbers. Ryder had watched enough detective shows to realize they thought whoever had murdered Diana’s friend might be in the crowd.
Ryder recognized one detective as Diana’s friend, Peter Daly. He was clearly the leader of the investigation. Surprising. Especially since the murdered woman had been one of Diana’s best friends. Ryder hadn’t thought Diana would settle for anything less than being in command.
He didn’t mind that she liked to take charge. He understood where the need came from. Her sense of control kept her balanced. That she could give up that control on such an important case was a new facet to his ex-lover.
He shifted his position on the ledge, inching closer in the hope of hearing their discussion. Of connecting with her telepathically as he’d done before, only…
Something blocked him. Whether it was intentional or not, he didn’t know. He suspected the latter since he and Diana were both new to talking in each other’s heads. The only way of finding out, however, demanded either a visit to one of his vampire friends or a trip to the Blood Bank. Foley would surely tell him all about this particular skill while gloating over the fact that Diana had ditched him.
Ryder was even more sure that Foley would leap at the chance to advance his own relationship with Diana. She called to men like one of the sirens of old with her enigmatic blend of vulnerability and strength. Not that Ryder blamed him. Diana’s enticing darkness surrounded a pure heart. The way she still called to him.
He hated that. Hated how he ached for her. How he cared about her, despite his vow to stay away.
Her head tilted upward, rebellious in its posture. Her eyes, those amazing gold-green eyes, glittered with a hard light. And when the detective hugged her, she held on to him, her head buried against his chest.
Ryder was tempted to leap down there and…
What? he asked himself. The demon within—the one he had kept at bay for so long—answered all too quickly.
He would rip the other man’s throat out with glee, not even bothering to slake his thirst afterward.
Fists clenched, Ryder battled the urge to do just that. He battled the feeling of power that surged through him when the demon emerged. That sense of might always threatened to corrupt his humanity. But he had allowed himself to explore his demon half because the vampire’s strength let him help others. Let him be her hero.
But she had turned to others in her time of need and not to him.
Possibly never to him again.
Sorrow, raw and demanding, ripped through his heart.
He had almost been prepared for this anguish, as sharp and eviscerating as it was. Before Diana had made her request for space and time apart, he had known he should let her go. She deserved a real life before death called for her.
Now the slam of her car door reverberated in the silence of the early morning.
Ryder watched her car move away until a ray of sun sliced through a gap in the clouds, reminding him that his outing this morning had been but a short gift of freedom. The clouds were breaking up in anticipation of a sunny winter day.
Time for him to decide whether he should leave her alone in her misery or join her there.
The walls of her apartment closed in on her like the silk-lined top of a casket. Each breath seemed harder than the next, maybe because with each one she battled the tears she didn’t want to shed. If she gave in, they would become a never-ending