Slade nodded, then glanced around, letting his shielded gaze roam over the backyard. The two officers were still hanging around, shuffling their feet and trying not to stare at the body. The medical examiner would be here soon, the CSU team, someone from the D.A.’s office. The yard would become a circus, and what he and Gabe had found wouldn’t be a secret for long.
Then what?
He could already feel the heat coming down from the commissioner’s office. “This is your province, Nick. Your specialty. Hunt him down, quickly, before questions begin to surface. We can’t have a vampire preying on innocent young women. Do what you have to do, but get him off the streets.”
Yeah, this was his province, all right, and Slade had every intention of doing what he had to do to stop the killing. After all, as the commissioner liked to remind him, vampires were his specialty.
He glanced at the sky and saw that the darkness had lightened almost imperceptibly. Behind the sunglasses, his eyes burned slightly with warning. It would be daybreak in a few hours. So much to do and so little time.
With an inward sigh, he headed across the yard toward Erin Ramsey.
* * *
He came toward her out of the mist, moving like a shadow, gliding with the darkness as though he were somehow a part of it. A breeze caught the hem of his long black coat and blew it back, so that it trailed behind him like wings made of leather. He looked huge—tall and broad shouldered, with dark hair cut very short, in blatant disregard for the latest fashion.
But what caught Erin’s attention, what held her gaze in fascination was the fact that he wore sun-glasses—at night. The yard was dark and misty, but he hadn’t once removed his sunglasses since he’d arrived.
A chill of apprehension crept up Erin’s spine as he stopped before her. She’d seen the way the other police officers had deferred to him, subtly keeping their distance as they filled him in on the details of the crime.
Now she understood why.
Erin could feel his stare, as keen as a razor, but because she couldn’t see his eyes, the sensation unnerved her even more, made her want to run and hide from this man who looked very much like a phantom from her imagination—or her nightmares.
“I’m Detective Slade.” His voice was like liquid—not warm and comforting, but cold and smooth, like an icy stream in the dead of winter. Erin shivered, wishing she had her coat. “I’m very sorry about your sister. I understand you were the one who found the body.”
He propped a booted foot on the bottom step and leaned forward so she didn’t have to look up very far to see him. Strangely, his features stood out prominently in the darkness. She could see him clearly, the well-defined angles of his handsome face, the nose that was a little broad but well shaped, lips that were full and sensuous but unsmiling. His cheeks were roughened with stubble, giving him a dangerous, almost sinister quality. He looked pale in the moonlight, but somehow undiminished, somehow vitally alive.
Erin shivered again and looked away, clutching the silver cross more tightly in her hand. Too late, her mind screamed over and over. Too late, too late, too late. Why hadn’t she come sooner? Why hadn’t she been here when Megan had needed her the most? Why hadn’t she sensed something was terribly, terribly wrong?
She had. She had sensed it. She just hadn’t wanted to believe it. Hadn’t wanted to be lured back here, to this city, to this very apartment, where her nightmares had first begun.
Erin felt something touch her shoulders, wrap around her gently, like an embrace. He’d removed his leather coat and tucked it around her, and she thought how strange that he would be the one to perform such an act of kindness. He seemed so distant, so emotionless, but perhaps that was the way he handled his job. He probably saw bodies every day.
But not her sister’s body. He didn’t see her sister’s body every day.
Trembling, Erin wrapped the coat more tightly around her shoulders. Detective Slade stared down at her with his protected gaze and said, “Would you like to go inside? We can talk there.”
“I can’t,” she whispered. “I can’t leave her.”
“You can’t help her now,” he said, not unkindly. “You’ll only make yourself sick if you stay out here.”
“When will they take her away?”
“In a little while. The CSU guys have to get here, and someone from the M.E.’s office—” At her blank look he stopped and clarified. “Crime Scene Unit and someone from the medical examiner’s office. You don’t want to be here for that.”
“I’m not leaving.” Erin knew she sounded obstinate, but she couldn’t help it. There was no way she could leave Megan again. Not until she absolutely had to. “Where will they take her?”
“The morgue.”
“Will there be an autopsy?”
Slade hesitated, as if weighing how much more she needed to know. Then he nodded and said, “Yeah” in that same cold, expressionless tone.
Their eyes met in the dark—hers exposed, vulnerable; his hidden, masked. But Erin had no doubt that he was looking at her. She could feel the power of his gaze all the way through her, and it made her shiver all the more deeply.
The wind picked up and tossed a dead leaf across the sidewalk in front of them. Erin stared at it, saw it swirl across the yard toward her sister’s body and settle against the silent form. For just an instant, the leaf clung to Megan’s stilled body. Then, on a fresh gust of wind, it blew away, lost in the darkness like her sister’s soul.
I want to cry, Erin thought. I want to cry so that I’ll know I can still feel. But the tears wouldn’t come. The tears had all been used up long, long ago on cold, dark, terrifying nights such as this one.
She tried to tell herself that at least now Megan was finally at peace, but when Erin thought of death, she could only think of darkness, eternal night. That was what hell was, she thought. Not fire and brimstone. Just cold, mind-numbing blackness.
Detective Slade settled his long frame on the step beside her. He wore jeans, she noticed. Very faded and very tight. His dark sweater blended with the night and his black boots were trimmed with silver. The dark glasses made him appear aloof and mysterious. Dangerous.
He didn’t look like a cop at all. He looked more like a demon. A demon lover she’d conjured up from the deepest recesses of her black imagination.
Erin realized she was verging on hysteria, focusing on the man beside her so she wouldn’t have to think or feel or remember. She wanted to forget, even for just a second, that her sister was dead.
With something of a shock, Erin felt the cold moisture streaming down her face. So there were tears left, after all. She put her hands to her cheeks, trying to stem the flow, but more and more came, like backwater seeping through floodgates.
“Let’s go inside.” The deep voice spoke beside her. She felt his hand on her elbow, felt herself being propelled upward as if by sheer force of will. Suddenly she had no strength to resist. More people had arrived on the scene. They were all standing around or kneeling beside Megan’s body, and Erin couldn’t stand it. She wanted to scream at them to go away, to leave her sister alone as she had done years ago when the monsters had threatened them both.
But it was too late, she thought sadly. Too late now for anything but remorse.
Without looking back, Erin turned and allowed Detective Slade to lead her up the steps and into the gloomy hallway of her sister’s apartment building.
CHAPTER TWO
The apartment was dark. Erin reached inside the and flipped on the switch. Bright light spilled into the hallway, and she saw Detective Slade flinch.
“When